Beyond Compliance: Transitioning to Advisory in Accounting
At the heart of this episode is a conversation many accounting professionals and financial coaches are having right now.
How do you move from being the person who does everything… to building an advisory service that delivers real value without you becoming the bottleneck?
In this episode of Advisory Conversations, Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday explore why advisory is not simply “doing more” for clients. It’s about creating systems, processes, and teams that allow practices to deliver consistent client outcomes beyond compliance work.
Drawing on decades of combined experience running and growing accounting practices, they discuss the real challenges practitioners face when stepping into advisory. For many, it is not technical ability holding them back, it is confidence, communication, delegation, and the belief that they are capable of leading higher-level client conversations.
Tim and Deb share practical insights into:
• Why so many practice owners become the bottleneck in their own business
• The mindset shift required to move from technician to advisor
• How to empower team members to deliver advisory support confidently
• The importance of building systems that reduce dependency on the owner
• Why advisory teams create stronger client relationships and more sustainable growth
This episode is designed for accountants, bookkeepers, financial coaches, and practice owners who want to create a more scalable, team-led advisory model that improves both client experience and business performance.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Facebook Community: facebook.com/groups/advisoryteams
Free Training: apxtraining.co.uk/freetraining
Listen on:
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
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Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Welcome to Advisory Conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.
Speaker A:This podcast is for accounting professionals and financial coaches who are ready to step beyond compliance and into advisory.
Speaker A:Because real advisory isn't about doing more yourself.
Speaker A:It's about building something that works without you being the bottleneck.
Speaker A:Hi, Deb, how are you?
Speaker B:I'm great, thanks, Tim.
Speaker B:How are you?
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm fantastic.
Speaker A:Fantastic.
Speaker A:Because we're on again talking about our favorite topics, which is what we love to do.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, we kind of set the scene here for the conversation today and just to remind people that we've both ran separately our own accounting and bookkeeping business of 17 years each.
Speaker A:So we've got 34 years experience of running accountancy and bookkeeping practices.
Speaker A:So we've been there, we've been our own bottlenecks at times.
Speaker A:We've found out ways to remove ourselves as a bottleneck.
Speaker A:And then of course, for four years running a membership for accountants and bookkeepers, business owners of accounting and bookkeeping practices.
Speaker A:Even within that membership, we bought a really safe community where people were and it felt felt safe to talk about their problems and identify areas that they needed support.
Speaker A:And one of the main things that we found over that period of time and from running our own practices was the thing that holds people back from delivering advisory or from creating a full advisory offer.
Speaker A:So we were going to kind of discuss the aspects around what actually stops practice owners from delivering advisory and becoming trusted advisors with their clients today.
Speaker A:Weren't we, Deb?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, It's a great topic.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:One that comes up a lot.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And so, you know, for me, we've talked about this on numerous occasions.
Speaker A:I know when someone is a technician, accountants and bookkeepers, highly qualified and gone through a lot of training that should never be undervalued, by the way, and deliver fantastic service from the technical and compliance aspect to their clients.
Speaker A:That's something that should never be overlooked and also should never be dismissed, in my opinion.
Speaker A:So it's very important that everyone understands that's the angle we're coming from.
Speaker A:Of course, we know with AI with technical advancements that compliance only can be quite difficult to generate nice profits and higher revenues and be able to know, reward yourselves properly from the business from that just compliance offer.
Speaker A:So we then start to talk about delivering advisory and delivering advisory is.
Speaker A:Can sound really fluffy, can sound really nice, can say, oh yeah, this is great, this is going to be the cream on top of the cake and I'm going to be able to better do this and serve my Clients fantastically well and it sounds great and people take on training and stuff and then they go away.
Speaker A:Actually, delivering advisory becomes quite a mountain to climb because, you know, we have so many other things to do in our accounting practice practice.
Speaker A:And I think that's one of the reasons where we get held back is that.
Speaker A:Would you agree with that, Deb, from your sort of experiences?
Speaker B:Yeah, without a doubt.
Speaker B:I mean, anybody that's run an accountancy or bookkeeping firms knows that it's driven by deadlines.
Speaker B:So we're working up to the seventh, which would be at.
Speaker B:Then we're working up to the 19th to make sure payroll entries in and then we're working to end of month and then we've got to fit in end of years.
Speaker B:And in amongst all those, we've got all the customer queries and chasing of documents, et cetera, and everything that goes in to the system to make sure that everything is running efficiency and we're not missing deadlines.
Speaker B:So, yeah, so that's month on month, it doesn't stop.
Speaker B:And actually it gets squeezed, doesn't it?
Speaker B:Because we have the busy tax return season from October through to the end of January, and you find that January's full of tax returns that we're catching up in February.
Speaker B:So February is really busy because we're catching up everything we didn't manage to get done in January.
Speaker B:And then we've got March, where we're starting to breathe a bit again.
Speaker B:And then of course, you've got the.
Speaker B:The new financial year.
Speaker B:Yeah, the new tax year coming in in the April.
Speaker B:So it's just.
Speaker B:It's driven by deadlines.
Speaker B:So it is a hamster wheel.
Speaker A:That's what I refer to as CIS type.
Speaker A:April, April, May.
Speaker A:Yeah, all the.
Speaker A:All the contractors I used to serve, all wanting their refund, tax refunds as quickly as possible.
Speaker A:So that was quite a high demand period of time as well.
Speaker A:And you can go through the whole year, can't you, and pick out areas where the cycle, the monthly cycle is still going around and you've still got other deadlines to meet.
Speaker A:And of course, MTD coming in as well has created more pressure and more deadlines for us all to be concerned about.
Speaker A:So prioritizing the deadlines, because at the end of the day we have to meet these deadlines on behalf of our clients is one of the major reasons that advisory can feel difficult to add in.
Speaker A:So the other.
Speaker A:The other sides to it, of course, is that the practice owner, even if they're.
Speaker A:They could be solo, they could have A team, but they're going to be thinking to themselves, okay, so I'm kind of responsible for everything my team's doing right now from the technical aspects.
Speaker A:And it kind of, kind of buck stops with me.
Speaker A:You know, I'm the one that signs off the accounts, I'm the one that reviews everything before it goes out.
Speaker A:I'm the one that the client contacts when they've got a query initially and that could be around the results of their year end tax returns and status industry accounts etc, or it could be to understand something, or it could also be to ask a general question.
Speaker A:Hence we know we're not talking about the parrot today.
Speaker A:But just to drop that into the conversation, that's where that solves that problem.
Speaker A:Of course.
Speaker A:But also the practice owner is going to be thinking to themselves, I want to offer advisory, I want to deliver tremendous value to my clients, but I know it's going to be down on me and I can't do that for all of my clients.
Speaker A:So, so they might dip their toe in the water and start to work with one or two clients just to see how it goes.
Speaker A:But because they're not really going in 100%, they're not identifying the right problems and not identifying the, the areas that the client needs support.
Speaker A:So they're not quite going in all in.
Speaker A:And you need to, don't you, to be able to really help a client.
Speaker A:So in your experience, Deb, when you've helped clients in the past and what you've seen over the last four years in the community that we were in previously, you know, is that an area that you can see practice owners struggle with?
Speaker B:Yeah, without a doubt it's yes, a mixture of confidence, but also the confidence can, can or the underconfidence can come from lack of capacity because they know if they, if they go all in, everything's going to land in their lap.
Speaker B:And they're worried about not having capacity, not being able to deliver a great service, not being consistent.
Speaker B:And even if they've created their offer, their marketing, they have an idea of what they're going to deliver, it still comes down to them and it takes in a great deal of head space.
Speaker B:Because you're trying to run your business, you've always got in the back of your mind are the deadlines being here, I need to be on hand if there's an issue with, with something.
Speaker B:So it's just they have to create space, but they can't let go of their technical offering because that's the basis.
Speaker B:I mean the bookkeeping has to be spot on for you to be able to deliver accurate advisory.
Speaker B:So it's like a, it's just adding something in that they're not used to.
Speaker B:Sounds, sounds great, but they're not used to.
Speaker B:And it's testing their comfort zone really, because they're really good at the technical part, you know, they're really good at hitting the deadlines and churning out that returns.
Speaker B:But stepping into something slightly new is that uncomfortable bit, isn't it?
Speaker B:So they either just take on maybe one and try it and they don't quite like the feeling, so they just, they don't offer to others.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it needs to be at ground level, it needs to be baked into all your services.
Speaker B:But that's what we'll get onto.
Speaker B:Another conversation.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But it is important to highlight that aspect of the business.
Speaker A:And a lot of practice owners, we know they've got small teams working for them and it becomes that blocker that you perhaps don't feel you've identified anyone in your team that's capable of taking on advisory work or taking over responsibility from you.
Speaker A:They may be technically really strong, but until they're given the opportunity to be involved in some advisory sessions with clients, you're never going to know if they're the right people or not.
Speaker A:And they're never going to feel confident enough to deliver advisory because they're not being given the opportunity.
Speaker A:So, you know, empowering your team is an important aspect of what we talk about in some of our training sessions that we'll be delivering.
Speaker A:And that is hard.
Speaker A:It's really hard when you run a business, because I can remember you set the business up, you set the accounting practice up and you do everything yourself, then you start hiring people and you, and you give up a little bit of responsibility, but you still feel that it's all down on you because it's your name, it's your name that is at risk, shall we say.
Speaker A:But if you've heard right and you've got the right people delivering the work, then that should enhance your name, not actually feel that you're risking your name.
Speaker A:So, and I think that comes down to how you train your team to do what you want them to do, how you can show them the way.
Speaker A:And you'd be surprised because you also learn from people in your team because although, you know, they look to you for the answers initially, once you give them a little bit of freedom and a little bit of encouragement to think for themselves and to, to review a client and to look into what's going on with that client to then come back to you and say I've been thinking about this and, and I can see there's a problem here and I think if we reach out to them, we can solve it for them.
Speaker A:Isn't that the, that's the dream, that's the dream employee, isn't it?
Speaker A:That's the dream team member that can identify problems, come to you and say that they're going to go and solve it and, and if you can be left out of that whole equation in time so that they're just solving the problems and then you're just perhaps hearing about it in a monthly meeting, you know, when you have your catch up about your clients and stuff, that would be the amazing outcome.
Speaker A:Who wouldn't want that as an outcome?
Speaker A:I would have when I was running my accountancy practice.
Speaker A:I know that for sure.
Speaker A:And hence why when I had the opportunity to sell the compliance sign off, I grabbed it because I wanted to only do the advisory I loved.
Speaker A:The advisory is where the energy is high because you're making a significant impact on your clients, businesses.
Speaker A:So okay, so there's two areas where we stop ourselves from introducing advisory or a real going all in with advisory.
Speaker A:The other side to it is surprisingly the accounting practice owners and bookkeeping practice owners themselves aren't as confident as perhaps we think they are.
Speaker A:They might be in a community, they might come along to calls, they might show up, they might ask questions, they might, you know, but actually putting things into practice can be quite difficult.
Speaker A:So some people need, I don't know if the words permission but they need the confidence themselves to be able to deliver advisory and it kind of does start with them because they need to be able to do so that they've learned how it works and how it all operates and how they can deliver, you know, the value and the trust with their clients so they can then pass that information on to their team members.
Speaker A:And would you say that's about right how I, how I phrased it?
Speaker A:Gone around about houses a little bit as usual?
Speaker B:Yeah, no, it's spot on.
Speaker B:We have to go back a step.
Speaker B:So in my experience, I mean if you think about when we all did our accountancy exams, we were taught step by step, you know, how to reconcile a bank, you know, how to do double entry, you know, T accounts in our day.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:But we were learned step by step.
Speaker B:We weren't just chucked in the deep end and said right, finish your year end accounts.
Speaker B:You know, we did it in a structured way.
Speaker B:We learned different Processes, different systems and how they fitted all together.
Speaker B:And that's what we do with, with advisory teams, you have to break it down.
Speaker B:You have to have simple systems and solutions for each of the patterns and the problems that you can see your clients having.
Speaker B:And from that you can then implement those small changes or those small systems and you get the confidence because you're doing the doing and then you're getting the experience.
Speaker B:And with that comes confidence.
Speaker B:And we do that with the business owner and then the team members, so they're all following the same systems, the same processes, just like we did, just like we do in the technical aspect.
Speaker B:But as you gain confidence, then you can, and a commercial way of thinking, then, yeah, the confidence comes and the relief comes as well, because you know that your team are trained the same as you.
Speaker B:So in my mind, it's a similar way of learning how we all learned the technical aspect, but we now are doing that with advisory.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, so that's the answer.
Speaker A:Yeah, and absolutely right.
Speaker A:And it's also.
Speaker A:It's one of those things, isn't it?
Speaker A:You worry about something for so long and then you actually face up to it and take action and then you feel so good after, don't you?
Speaker A:And you think, that wasn't so bad.
Speaker A:So, like understanding how to trying to have that conversation with a client for the first time and offer some knowledge and some value and some insights in what you've seen in the financial data, but also by listening to what your client's saying, it enables you to reflect on what you're hearing from them, understand what it is they're looking to achieve, and then give them some real value from what you're seeing in the patterns of the numbers.
Speaker A:And after you have that conversation, your clients, you know, shaking your hand or what have you at the end, or might be on Zoom, but they've gone off with a smile on their face, with a couple of actions to take.
Speaker A:You actually start to think, I feel good about that.
Speaker A:That makes you feel good.
Speaker A:And like I say about being high in energy, then you suddenly start to think, yeah, I can do this, I can do this, I'm going to try this with someone else now.
Speaker A:And then you go to another client and you have, you know, and of course there's going to be the odd setback along the way.
Speaker A:Like anything, you know, there's no upward curve that continues going up.
Speaker A:There's going to be the odd setback, there's going to be the odd client that doesn't perhaps isn't as receptive as you would like them to be.
Speaker A:But it, but it's starting.
Speaker A:Starting is the first step with anything, and then you become better and better and better.
Speaker A:And being able to pass that down to your team so that your team go through the same learning and have the same opportunity is going to make your life so much easier long term.
Speaker A:And, you know, imagine having that freedom from your practice that you can choose what you do next.
Speaker A:Now, for some people, that might be long term holidays, it might be six months in the sun, you know, but still available, obviously in this day and age, you know, when needed or to check in and stuff.
Speaker A:But it could be that you don't want that type of freedom.
Speaker A:It could be that actually you want to then use that free time to really push the business and scale it even more.
Speaker A:But of course, you can't scale advisory if you haven't got a team to deliver for you.
Speaker A:So there's, as we say, it all starts.
Speaker A:We have to keep going back to the beginning.
Speaker A:It all starts with you.
Speaker A:It all starts with the practice owner finding a way to deliver advisory at the beginning.
Speaker A:Now, some people might be on, might be listening to this podcast, Deb, that are trying to go from technician to advisor, but there might be other people that feel they've made that step and that they are an advisor and they're delivering advisory, but everything feels like it's on their shoulders.
Speaker A:And so that's the bit where we're saying, okay, so let's talk about the team you may have.
Speaker A:Let's talk about the future team you may have and maybe the systems you can put in place as well to support that team so that there's a way they can follow a pattern they can, they can build.
Speaker A:And a team that feels empowered to be able to deliver the outcomes that you want your clients to receive, which is, in the long run, that's where you're going to find the freedom from the business that you're looking for.
Speaker A:Because we all set up accounting practices with this idea that we're going to save the world and we're going to produce all these things for our clients.
Speaker A:And then we soon realized we've created this complete and utter monster that we are actually a slave to.
Speaker A:And then we're, we're, we're, in reality, we're an employee to our own business quite often.
Speaker A:So finding that way to have the freedom is, for me, the key thing.
Speaker A:What, what else is there?
Speaker A:Have we missed anything?
Speaker A:How often?
Speaker A:I mean, there's lots of reasons why people don't deliver Advisory.
Speaker A:But I think we've.
Speaker A:We've probably focused on the main things that it always comes back to.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's always other reasons, but we've definitely covered the main two, confidence and bottleneck, without a doubt.
Speaker A:Hence why you see lots of pictures of us coming out of a bottleneck, because we break through ours and we want to help people break through theirs.
Speaker A:Now, we've uncovered that this is a problem, haven't we?
Speaker A:And we know it's a problem.
Speaker A:We knew it was a problem from our own experiences when in our accounting and bookkeeping practices, and we knew it was a problem from the membership and community that we were in previously, where we could see it constantly whilst we're guiding the mentoring people, we could see this issue repeating itself.
Speaker A:And so we know there's a problem, but now we know that listeners and practice owners know there's a problem.
Speaker A:How do we know that?
Speaker B:Well, we decided to build a community, an online community, and we launched it on Friday.
Speaker B:Friday.
Speaker B:A couple of weeks ago now.
Speaker B:And within two days we had a hundred accountants and bookkeepers join our community.
Speaker B:And the community is called Advisory Teams.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's Facebook group Advisory Teams, Accountants and Bookkeepers Building beyond the Bottleneck.
Speaker B:And that title obviously resonated because.
Speaker B:Yeah, we were blown away, really.
Speaker B:Over a hundred.
Speaker B:Well, about 100 people within two days have joined our Facebook group.
Speaker B:And it continues to grow.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's.
Speaker B:It's definitely resonated.
Speaker B:There's the feedback that we've had when people have asked what we're.
Speaker B:What we're actually doing.
Speaker B:And we've explained that we're got a training and development company that help accountants and bookkeepers build accounts advisory teams.
Speaker B:So it releases them from the bottleneck.
Speaker B:Yeah, the.
Speaker B:The feedback's been fantastic.
Speaker B:So it's obviously widely needed, as we knew it was.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker A:And if anyone's listening to this and they're not actually in the Facebook group now, come and join us.
Speaker A:Go onto Facebook and search advisory teams and you'll see us there.
Speaker A:It will say advisory teams and underneath it say accountants and bookkeepers Building beyond the bottleneck, as you say.
Speaker A:Or you can just go facebook.com groups forward// advisoryteams.
Speaker A:So it'd be great.
Speaker A:Pop in there, answer a couple of questions and we'll welcome you in.
Speaker A:We're glad to see you there.
Speaker A:The other thing that's coming up, Deb, is we're quite excited about, aren't we?
Speaker A:We're going to be hosting a free training session where we're Going to take people through three of the steps to move themselves from the original technician through to the advisor, through to being a leader and through then to building a high performing advisory team.
Speaker A:We're really looking forward to hosting the training session.
Speaker A:And, and when is that?
Speaker B: May, which is a Thursday and: Speaker A: So: Speaker A:So that's just a few days away from this podcast episode being aired.
Speaker A:We would really love to see lots of accounting and bookkeeping practice owners on there because we feel that we can help you.
Speaker A:This free training is designed to actually train you and enable you to take the first few steps you need to take to start making this change and this transition.
Speaker A:Because the more people we can help take those steps, the better the accounting industry is going to be for the future, the more stronger it's going to be.
Speaker A:And we're very keen to protect the industry that served us so well and to support, you know, fellow.
Speaker A:Okay, we've both, both sold our practices now, but we will still say fellow practice owners because we have walked in your shoes and we have, have breathed the same air as you and found ourselves up against the same problems.
Speaker A:So if we can help solve those problems for you sooner rather than later, then we would love to do that.
Speaker A:So you can register for our free training and that's at apxtraining.co.uk forward/freetraining.
Speaker A: st May at: Speaker A:We would love to see you all there and hopefully we can give you some real good value and you can walk away with some, some actionable points ready for you to take and put into action in your own practices.
Speaker A:How does that sound?
Speaker A:Deb, I think we're, I think we're almost at the end.
Speaker A:Is there anything else you want to add to that?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Love to see you there on Thursday.
Speaker B:Come and come and find out what we're doing and yeah, we're here to help you.
Speaker A:And in the meantime, please feel free to subscribe to this podcast so you never miss another episode.
Speaker A:This is available on all of the usual podcast platforms, for example Spotify, Apple, Amazon, of course you can watch it through our YouTube channel as well.
Speaker A:So the YouTube channel is Tim and Deb go and find us and we will be there waiting for you.
Speaker A:So thanks for joining us today.
Speaker A:We'll be back same time next week with Advisory Conversations.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening to Advisory Conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.
Speaker A:If you found this useful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next episode.
Speaker A:We'll see you next time.
Speaker A:Time, Sam.
