K.C. Eames Shares Insider Tips on Growing A CAS Practice

Client Accounting Services (CAS) has become a core growth engine for modern accounting firms. However, building a scalable, efficient CAS practice takes more than adding new services. It requires the right mix of technology, workflows, and forward-looking leadership.

In this informative video hosted by Ace Cloud Hosting, K.C. Eames, Director of Client Accounting Services at Dark Horse CPAs, and Seth Fineberg, founder of Accountants Forward, share insider insights on building a strong CAS foundation, selecting the right tools, and creating efficient processes that support long-term growth without overwhelming teams.

With over a decade of hands-on CAS experience, K.C. has built a reputation for her innovative, practical approach to designing and scaling modern CAS practices.

How Should CAS Leaders Be Thinking About AI?

Transcript

Seth: Is there anything that a CAS team leader should be considering? You know, with AI, just, either, for what’s already on the market already, or perhaps, pretty low tech, needed for, you know, something like a Claude, where you can go in and create something.

KC: Yeah.

Seth: Like, how should CAS leaders be thinking about AI? How about that?

KC: Yeah, I think you can’t think about AI. I think that you have to be thinking about every tool that you use and every tool that you are looking at and considering. You have to look at the AI element of it. What does their roadmap look like? What is their philosophy on AI, and how does it work in a tool? And it’s not going to be perfect, but it’s important to at least try it and to understand that if companies are building it out, you can work with them and watch the AI get better over time.

But I think you have to, like, put your energy in knowing that this is a big part of building a CAS stack is every tool that we have now, as AI built into it, and we’re watching the features that are rolling out in each of these tools, and we’re seeing where we can have more efficiencies there and, and using it whatever we can.

So, I don’t think that it’s really an option to say, well, we can just use an LLM on the side for our analysis. You have to see, AI is actually integrated into the tools that you’re selecting.

What Comes Next After the GL When Building a CAS Practice?

Transcript

Seth: You’re building out your CAS practice. What’s next that comes to mind? You know, along with GL.

KC: Kind of torn between, but a workflow tool. So, we implemented Double. We implemented Double as when it was Keeper about three years ago. So, when you have a lot of clients, you’re growing, you’re scaling, you have a lot of team members, you have a lot of work to manage. You need a system to be able to track. The tasks that are happening around the closed process. Double has been awesome.

Adding a Spend Management Layer to the CAS Tech Stack

Transcript:

Seth: Is there a third component that you would add to that? Yeah, in our tech stack or your tech stack, if you’re building out a CAS practice, what should be there?

KC: So, I definitely think a spend management tool like Ramp that’s what we use. And it’s interesting because I’ve been in the CAS space for almost a decade now, but I remember when I first heard about spend, an expense tool coming out and kind of marketing to us, and I didn’t fully understand at that point, like, well, yeah, that’s I guess it’s cool at credit card, you know, track expenses.

I didn’t totally understand how beneficial it would be to have something like this, but really, what Ramp does is what a spend management tool does. It helps you get closer to the transaction, so it gets closer to the root of what’s happening. Okay, whoever’s swiping that card, let’s code it. Now. Let’s require or see, let’s get that information up front.

Because the longer the time goes between when a transaction happens and it posts to the GL and people, you know, move on from it, it’s harder and harder to get that information. And so as accountants, if we can get a little further upstream before it gets to the ledger, you’re just going to get more accurate, more timely information. So for me, it almost goes hand in hand, especially because Ramp has some free, you know, low barrier to entry plans that you can get into without having to spend anything.

And then as the company grows, it has more and more features available to you. Integrates with QuickBooks. Like it’s just one more layer to help us get more accurate information as quickly as possible, so that we can smooth our work across, you know, the month, rather than having everything hit at month’s end. And you’re trying to categorize expenses when you’re 30 days away from a transaction.

Seth: Yeah.

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