Financial analysis tools for accountants sounded like a natural hit. Give CPAs software that would help them analyze client financial statements and sell services based on the analysis.

It hasn’t quite worked that way. In May, Thomson Reuters announced after years of promoting its entry that the Financial Analysis CS module from its CS Professional Suite would be given to accountants for free. Profit Driver from CCH is off the market in the United States, as is the Sage Accpac CFO package that was built on the same Australian product as Profit Driver.

Now, Mentor Plus is making another go at financial analysis with a product called ScopeIt that follows the same basic principles as the other applications in that users can manipulate numbers in financial statements and changes will ripple through to connected data. Advisors can use scenarios to  show clients how changes, such as in the cost of goods sold, can affect financial performance.

What prevented these packages from getting a better reception was that accountants didn’t know how to translate the need for the software into something clients were willing to pay for.

“That is exactly what I found in trying to sell Accpac CFO,” says Geni Whitehouse, who spent a lot of time promoting that application to CPAs. “First, I had to teach them how to have a discussion with clients, how to deliver different services and how to talk about non-financial services. It was too big a leap for most firms."

ScopeIt, available only through Mentor Plus, a Carmel Valley, Calif.-based consulting firm, has QuickBooks integration and a custom dashboard and can measure 25 metrics from five different business areas. The important addition, says Whitehouse, is training. “The custom dashboard ties in to Scope training created by Mentor Plus, which we’ve found is critical to making CPAs successful with the software,” she says. MentorPlus is offering a two-device license and one hour of training for $995 for the first year.

“The problem both CCH and Accpac had was trying to change people’s way of thinking to sell them software. We’re changing the mindset of people first, and then they’ll use the tool,” says Whitehouse. “We’ve learned from lots of past experience what we should include."