With the demand for business advisory services, automation, client relationship management, and keeping up to date with industry standards on the rise, the need to streamline your processes has never been more integral to managing a successful accounting firm. The key to creating an efficient workflow lies within embracing technology, team collaboration, secure partnerships, and finding the right client portals that work best for you so that you can spend more time maximising your output and designing new services that help your firm grow.
To begin, you must view your existing workflow through a critical lens. Ensuring you’re able to take a subjective stance on your original processes allows for improvements while being able to tweak existing protocols. From there, you can collaborate with your team to provide feedback as to how they would like their workflow streamlined. Once you’ve gathered all relevant information, it’s time to discover how the following tips can assist to make sure your workflow is running smoothly and operating at an optimal pace.
Automation has a multitude of benefits when it comes to streamlining your workflow. A recurring issue within the accounting industry is the time consuming task of onboarding new clients. Whether you’re using AI to create welcome emails for new clients, or to gather data using online forms, the ability to create new connections is easier than ever. The onboarding process can be completely automated, giving you more time back to develop stronger client professional relationships.
There are now opportunities to use automation to manage receipts, bookkeeping tasks, document signing, emails, organisation of documents - the list goes on. Many accountants use AI to craft emails, apps to document receipts like DEXT that can link up with accounting software, and e-signature for document signing. There is a wealth of automated software available that, when considered for your specific workplace, can be easily implemented within your workflow.
The most valuable ideas usually come from collaborating with your team to exchange viewpoints, allowing you the opportunity to show that you value your staff’s ideas and feedback. The key is to create a safe space for your team to express what they feel has and has not been working for their workflow and receive that feedback with an open mind. Encourage solution-based thinking and take a pragmatic approach to solving problems in collaboration with your team to make sure concerns are taken on board while working with them to design a new outlook.
Once you’ve gathered feedback from your team, the next step will be to brainstorm together so that all workflows are optimized for the individual. While some team members would value using the latest technology to boost their workflow, others may appreciate older processes that work for them. Using educational tools and training your staff to upskill their technological knowledge can help when motivating reluctant staff to change their outlook to ensure a smoother procedure and structured workflow.
If you’re finding that you and your staff’s existing workflow features running out of time to complete tasks, lack of motivation for compliance work, or perhaps you’re looking to extend your services to include business advisory - partnering with a trusted team of accounting professionals could provide an effective solution.
The key is to partner with an outsourcing company that will act as an extension of your own team, ensuring secure exchange of information while learning your individual and specific workflow. With current recruitment challenges across the Australian accounting industry, choosing a trusted outsourcing partner can assist in designing an offshore staff that aids in the process you would usually have to undertake in searching, hiring, and retaining staff that are unavailable. If the goal is to streamline your workflow, a reliable outsourcing team can provide a customisable and creative option.
Creating an uncomplicated and accessible option for your clients by using portals is an attractive way to ensure your workflow remains smooth and allows your client to have an online resource at their fingertips. Whether your client is looking to share documents, upload receipts, file share, or engage with online communication tools - all of this serves to improve customer service and workflow.
A recent Accounting Talent Index Report found that nearly 70% of accounting firms struggle with document collection, leading to compliance risks and disruptions in workflow. In order to mitigate this risk, client portals can be a great option if you’re looking to avoid skipping important deadlines, wasted time on repetitive tasks, missing documents, and costly delays. Content Snare, Sharefile, and Moxo are some options that are popular within the industry although it’s best to research which portal would work best for you and your clients.
