So, where do you begin when building a premier accounting and tax practice? How do you train and manage staff, expand services, and turn your firm into a self-sustaining business? Universal Accounting founder and CEO Roger Knecht joins Eric Green to break down the mindset and strategies needed to transform your practice from a self-employed job into a profitable, scalable business. They dive into the key pillars of a thriving firm, the importance of positioning your value to clients, and why advisory services are the future of accounting. Whether you’re looking to grow your firm, improve efficiency, or add new revenue streams, this episode provides actionable insights to help you build a business that works for you—rather than the other way around.

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Building The Premier Accounting Practice

With The Founder Of Universal Accounting Roger Knecht

With tax season wrapping up, you’re probably thinking, how do I change this? How do I turn what I’ve got into a profitable valuable business? How do I build their premier accounting practice, the premier tax practice? Go from practice to business where I’m profitable, have something that’s sellable, scalable, and doesn’t depend on me sitting here banging out these returns of this bookkeeping or whatever. I hear you.

I got the guy who’s going to walk us through all of that. Joining me on this episode is the Founder and CEO of Universal Accounting, Roger Knecht. Roger’s going to talk about what it means to build the premier practice, and how you get started doing it whether it’s molding what you’ve got, starting a new practice, or adding new services to your existing practice. Let’s go talk to Roger and get into it.

 

 

I am joined today by Roger Knecht. If you don’t know Roger, you should. He has a show. He is all over social media and he is the Founder and CEO of Universal Accounting with a trained folks and almost everything about accounting, including running a practice, getting your EA, and tax return preparation. It is a go-to source for training. I got introduced to Roger a couple years ago. I was following you from far but I hadn’t connected you with Universal. It’s been great getting to know you guys.

The Clay who was with you spoke at the Summit in fact. We were talking about how interesting how about pricing your engagements and understanding your value. That’s a good segue. It’s wrapping up taxes and coming out of tax season. It’s a great time to reflect on your practice. What I want to get into is, you’ve mentioned before the idea of building the premiere accounting practice.

If we could get into defining that and how people who are in a place where like, “I got to make a change.” Usually, that happens after tax season. They’ve gone through tax season and every year, it’s like, “I don’t want to do this again.” It is mindset in how you set yourself up for this. Roger, do you have a definition for how you would define the premier accounting practice?

The Three Pillars Of A Premier Accounting Firm

I do. Eric, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you. I’m excited for the conversation. The idea behind the premier accounting firm has two components. First and foremost, seeing the business is exactly that a business. An asset that you’re working on and building. You’re in the intent of building something that you ultimately exit out of. That’s very important. I speak of that of becoming an accountaprenuer. It’s to suggest that we’re marrying the accounting mindset that we’re bringing into the business world with the entrepreneurial mindset.

As we become accountaprenuers, we’re running our business differently than just a job. It’s something that we started to keep ourselves busy to maybe bring in an income. That’s the first thing. The second part of building the premier accounting firm is I feel recognizing what is it that as an accounting profession we should be offering our business clients. As an accounting profession, there are a lot of things that the business world leans towards us for, they want, or expect from us.

They don’t know how to typically articulate what it is they’re expecting, so we have to do a better job of explaining the services that we’re offering. I break it down into six things, but basically three buckets. It’s bookkeeping and accounting services, tax planning and preparation services, and then lastly, CFO and advisory services. Clearly, in your tax world, it’s very appropriate to bring in some additional tax things such as tax resolution and so forth. We can talk about each of these three buckets.

When you look at it from the business owners point of view and they’re thinking of accounting needs. They’d clearly say, “What can I do to have the financial reports?” They are looking at it from a, “What can I do to file my tax returns in a timely way and legally mitigate my tax liabilities?” Thirdly., what is it that I can expect from the accounting profession as it relates to running a profitable business? That’s in that CFO advisory space. When we’re running our businesses, if we can over time look at how we can incorporate those services, or at least have an associate with whom we provide those services, we’re meeting the needs of our clients.

You said something that is interesting and it’s the value that you bring and that is the part that is lost. I’ll talk mostly because I do a lot with entrepreneurs. There are a lot of folks that view bookkeeping and accounting as overhead. It’s mixed. The tax return is something we deal with after year end. The folks that I’ve had on like Michelle Weinstein, and Dawn Brolin, there’s a mindset change where you have to be able to explain to your client the value that you bring that. The return, if they’re entrepreneurs.

Frankly, the accounts reading this, the return is an afterthought. It’s a report card. The real work is done during the year. I want you to talk about the mindset and being able to explain this to your potential client because again, remember the client H&R block. You show up in tax season. I’m picking on HR block but there’s been a commoditization of the returns like bookkeeping. I get to tell you, I can talk about my world. The bookkeeping gets screwed up. You got problems.

You got returned problems, legal problems, and you may have banking problems. It all stems from that. If you don’t mind talking about that, especially because you see so many folks come through Universal Accounting, getting them the tax pros, the accounting pros to change their mindset in terms of how they explain the value to their clients.

Why Accounting Is More Than Just Taxes And Bookkeeping

Like Michelle and Dawn, we all as a profession need to do a much better job of bringing the value to the top of the equation. What you’re looking at as a business owner, when they start their company, they’re not seen accounting is that exciting thing they’re looking forward to doing because they started their business. They’re not asking themselves, “What can I do to be successful in business?” “I know, I’m going to start this company. I can do the accounting as well.” No, this is seen by many as a necessary evil. It’s something that they’re not excited about. It’s commoditized, as you mentioned.

We all, as a profession, need to do a much better job of bringing the value to the top of the equation. Share on X

For a lot of people, it’s something that they do once a year as they’re doing it from a tax perspective, which isn’t the reason for accounting. It’s not only to determine what your tax liability is. When you’re looking at it from a value add, what we’re trying to do is help them realize that it’s not just historical and the bookkeeping where we’re trying to record all the transactions. It needs to step more into that accounting space.

We can now focus on two very important parts of the business. Its cashflow. Do we have the money to run the business and profitability? When you look at it from those two points of view, the business owners going to hear that you’re providing means to address the most common challenge their facing, which is cashflow management. They’re wanting to have the funds needed to pay the bills, make payroll, and buy these things that they need to grow the business. Cashflows is very important to them.

If you can say that one of your roles is to help them address that, that’s very valuable to them. The second happens to be regarding profitability. It’s one thing to run a business and run this chicken’s race of robbing Peter to pay Paul and trying to stay alive in a flow and hoping that you can make the next payroll, versus building a profitable business where you’re able to enjoy the outcomes of the business beyond the freedoms that affords but the profitability. The last thing is the asset. Once you have a business, owner realize that what they’re building is truly something of worth that they will eventually exit from will.

The exit is built upon how well the narrative is told through the accounting information if you can’t, from an outside perspective to a third party, via the communication of accounting. Accounting is a language of business, articulate what’s going on in the business and why it’s a valuable asset. Who’s ever going to buy it? You have to have those three perspectives in mind when you’re looking at it from a business owner’s point of view. Why? It’s because that’s where the value add of the accounting profession comes in line, cashflow management, profitability, and asset, building something of worth.

Building A Scalable And Sellable Accounting Practice

I want to point out to folks, I’m witnessing this. What we’ve got going on in the accounting industry are larger forums like Citrin Cooperman just acquired a CPA firm. Why? It’s because they have built the system, a machine. All they want to do now is get good clients and feed them through the machine. I told this story before, I bought an accounting practice years ago with a buddy of mine from somebody named Dave. I never met him because he passed away. That’s how we ended up getting involved.

We, at the time, didn’t realize or think to ask Dave was a motorcycle enthusiast. Now, the reason I tell you that is, starting in February, he went out on his bike and visit everyone of his clients. We buy this practice. We’re not motorcycle enthusiasts. We’re not going out to visit all the clients. It was a bit of a nightmare. Now, nobody would buy that practice because what do I do? I’ll take the clients and give you a percentage of maybe whatever I keep, but I’m not putting down any real money on this. Who knows what verses if where building that business? If it could be fully remote, a team in place, and got the right processes in place, I could insert new owner and it keeps going motoring along. That’s valuable.

What I refer to it as is the goose that lays the golden egg. You’re the person that is taking care of that goose. You’ve maintained the coup that it’s in. You’re feeding it and giving it care. You’re making sure it’s comfortable so that it continues to lay that golden egg. If you’re going to give this business to someone else, the goose. You’ve got to ensure that they likewise are going to be able to maintain that they’re producing it.

The moment that goose gets scared or afraid or hungry, it might discontinue producing as it has. We’ve got not only just create the system that’s functional, but we have to be able to then teach it to someone else because as we walk away, we don’t want that goose to die. That’s one of the things that is very important to illustrate. We’re building a business that I refer to as building a self-sustaining living entity that is autonomous from the business owner. If you can get out of the day-to-day operations of the business through the processes that you mentioned and through a great team of individuals, you’ve built a business. Not a client list that you’re selling, but a business that is producing revenue.

Roger, I’m listening to this and this sounds great. I contact Universal Accounting, where do I start? How do you start working with people? I’m a CPA or I’m an EA and I got 500 clients and I can’t do another busy season anymore. It’s brutal. How do you start unpacking this? Where do you get people? How do you begin?

Training Staff And Scaling An Accounting Firm

For that individual, I’m going to now assist them in training their staff. As a firm, it’s in that point of growing or bringing on people. They want to bring on competent people. I know we’ve all experienced this. You do the great due diligence in the interview process of screening out that candidate. You try to find that ideal individuals that’s going to be a great cultural fit. They, like us, everybody embellishes how good their skills are and you bring someone in. Even though they have experienced in let’s say, bookkeeping, tax, or whatever the case may be. They may do it differently than you do it internally.

You have your own processes that they need to adapt to. The point is how do you get them up to speed? One of the great things that we do is what we call the train the trainer program. We bring into your firm basically the training needed to either get them certified as professional bookkeepers or certified as professional tax preparers, both in individual and business returns. We help them get on the pathway to becoming an enrolled agent.

What we do as a post-secondary school, we’re offering the training that you can be confident in that gives them the skills that they need to offer quality accounting services. The beauty of it for you, as the business owner, you’re not now needing to be involved necessarily in the instruction teaching. We’re able to complement whatever you’ve got as part of your onboarding staff. If you’re training them in the first 90 days of employment, we can complement that.

The beauty of it is, we’re a third party testing the individual, and certifying their skills and abilities. With this, we have individuals that now come out. If you’ve trained your staff, they all have something in common. It’s a similar training but they’re all able to now refer to. With that commonality, they’re all on the same page as to the services they’re offering because they were each training or way. We’re complementing, whatever it is. They might come to the employment. We’re answering that, certifying that, and giving you somebody competent to do the work.

This is something that you can bring to them. In other words, we don’t have to travel to you, especially now. I have a completely remote team. I have someone in California, and Florida. You can bring this training to them no matter where they are.

To give you some history, when we originally began, we had campuses ultimately around the United States in 22 locations. We’ve since closed all those. All of our training is now done remotely. It’s independent study. It’s all on line. The way we’ve designed the training with the business using the context of what you shared a moment ago, we have three options. The first is we can give you the curriculum and you have a firm large enough that you have on staff somebody that’s a trainer. They can take our curriculum. Train the employees. Put them through it and that’s wonderful.

Most firms, however, do not have on staff, someone that’s in-house that is a trainer. What we do now is we bring in the curriculum. We bring in the video instructions, the assignments, and the manuals. We give all that to you. The second option is, because you don’t have a trainer, we would suggest that you have on staff someone on a once a week basis, do a review with these new hires, with the staff to basically say, “Here’s what you learned. Here’s how it applies in the business that we have and how we work with our clients.”

You’re able to give it that little finesse. That little personal touch as to what it is that you’re taking from the training we’re offering and how to applies with your clients. The third is perhaps, and for some, the best because it’s all hands off. You don’t have someone that has the time nor the energy to get involved with the training, which is perfectly fine. We do all the heavy lifting. We do the training, and tell you what the results are when they’re finished. If they passed or certified their skills.

In that process, put them through the training so that at the end, they are competent individuals as it relates to bookkeeping, accounting, tax, and so forth. If you’re offering CFO and advisory services, you put them through our CFO and advisory program. Tax and individual preparation, we’ve got that covered. Whatever the case may be, we come into a service your staff and your firm to offer these quality services in your area becoming, as I said at the beginning, the premier accounting firm.

With hiring staff, you guys can provide the training for that. In many ways, do you have folks come to you where they want their whole processes looked at because there’s got to be a better way?

Creating Efficient Processes For Long-Term Success

We do come in and assist in the sense of best practices, let’s say. We do have some suggestions or advice there. The best way to look at it is, either you’re starting your business and you don’t have in place those processes, so you’re looking for some direction. What is the best practice? We’re able to provide that to you. We’ve been doing this since 1979.

We have the turnkey process to running a successful bookkeeping, accounting, tax business, and CFO services. We teach you all of that as a business owner. We teach that to you as you’re working with staff to provide those services. It depends on where you’re needing it. We’re able to help you market it, sell it price it, on board clients, or retain clients. As a school, we’re addressing all those different elements of running a successful business.

The Value Of Ongoing Support And Certification

The ongoing training and support as well.

Correct. All of our programs come with coaching. You’re assigned what I refer to as an academic coach. They’re essentially a tutor to ensure that you’re learning the concepts, but the more part of the academic coach is the curriculum is designed to be done in about 4 to 8 weeks. In 4 to 8 weeks, that’s wonderful. You learned all this, but there is the real-world application. In that situation, let’s assume six months from now, you’ve got a client you’re working with. You’re trying to determine how you want to depreciate something.

Rather than having to only go to the books. You can call and speak with your academic coach and find out ,is there something that you ought to be considering in the real world application of this. You’re talking to a practicing accountant tax preparer. Someone that is experience, so they’re able to give you some real-world applications and that’s wonderful.

The third part of this is the support. The fact that you’re just not alone. You’re in business for yourself but not by yourself with Universal. That’s one of the key elements. It gives you that confidence to know that you can offer these services because it’s not on your shoulders. You’re not alone as you’re providing this. If you need help, you’re able to say, “That’s a great question. Let me get back to you on that.” You have some resources you can dial back into to get the right answer for your clients.

With Universal, you have the support. You're in business for yourself but not by yourself. Share on X

The same with tax rep. It’s part of the membership began. I have folks who went through the training like, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I said, “I’ll coach you.” It’s the ongoing support because it is interesting that it’s a lot easier, especially if you’re going to something new, I’m starting CFO or I’m starting adding advisory services or iris resolution, to be able to know that at any moment. I say, “I know the answer. Let me get back to you.”

They can get on the help desk, send a message saying, “What the hell am I doing?” We can walk them through that, at least our thought process on it. There’s more value in that than I ever thought. When I first started it, like, “It’ll be nice. I can help them from time to time.” That ended up being the most attractive thing we do. It’s not just the training, all the forms and the letters and all that stuff. It was the fact that they had access to us, which is not something that I thought of as valuable.

I would agree with you. There’s a community that’s a component to this success that you’re not alone. You have your peers. People that are ahead of you that have done what you’re hoping to accomplish. There’s people that are like you that are going through the same struggles. That community is very assuring. Yes, that community plays into it. We have a Facebook Community and a LinkedIn Community. In addition, we have our conference, GrowCon where once a year, we get together.

As a group of individuals, not only hear from the experts from the stage, but as peers get together and build friendships, relationships, and collaborate. Those are some of the things that I would also agree. You’re right, a lot of times, it’s that unrealized benefit. That when you enroll or start, you don’t realize how valuable that is until you start to lean into it. All of a sudden, you start to realize, “That community isn’t invaluable to me.” I suggest not only just taking advantage of it but leaning into it.

The Power Of Community And Networking For Accountants

GrowCon is in first week in May 2025, in Provo. For those of you reading, I have not been, and again in 2025 because I have to be in Washington DC from meetings with the IRS but who knows if that’s even going to happen? Some of the people I’m supposed to meet with messaged me. They took the package and they’re gone. I don’t know who I’m meeting with in DC, but Gaynor on my team has been to GrowCon.

If you’re reading, great time to be there and meet people. I hear great thing about it. I was invited but could not make it because of the conflict, but it’s quite the conference. Gaynor goes to a lot of conferences. When she tells me two thumbs up, I’m like, “I get to be there.” If you’re reading this and you’re like, “I got to make a change.” It could be, “I’m happy where I am. I want to add something new, or I’m not happy with where we are. I can’t find people. I can’t find people and bring them in. Staffing has been challenging in these times.”

Universal is there to help train people and help you implement then support you going through in building your premier practice, whether it’s accounting, bookkeeping, tax, and what have you. If you’re not an EA, they help you get your EA, and certified bookkeeper. It’s one-stop shopping for folks who are trying to either gain skills and upscale their practice.

What we’re basically trying to do is help anyone that’s in that startup phase. Essentially helping you start and build the business. We’re also helping those firms that are established build the premier accounting firm. We’re able to address any of those needs along the way. The big thing that I’d like to stress here is the fact that when you have a third party come in and certify your skills, it is a confidence boost. There’s a lot of people that appreciate the certifications of being a certified professional bookkeeper, certified professional tax preparer, or a certified profit and growth expert.

When you have a third party actually come in and certify your skills, it is a confidence boost. Share on X

Those designations do hold way as you’re going out marketing your services to say, “I’m not just saying I can do this, but I’ve been certified as having the skills to, in fact, do this by another entity.” It becomes a conversation piece that allows you to explain what that meant to you to go through and invest in yourself, both time and energy to get that that certification. Once you’re doing that, it enables you to not only market more confidently, but more effectively because your messaging becomes more clear. You stand out from the competition that way.

It’s interesting you say that because we have our certified tax representation consult, which is CTRC. Again, I got asked about certifying someone. It’s about 20 hours and this is what I would want to know that if I were hiring someone, they understood. They know how to do this. We’ve now had about 450 folks go through it. I’ve enjoyed the course and learned a lot. The biggest thing, though, Roger, what fascinating to me, and again, not as a lawyer. It’s not something I would have thought of that.

When they let people know they were a CTRC, not only did it attract business for tax representation. It attracted bookkeeping and accounting clients. I went back and I emailed a bunch of the folks who responded that way. I said, “Why?” They said, “There are a lot of people like at higher, if I don’t have a problem now, but if I do have a problem, you can handle it.” I never thought of it as a marketing thing or I didn’t think of it in that way, but it is. The certification is attractive to people who are looking online trying to determine who they want to hire. It does set you apart.

There’s a few things that are very important to understand. First of all, it’s clear that you take your profession seriously. You’re investing in your additional skills or enhancing your skills. People appreciate that. When you’re looking at someone, let’s say even a doctor. You don’t go to a doctor that graduated medical school 40 years ago and go, “They’re a doctor.” Would you’d like to think that they’re up on current procedures, that they are renewing their skills, and passionate about what they do that they go to conferences and figure out things that are new and cutting edge. Why? It’s because, what was prescribed 40 years ago probably isn’t the right remedy now.

The same is true within the accounting profession. Debits and credits haven’t changed, but the way we do the work, the different tools and resources that we have to be more efficient and offer that value add that we were talking about earlier. We’re a much more effective industry now. As a profession, we have so much more to offer the business community if you’re taking it seriously. Now, if you’re antiquated and you’re still using journals and ledgers and doing tax returns by via paper.

We're a much more effective industry today. As a profession, we have so much more to offer the business community if you're taking it seriously. Share on X

I’m not challenging whether or not your numbers are accurate and you’re correct. I am challenging how efficient you are, how profitable you are and whether or not you’re meeting the needs of the client because it is different now. What we’re trying to do, with the certification is your offering and what we’re offering is not only just to enhance the confidence of the individual going through the training. It’s also to give confidence to the customer that they are working with the right individual.

It’s not something I would have thought of, but it ended up being a real big plus of the certification. For the accountants who are reading, and I’m sure there are many. Who wouldn’t want to make more money? Who wouldn’t want to be more efficient? First of all, Roger, how’s the best way for them to get a hold of you?

First of all, I love to connect on LinkedIn, so reach out. You can direct message me, and more importantly just mention that you had heard this show. I’d love that, but the best way to take advantage of this is go to UniversalAccounting.com. We have some free resources for your readers and individuals that are owning and operating successful businesses. Those that are trying to grow their firms and become the premier county firm. Take advantage of those free resources. I also host a show. It’s Building the Premier Accounting Firm where I have on guests experts in their own right as to things that we ought to be doing as we’re considering marketing, selling, and pricing. I had Dawn on, Michelle, and Eric on.

You want to hear these episodes because it’s insights from those experts as the things you ought to be doing in your business to in fact be successful. That’s one of the things that is very important. Join us each and every week when we release a new episode. You can also find highlights or playlists of past episodes that you can binge read based on topics that you’re dealing with or things that matter to you based on your needs. As I mentioned, you can do a playlists on mental health for heaven’s sakes, onboarding clients, tech stacks, or training your staff. All those are there for you to take advantage of.

Roger, a final thought for the folks reading. If you had to give one piece of advice, what would it be?

Accounting Professionals Matter More Than They Think

My piece of advice would be this. As a county professional, you matter to the success of your clients. I realize that there’s a commoditization to the business model. It gets busy. We go through the motions. We do the work, but I want you to know that what you do matters. Where I want to give you a voice is the fact that through your experience have insights perspectives that matter to your clients. I want to give you permission to speak up and even charge for these perspectives that you able to now bring to the client’s attention to help them be more profitable, more successful, and keep more of the money that they’re making.

 

 

Why? It’s because your perspective is different than what they’re experiencing as they live and experience their business on a day-to-day basis. What you have to say matters. You’re experiencing so many of their clientele. You have all these different insights. Bring those to the attention of your clients. That’s where you move from simply doing the bookkeeping or the tax preparation into more the advisory and the CFO type levels.

The planning that you can provide your clients matters. It can be a differential thing for them as it relates to saving, not just thousands but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. Why? It’s because of the things that you know and you’re just not sharing. Open your mouth, share this, and even charge for the service.

Well said. Remember, your business should be a business, not a job. Many of you are running it and it’s a job and it’s the worst job you’ll ever have. Wrap up tax season. Take your little vacation, but then sit down and think about how you can take this tax accounting practice you have and turn it into a business that throws off income. That does not depend on you doing the work in the middle of it and figure out what you need to do.

 

 

Universal is there is a huge resource. It will help you with your staff, yourself, and adding new services. Don’t forget to check out GrowCon in May 2025. It’s time well spent and I take that very seriously because the people I take serious told me so. With that, Roger, thank you for taking the time. For those who want to connect with Roger, please do so. Thanks for reading. Again, Roger, thank you for taking the time.

I look forward to seeing you at GrowCon and always remember this, if it’s about accounting it is universal.

Well said, Sir. Thank you.

 

Important Links

• Roger Knecht on LinkedIn
• Universal Accounting Center
• Citrin Cooperman
• Building the Premier Accounting Firm Podcast

 

About Roger Knecht

Roger Knecht is president of Universal Accounting Center, a post-secondary school for accounting professionals. With over 20 years of marketing, sales, HR & operations experience, Roger Knecht has helped thousands of business owners work ON their businesses to increase revenue, improve profits and build value. His strong work ethic and collaborative style delivers reliable, high-quality results for business owners.

Roger hosts, Building the Premier Accounting Firm, a podcast that keeps accounting professionals on the cutting edge of the industry offering quality bookkeeping, accounting and tax services. He hosts discussions with some of the accounting world’s best minds and shares actionable insights for firms.

Roger is the author of “Your Strategic Accountant” and “Your Profit & Growth Expert”, each written to help business owners understand what they can expect from the accounting profession.

Universal Accounting provides accounting professionals with the training, certifications, coaching, and support they need to become Profit and Growth Experts for their clients.

If you want to have the premier accounting firm in your area contact Roger and his team at 801-265-3777 or visit them online at www.universalaccounting.com.