When clients of Gordon J. Wiber visit him annually for tax preparation, audits, and financial planning, Wiber offers to sit down with them to ask a few questions about their businesses. Wiber, a sole practitioner based in Vancouver, B.C., says they worry about, "How much money do I have in the bank? How much do I owe in taxes? How much does the company owe me?"

To answer these questions, Wiber uses CaseWare Scenarios to forecast growth opportunities for his clients using the numbers he has tabulated for their financial statements. Wiber, who has been using the product for six months, says clients are enthusiastic about the financial snapshot the business analysis software provides. It answers the questions that are of most importance to them,

"One thing about the clients I deal with is they certainly understand cash flow," Wiber says. "They may not understand GAAP."

Scenarios has also proved an effective marketing tool. It helps "to further solidify the relationship I have with my existing clients," he says. Performing a business analysis for his tax and accounting clients also differentiates his firm from its competitors, and leading vendors are hoping that many tax and accounting professionals will reach the same conclusions that Wiber has.

A wave of new analytical tools has hit the market in the last two years. Many enable accounting professionals to perform what-if calculations that show how changes in any one financial measurement can impact the rest of the business. Many are also linked to benchmarking statistics to enable business owners to compare themselves to similar operations.

Along with Scenarios, Sageworks' ProfitCents, CCH's ProfitDriver, and Creative Solutions' recently introduced Financial Analysis CS are just a few of the software products that take a financial statement and perform a business analysis that can lead to new engagements for the accountant.

But just how interested are clients and their accountants in using these tools? And how interested are clients in paying for them? Like Wiber, many firms do not charge fees for the analysis. Instead, they use the software to point out areas in which their services can be used to improve their clients' operations.

"The firms I am talking to all like the concept," says Tom Davis, owner of T.C. Davis & Associates of Valdosta, Ga. "But they are telling me that the verdict is still out."

When Davis asks clients why they want to change CPA firms, they often tell him that their former accountant "didn't call me up and say, 'How about this?' He wasn't pro-active." But when accountants are pro-active and suggest additional services, clients often balk at paying for additional offerings.

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