Transitioning to Workflow for Your Accounting Firm
By jetpack workflow |
Updated on Dec 22, 2023 |
3 minutes
Transitioning to Workflow (from someone who doesn’t keep time, track time or bill for time and never will again)
Workflow is the most underutilized software in the accounting world and part of it is due to traditional firm management by timesheet.
Now even though I hate timesheets and believe you do not need them to run a successful firm, what I do think is missing from most practice management is workflow software.
Too many firms believe that is all they need to run a successful firm.
Wrong.
Workflow software will give you much better insight into the actual work that’s getting done in your firm.
Don’t worry. This post isn’t going to be about killing the timesheet. We can save that for another day.
Instead, I want to focus on managing without a timesheet or with one for extraneous information, if you absolutely won’t trash it.
One of the most important firm management tools then becomes workflow software.
At my firm, New Vision CPA Group, we have been on the path to find the perfect workflow software for almost 10 years and have tried many of the different products out there. I’m sure many of them have evolved since we have tried and shelved them, just because the world has evolved as well.
But why is workflow so important to a firm that doesn’t track time?
Simply put, because it tracks work.
It tells you where everything is, at any given moment.
Hello, management of work…not time. Isn’t that what our focus should be on?
Well, that and deadlines.
Add in a remote worker and now you can actually run a firm based on outputs, not time spent.
In the old days, you could walk around the office and see who had the biggest pile of files on their desk or floor. Today workflow software gives me the exact same insight without being a helicoptering managing partner.
Believe me, my team really appreciates this.
Now, I can do it just as discreetly like when you used to snoop around after your team members went home. I can see exactly where the piles are collecting and the bottlenecks are happening. And I can follow-up appropriately – especially when this person is a remote worker.
All a timesheet does is tell the partner the team member who spent too much time on a task, it doesn’t highlight what they are currently working on or what’s on their plate to finish. This is why firms need to adopt workflow software.
We currently use CCH Axcess Workstream for tax workflow management, and Jetpack Workflow for pretty much everything else: bookkeeping, quarterly reviews, and payroll. We chose to keep our tax workflow connected to our tax returns because in suite connectedness to prep, review, and e-file is important to me. However, we needed an additional solution for everything else and Jetpack fit those needs well.
The transition to utilizing workflow software is a fairly easy learning curve.
Think about it: it’s makes sense.
However, setup is critical to get the most out of your software. But more on that later. In the meantime, if you are looking for a better way to manage a firm and possibly getting rid of your timesheet, pick a workflow product to support managing work, not time. You’ll be better off in the long run.
Running an accounting firm can be a stressful, but very rewarding business. You get to help clients, deliver value, and...
See Jetpack Worflow In Action
Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.
By jetpack workflow |
Updated on Feb 12, 2024 |
1 minute
This week we’re excited to announce our integration with Outlook.com and Google calendar!
You can now pull in Outlook.com or google calendar events into Jetpack Workflow.
This is powerful in a few ways:
You can now have a 360 view of your upcoming week, all appointments, tasks, and jobs
If you schedule a time for a networking event, lunch, coffee, prospecting meeting (anything), you can pull that into Jetpack Workflow, then create a workflow using the templates to make sure you follow up with them appropriately
If you use a calendar scheduling tool like Calendly, Scheduleonce, Acuity, etc., any event that a client or a prospect books through that portal will auto pull into your Jetpack Workflow calendar
For Google Calendar users, you can click into the event to change the date or time, and move back into Jetpack’s calendar (unfortunately Outlook.com did not give us permission to have this functionality)
You can add your calendar by hovering over your name, and clicking “Settings”, then clicking “Integrations”.
A few months ago, we rolled out the Plan view, which was the first feature set of our Scale tier....
See Jetpack Worflow In Action
Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.
How To Get More Accounting Clients Using Your Website’s Blog
By jetpack workflow |
Updated on Dec 22, 2023 |
7 minutes
Matt Wilkinson, Founder of Bizink, knows websites and the steps to getting accounting clients with your content.
In the accounting world, most firms neglect the crucial step of building up their expertise on their site for potential clients to see. Matt started his company to change this. In this episode of Grow Your Firm Podcast by Jetpack Workflow Software, David Cristello and Matt Wilkinson discuss:
The one question to ask in order to write the absolute best content.
Writing better than your competition and getting accounting clients with your content
Matt Wilkinson, CEO of Bizink, has a slogan: “Making accountants incredible online.” Too many accounting firms don’t focus on their online presence and getting accounting clients with their content.
His company focuses on websites, content marketing, and online marketing. While every other industry adapts and fills their websites and social media with an abundance of relevant content, accounting firms continue to lag behind with archaic sites and a scarcity in the content department.
Matt saw an opportunity to help many firms get a jump on their competition with building out their sites and content.
In the past, many firms shied away from dumping thousands into new websites. But, today, many services make it much easier to put together a good looking website. (Jetpack runs on WordPress — one of the most popular website platforms).
They are so easy to set up now, you could probably have someone in-house do it for very cheap. Yet, that’s only the first (small) step. After that, you must fill in the website with information a prospective and current client would find helpful.
Most firms stumble on this step. Bizink continues to grow as they do the content work for various firms.
What content should I produce?
It’s unfortunate, in most advertisements and content nowadays, the “angle” of the piece centers around the company/firm. Matt discovered this is completely backwards. Your content should answer the problems and pain points of your top clients. Solve it for the business owner.
For example, many small businesses struggle with consistent cash flow. Your process for the content would center around “How can I stabilize their cash flow?”
Think about everything you’ve seen work with other clients plus from your own research.
Appeal on any emotional level!
For cashflow, go through every scenario running through a prospects mind — “How do I pay staff and myself consistently without running out of money? Will I stash enough away to afford a major surprise purchase?”—
Examples with cashflow to think about: What strategies do they need to use? 5 ways to get paid faster and boost your cash flow.
Write content that speaks directly to those issues. Don’t worry about the spelling, just get the content out there. Matt even recommends writing “quick, snappy posts” rather than long, drawn out pieces. Many longer pieces might be more loaded up with complete ideas, but you want your pieces to go after one idea quickly. This allows you to write more and more. Quantity matters in this instance especially as you start off.
Putting together the right content for your accounting firm:
Matt had a client who wrote a very specific post on a subject. That post shows up on top of Google again and again. As visitors drop in to view the article, more and more, they then became leads,and then clients.
The post sits on auto-pilot as visitors trickle in then become clients.
This is what you want to create. Content that resonates with your audience. It has massive potential.
DAVID’S TIP: David’s found you can create content without having to write long blog posts and without having to be a good writer. He recommends getting an intern from a local college. Then, sit down with an expert in your industry, interview them, get the intern to make notes enough to put it into a blog post. There, you don’t need to write or spend too much time locked behind a computer typing away.
Matt believes you need to just get content out there and on as many channels as possible. Don’t stress about “being clever” or having “perfect” content. Get it out there.
“Do some videos, they are faster. Use various media to engage various clients.”
While you create this informative catalogue, remember to use the correct keywords a prospect would type into Google. The right keywords get logged into Google Search. Whenever a website browser types in that keyword into Google, you could be the very first result. This is when you could get your own article that passively produces new, fresh leads.
You must also understand the mindset of a website visitor. According to Kissmetrics, 96% of B2B visitors to your site are just in the research phase. It makes sense. There’s a major shift into providing value and trust beforehand rather than jumping right into a sales pitch. Most of these visitors won’t be be ready to jump on a phone call, but you need to get them interested.
You must do it first and fast because only 20% of visitors to your site will ever come back.
The standard play to get someone to stick around is offer “FREE UPDATES” or just “SUBSCRIBE HERE.” Here, the visitor would give you their email so you can then follow up with them later on. In this case, Matt believes these are the absolute worst things to put on your site. You need to provide value upfront, and these common traps put on accounting firm sites don’t provide any sort of value.
Another terrible (but very common) move is to offer “FREE CONSULTATIONS.” In truth, the prospect is thinking, “Why waste time going through a sales pitch from someone who I don’t know if they understand my business?” You might think this is a valuable offer on your end, but prospects don’t see this.
Try this: offer a free content piece or ebook. Suddenly you’re extending value to the visitor. At that point, for them to get the content piece, they must give you their email. When the ebook value outweighs their desire to safeguard their email, you get leads. All on auto-pilot.
Going even deeper, when you specialize your firm towards a certain industry or service, you can make the content even more relevant to each audience.
After each content piece, make sure to email your clients. Matt recommends re-purposing your content again and again at conferences, in your FAQ, with new clients, etc..
Your best referrals will come from current clients. Keep them hooked.
Matt still sees major opportunities for local firms to take advantage of this. Most won’t. When you tap into the mind of a prospective client, you’ll never run out of content ideas ever.
How do you currently use content in your accounting firm?
Podcast Summary On this episode of Growing Your Firm, host David Cristello interviews Daniel Hood, the editor-in-chief of Accounting Today....
See Jetpack Worflow In Action
Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.
How to Find Your Accounting Firm Niche With Jody Jordan
By jetpack workflow |
Updated on Dec 22, 2023 |
4 minutes
Jody Jordan, Founder of a Firm with her namesake, jumped to start her own practice in 2014 and can show you what she did to find your niche in your accounting firm. She saw a unique trend in the marketplace that convinced her it was time to strike out on her own.
Jody Jordan, now the “Chief Number Cruncher” at her own Firm, started off as most – working in a variety of accounting practices (including one of the Top 30 in the US).
But, she wasn’t doing taxes and audit. She did client services.
She had a deep desire for a more flexible schedule and regularly clashed with her last firm in many ways. Then, she had a lightbulb moment. In the past, many who wanted to start their own firm needed to get office space, hire staff etc. Jody saw cloud accounting booming and business owners widely accepting it.
“I could work from a home office and get clients outside of my area.”
In June 2014, Jody left her job and opened up shop in her home. Suddenly, she went from a client services position to needing to serve business owners doing bookkeeping, invoicing, reconciling and more.
The 3 “unique” places she found clients:
Jody describes herself as “not a salesperson.” She wasn’t going to be cold-calling business owners for business. Instead, she found 3 interesting places.
Thousands of bookkeepers sign up on the Pro-advisor network, but rarely see results. Jody discovered she could tap into this platform. When clients leave you more reviews, you move up the rankings until you are the only likely choice for any prospective clients.
It doesn’t need to be daunting to get these reviews. When you provide tremendous value for your clients, they will be more than happy to provide you with a review. All you need to do is ask. Jody says she is a “shy” person, and asking for a review was much easier than she thought. Next, while she built up her client base, she attended many industry conferences. She connected with other business owners as often as possible.
“I realized I’m not competing with other CPAs, we feed off each other.”
After many meetings, she connected with many owners. Soon, these owners would call Jody and ask if she had capacity to take over work. Now, she’s contracting with large firms, gaining credibility, experience and building a revenue pipeline.
THE KEY:Network with other owners. They aren’t your competition. You can bounce ideas off each other and it might even lead to growing your revenues.
Lastly, Jody met the founder of AccountingLeap.com. Still in the beta phase, Jody was offered to be one of the small pool of beta testers. All from just her networking efforts and wanting to connect with other accounting professionals.
Finding your niche in your accounting firm:
Jody left her job because she saw the opportunities in accounting tech. She understood the tech out there many business owners could tap into.
“I wanted to bridge the gap between offline and online.”
That was the niche she specialized in: Business owners who want to update and automate their company with new technology. Using tech such as:
Bill.com
Expensify
Dropbox
Join.me
Hubdoc
If new clients come and aren’t open to using new tech and it causes a backup, Jody drops the client. When she first started, she went along with clients who weren’t open to her process. Now, no more.
It’s helped her grow and learn.
Even if you just started out in building your firm, there is a ton of value you can extract from this podcast with Jody. As of this writing, she’s only been in business a bit over 2 years. Building up your practice takes some creative thought and thinking outside of the box. Jody was open to many new opportunities and it contributed to her growth (even though she didn’t have a bookkeeping background).
If you had to start over, what strategies would you use to grow?
Podcast Summary On this episode of Growing Your Firm, host David Cristello interviews Daniel Hood, the editor-in-chief of Accounting Today....
See Jetpack Worflow In Action
Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.
By jetpack workflow |
Updated on Dec 22, 2023 |
1 minute
I wanted to send over a quick note to let you know about the latest feature inside of Jetpack Workflow …
Turn any email into a job!
Now you can forward (or simply email) anything into Jetpack.
When you send something to newjob@m.jetpackworkflow.com, it will
Turn the email subject line into a job name
Pull in the email content into the description
Whoever forwards the email in is the default assignee, the “due date” is always the date you forward it in (so you remember to either do it, or give it a proper due date)
You can watch the feature preview below
The forwarding address is newjob@m.jetpackworkflow.com
*Note: You must use the email address associated with your Jetpack Workflow account. You cannot forward messages with a document / pull in documents via email. This is schedule in our next update in regards to this feature!
A few months ago, we rolled out the Plan view, which was the first feature set of our Scale tier....
See Jetpack Worflow In Action
Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.
Ready to find out if workflow software is the right fit for your firm? Select the potential number of users at your company below to get started with your 14-day free trial.
