Accounting Firm of the Year—Highly Commended

Brown Smith Wallace

“It has been very important to have regular touch points not just on technical or client-specific matters but also on a social basis.”

Alan Fine

Partner in charge of insurance advisory services

“It has been very important to have regular touch points not just on technical or client-specific matters but also on a social basis.”

Alan Fine

What is your unique selling point for clients?

What sets us apart is our people. Many organisations attract truly talented individuals. We are not only interested in attracting them but focus on keeping them. We refer to ourselves as the “Brown Smith Wallace family”. This is a critical part of our culture and has been since the firm was started in 1972.

As a result, our employee turnover is well below the industry average, and it’s significantly lower in our insurance industry group.

We have a group of individuals dedicated to the industry, which allows us to maintain continuity in our client relationships and service teams, and means that our clients do not have to explain industry concepts to our people. This makes a significant difference in the way we serve our clients.

What additional changes would you like to see the industry adopt?

The industry has taken steps to improve and demonstrate that our industry is about risk management, not taxes. The Self-Insurance Institute of America “Captive Manager Code of Conduct” is an example of this initiative, but we should continue to push this out to other service providers.

We need to continue to push industry participants not only to agree to that, but to embrace it, and encourage one another to employ best practices in how we participate in the industry.

As the industry has evolved, what changes have you needed to implement to comply with regulatory matters?

We realise how important it is for us to stay abreast of changes in the regulatory environment (whether from the captive insurance domiciles or from a tax perspective), and that concept has never been more important than in the current environment.

How have you changed and adapted to the ‘new norm’ of working?

As a firm located in the Midwest with clients all across the nation, we have always been a heavy user of technology to stay in touch with our clients, but previously we were able to travel to our clients at least periodically. Given the pandemic, however, even the occasional travel has been cut off, so we have focused more on regular virtual meetings with clients, making sure we utilise our computer web cameras to engage the best we can.

In my opinion, this makes the calls more productive because we can see the people we are talking to and you have the visual clues when an aspect of the discussion isn’t being followed. It also gives us more of a touch point with clients than a simple email or phone call.

Since our team has all been working remotely since March, we have taken this principle and applied it to our people as well. It has been very important to have regular touch points not just on technical or client-specific matters but also on a social basis.

Through this medium we have been able to conduct our year-end evaluations, recreate the brief conversations we might have while grabbing coffee, and conduct virtual Team Happy Hours on a periodic basis. Obviously, we would prefer to do all of this in person, but we are making the best of the situation.

How important is experience working with captives in terms of providing high-quality accountancy, audit, and tax advice?

In the accounting, audit and tax fields, experience is vital to providing high-quality, technically correct advice. Some advice makes sense from a tax perspective but may not make sense when considering the impact on the financial statements for the insured businesses.

When answering questions specific to the captive, it is also important to consider the corollary impacts not only on the captive but also the businesses being insured by the captive. This comes with the experience of having seen different situations impacting insured businesses participating in a variety of industries.

We have been fortunate to retain our experienced professionals and also grow our team with new talent we can train and develop into the firm’s next generation of leaders in the industry.


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Image: Unsplash.com/Scott Graham

US AWARDS 2020