Organisation, time-management, tracking and progress is the backbone of any successful accountancy firm. Are you looking to make your practice more successful by increasing productivity and streamlining your essential processes? I donât think anyone would say no to that question! Here's an introduction to practice management software for accountants and why itâs beneficial to you and your firm.
What is Practice Management Software for Accountants?
Practice management is where you manage your clients' work. It is where you produce, collaborate, and track the progress of both upcoming and past work. Put simply, it is the management of daily operations to run your practice more efficiently.
Practice management software for accountants enables you to do this. Think of it as your administrative hub where you can:
- store and manage your client data
- manage your workflow
- manage your documents
- keep track of and manage your sales
- facilitate accounting, reporting, regulatory training and competence logs
- track your progress of both upcoming and previous work
- streamline your schedule for the whole firm
- communicate with your clients
- perform a plethora of other tasks
The resources within the club have been a lifesaver and saved me months of work
Itâs not just the flowcharts, checklists, plans or recordings from the clubâs resources which have helped our firm. Weâve sent members of our firm to the free workshops for members run by the club. They have been invaluable to help us bring team members along the journey that the firm is currently on.
The amount of resources, assistance and advice has been nothing short of mind-blowing
Within a month of joining the club we have:
- Attracted a client who have committed to fee just shy of ÂŁ500 per month that we would have historically charged ÂŁ200 per month
- Have proposals out there that would more than double our clients paying over ÂŁ300 per month including one where; subject to acceptance, would be in excess of ÂŁ1,000 per month
So accounting practice management software is where you manage the âback-officeâ of your accountancy practice in its entirety. If executed well, it can easily become a highly effective and integrated one-stop resource. One where you can take complete control of what needs to be done and by whom. Imagine never having a task slip your mind or never missing another client deadline again? This is what practice management software does. It allows you to take everything out of your head and organise it all in one place. You'll be ready to delegate, manage, and actually get the tasks done.
Essential note! There are 5 things you need to do BEFORE you invest in Practice Management Software for your firm. Click on the blog post (or risk wasting time and money)
Why your firm needs Practice Management Software for Accountants (the benefits!)
What is the benefit that comes with getting organised, mapping out workflow, and automation? You guessed it, it saves you valuable time. Itâs the same for practice management software. A firm in which all tasks are managed on one system, will spend less time on administrative tasks than before. This means they can spend more time on tasks of higher value than a firm that hasnât. Which do you think is getting more bang for their buck?
As well as gaining time, removing many of the manual processes in your firm gives you many other benefits too such as:
Enhanced practice efficiency
Accounting workflow software eliminates several office tasks, such as manual billing and the plethora of paperwork! It increases efficiencies and improves processes that are essential to the running of the firm.
Practice efficiency is greatly enhanced as the software streamlines three key areas:
- Highlighting your upcoming client tasks, deadlines, and general workload at a glance;
- Providing you with an overview of all the services you provide for each client;
- Breaking down client jobs into manageable chunks which you can then delegate to different team members.
Enhanced productivity
Having one central system, where workflow is managed and all documents and data can be accessed by the team, is an extremely powerful productivity tool. Why? The answer is two-fold:
- Information can be shared easily among staff and in real-time which significantly improves communication, and;
- Operations are streamlined so that staff can carry out tasks more efficiently and effectively.
Increased profitability
If you have great practice management, you will be able to work efficiently and more productively which means bigger margins and a healthier cash flow for your practice.
The bottom line is that efficiency gains and process improvement mean that less time is spent on administrative tasks. This means more time for high-value tasks such as bringing in new business. What tasks should you be spending more time on?
Increased scalability
Scaling your business is hard without great practice management because you canât improve and grow if you donât know what mistakes you are making. Only when you know what areas are particularly wasteful when it comes to your time can you make the improvements that will enable your practice to grow and develop.
Scalability is greatly enhanced as the software allows you to:
- Measure key performance indicators such as financial and operational performance,
- Gain actionable insights and opportunities related to profitability, revenue cycle, costs or productivity from reports,
- Better understand, track, and improve the performance of your practice over time,
- Use the data to help grow your practice in a sustainable way.
Increased competitiveness
One accountant canât produce a âbetterâ tax return than the person down the road so how do accountants and bookkeepers compete? Itâs all about the quality of service, relationships, and expertise.
With great practice management, accountants can differentiate themselves; they can organise their workflow, increase their efficiency, and better manage their clients which are all needed to be able to deliver exceptional client service.
Read: Practice Management vs CRM â what does the small growing accountancy practice really need?
If we havenât highlighted the need for practice management software enough, find out what caused us to put in place a new practice management system in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis.
Propel your practice forward
Organisation, time-management, tracking, and progress are key to growing a sustainable accountancy practice. Hopefully, from the list of key benefits listed here, you can see that practice management software can help you do just that.
Practice management for accountants allows you to organise your workflow to run your practice efficiently. It also allows you to scale your practice too. So ask yourself - if having a simple software that will save you time, help you manage all your clients, and increase your profits, all of which can propel your practice forward - wouldnât you say this was worth it?
Ideally, practice management software should integrate seamlessly within your practice, be easy to navigate, and not cost a fortune. Thatâs not always the case⌠Read our blog to choose the right software for your practice: Which is best for a small accountancy firm? Best of breed vs âdoes everythingâ Practice Management Software
Download our Practice Management Software Cheatsheet (email required) in it you will discover:
- The 5 things you need to do BEFORE investing in a practice management system
- Whether best-of-breed is better than all-in-one for your practice