Xpitax News Articles

Wealth Management and Outsourcing

Wealth management opportunities are limited by two factors:

1. The volume of qualified clients available to service . The more opportunities to interact with people the greater the chance of identifying prospects that require investment planning, asset management, estate and retirement planning, insurance or other financial service needs.
2. The time to service them. The number one complaint of most CPA firms is lack of time.

Xpitax is a tax outsourcing and workflow resource that can accelerate wealth management opportunities for the CPA profession. They accomplish this by:

1. Providing an outlet to service more returns. By outsourcing tax return preparation a firm can absorb additional returns through aggressive marketing or the acquisition of other accounting practices. Growth is limited by the amount of volume that can be processed internally. If the internal resources are supplemented with a trained outsourcing staff, additional tax work can be serviced without over burdening full-time resources.
2. Giving time back to professional staff. By automating workflow, even if a firm elects not to outsource, they can utilize the Xpitax Client Manager (Xcm) to internally process and move returns throughout the firm – resulting in less non-billable hours. Xcm introduces an array of automation, tracking, embedded email correspondence, and control in the return preparation process.

The size of the firm does not matter. Whether it is a CPA operating a single person office or a large firm, the same numbers of opportunities and time issues exist. Through outsourcing, firms buy valuable time back and can create the ability to service a larger volume of potential clients.

The more returns processed, the more wealth management opportunities exist. Processing more returns allow those firms who are licensed securities brokers to stimulate investment management opportunities and insurance sales. And for those firms that are not licensed securities brokers, increase wealth management opportunities exist by providing retirement, estate, long term care, succession, and tax planning to the increased number of individual and small corporate returns the firm can acquire.

This is where Xpitax’s solutions can assist. Outsourcing the tax preparation process presents the opportunity for a firm to use that time to “mine” their clients for additional service opportunities. The less preparation work a firm does the more time they have. With staffing shortages and the cost of qualified professional help, outsourcing enables firms to increase the tax workload at a busy time of the year without pushing the practice into 70 and 80-hour work weeks. A firm can adjust the flow of the number of returns they need to outsource based on the success of their business development activities.

Xpitax teaches firms how to benefit from incremental tax return only work. Many firms avoid seeking generic tax only clients. They accept high net worth individuals or promising corporate work, but they do not want the average return because of fee or time pressures. The problem is until the average return client is accepted, a firm does not know if the tax client is sitting on a large 401K fund, large inheritance, complex estate or care planning issues or other financial goldmines. The common thinking is that a 45-year old married couple with modest income, a house, and some deductions is not a good target. If the tax return fee was the only consideration, then that may be true. However, that 45 year old may have an 80-year old parent who is quite wealthy, with estate issues, care problems, and is in need of finding someone to manage their parent’s situation. Eventually, all of those assets will be transferred to the 45 year old, which will create a stream of financial management opportunities.

In addition, opportunities to acquire small CPA practices can be missed. How does a firm acquire a 50% tax heavy practice if they are already bursting at the seams in tax season? Most will pass on those opportunities and miss the chance to add $100,000 to $500,000 in tax and wealth management revenues. Xpitax’s outsourcing process allows firms to have the ability to absorb an acquisition like this without overburdening existing resources. Over 85% of the country’s CPA firms are made up of CPA firms with less than 5 total employees. Most of those practices have one owner. Many of those professionals are graying out and do not have an adequate exit strategy developed. Through outsourcing, firms interested in acquiring those practices to increase their wealth management business can consider these types of acquisitions.


For additional strategies on how to use outsourcing to enhance a practice’s growth, Xpitax can provide the leadership other outsourcing companies cannot offer. For additional information on selecting an outsourcing provider, please contact Glen Keenan at 781.303.0136 or via email at gkeenan@xpitax.com.