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The relationship between CPAs and technology consulting seems like a love-hate relationship at times. It's a place that many firms think they need to be. It's a place that often has been strained, particularly on the reselling side. Of course, many large firms never left. But down the food chain, a lot of accounting organizations exited technology reselling over the last few years.

As with many things, the web is changing that. The companies that sell Internet-based financial applications argue that businesses that use their products don't need to have the same investment in running technology because the vendor handles a lot of the plumbing. The same argument appears to hold for resellers. The firms that got out of reselling because they didn't want to carry all the staff needed to handle that plumbing can concentrate on providing business services to clients that use cloud-based applications.

This is all new enough that we really don't have the experience with the economics of the new reselling business to point to proof in the field that formula works the way everyone says it does. But the speed at which accounting firms are moving back into technology reselling suggests that they have accepted the argument.

And the argument is that accountants provide business advisory services, which seems to be perfect for this new era. The technology nuts and bolts can be left to others.

And generally, I accept the argument. There is one element of doubt left and has nothing to do with technology. The reason accounting firms had trouble with technology had nothing to do with technology itself. There were simply too many resellers handling products and supply and demand had its way.

Hopefully, the companies that are recruiting firms to return to the fields will stick to their promises not to saturate the market with a lot of businesses that are selling the same thing.

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