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Home › Accounting + Finance › 2020’s Best Accounting Firms Are All Pandemic Winners

2020’s Best Accounting Firms Are All Pandemic Winners

06Jun
Green KeyAccounting + Finance

What are some of the best accounting firms to work for?

Accounting Today knows. Over the summer, the publication announced the best small, mid-sized, and large accounting firms to work for. Now, culled from more than 250 entrants, the lists have been compiled in a special supplement appropriately entitled, “Best Firms to Work For 2020.”

The 100 firms (based on size) are as small as Measured Results CPAs 16 employees to Kearney & Co.’s 677 and hail from all parts of the nation. Yet what they all have in common is they’ve learned how to adapt and even thrive in a business environment unlike any other.

Some, like New Jersey’s WilkenGuttenplan (ranked 17th among mid-sized firms) already had a remote culture. Transitioning their 124 employees to full-time remote work was “seamless,” the firm said. The firm holds online social hours and coffee breaks and encourages all communication among the staff be by video.

Others had to learn how to work remotely. The No. 1 ranking mid-sized firm, Martin Starnes & Associates in North Carolina, said that since going fully remote, they’ve adapted to remote hiring and onboarding and helped their clients with limited computer skills become more fluent. “We have new ways to communicate and get what we need from our clients.”

These “best firms” all had to confront the kind of work-life balance and other issues that have always existed, but which the COVID pandemic suddenly brought front and center.

“Today’s workforce compels us to think about things like alternative work arrangements, diversity, technology, and job satisfaction,” Rockville, Maryland’s E. Cohen & Co. told Accounting Today. The firm says it’s “met this challenge head on by creating a positive work environment.” That it has indeed is borne out by the firm’s low, 6% turnover.

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

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Welcome back to #WeAreGreenKey, where we shine a spotlight on our powerhouse recruiting team. 

Recently, we caught up with Olivia Eberle, Recruiter on the Accounting and Finance team at Green Key. Olivia started her recruiting career at Green Key about a year ago after she transitioned from a career in public accounting.

Can you share your career journey and how you progressed to your current role?

Sure. After I got my Bachelors in Accounting, I started my accounting career in public audit with a firm that no longer exists and after spending some time there I realized that accounting might not be for me, so I wanted to try a different route. That’s when a recruiter from Green Key reached out to me about an accounting role, which I ended up working in for about 6 months. That role helped me solidify my thought that accounting was not for me, but I still wanted to use my degree. So, I reached out to my recruiter from Green Key to ask about recruiting and now I am here.

What have been some of the most rewarding aspects of your career? 

Even though I had to learn the sales side of the business, there are a lot of rewarding aspects to my career. Firstly, I love being able to help candidates who are looking to change not just their career or role but their lifestyle. I love that I can help them take their careers to another level and I can successfully place them in a role that will help them reach whatever goal they want to achieve. Another rewarding aspect is the fact that I can be my authentic self in this job. It’s very nice to be able to work in a role where I can express my personality and connect with people every day.

How do you balance the use of AI technologies with traditional recruitment methods in accounting and finance, ensuring a human-centric approach while leveraging the benefits of automation and data-driven insights?

I use ChatGPT almost every day for a couple in a couple of different ways specifically for searches and when I am recruiting for a new role. I also use LinkedIn recruiter’s AI tools that are really helpful when it comes to building searches, so I use those and then I also go back to ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT sometimes with resume writing because I really like helping my candidates with their resume. Some people just have never had resume guidance, which is something that I received at my college.

What advice would you give to candidates looking to stand out in the accounting and finance job market?

To candidates, I would say your resume is the thing that makes the first impression, so spend a good amount of time writing it and have a couple of different resumes on file. Especially, if you’re looking for different types of jobs, for example somebody like me, coming out of public accounting looking to go to private. There are a couple of different tracks that you can go on and you can write your resume in a couple of different ways to be a little bit more tailored to each. Additionally, I think that being yourself in interviews is really important. A lot of people don’t realize that even though they are working within accounting, which at times can be very solitary work you have to be interactive, and I think candidates are more successful when they’re willing to step outside of the box.

How do you stay updated on changes and developments within the pharmaceutical industry to better serve your clients and candidates?

I have a few main ways, I follow probably hundreds of companies on LinkedIn, some of which are our clients. I’m also a member of different CPA Society groups on LinkedIn where people will talk about different changes to the CPA exam or changes to audit guidance or tax guidance that kind of helps me stay in the know. I also use Reddit, there are a lot of accounting and finance pages on Reddit where I hear or read about things like layoffs before, they are public or, if there’s a merger happening sometimes like somebody will post it on Reddit before you even hear about it in the news. Lastly, I read a lot of news publications like the New York Times and Microsoft News like the articles that just pops up on your computer.

Do you have any new professional goals, either for yourself or your team?  

Yes, so in the grand scheme of things, I am pretty new to Green Key but with the growth of our Morristown office I would really love to continue to help others and help find another recruiter or two to join our office. I would also like to continue to help my co-workers develop their skills especially if they didn’t come from an accounting background.

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Clients love their tax accountant, though half wonder if they’re doing enough to cut their tax bill.

Those seemingly contradictory opinions come from a survey by practice management software provider Canopy.

85% of the taxpayer respondents say they would recommend their accountant, despite 53% not being confident they’re getting enough help minimizing their taxes.

What the survey takers most appreciate is the in-person communication with their accountant. In fact, they appreciate these meetings so much they also list them as the No.1 thing they would change in their relationship. Both business owners and individual taxpayers want more in-person meetings.

Since the survey was conducted before the COVID-19 restrictions were imposed, we don’t know if taxpayers still consider in-person meetings so important or if Zoom meetings and phone calls have become an adequate substitute. However, all types of technology were clearly important before the pandemic.

After meetings, taxpayers said what they most liked next about working with their tax accountant was being able to send and receive documents online. That could be as simple as using email or a file hosting service like Google docs or Dropbox. In reporting on the survey. AccountingToday notes that “the most common ways clients exchange documents with their accountant are during in-person meetings, through hard printouts and via email.”

Before the shutdown, taxpayers were already noticing technology shortcomings. After in-person meetings, improved technology was second among the three top things they would change in working with their accountant.

Besides a secure way of exchanging documents, the technology features clients most want from their accountant are text chat and appointment scheduling. Women, according to the survey, want a chat feature even more than do men.

Chat would help get timelier responses, which is the third more important improvement they would make in their accounting relationship. A chatbot could help with routine questions, but the survey respondents felt getting a faster response directly from their accountant was most important to them.

One especially troubling finding is how little clients know about post-filing services like audit protection and legal tax services. A third of all clients don’t know if their accountant provides audit protection. Business owners are even less likely to know.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

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