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How to Increase Efficiency in an Accountancy Practice Through Technology

Efficiency improvement has significant benefits to you and your practice. For example, improving the time it takes to do a job from 25 hours to 15 hours will significantly improve your bottom line. It will also allow you to have a much more manageable and controllable business. A business that works efficiently is less likely to make mistakes and be a lot less stressful for everyone, including the clients. Archimedia Accounts are Accountants In Nottingham who utilise technology to help run their accountancy practice like clockwork.

Yes, that’s right, the group that benefits the most from you having great systems and automation is the clients! Not because you can reduce their fee, don’t do this! But because you are less likely to make mistakes, less likely to waste their time on something that should be systemised, and it means you can spend your extra time serving them on things they really value rather than things that should be automated.

In order to test this theory think about buying a car from a second hand car dealership. If you went to a small family business you would get great customer service from someone who is probably the owner. He/she would make you feel welcome, talk to you about your day, and you would get served very well. Arnold Clark on the other hand will present you with a big bearded man who treats you questionably. Though all this is true, I personally would buy a car from Arnold Clark, simply because the time it takes them to give me 4 cars to test drive and then choose my perfect car is 5 times less than the family business! They have great systems. I recently bough one from Arnold Clark and I asked the sales man how much paper work he would have to do after a gave him my debit card, he said “5 minutes, it was 2 hours at my last job”.

It seems hard to increase efficiency, but there are some tried and tested ways of doing it.

1. Technology

a. Invoice collection software

This is a no-brainer now, you should be using Receipt Bank, Hubdoc, or something similar. You are actually under-serving clients if you aren’t. Have you ever tried to scan invoices to someone, it is annoying! Giving clients the ability to simply take a picture of an invoice or forward it on as they get them is beautiful.

Use the “invoice fetch” feature in Receipt Bank, it saves clients logging in to websites that don’t email them invoices.

b. Xero/Quickbooks

Again it goes without saying that you should have nearly all clients on cloud accounting software. If you don’t then make it a project and simply get it done.

c. Other software

You should have software automation in Proposals, Practice Management Software, and Project Management e.g. Trello.

2. Automation

There are a number of ways of increasing automation in your practice. We recommend using the app called Zapier. It works by connecting all your existing apps so that you can ensure the entire workflow is connected through all the apps. For example, getting a new lead through your website adds this to your CRM (customer relationship management software) automatically, and then this sends an email automatically to the potential client letting them know that you are here, care about them and you could even send a video so there is a face behind the company.

Talk to other firms to find out how they are automating Payroll software, to the Practice Manager, to Expenses (e.g. Expensify and Tripcatcher), to Cash flow forecasting (e.g. fluidity or fathom), to payments (e.g. GoCardless).

An Accountant is quickly becoming the central board of Advise for clients, including technology and automation. Introducing these into your own firm means that you have the authority to do the same in your client’s businesses. Don’t be afraid to make this move, the more you automate the more future-proof your practice will be.