Differences of perspective are fascinating, frustrating things. They lead people to eat and dress and dance and vote differently than we do; to see a dress as purple and black, when we all know it’s white and gold; to think a photo shows a sunset, when it’s clearly a sunrise. On the other hand, they make for horse races, and that’s surely worth something.
I’ve been thinking about this because we recently got a letter of complaint from a reader. As is the case with most of the relatively few that we receive, the subject of their complaint was a matter of opinion, and everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion — but at one point in registering their complaint, this reader referred in passing to “the decline of the profession,” and I felt compelled to object.
It seemed (and seems) transparently obvious to me that the profession is not in decline in any way; that in fact, it’s thriving. Revenues across the field are strong and growing, demand for accountants’ services is at an all-time high, and there are major new service areas opening up on a regular basis. New tools are coming online every day to make the work easier and to enable entirely new services.
It’s certainly true that the profession faces challenges. Not enough people are coming into accounting to meet the rising demand, and not enough are becoming CPAs to handle the imminent retirement of the oversized cadre of baby boomer firm leaders. Competitors are hungrily eyeing accountants’ lunch, and artificial intelligence looms like a specter.
But in all of those challenges lie opportunities — to use capacity crunches to refocus books of business on a small base of ideal clients, for instance, or to look to private equity or other potential partners outside the profession to help secure partners’ retirements. There are plenty of professions and industries that would be delighted to have accounting’s challenges.
Of course, I have a different perspective on whether accounting is in decline or not — I’m not trying to staff engagements or meet deadlines with too few employees, and I don’t need to worry about being able to find successors for my practice so I can realize the value of my life’s work. And I’m in publishing, an industry which faces so many existential threats that anything short of that seems like a cakewalk.
So perhaps I’m wrong to think that accounting is thriving, with a bright future ahead of it; perhaps the slowdown in people entering the profession really is a sign of decline, and not a short-term demographic blip. I’d love to
know what you think — reach out to me at
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