professional accounting – Page 3 – Cooper Mann Consulting

October 15, 2012May 23, 2017

Working Online With Clients: How to leverage the internet and cloud computing to work closer with your clients

When it comes to using technology and the Internet to work closer with bookkeeping and consulting clients, it is important to recognize that there is never only one way to accomplish something, and different clients will have equally different ideas on and tolerances for how you work with them. In order to serve each and every client to the best of your ability, you have to carry around a “toolbox” of solutions and services which will assist you in delivering the most effective and efficient service in each situation and under each set of conditions. While you must do what you can to streamline and standardize your processes to be as efficient as possible while delivering a high level of service, but you can only work within the parameters allowed by each client and circumstance.

I think we can all agree that, whenever possible, it is wise to avoid situations where you have to get in the car and drive somewhere just to pick up information or paperwork. These are the activities which are most costly in terms of time and resources. Using file sharing solutions, such as DropBox or ShareFile, is a great way to get documents from clients. That is, if the documents are in electronic form already. If not, then either scanning the files and saving to the Dropbox or web folder, or faxing them to a service such as eFax, is the process.

Sometimes Internet connectivity is the issue. Using a fax-to-email solution like eFax takes that out of the picture, in terms of getting documents and other paperwork from the client. But let’s face it… there is no good way to electronically exchange or share QuickBooks or other computer data files safely and quickly unless the client has broadband Internet access. You can always go back to dialup modems and connect using the old version of PCAnywhere, the way we did it years back, or you can recognize that sometimes you just have to get in the car and bring a USB drive with you.

Internet-based remote control solutions, such as LogMeIn, provide you with the ability to connect your computer directly to the client computer in order to perform tasks on their system and with their data. This is a better approach than going to the client office and doing the work there, but it doesn’t address a situation where both you and the client need to be working at the same time. If you are controlling their computer, you take over the workstation while you are connected, which prevents the client from doing independent work while you are doing your job. The better option is to use a solution that allows you to both work at the same time, even when connecting to the same computer. MyQuickCloud does this. MyQuickCloud is a remote access solution that can be applied as both a remote access and remote working solution. It is better than remote control because it can allow many users at the same time to connect to the computer and run applications.

In some cases, working online with the client may mean working in the same applications and data files by accessing a centralized online solution, such as QuickBooks Online Edition or hosted QuickBooks (QB Online and hosted QuickBooks are not the same thing). When both people (the client and the accountant/bookkeeper) have access to the same programs and data files in real-time, it allows them to work together more closely yet at times and from locations which work for the individuals. This arrangement works quite well when the accounting professional and the client can both serve their requirements with the same software solution. If the client uses QuickBooks to perform their daily tasks, the bookkeeper and accountant are able to simply log in and use the same solution to perform their work.

A model which more people are beginning to recognize as valuable is the model where each user or functional area in the business has the solution which works best for them, and the various solutions in the business each integrate and share data as necessary. For an accountant or bookkeeper working with a small business, this may mean that the software or solution used by the client to handle their daily tasks is different from the solution used by the accounting professional to do their job. Just as a tax preparer will use accounting data to prepare a tax return using a tax preparation solution, accountants may use transactional or financial data from other systems to perform accounting functions in an accounting software solution. As long as the data is easily accessed, via built-in integration or sync tools, it makes a lot of sense to give each user a solution designed to meet their process needs because they will use the solution more effectively. Giving a user way too much functionality can be confusing, and expose them to areas of business activity or information they should not have access to (or which is meaningless to their job) can waste time and introduce risk.

Examples of this approach might be where a small business owner uses FreshBooks accounting to manage their daily invoicing, but the information is then exported to and integrated into QuickBooks financial software, where the accountant or bookkeeper handles the rest of the business accounting functions. Another example may be when services such as Bill.com, TSheets, Expensify, Concur, and other “point” solutions are in use. These web-based solutions provide specific functionality, such as bill payments and approvals, employee timesheet management and reporting, expense management, and more. They make it easier for the client to handle certain functions and address related information management and reporting needs, and facilitate the data integration with core accounting and finance. In many cases, this approach delivers not only more relevant functionality and process support for the business users, and still allows the accounting professional to do their work with the tools which work for them.

Providing a high level of service to your client while embedding as much efficiency in your processes as possible can be a challenge for any outsourced accounting or bookkeeping professional. Your profitability and the goodwill you develop with your client depend on finding the best way to engage and deliver on the promise of great service. Your toolkit – the connected services and solutions you leverage to this task – can positively impact the “degree of success” you experience with each client or project.

Make Sense?

September 27, 2012January 2, 2018

Accounting Professionals: It’s Good To Be Sticky

You’re a professional services provider, perhaps an accountant. Your client is a growing business, and they came to you to prepare the corporate tax return. After several years of faithfully performing this service for your client, you send them the annual email reminding them to bring in the information to get this year’s return completed. When they don’t respond, you call them. And find out that the tax return was completed by another accountant this year, the accountant who took over the bookkeeping. “But we could have done that for you, too”, you say. But now it’s too late, and the client has a different accountant. Consider it an opportunity lost, along with the client.

Is this something you run in to fairly frequently, losing clients to others who provide substantially the same services as you do? It happens to the best of firms, and the secret to keeping it from happening is to be sticky – delivering the services which securely attach the client to your firm – and provide the ongoing value that your business clients can’t do without.

The first place to create stickiness is in your service offering. One-time or annual projects (like tax returns and audits) don’t keep you in front of your client often enough for them to think of you daily, and daily (or at least frequently) is how often you want them to think of you. As the business owner faces daily decisions, do they consider calling you for advice or insight? If not, then you probably aren’t delivering the value, or the sticky service, which will tie your practice to the client for the long-term. Daily bookkeeping, or helping the client keep their books in order, is a valuable service that most small businesses need. While your firm may not be realty interested in performing or supporting the business bookkeeping, it is important to recognize that this level of work allows the firm to be more intimately involved with client business processes, providing a great deal more insight and understanding into client operations than through an annual tax interview. By attaching your firm to the daily activities of helping to account for business activities, you elevate your position from an occasional service provider to a consultant whose advice is sought after on a regular basis. You are now in a position to understand better what areas of business may need focus and attention, and have placed yourself as a trusted advisor who can help determine the best course of action in any given situation.

The other, critical element to being sticky is to make sure your clients know what you can do for them. Don’t assume that each of your clients knows what service or value you can offer them (you know what happens when you assume, right?). You have to tell them; spell it out and thoroughly communicate the variety of ways your firm can help them. Just because you’re an accountant, you should not assume the client will ask you to help them with various business issues. Often, a business owner will face a challenge and not know who to turn to. Seeking out the assistance of specialty consultants is a standard approach, as is turning to IT contractors, software consultants, attorneys, or other service providers. Why not you? Did they know you were available to help with this? If they didn’t call you, then they probably didn’t think this was a service you provide.

Accounting professionals serving business clients must not only make their range of services known, but should also actually ask for the additional business from those clients. Only through consistent exploration and value building, asking the client if services offered might be valuable to them and demonstrating how those services have benefitted others, will the firm begin to make the impact necessary to keep the client coming back, and coming back for more.

When the client comes back for more, you know you’re getting sticky. That’s a good thing.

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September 20, 2012September 11, 2013

Be the McDonald’s of Professional Service

The Progressive Accountant

You run a professional services firm, perhaps an accounting firm. You have a wide variety of clients with a wide variety of needs, but the services you offer are relatively standardized. You provide tax return preparation, bookkeeping and financial statements.

What’s not standardized is how you approach each client need, and how you work with each client. You treat each engagement as a one-off, dealing with the client (and the client information) in a manner that suits the client at that time. While this sounds like a great approach, lending itself to a high level of personalization, the underlying result is inefficiency, lack of standards, and a very limited ability to improve your internal profitability.

What you need is a machine – to be the McDonald’s of professional services – delivering consistent and predictable service to your client community. Your service quality doesn’t have to be in the realm of “fast food”, but the point is that you should be using a standards-based approach and applying the same tools and methods to each engagement in a consistent and repeatable manner. You’ll rapidly find that a great many of your clients will eagerly adapt, and begin to embrace and take advantage of the tools you provide to them. For your firm, the result is more predictable performance and increased profitability.

As an example, let’s say that your firm is “tooled up” to provide services using Internet or cloud services. You have a client portal where you can store and share files with clients, and you have mechanisms for securely emailing files and documents to clients as well. Your goal is to get your clients to use the online portal to exchange information with your firm, enabling somewhat of a “self service” model. But many of your clients won’t log in to the portal, and require you to use email to send/receive files and information.

The right approach here is to use the portal no matter what. This is a key element to the success of your overall approach –the strength of your standardized processes. And it’s important to remember that it isn’t a process if you don’t do it the same way every time. Even if your clients don’t use the portal for data exchange, you should still encourage it and put the documents there. Now, you’ll still likely do the email thing – it’s always a good idea to have at least two paths of communication. But if you consistently use the portal as a standard method of making data available for your clients, many of those non-portal users may become users simply because they find that the convenience of any time/anywhere access really works for them. Sometimes it takes letting folks get used to things, but once they do, it becomes second nature and almost an expectation. Once these clients have adopted your standard portal approach, what else can you introduce to them to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the engagement?

You need to help make your firm as efficient and profitable as possible, and to have a quality product (or service) produced every time. Henry Ford’s assembly line is where you start. Create the machine that is the operational level of your business, and establish the tools and standards that will allow for sustainable growth and success.

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Article originally published via The Progressive Accountant

August 23, 2012August 27, 2019

Accounting Online and Outsourced Accounting – Focus on Enabling Your Client

Accounting professionals and those involved in business bookkeeping and accounting service delivery have been literally bombarded with messages about “taking your practice to the cloud” and “working closer with clients using the cloud”, but what does all this really mean for the average professional practitioner? Does it mean that the software and processes already established in the practice need to be replaced? Does it mean that accounting professionals need to get all of their clients into online applications? Are the tools used by the professional practice obsolete? These are all valid questions, and are issues not always addressed in the marketing messages of the various “solution” providers. The complexity exists with the variety of tools and solutions most professionals use in servicing their business clients, and no single-solution cloud service is able to adequately address this variety. As a result, many professionals are either trying to assemble their own toolkits through an expensive and frustrating process of trial-and-error, or are avoiding adoption of new technologies altogether.

There are a lot of ways to “enable” a professional practice, focusing on the technologies and applications supporting efficient and profitable service delivery. The key in selecting the right tools to support the practice is to fairly evaluate the nature of services to be delivered, and understanding how and where in those processes the firm and the client “touch”. It is in the interaction – of people, data and systems – where better technology-supported collaboration with the client should be established. In many cases, this means focusing on improving the client system and the accounting process will benefit as a result.

Processes which are entirely internal to the practice must certainly be evaluated and improved, but the initial problem – the new area of focus – is in how the firm and the client work together. The needs in this area will necessarily drive adjustments to internal processes, which is to be expected. Most practitioners have already established their methods of dealing with clients, workloads, paper and software that have been around for a while. It is the new client demand – to get more benefit from existing providers and solutions – which must be addressed.

For example, there was once a need to obtain bank statements and cancelled checks in order to balance a bank account. This caused many accounting firms to develop a standard process of sending someone to the bank each month to pick up the paper statements and documents for client accounts, so that the bookkeeping could be done and accounts reconciled. With the advent and acceptance of online banking tools, the process for most accountants has been adjusted to where the bank activity data is simply downloaded and integrated into the company accounting information, rather than transported in the form of paper documents which are then keyed in as data. This simple example of “enabling” the client accounting system to interact with the bank resulted in benefits to the accountant processes, and caused beneficial changes to be made in the internal process of the firm (no more driving to the bank, timely access to bank data, more accurate data due to single-entry of information). While the client likely doesn’t care how the books get done, they do care about the information being timely, complete and accurate. Thusly is the accountant value increased through the simple use of a readily available technology.

As accounting and finance professionals look to find ways to deliver greater value to their business clients, they would be wise to explore how and why they interact with those clients and understand what is missing – what more can be done – to support and advise those client business owners. By focusing on helping the client “tool up” their enterprises to support more efficient and profitable operation, professionals will find that the resultant benefit is more consistent and streamlined access to client data. Enabling the client, in many ways, is enabling the firm.

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August 21, 2012

Online Accountants and Their Clients: Working Smarter, or just Closer?

There are a wide variety of ways to work closer with your clients, and the thing that you will always want to remember is that “one size does not fit all”. In other words, not every client will like using your favorite technology or software, and not every business owner will recognize your suggestions as solutions, because perhaps they did not recognize the problem in the first place. But that’s OK, and perhaps how it should be. You see, using the right tool for any given situation is the proper approach, rather than trying to shoehorn everyone into the same solution or method. With a client-centric approach, you can still develop consistent internal processes to keep your service delivery as efficient as possible, because many of the core services you provide are consistent across the client base regardless of the solution in use. The trend is to help your client work smarter, and it will bring you closer to the client than ever before.

Determining what is right for each job or task should be part of your value, whether it’s deciding how to connect remotely with your client, or helping your client find the right software system to support their tasks, with you ensuring that the integration to the accounting system is there and working properly. Where the focus was once placed on accurate data entry, now it’s on placing the proper solution in front of the user, and through the use of the solution to perform their various tasks, the necessary data is collected. Accounting professionals should recognize that the collection of information in real time facilitates better business decision making, and that they can be instrumental in delivering this decision support resource to their client.

As an example, I know the owner of a small construction business. This guy runs around with estimates, invoices, receipts, and other paperwork in his truck, and getting him to stop long enough for his bookkeeper to collect all that paper from the truck cab is one of the hardest and most annoying jobs she has. Her focus is on collecting the paper and then entering the data and getting invoices and reports out. The accountant is frequently requesting more information or clarification of data, as well as the information necessary to meet various reporting deadlines. Even after implementing QuickBooks accounting in the office for this business, the ultimate problem wasn’t solved. Certainly, the information is better-organized and accounted for once collected and entered, but the business owner still lacks timely information about the performance of his business, and sees little additional value in his accountants participation beyond the annual tax return.

On the other hand, I know another guy (landscaping this time) who has an accountant that has him use his phone to record just about everything he does as he does it. He bids a job, and sends it via email. He gets paid for a job, then snapshots a copy of the check and deposits it. Buying equipment or supplies? Sure, but electronic payment and approval tools let him track that as it happens, too (again, snapshot a copy of that receipt, etc.). For this business owner, there is more business going on because less time is being spent doing the paperwork of business. The bookkeeper in the office has the information necessary to keep things up to date, and can focus on how to streamline things even better. The accountant has a much higher quality of information – faster – upon which to advise the client (which he has time to do, because he’s not cleaning up bookkeeping data or collecting information for reports and returns). This business owner sees much more value in the participation by his accountant, because real issues are able to be identified and addressed in time to make a difference.

So, for today’s accounting professional, bookkeeper or consultant: is the idea of “working closer” with your client simply the concept of working remotely on the same systems at any given time, or is it to know more about their business and to help them do business better?

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August 10, 2012

Success in the Finance Department: Better Data and Analysis

CFOs and corporate controllers are beginning to recognize the increased value they can deliver to the organization when they take a more holistic and comprehensive approach to data reporting and analysis. The key is in delegation of duties, and establishing the controls and connections which ensure proper (and complete) flow of information throughout the enterprise. The finance department can easily become overburdened if not structured properly, but can be as easily undervalued if the sole focus is getting the numbers right.

An article on CFO.com discusses some of the elements of structuring the finance department for greater success, and identifies the value of taking a proactive, consultative and analytical approach to business finance.

“For a CFO, “success is not just about getting the numbers right, but also uncovering the story behind the numbers: taking raw accounting information and creating cogent and compelling management discussion and analysis,” says Eileen Kamerick, managing director and CFO at investment bank Houlihan Lokey.

Those who take the big picture into account are more likely to develop an organizational structure that isn’t merely reactive. That will allow staff to come up with more ideas and, ultimately, help drive revenue and run the business. “You have to create an organization so you aren’t in the engine all the time,” Kamerick notes.”

This is a great article… read the entire post on CFO.com here

You’ll find that it makes sense.