CPA Magazine’s T. Steel Rose recently sat down with Patti Newcomer, vice president of marketing for the Intuit ProConnect Group, to discuss challenges for CPAs in today’s tax environment as well as her thoughts on the future of tax and tax technology. Newcomer spoke of the difficulty some CPAs may face with new technology.

“I think there are three key challenges,” said Newcomer. “The first is firms adopting new technologies to get more efficient and the changes to the workflow as a result of that. The second is hiring and retaining talent that they need for their firm. The third is managing their reputation, especially online. As well as the social channels so that their customers will be advocates and recommend them to their friends and family.”

Newcomer predicted CPAs would play more of an advisor role to clients in the future.

“There are a couple things in the future that I think are really going to happen,” said Newcomer. “One is I think more firms will adopt technology and move to the cloud. I think that technology will automate more of the manual tasks that are done today in books and tax. I think that accountants will spend more time advising and being in that trusted advisor role.

“What we've learned in our research with accountants is the thing that's most important to them is making a difference in their clients’ lives. So getting out of the back office, getting out of the manual tasks. Not doing the number-crunching and the data entry will allow them to spend more time advising their clients and helping them run their business and make good financial decisions that will increase the likelihood that their businesses will succeed.”

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