With a record number of baby boomers reaching retirement age every day, it’s no surprise that CPAs are increasingly offering financial services to their clients. And financial planning questions have become more commonplace on the CPA Exam.

Since there’s more to true financial planning than investments and portfolio construction, the best advisors — including CPAs — are taking a holistic approach to wealth management. It’s an approach that recognizes that financial health is closely intertwined with physical, emotional, mental and social wellbeing. I’m guessing this wasn’t covered in your accounting school curriculum.

To move into financial planning successfully, however, you’ll have to do more than crunch the numbers, plug in investments and memorize the tax code. You’ll be evaluated by how well you can really listen to clients and empathize with them.

Seth Fineberg, founder of Accountants Forward, explained in the prologue of my book that “even if your client tells you they already have a financial planner, it’s worth reaching out to that planner and potentially collaborating with them as part of your service to ensure that your client is getting the best possible advice. That’s because every single year, you know what they owe in taxes and why." 

Estate Planning to Cement Client Relationships

Thanks to advances in technology and the increasing affordability of a virtual family office model, experts don’t have to be in-house on your full-time payroll. Again, as the client’s CPA and most trusted advisor, you direct the relationship and remain the central point of contact. 

When it comes to providing the family office level of care, estate planning comes top of mind. On a recent podcast I hosted, Andreas Mazabel, head of advisor sales at Trust & Will, told me that firms proactively adopting estate planning are finding it a powerful way to deepen relationships and better connect with their clients’ values and the extended family’s values. He believes that financial advisors of all stripes who are not incorporating estate planning into their practices are losing clients to firms that do.

One thing he continues to see is that clients looking for advisors want complete holistic planning and don’t want to go to three or four different offices.

Trust & Will’s research has found that when a person comes to set up an estate plan on the platform without a financial advisor, there’s about a 25% chance they’ll go through the process and complete it. But when they come through a financial advisor, the completion rate goes up to 75%. That’s one of the many advantages of having a trusted advisor. 

When you consider that 55% of Americans don’t have any estate documents and only 31% have a basic will, according to Trust & Will's 2025 Estate Planning Report, I can't think of a better argument for the power of accountability.

For forward-thinking CPAs, estate planning isn’t just an add-on service; it’s a cornerstone of relationship-centered wealth management that clients increasingly expect from their most trusted advisor. Build your ROR today!