Comprehensive Technical Accounting Solutions

Rely on our technical accounting aces when you’re facing a new deal, an accounting change or a tricky transaction that tests your in-house skills. We take on the tough stuff.

Technical Accounting Solutions to Address Your Business Needs

Is a new accounting issue a puzzle that your finance team can’t solve on its own? Could you benefit from expert advice on implementing a new accounting pronouncement from the Financial Accounting Standards Board? Should you worry about new guidance that hasn’t yet been finalized by standard-setters or securities regulators? Expert technical accountants have the knowledge and experience to answer your toughest accounting questions, whether it’s about a problem facing your company today or something you will have to tackle in the near future (such as the accounting implications of a strategic transaction). To avoid a scramble when these issues arise, you want to know exactly where to turn for technical accounting services, so that you can get the expert guidance you need, as efficiently as possible.

The Key Traits of Technical Accountants

At ZRG we have a designated, elite group of technical accounting consulting experts who make up our Technical Accounting Group. This group is a vital resource for our other finance and accounting consultants as well as our clients. They have a deep understanding of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) along with the best practices that have built up over time at companies, in a variety of situations. While their experience is diverse, technical accountants do share many of the key traits, including the following:

• Efficient: They quickly get up to speed on the business and its latest challenge—so that they can come up with a solution, whether that entails providing a plan for implementing a new accounting rule or helping management understand the implications of new guidance. The lease accounting standard (ASC 842), for instance, resulted in many companies needing to revisit their processes around leases—and, in some cases, uncovering more lease agreements than they knew they had.
• Active listeners: The issues technical accountants weigh in on are complex. They need to listen to the problem and understand how it affects the particular business and management’s interests and goals. They can only do this by being active listeners and asking thoughtful questions.
• Communicative: Accountants will be the first to admit that they can get “stuck in the weeds” when they become interested in a particular accounting issue—accounting is their favorite topic, after all. But technical accountant consultants climb their way out whenever they are dealing with clients, to be sure that the accounting treatments they are suggesting or answers they are making are practical and understandable. Good technical accountants not only know what they’re talking about—they can explain it in a way that non-accountants understand.
• Practical: When hiring for technical accounting consultants, we specifically look for accounting aces who can offer a practical perspective when looking at a technical accounting issue. Our clients need solutions that can work for them in their day-to-day business.

The Role of a Technical Accountant

The role of a technical accountant varies; there is no “typical day in the life” for this role. Technical accountants can be pulled in many directions as their peers and clients pick their brains with complex inquiries while they also make a point of keeping tabs on what’s happening in the ever-changing accounting landscape.

Technical Accounting Advice and Technical Accounting Services

At ZRG, our technical accounting consultants are incredibly versatile as they not only know the ins and outs of GAAP, they think through the practicalities of how it’s applied at companies -our technical accounting advisory experts tend to have worked at Big 4 public accounting firms as well as accounting and finance roles at companies before they became consultants. They are full of useful advice, whether they are helping a company through a thorny accounting issue or they are helping out one of our consultants.

Implementing New Accounting Changes, Requirements and Improvements

Accounting principles are never set in stone; they are always evolving. This is one of the many reasons accountants love what they do; they find the changes interesting and, at times, challenging. For companies, however, the changes that arise can lead to hand-wringing—ASC 606, for example, had an effect on the timing of revenue recognition and forced companies to change previous forecasts. Technical accountants can’t change the rules, but they can help companies think through the best way forward and how to get through the transition.