Diversification keeps firm growing

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: DiSanto, Priest & Co. saw the landscape shifting in the accounting profession toward diversified services and responded nine years ago with the creation of the Bentley Group. Above, Managing Partner Emilio Colapietro, left, with Director of Business Development David DiSanto. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: DiSanto, Priest & Co. saw the landscape shifting in the accounting profession toward diversified services and responded nine years ago with the creation of the Bentley Group. Above, Managing Partner Emilio Colapietro, left, with Director of Business Development David DiSanto. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

It’s almost not enough to be just a good accounting firm anymore. Increasingly, the leading CPA groups are growing, merging and expanding into financial services and other new specialties.
A case in point is DiSanto, Priest & Co. in Warwick.
Formed in 2003 with the merger of two prominent Rhode Island CPA practices, the firm’s diversification accelerated nine years ago with the creation of the Bentley Group, a brand encompassing a set of services beyond accounting alone.
“About a dozen years ago the landscape started changing for the profession and we wanted to diversify the services our clients were looking for,” said DiSanto Managing Partner Emilio N. Colapietro. “That is the whole concept of the Bentley Group, that we can holistically deal with client needs.”
The list of affiliates within the Bentley Group now includes DiSanto, Priest CPAs, DiSanto, Priest Business Resource Center, Bentley Consulting Group, Bentley Wealth Advisors and the philanthropic Bentley Foundation. The Business Resource Center focuses on small businesses, providing bookkeeping, tax advice, and management support services to go with accounting.
The Consulting Group expertise includes valuation and litigation support, cost-segregation studies, tax-credit studies, human resources advice, marketing assistance, strategic-planning-retreat advice and information technology consulting.
And Bentley Wealth Advisors provides full-service financial advice, including retirement planning and investment management.
Each is a separate legal entity controlled by DiSanto, Priest & Co.
Last month, Bentley Wealth Advisors and DiSanto, Priest CPAs began offering family offices services, which can include bill payment, property management and estate preservation for large, multigenerational families and trust funds. The national demographic shift toward an older population should lead to increased demand for the service.
Although DiSanto, Priest is broadening its expertise, Colapietro said being based in Rhode Island has meant the firm has always had a diverse client base and never had the luxury of ultra-specialization like some in larger cities.
“Our clients are high-net-worth individuals in the tax practice and that gives us leverage for wealth management,” Colapietro said. “On the business side, our top 50 clients are mid- to large-size companies – we don’t do publicly held corporations – a good portion are two-to-four generation, family businesses.” Those family businesses are in industries including manufacturing, real estate and construction, professional services and technology.
The origins of DiSanto, Priest stretch back to 1963, with the creation of Levin Priest & Co., and then 21 years later the formation of Finkel, DiSanto, Fine & Co. Inc.
After both those firms grew, their successors merged in 2003 to form DiSanto, Priest.
Looking ahead to the future, Colapietro said one of the areas he sees growth potential is technology, primarily with the success of knowledge-based companies in the Boston area, but also in the emerging Providence startup space. In both states, advanced manufacturing and the return of domestic production is a related opportunity, he said.
Although the broad category of professional services has grown in recent years, some industry segments have experienced disruption as a result of information technology allowing basic services to be outsourced, automated or performed by less-expensive practitioners.
But Colapietro said he has not seen that dynamic yet, possibly because DiSanto, Priest focuses on sophisticated clients and embraces technology, especially on the small-business side.
“I think it would be different for a sole proprietor or three-person firm, but because of the complexity of what we work on, we don’t see it too much,” Colapietro said. “What we are finding with the Business Resource Center, which caters to small and emerging companies, is we can provide those old-fashioned bookkeeping services on a very cost-effective basis … keeping things in the cloud.”
Like so many businesses, Colapietro said DiSanto, Priest’s plan is to continue to grow and use new business to go deeper into a few core specialties.
“One thing we have seen in the last five years is clients rewarding specialization. So you can’t be everything to everyone, you need to have more industry depth,” Colapietro said. •

COMPANY PROFILE
DiSanto, Priest & Co.
OWNERS: Eight equity partners
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Accounting and financial services
LOCATION: 117 Metro Center Blvd., Warwick
EMPLOYEES: 65
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2003
ANNUAL SALES: WND

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