05 Jun Use Technology to Improve Your Accounting Office Productivity
The accounting profession is rapidly transforming partially due to productivity optimization available through newer technologies. Social media has ironically become an essential tool for firms wanting to engage with their current and potential clients while expanding their brand reach. However, due to the nature of social media being designed for ease of use and for maximizing popularity, the associated productivity increase with social media platform is usually at the cost of security.
Most accountants are experts on certain areas like tax or audit before they start running their own firm, therefore, they are very familiar with software that increase the in-house processing power. Whether it’s bookkeeping software like QuickBooks and Xero or tax preparation software like CCH Pro FX and Lacerte these software do not solve the following pain points for running an accountants office:
1. How to stay connected with clients
Due to the nature of accounting services, clients don’t see accountants on a frequently basis. Traditionally, accountants use email or mail newsletters to keep the clients connected and informed.
Many accounting firm partners are even doing annual client visit to bring up the relationship for the hope of getting happier clients and more referrals or just spread good words of mouth. The one for all style newsletter is usually non-effective since most content is not specifically written for the group of clients, therefore, clients have to read lengthy articles before they could see some information that is relevant to them.
That is when the accountant and the clients are pushed into social media, with instant messages, voice message, voice call and video calls. This way connecting with clients becomes simpler. Not only that, client referrals can be a lot easier with sending emails, a group chat or video conference and make it quicker engage new referrals.
2. How to make the information collection process from clients easy and secure
Information collection is the key for any accountants’ office, whether they are specialized on tax, auditing, bookkeeping, or consulting. Without proper documentation, accountants work usually can’t be finished.
Traditional, email is the main method on collecting information. However, it has numerous shortages; it is insecure (not encrypted), limited on file size at 25 to 50 MB depending on the email system and also not organized (bunch of attachments). Also, email doesn’t solve the problems of digitizing the source documents received in paper and keep track of important accounting documents such as expense receipts.
Therefore, when the accountant is asking clients for a Quickbook file, or tax documents, clients will need to seek a file transfer portal to transfer Quickbook files rather than email. If clients don’t have sophisticated file keeping systems, clients usually have trouble finding those documents.
To solve the above example of pain points, clients end up into different file transfer portals, PDF scanner or receipts keeper apps. For accountants, it is very timing consuming to sort out dozens of file transfer portals and receiving files in images or PDFs in piece meals.
3. How to make in-house team collaboration more efficient
For many accounting firms, tasks are needed to be assigned to different staff. Some accounting firms assign jobs based on the clients, some based on the nature of the job and some use mixed method. In either way, for many of accountants’ daily tasks, it is usually not one man’s job. Partners or sole proprietors need to communicate and provide mentoring to the staff for the job assignment, processing, monitoring and review.
There are many project management tools coming out online to help managing the process of various projects but none of them go into the depth of accountants’ daily tasks. None of those tax software provide the key functions that accountants in need such as client assignment. Therefore, accountants are left no choice to go for productivity through social media platforms.
4. How to make collaboration with clients easy and efficient
One thing for sure is that all accounting offices need to collaborate with their clients to get jobs done, whether it is for collecting information, delivering final products or just providing on demand consulting. Efficient accountants can usually educate clients to do the things they set up, while non-efficient offices leave clients to fend on their own.
An example of collaboration with clients is that CFO has a question, such as a M&A issue to the Partner, Partner assigns the job to the staff, staff does the research and needs to contact client’s in-house accountant for additional information. Once staff is done with the job, they pass it to a Partner to review and after back and forth for a few rounds, Partners pass the result to the CFO. CFO and the in-house accountant review the opinion, raise a few additional questions, they end up in a conference call to finalize the understanding.
Another example is when a client needs to apply for a Federal loan such as EIDL(Economic Injury Disaster Loan) or PPP (Payroll Protection Program). The accountant provides his opinion on eligibility, information needed and help on the application of the loan. For those cases, the accountants’ team collaborates with the clients’ team on files transfers, information collecting and voice or video conference.
5. Using Everleagues to work remotely with other accountants and clients
Accountants are more than ever working remotely and on the mobile. Due to this, there is no physical goods delivered. Working remotely for accounting professionals is easier than other industries. However, the challenge of losing productivity still exists.
Technology in the areas of remote desktop access through VPN (virtue private network) is the key to the success of working at home or remotely. Unlike large banks, who can afford millions to build it own in-house VPN, many accountants’ office still using unsecured RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol).
6. Securely manage intellectual property within the firm
Accounting offices working with clients through social media platforms are running into huge risk of losing intellectual property when employees leave the firms. Due to the flat design, owners have little or no control over the staff through those platforms such as Whatsapp.
Everleagues (EL) is designed to solve all of the above problems in one single platform. It first pass the full firm level control to the administrator of the accountants’ office, therefore, intellectual property always contained in the organization.
Second, it provides collaboration tools such as instant message, voice message, video conference and screen sharing. Third, EL provides a team workplace that can be used to post tailored information updates to specified group of clients, therefore, client don’t have to go over the lengthy newsletters that mostly not relevant to them.
Forth, client referral in the EL platform is as easy as creating a group chat or conference call; Fifth, the tools designed by EL is not only used at the accountants end but also can be passed to clients end to digitize the paper documents received through mobile PDF scanner and keep track of clients expenses on daily basis. Sixth, EL Remote access provide an easy way on building accountant office VPN (Virtual Private Network) without upfront cost or high monthly fee.
Try EverLeagues for free today and keep a forever league with your clients!
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