Podcast

How to Retain Millennial Accountants in Today’s Firms

By jetpack workflow | Updated on Dec 27, 2023 | 7 minutes

Deb Defer, the Managing Director of Business Services and Outsourcing at BDO, sees how hard it is to retain millennial accountants in today’s fast pace society.

The older generation blames the millennials, millennials blame the older generation. It’s a back-and-forth battle that may not end for another decade or two. Deb isn’t here to make waves, she’s here to help older partners retain the future of their firms.

In this episode of the Growing Your Firm Podcast, David Cristello and Deb Defer dive into:

How to retain millennial accountants in today’s firms
The best way to project manage a client and develop solutions so to do your most efficient work
Her viewpoints on the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

How to Solve Your Client’s Problems Right Now:

Deb Defer, Managing Director at Business Services and Outsourcing at BDO (one of the largest firms in the US) was a Top 100 ProAdvisor in 2016 and 2017. Part of the reason she got there was she knows how to take care of her clients.

At BDO, they have branches for assurance and tax. Now, they’re growing out their consulting side and Deb gets to spearhead that. With her job, she gets to build relationships with future clients and also gets to study the new technologies bubbling up. 20% of her work is project-based. Here she is discovering client problems and designing solutions that she then helps implement.

This has made her an expert in solving your client’s problems right now.

Her best piece of advice is somewhat a gut punch…she recommends taking a ‘listening course.’ While we like to think clients all need what you’re selling, it’s not so. The very first skill you should build is understanding where your client is at this moment, then what does the client understand about their own business. After that, they need to know how to utilize systems to get better.

Notice, none of what was listed has anything to do with talking about your services or firm.

What may seem like common knowledge for you, isn’t for your clients. Deb reports 32% of business owners have little to no automation in their business. That’s 1/3 of businesses in the country that need help implementing solutions.

DAVID’S TIP: It’s tempting to think ‘inward’ when developing solutions, but really, to solve your client’s problems, you need to look ‘outwards.’

Deb’s admitted she learned these valuable tips from mistakes she’s made herself.
Her steps to begin a client relationship and listening go like this:

Ask: “What are your pain points?” — listen to the answer without trying to solve them
Ask: “What do you feel is keeping your business from moving forward this year?”
Ask: “What’s keeping you up at night?”
Know that it takes time to get comfortable asking these questions and listening without judging

How to Develop the Right Solution for Your Client:

There’s an easy way to uncover the right solution for your client after you actively listened.

First, Deb shares a story. She had a woman walk up to her and ask about helping with the lady’s daycare she ran. This woman needed a timestamp for each child to report to a state program. The problem was: this woman was doing it all manually and it was hard to organize. Parents had to sign things…it was a mess. Deb didn’t know a specific system, but she had a software in mind that she recommended. Turns out, the software was a perfect fit.

Now, the moral of this story is the answer to developing the right solution for your client…KNOW THE END RESULT BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING.

If the woman asked “how do I manage a daycare?” She would’ve received much different recommendations than if she had a specific result in mind. That specific result focuses your search for a solution to problems. Too many times, we get sucked down rabbit holes thinking we have a solution when it doesn’t address the main pain points.

Define the pain point…define the ideal outcome before you do anything.

This approach might be most prudent when it comes to finding out how to retain millennial accountants in today’s firms.

How to Retain Millennial Accountants in Today’s Firms

Deb works at BDO…one of the largest firms in the US. She gets a good view of all the talent that comes in then goes out. Millennials right now are the talk of the town as they don’t seem to stick around much.

Deb reports 60% of millennials are looking to jump jobs right now. 21% have already changed jobs in the past year. Most will have 4 jobs by the time they’re 32.

This goes without saying…the job market has shifted incredibly in the past 20 years. Loyalty to a job and firm is thinner than ever in history.

Deb starts with an obvious misconception: Millennials are packing their bags due to money. They may claim it is, but that’s not the main issue.

Here’s what they need…they need to feel their work makes a difference. To start, you need to give them the equipment that will help them succeed. If they feel they don’t have the right tools, they’ll become unhappy fast. Make sure you’re giving praise as tasks are completed. In accounting, it’s easier to stay stuck in only looking at the ‘wrong’ things done. Mention the right things done correctly.

Business owners run into problems because they don’t understand the millennial talent pool. These are the future of your firm. You can’t go wrong investing in new processes and products, but ultimately, the people will pull your firm through the hard times.

Millennials need to feel they are improving and learning at their work. It’s tempting now to avoid hiring them as the average is to spend $5,000-$8,000 the first year of a new hires tenure. Don’t shortcut on those training dollars, Deb recommends.

At BDO, they have “BDO U” which is an online locker of courses and ways to gain educational credit. They can get leadership training, new management training and more.

They also get access to a career advisor. These advisors provide checkpoints along the way. Having this open communication is important to millennials as it gives them a hope for a better future plus they feel they’re in charge of their destiny.

It’s not easy by any means. It also doesn’t mean to entirely ‘cater’ to the new generation. But it would be prudent to accept that things will change.

You must be ready to accept them when they do or else risk becoming obsolete.

Artificial Intelligence (AI):

We will touch on this briefly as Deb discusses it during the interview.

Deb believes AI is coming fast into the accounting world. Those who don’t adapt will die. Lack of embracing change can be a struggle for sure.

However, Deb reports that 90% of the data in the world has been created in the last 2-3 years. Machines are going to be helping us. It will be the norm in the next 10 years.

To help with the volume of data, you’ll need to uncover the right tools that will help you analyze said-data most efficiently.

Make sure you look for tools with the end in mind.

If you want to talk more with Deb yourself, send her an email at ddefer@bdo.com.

She will also be speaking at “Scaling to New Heights” in 2018. Check her out there.

Product Updates

New Release: New Jobs List

By jetpack workflow | Updated on Dec 27, 2023 | 2 minutes

Today we’re excited to announce the release of an updated Jobs List inside of Jetpack Workflow!
In addition to an improved design, the Jobs List contains a number of improvements and updates we think you’re going to love:

Permalinks are now available so you can share specific views of information with colleagues or bookmark them for easy viewing later on, like all the jobs for a client, or what work your team has on its plate due today
Updated Mass Edit screens which allow you to more easily mass update fields in different jobs, including the new ability to set a field to its default or blank value
Access the client details page for each client in the Jobs List for easy reference to Documents, Notes or other details
Navigate your Jobs List using keyboard shortcuts to quickly move around your results, open jobs or clients and mark jobs as complete

Of course, familiar features like powerful filters, job and client search and column sorting is still present to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.
To get you familiar with the new Jobs List, we’ve also created a short walkthrough video that highlights a few of the improvements:

https://youtu.be/dS9WiuYbSjE

You may recognize a lot of similarities between the Jobs List and the Client Profile. Over the next several months, we’ll be updating other areas of Jetpack Workflow and moving towards a consistent experience across the system. Stay tuned for more exciting updates in the future!
As always, we welcome your feedback about these changes. Take a look and let us know what you think!

Accounting Workflows

How One Tool Can Give You An Extra Week Of Vacation!

By jetpack workflow | Updated on Dec 27, 2023 | 5 minutes

I don’t normally do this…

But, recently, I got on the phone with a new user of Jetpack Workflow’s workflow software. His name is Tom Kneeland, he is the Founder and President of Kneeland CPA.
After speaking with him…I realized he managed to squeeze out an “extra week of vacation” using Jetpack Workflow.

Let me explain.

Tom’s firm is like many others. He does tax-planning, sets up S-corps, punches new clients into the software, and does the normal tax and bookkeeping.

Up to now, he told me “I’ve used them all” when it comes to software. He’s specifically talking about practice management software. Frankly, he’s spent years cobbling together different apps… piecing them together like a Rube Goldberg machine.

It was taking him about 80 hours per tax season only to manage all the old clients, new clients, double-checking all the work was done, triple-checking the hours were punched-in correctly…the whole nine yards. Everything a typical firm owner does with practice management, he was doing it.

But, it was taking forever.

He claims by using Jetpack, he was able to save “half to two-thirds” of that time. That’s a pretty big testimonial.
Over 80 hours, that’s up to 53 hours saved with one tool.

And that’s a big deal for a busy firm owner. For Tom, he believes having templates and sequencing is the ‘secret sauce’ to an efficient firm. After all, as accountants, we spend most of our time doing repetitive tasks.

With Jetpack, Tom says he’s now doing these tasks “much faster than we’ve ever done.” And that’s incredible to hear. It used to be that employees would groan when a new referral walked thru the door. Not because they didn’t want the business, but because it was a headache to set up a new client.

Inside Jetpack, it’s easy to set up new clients. Tom says it takes 15 minutes now compared to an hour or so before.

The reason it took him so long was because of his duct-taped approach. It’s not his fault, there just aren’t enough good solutions out there for accountants.

What Tom Used Before:

Here are ones he mentioned.

CCH
Asana
BigTime
TSheets
CarbonHQ

They all worked as they should but ‘fell short’ in his needs for his firm..

Jetpack worked well for his firm because it had all the features he and his team wanted. “This separates you from the others” , he told me. Again, it’s not the other solutions were terrible.

But, as Tom told me, if you can’t trust the products you have, you have to start manually checking things. That’s what was taking so much time for Tom. He had software he didn’t trust.

For example, one tool had time-tracking. But, he kept seeing discrepancies that he couldn’t trust the program anymore. At that point, it becomes obsolete to even use it anymore.

In another software that managed client workflow, he was having to physically print out the sheets, use a ruler, and go line-by-line to make sure everyone was there and accounted for.

Pretty nuts to hear this in 2018.

Tom is still working Jetpack into his firm, but he’s happy with it so far. He still is planning to use our invoice function, he just hasn’t set it up yet. And that’s ok.

You can start a trial of Jetpack and test out 1-2 features at first before moving your entire practice management into it. You aren’t just reading some literature and hoping you’re picking the right product.

With Jetpack, I give you 14 free days to try it out, plus you get a demo.

HERE IS YOUR FREE TRIAL OF JETPACK.

With the trial, you could be like Tom and save dozens of hours. You might even free up enough time to go on an extended vacation.
Don’t worry if you’re not a ‘techie’ or love talking about new apps. Jetpack can work right now and it’s easy interface is quick and painless to navigate.

Tom’s Future:

I asked Tom what his goals were going forward. He wants to:

Continue bringing in clients through referrals
Focus on workflow and efficiencies

By accomplishing these goals, he hopes for more work/life balance and to sharpen his efficiency tools. He loves tech. He worked in it in his other firms before jetting off by himself.

He believes if you can advise clients on the right tech, you provide a major service to them.

His free time also allowed him to reconnect with clients over the phone or coffee…even during tax season! Many were surprised he took the time out during busy season.

That can go a long way.

As for improvements he hopes to see in Jetpack, he’d love to see reporting improvements.

I love getting feedback like that.

Do you have anything you’d like to see in Jetpack? Shoot me an email at david@jetpackworkflow.com.

That email goes right to me, the CEO, not a secretary. I read every personal email and would love your thoughts.
Thanks Tom for being a new customer.

If you’re interested in trying out Jetpack for your firm risk-free…here’s a special link to get you started.

Accounting Firm Tips

Solving the Pricing Problem for Accounting Firms

By jetpack workflow | Updated on Dec 27, 2023 | 11 minutes

Solving the Pricing Problem for Accounting Firms

This chapter preview comes from the Double Your Accounting Firm book (Amazon)

Janice’s firm was in a rut. They were gaining new clients, but had a hard time maintaining profitability. It struck him as odd, as this 30-year-old accounting firm hadn’t changed much in their practice. They continued to have a similar size staff and good client growth, so what was causing the drop in profits?

At their monthly C-level meeting, Janice asked his technology lead why, given all the improvements in their technology infrastructure, profitability was actually going down.

Upon digging into the numbers, and—most critically—talking with staff, he realized one thing:

Staff was incentivized to get maximum billable hours without going over budget, so they commonly skipped work or duplicated the tools that were automating their practice.

Your profits ride on whether your team members are willing to sit at their desk just a bit longer. In today’s climate as a CPA, it doesn’t need to be this way. You simply can’t afford it.

If Janice’s story resonates with you, you’re not alone. The idea of “billing for time” has been around for a while. In fact, the only common scenario we hear is that firms simply do not adopt useful and efficient applications because of they decrease billable time. What inevitably happens is that a competitor will charge a lower price for equal—or often greater—service, and your firm will no longer be competitive in the modern market.

With the push of automation and ongoing efficiency, a firm focused solely on the billable hour is one that seemingly continues to struggle in today’s marketplace.

Now, I’m not saying to move entirely to a value-based, zero- timesheet practice tomorrow; absolutely not. Always think strategically about your pricing model before jumping ship. Instead, I’ll walk you through the alternatives you can choose for your firm, plus the benefits you will see. You will also learn how to move your current and new clients into this pricing model without running into issues.

Price. It’s such an emotional and psychological topic for many business owners. Price has many elements, but before we dive into tactics, let’s dive into one thing first: mindset

Mindset

If you do not value the service you provide to your clients and understand the ROI of the services you offer, it’s extremely hard to make price increases or transitions.

Or if you do not believe little ole’ me can ever demand a higher price point, simply because you believe you’re not supposed to, then these pricing strategies will not make an impact.

In fact, while things like market positioning, price positioning, proper sales consulting, and marketing all go into demanding a higher fee, many firm owners never start the process. Or nearly as bad, they take one small action, fail, and then never return.

So before we dive into price, let’s complete the following exercise:

If you and all other accounting firms were to go under today, and individuals and small business owners had to do their accounting themselves, what would happen? What would happen to their time? Their cash flow? Their profitability? Their sanity?
For those firms who do charge more, what allows them to ask for more? Note: you cannot point to location, years in business, size of staff, office type, etc. The question is: how are they perceived by a market that expects either a higher price or different pricing model?

The reason we start with mindset is because, without the belief in your product or service, a pricing strategy will not work. Whether it’s an hourly increase or a move to fixed or value-based pricing, you need to become grounded in the value—both perceived and actual—that you bring to a client.

If no one else has, I give you permission to think outrageously high of your service and ability to help clients. I give you permission to ask for higher fees and experiment with new billing models.

In this chapter, we’re going to highlight practitioners who made the exact same journey and what they did to make the transition. We’re going to look to thought leaders who have helped hundreds of firm owners make the transition. Big and small, new and old, “hip” and conservative.

Remember, price is about a transfer of value, both perceived and actual.

You play in the world of both, and therefore pricing does as well. Take these next chapters as permission to review and update your pricing model. At the end of the chapter, you’ll find links to the interviews we’ve referenced throughout this section.

Why Move Away from the Billable Hour?

The emergence of the Internet has disrupted every industry. You knew that. But in professional services, it turned your service offering on its head because your expertise is more valuable than ever before.

When you don’t know something, you whip out your smartphone and google the answer. Even your older clients take full advantage of having intelligence in their hand 24/7. When they wish to tap into your intelligence, they want to feel they aren’t taking a massive risk.

The billable hour works such that: “I charge you for my time. Period.”

Suddenly, you evolve into a time-punching machine. “Lawyer Bob is calling… David, you are now on the clock…”

Don’t you believe, deep down, you are worth more than your hours?

Of course.

You spent years, maybe decades, developing your craft. You spent late nights studying for certifications. You’ve done your time of messing up client work and now know better.

Those are all valuable! You become a better partner, CPA, and accounting expert with all of this experience downloaded and backed up in your head. You deserve payment for it.

As you get better, the common idea is to simply peg your time as more valuable. You go from $200 per hour to $215 per hour. Think about it. Over 100 hours, you make an extra $1,500.

Woopie!

Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, proposes the famous 10,000-hour rule. In other words, it takes 10,000 before you become an expert. When you become an expert, you know more than 99% of people in the world.

That’s worth something. But, it’s not worth it in the currency of time.

When you go to the doctor, you are seeking counsel. You get the bill in the mail. What do you see? Nowhere does it say: “Dr. Bill Able saw you for one hour; your charge is $X.” No. You are charged for what they did. The more valuable the service, the more they charged.

A routine check-up bills out at the lowest tier. It’s the least valuable. Cancer treatment and life-saving surgery—no matter how short it was—can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

As you harvest the more specialized knowledge of a doctor, the fee skyrockets. Unfortunately for them, insurance companies will negotiate some of their fee away. Fortunately for you, you don’t have to deal with insurance at your firm.

The point is, the shift away from the billable hour has happened because your expertise is more valuable than ever. Your clients are paying for outcomes; they aren’t paying for how long you spend on a project.

Let me be more blunt: they don’t care how long it takes you.

If it took five minutes, great. If it took your whole weekend and you missed your child’s school play, sorry.

I do the same thing now for all the work I do and hire other people for. I negotiate the price upfront. When a plumber comes to my house, I ask, “What’s this going to cost?”

The buyer now has power because of the Internet. I know, roughly, how much a leaky faucet is going to cost.

The plumber is now strapped because it may take him three hours or it could take him three minutes. This is the issue both you and your clients face with the billable hour: you’re incentivized to take as long as you can.

In my plumbing example, the plumber, to match online competitors, lowballs himself to get the job. He’s afraid if he does a bad job, I’ll post it on Yelp. So he takes his time, does the job, and gets paid the bottom of the barrel for his work.

This is where CPA firms struggle in terms of getting the most revenue per client. If your client sees you as a commodity to be bargained with, you will lose. It’s up to you to demonstrate the value you bring to the table.

Your value is your expertise! If that plumber said, “As a free bonus, let me do an audit of your house, I can see where you might be able to add some value,” he would be positioning himself as more valuable and would be able to charge more. Do you see the difference?

Heck, if he knew me more, he would know to dig deeper and say, “I know you’re selling your house soon, there are a few things you can do to add some profit to the bottom line.” This just keeps getting better! Value, value, value. No longer is this plumber a commodity; he is a trusted expert.

This is what your clients are quietly screaming for. This is why the billable hour continues to go the way of the dinosaur. The landscape has changed forever. Your clients signed with you, not for your time, but for a partnership. They receive full access to your database of knowledge, you get paid, and your firm grows. Your clients open their wallets for outcomes, not time.

This is a massive mindset shift. It requires a bit of boldness, as well. Becoming a firm of the future starts with charging for outcomes. It’s how you will differentiate yourself from your competitors.

The Difference between Time, Fixed and Value Pricing

According to Ron Baker, world-renowned expert on value pricing for CPA firms, “Billable hours breed uncertainty.”

Your clients are often scared to give you new projects because they are afraid of the bill. Ironically, you have the same fear going to the ER, but unfortunately for you, a client’s taxes aren’t directly life or death.

As a vendor, you should be taking on the risk for a project, but with the billable hour, the risk rests on your client’s shoulders. Every phone call, whether you have an answer for them or not, they still get billed. Every project that takes 20 hours longer than originally budgeted, they still get billed.

Soon, your client is afraid to call you for fear of paying for wasted time. They then pull up a search engine and try to locate the answer themselves. That doesn’t lead to problems, does it…?

The most successful companies in the world take the risk on their shoulders every day. Apple builds a new iPhone each year. If it’s not what people want, nobody buys it and they lose billions in development and manufacturing. Google gives its search engine away for free. If they don’t give great results and improve it every day, no one will click on their ads and all other projects, like Google maps, Android, and Chrome will suffer and cease to exist. Zappos, a billion-dollar shoe company, will ship shoes to you for free. If you don’t like them, you ship them back for free. Zappos loses money. Your local grocery store wholesales select goods and puts them on the shelves for you to browse for free. If no one buys a certain brand of milk, your grocery store loses money.

That’s how businesses become trusted, household names: they take the risk.

Imagine if you are in the market for a house and at every house you walk through, your realtor charges you. Buying a house is a massive decision and you don’t want to be rushed, but you are cramped for time because your realtor has you on the clock.

The real estate industry would implode as more homebuyers would take on the risk of buying a home on their own, without an expert. This is why realtors are paid on commission. We pay them thousands in commission for their expertise and the result, not for their time.

Why wouldn’t you do the same?

Articles to Go Deeper

Podcast

How To Implement New Accounting Softwares

By jetpack workflow | Updated on Dec 27, 2023 | 7 minutes

Heather Satterley, owner of Satterley Training & Consulting, works with accounting professionals to implement new accounting applications.

For many firms, they get hung up on the what, which, why of the technology movement. Frankly, you could waste lots of time and money. Heather came on the show to help us go through what steps to take.

On this episode of the Growing Your Firm Podcast, David Cristello and Heather Satterley, dive into:

When you should start looking into new technology solutions
Steps to actually implement new accounting applications
Tips to uncover the absolute best apps to use right now (and more)

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

The Struggle Most Accounting Firms Have With New Technology

Heather Satterley, founder of Satterley Training & Consulting, recently opened her practice in 2017. Her specialty is working with accounting professionals and even small business owners on implementing applications with Quickbooks. Heather herself has been a Quickbooks ProAdvisor for almost 20 years.

What she does sounds simple enough, but when you need an entire ecosystem running on auto-pilot, the non-techies can get tangled up quickly.

Here at Jetpack, we believe every company is a technology firm in this day-and-age because technology has never developed faster. Every business should be exploring how to better themselves, save time, and maintain higher profits.

Heather normally sees the same problems at the firms she runs into.

One issue she sees regularly is that the team doesn’t understand the tech they currently have. For example, they subscribe to GSuite but ask Heather for functions that already exist in GSuite. That’s a sign they need training on their applications.

She recommends doing an ‘app inventory.’ Go over every app you’re using and paying for to uncover all the features they provide. Make sure if you need any of those features, but aren’t currently using them, you add that first to the list before spending more money.
Moving along…

The most common issue she sees owners getting overwhelmed with the tech. They look at the big picture and only view a mountain of changes. As we know, change is difficult.

At Jetpack, we did the opposite…we wanted to do 70 new things in 6 weeks. We underestimated how long it takes for new changes to take place. Heather is the referee and project manager for everything, that’s why she’s important.

Instead of looking at the big picture, Heather recommends “chunking.” That means breaking everything up into little pieces. And that’s her first step when she goes to implement new accounting applications.

Steps to Actually Implement New Accounting Applications:

The important point Heather stresses is to study one piece at a time. This avoids overwhelm and stress.

To start ‘chunking’ new applications, think about which application would be easiest to start with and get up and running fastest. Here you’re looking for the biggest bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time. The reason for this is because you’re still selling the software solution to your team and other partners. They need to see progress right away. Nothing is worse than a new project dragging on for months even years.

Where are the quick wins?

Doing this makes the bigger pieces easier to swallow down the line. Heather did this recently with a client when she got the first app up and going for their bookkeeper because it was a quick win and the bookkeeper was the most skeptical team member of new tech. The most skeptical team member was then an advocate for

Heather to the others on the client’s team. That’s a big win.

Before even getting your hands dirty, you need to figure out how to uncover the best apps to use now.

Tips to Uncover the Best Apps to Use Right Now:

There are a few ways to know what apps you should use.

First, define the pain points. Look at your workflow and see where the hiccups are. Sit down with team members in a casual atmosphere and go through their day. Ask the questions like “what is the least fun part of your day?” For Heather, she hated time tracking. The software would freeze up and delete her data. That’s the type of info to extract. These conversations will put you in your employee’s shoes to know the first step to take and what apps to look for.

DAVID’S TIP: If you’re not clear on what the pain is…every new app will be a solution for you. Because you don’t know what you’re looking for…everything looks good! Bad trap to fall in.

Second, after getting pain points, evaluate the solutions. Study which applications in the marketplace can talk to each other. Which can work with the software you have now? Start with the ‘must haves’ before you start catering to ‘nice to haves.’

Ways to know which applications to start with...look for those that provide ease of use, ease of implementation, how responsive is the app’s tech team, the reviews out there about the product.

To start your search for the next app in your firm, here’s the steps Heather takes:

Start at Apps.com (Intuit’s vault of applications)
Read blogs looking for apps (can Google for these)
Read Zapier’s advice sections for recommendations
Read CPA Practice Advisor
Read the Insightful Accountant
Join a networking group for accountants and ask around

I mentioned Zapier above. Zapier is Heather’s go-to resource for connecting applications.

DAVID’S TIP: Using an app like Zapier might cost a few dollars, but how much time and effort are you saving using this tool? That’s the mark of a firm of the future.

The Magic Power of Zapier:

Zapier is a tool that connects other cloud-based apps to each and allows you to build custom integrations between them. Most apps have open APIs meaning developers can connect into them and send info back and forth.

The dashboard is very straightforward and easy. Make sure you check it out.

How it works is that each action is called a ‘zap.’ A zap is a trigger inside of one application that begins a chain reaction of tasks. It could be an email you send, an entry in Quickbooks, adding a new client to your CRM, etc. When this ‘zap’ happens, the information is automatically shared with the other apps. This saves you time making double-entries or repeating easy tasks.

Here’s an example: Heather has many vendors who she needs W9s from. She used to send an email to each need vendor individually. Inside the email, she’d drop a link to her sharefile where the vendor can put their completed W9. After this, she had to set up the vendor in Quickbooks.

Now, with Zapier, once she sets up a vendor in her Quickbooks, an email automatically gets sent to the new vendor without Heather touching another button.

A more complex example for your firm might be onboarding new clients. Each new client has to be set up in your contact list, your email list, and in dozens of apps. One single trigger…perhaps it’s the new client filling out a google form with their info…now auto-populates all the data in every app. This step alone with Zapier could save 30-45 minutes of admin time. That’s real results.

Zapier is the plumbing of the internet as we like to say.

These are just the first steps to take in creating an ecosystem in your firm to implement new accounting applications. Feel free to reach out to Heather directly if you want to talk to her about setting up an ecosystem and Zapier.

The Double Your Accounting Firm Book

How to Retain Millennial Accountants in Today’s Firms

How to Solve Your Client’s Problems Right Now:

How to Develop the Right Solution for Your Client: