The perception most clients have of financial consultants is a bean counter accountant. While accounting is essential in providing effective financial consulting services, this is a limited concept of financial consulting.
The challenge for the financial consultant is changing this perception without devaluing the expected benefits the client has. The perceptions clients have of a financial consultant are tagged to certain expected benefits from engaging a financial consultant. A common expectation clients have of a financial consultant is that the consultant analyzes operational cost and provide analytical reports.
Changing this perception requires connecting the numbers to operational process and make recommendations that remedy the operational defects contributing to the negative financial trends.
In an engagement I performed the analytical work and uncovered negative variances in the client’s travel expense. Then I performed process analysis of their travel expense reporting and found defects that contributed to the negative cost variance. Then I recommended fixes for those defects.
The challenge to change the perception of financial consulting is to change it to Financial & Process Strategist. This is makes the financial consultant a partner with the client. In a Toptal blog https://www.toptal.com/finance/freelance/amazing-financial-consultant a partnership role is emphasized by Elizabeth J. Howell Hanano, CFA
By Walter V Murray CPA MSc