Hitendra R. Patil joins Blake for an insightful conversation about the staffing shortage in the accounting profession, identifying overwork and lack of work-life balance as key issues causing high burnout rates. They explore potential solutions like dropping the billable hour model, measuring impact rather than hours worked, outsourcing certain tasks, and focusing on specific value-added services. Patil also describes how his company helps accounting firms efficiently leverage offshore talent. SponsorShareFile - https://earmarkcpe.promo/sharefile Chapters(00:47) - Hitendra Patil joins the show (03:27) - Let's talk about CAS (04:46) - What do you see firms call their communication with clients? (12:22) - National Association of Tax Professionals 2023 study (13:30) - CAS is vague and firms need to figure out what they want to offer from it (14:20) - What is causing the accounting shortage? (20:53) - How big of problems are the overwork and pay? (25:19) - More and more firms are offshoring work (29:52) - How long is offshoring a viable option? (33:10) - What are the accounting student numbers in India? (35:21) - Korn Ferry study on future shortages of working professionals (40:31) - What is the real underlying cause of the talent shortage (42:10) - Hourly timesheets and billing (44:19) - How can accountants measure impact on clients? (51:31) - Datamatics Business Solutions Inc. (58:25) - Thanks for listening and remember to earn your free CPE on Earmark Sign up to get free CPE for listening to this podcasthttps://earmarkcpe.comDownload the Earmark CPE App Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/earmark-cpe/id1562599728 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.earmarkcpe.app Connect with Our Guest, Hitendra R. Patil LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hitendrapatil/Twitter: https://twitter.com/HitendraRPatilFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/HitendraRPatil/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/accountaneur/ Learn more about Datamatics Business Solutions, Inc. (DBSI) Website: https://datamaticscpa.com/accounting-bookkeeping-outsourcing-for-usa-cpas/ Connect with Blake Oliver, CPALinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blaketoliverTwitter: https://twitter.com/blaketoliver/