If you’ve been dreaming of creating better workflow systems for your firm or improving the ones you already have in place, you may be looking into using Jetpack Workflow to accomplish that. But how do you get started with Jetpack? What if you don’t have a written system in place now? How do you make documents and training materials without sinking an exorbitant amount of time into it?

In this conversation between David and John Bowman, Jetpack Workflow’s Director of Customer Success, we get an inside look into how Jetpack can be quickly and easily used to create or improve the workflow systems of any firm, large or small.

In today’s show, we talk about:

• How to get started with Jetpack
• Editing a Template
• The difference between tasks and subtasks
• The importance of having written systems in place in order to scale
• The danger of starting tasks without having everything you need
• How to easily create training materials

Additional Links:

• John’s Email: john@jetpackworkflow.com
• David’s Email: david@jetpackworkflow.com

How to Get Started with Jetpack Workflow

Whether you’re just getting started with a new firm or you’re hoping to make your company’s systems more efficient, Jetpack can help you get there. But how can you create workflow systems for your firm? What if you don’t have anything written down and you’re starting from scratch?

Start with a Checklist

Perfecting a workflow system only works if you have something to start with that you can improve over time. You’ll need a simple checklist of tasks you manage on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. But how do you get that checklist to start with?

You could simply create that first checklist as you complete tasks. As you go through your day, jot down every step you take to do something. During this stage, think of yourself as an observer. Don’t judge the steps you record, just get them on paper. Later they can be edited and maximized for efficiency.

Another way you can get a starting workflow is to use a template from Jetpack’s template library. The templates there are real workflow systems from actual firms. It’s possible that a checklist you find there fits your firm’s need exactly. If that isn’t the case, however, the next step will help you get your workflow ironed out and more productive.

Edit that List to Refine Workflow

Whether you recorded a list from your actual daily tasks or you selected a template from the library, it’s now time to edit that workflow to better fit your needs.

You may want to include other members of your team in this discussion. Simply gather them together in one room and review the list of tasks you have set out. This is the perfect time to ask some hard-but-important questions. Is this workflow efficient? Can it be improved?

If you haven’t had a recorded workflow system in your firm yet, you may be surprised to discover that each team member has been doing things in a slightly different way.

Of course, people think and work differently, and a certain amount of variance shouldn’t be a problem, but too much inconsistency brings chaos into a team, meaning things will take much longer than they should. On top of that, papers can get lost, communication can break down, and team members won’t have the ability to help each other as well as they should.

So take the time to edit a template to fit your firm’s style and needs. Add tasks as needed. Take others out. Combine tasks or separate them into smaller subtasks.
Within Jetpack, it’s good to keep in mind that there is a difference between a “job,” a “task,” and a “subtask.”

A job is like a large task. Within each job, there can be one or more tasks. Each task can be assigned to a different team member if needed. Subtasks create a checklist for completing a single task. Subtasks cannot be individually assigned to different team members. Whoever is in charge of a task is responsible for all the subtasks under it. You could use subtasks as a list of reminders related to the task.

Create Workflow Documents the Easy Way

Once you have a starting workflow system, you may see the need to create documentation related to your workflow. These may include training documents to help new employees quickly integrate into the processes within your company. So how can you best create these training documents?

This task is often neglected. You may put off making training materials because you don’t want to sink hours into a simple task. Something that may take you half an hour normally could take two or three hours if you have to constantly stop and write notes for the training, right? Well, there are easier ways to create the training materials you need.

You can use screen recording software, for example. Simply record yourself doing a task, stopping to explain from time to time. This is much quicker than writing everything down because people can see what you’re talking about.

Then, if you need the materials to be in written form, you can have a virtual assistant or intern transform that recorded video into a written document with screenshots as pictures. At that point, you’d have training material in both video and written form, giving new employees an abundance of support.

Troubleshoot Problems in Workflow

Once you’ve gotten started using Jetpack Workflow and have some written systems in place, that’s just the start. It’s good to go over ways to improve the workflow over time.

For example, did a certain job take longer than it should have? Or was something completed below the quality standard you want for your firm? It would be helpful to perform a “retro” or “postmortem” to diagnose what went well and what went wrong in that job.

Was there a communication breakdown at some point? Did someone not have the materials they needed, having to hunt certain papers down midway through a task? Did the client come in with last-minute changes that made team members have to redo work?

Once you’ve diagnosed the problem, you’ll be able to add or take away tasks within your workflow to help future jobs go much more smoothly.

Be Prepared for Growth

If you plan to grow your company and expand your client list, you will probably have to look into expanding your team, as well. In such a case, having a workflow system ironed out will be invaluable. This is for two reasons.

First, that workflow will help you get new employees up to speed much more quickly. This is especially true if you’ve also spent time making training materials in either video or written form (or both).

Second, improving your workflow can help your efficiency, so much so that you may not need to make new hires as quickly as you’d thought. A small but efficient team can get more work done than many believe, making the firm leaner and more profitable.

All in all, Jetpack Workflow is here to help you get up and running with an efficient system. Our templates and various other tools have been designed to get your system in place as quickly as possible.

If you have questions about Jetpack, setting up an accounting firm, or workflow in general, you can email either John or David at the emails given in this episode.

RELATED ARTICLES:

1. How to Improve Workflow Management for Accounting Firms
2. Workflow Tools Which Will Save Hours of your Time with Kellie Parks
3. The Top Applications We Use at Jetpack Workflow (Review)

Welcome back to the Growing Your Firm podcast and welcome back to Chuck Bauer. This is our second interview with him and we are grateful that he’s come back to talk more about how you can take your firm to the next level.

In this interview, we talk about a program that he uses to teach firms how to build recruiting systems so you can find top talent and stop wasting time with low performers.

We can only scratch the surface here. His full program takes 18 hours to teach and we only have about 18 minutes! But he did share some wonderful tips with us. Take a listen or read the summary below, then reach out to him for further questions.

Summary:

• Why companies are poor at hiring
• Why setting up evaluation systems drives the best talent to you
• Why a clean car may be a sign of a great candidate
• A bonus tip on leadership that you’ll have to listen to the podcast to discover!

Resources:
Chuck Bauer’s previous interview
Jackie Meyer’s previous interview
DiSC Profiling
Chuck’s website

Chuck’s email: chuck@chuckbauer.com

Tips For Building A Recruiting Workflow

Every growing firm reaches a point where they need to hire someone to pick up some of the load and to share expertise. This gives firm owners the space to scale their businesses while still taking care of business. Not so easy to do in the middle of tax season!

Chuck recommends that firms set up a system that lets them bring in new talent and evaluate it far before the time it’s necessary to hire someone. Most firms don’t even think about recruiting until there is an immediate need. When the need is immediate, firm owners can feel pushed into making bad hiring decisions.

However, a recruiting system saves you time and improves effectiveness just like implementing workflows does for the rest of your business.

Why Do We Fail At Hiring?
Mr. Bauer says that there are three main reasons why firms fail at hiring:

1. Inefficiencies and a focus on non-urgent tasks make firms too busy to hire.
2. Firms don’t know how to attract top-performing talent.
3. Firms don’t fire poor performers. (The worst problem in his eyes)

A lack of time to hire is easy to grasp, but how do you start addressing the second problem? The first thing Chuck recommends is to ensure that you’re aligning the type of people you hire with your firm’s outlook. If you’re an entrepreneur, hire people with that mindset. If you’ve grown to a corporate level, look for people with that mindset.

This can prevent a lot of conflicts.

Another tip is to build a behavioral profile for your positions using something like the DiSC profile, then put that profile information into your recruiting fliers so that candidates are aware of the sort of person you’re looking for. Furthermore, Chuck asks his recruiter to put candidates through tests to measure different aptitudes. This weeds out people who don’t fit the profile. Much of the course that Chuck teaches is on how to build these personality profiles for different roles.

Also, Chuck asks candidates to send a 30-second video cover letter with their resumes to see how they talk on camera and how confident they are. For positions that are client-facing, having a good presence is quite an asset.

It is this pre-evaluation system that most firms lack. There must be a way for your firm to process a potential candidate all the way up to the interview without getting tangled in the process. Done right, there will always be a pool of talent ready for interviews when you need it.

Finding Poor Performers Early

If the candidate passes the initial hurdles, the next step is to put them through a battery of interviews to dig deeper. The idea is to get as much information about the candidate that you can that isn’t visible on a resume. It is better to hire slowly and get the best candidate than blow through a bunch of bad ones.

There is also an interviewing tactic that Chuck sometimes uses during the final interview. In the middle of the interview, excuse yourself and ask your candidate where their car is. He’ll examine the car for signs of a candidate’s discipline and work ethic. Is it dinged up? Is it filthy? These are signs that your candidate isn’t disciplined or detail-oriented.

Very few people are perfect with their cars, but there’s a difference between needing a wash and outright neglect. In the interview, Chuck shares a story about a client who had a worker he wanted to fire and was struggling with finding good workers. He asked the client to show him the vehicle of the bad worker. There were a lot of dings, dirt had turned it from white to brown, and there were two dirty spare tires in the back seat.

This may seem a little extreme but think about it. Most interviewers only get a resume and a first impression from a candidate’s clothes and personality. While these are good things, you need to do what you can to dig a little deeper. Frankly, anyone can dress up well once and resumes can be faked. But it’s hard to fake discipline. This is why achievements like being a student athlete, or military experience, or even Scouting experience can make or break an interview. These are signs of discipline.

Think of the resume and all the basic interviewing protocol as a starting point, but then find all the ways you can to dig below these surface details to get the information you need to get the optimum hire.

In a nutshell, the way to get the best employees or contractors is to slow down and take your time so you can gather as much information as you can about a candidate before hiring. The only way to do this is to set up systems to gather that information in advance, whether through behavioral profiles, or video cover letters, or whatever you feel gives you the information you need.

And even if a candidate passes those first systems, use interviews to dig even further to verify that information. It can be something as simple as looking at their car. It can even be asking them to sit at a computer and go through basic Excel tasks while you watch.

When you have the confidence that your recruiting system is delivering awesome candidates, it’s much easier to fire employees that haven’t performed up to par.

RELATED LINKS:

1. How to Build a Team that Fuels Firm Growth: The Sandra Wiley Interview
2. Creating the Ideal Accounting Firm: Charge 80% More, 25% Less Client Work
3. How to Improve Workflow Management for Accounting Firms

If you’ve read the stories on our side, it’s a familiar refrain. A small bookkeeper wants to grow but hits the limits of handling physical paperwork. Just a small switch to the cloud and a bit of retraining often triples the business of these firms and lets them scale as much as they desire. We have another story in this vein for you today.

Today’s guest is Lisa Channell, founder and owner of Bonfire Bookkeeping. In our research to find guests who have taken this path, we started encountering her name a lot and reached out to her. In our interview, we talk about how she moved to the cloud by leveraging the power of QuickBooks Online and a special mentorship program they offer.

In this episode of the Growing Your Firm Podcast, David Cristello and Lisa Channell talks about:

• How Lisa got started making her business
• What drove her to succeed, and what common trap did she fall into?
• How the cloud and a bit of mentoring helped her get the flexibility she desired
• What steps did she take to grow once she transitioned

Additional Links:
Lisa’s Pro Advisor Page
Lisa’s Firm

Lisa’s Email: lchannell@bonfirebookkeeping.com
Intuit’s Mentorship Program
Jennifer Moore’s Website

How Lisa Got Started With Making Bonfire Bookkeeping

Lisa got into bookkeeping by accident. She tried to come back from a full-time job after maternity leave and the job had been eliminated. By that point, she knew she loved bookkeeping but she had to decide quickly if she wanted to find another full-time job or try to create something of her own that offered more flexibility.

Fortunately, Lisa was able to use a program in Canada that gives new entrepreneurs training on starting a business. After a 12 week course, she and her husband both started businesses within a month of each other. The course taught her the basics of running and operating a business in Canada, but she still didn’t have the business mindset yet. That came later with experience. At the start, like many new business owners, she was very nervous.

What Had To Change To Succeed?

One of the things that kept her going at the start was that she was in a sink or swim situation. With two children to raise, it would be very difficult for her to find flexibility with another employer. She was nervous to leave her children behind and that pressure pushed her into creating the flexible business she needed.

That deep purpose got her over her nervousness about making sales calls, meeting with strangers, and pitching her services. Having a deeper need driving your entrepreneurial activity can help overcome a lot of fear. However, Lisa was also smart, and perhaps a little overcautious, in the beginning. She started by reaching out to previous clients for work. It took about a year for the real changes to appear.

Caught In The Work Trap

Lisa found that she was too wrapped up in her business and lost the flexibility she wanted in the first place. Like many bookkeepers, she was traveling to offices to pick up paperwork and spending a full 8+ hours in the office. There was a disconnect between the flexible lifestyle she craved for her and her children and the reality of where her business was at that point.

She had to refocus on her original goal to get out of the work trap and find some way to make it a reality. Two experiences helped her. The first was a client who signed up for QuickBooks Online and started keeping a separate set of books. Lisa asked the client why they wanted that and she investigated the product. It was still in the early days and Lisa didn’t like the program.

Three months later, the client went out of business and Lisa stopped using the program. A representative from QuickBooks called her and asked about her inactive profile.

They offered an Intuit-sponsored mentorship program and the rep caught Lisa at a fortunate time.

Lisa was looking online for people in her situation and wasn’t finding anyone, but then stumbled onto the blog of Jennifer Moore (now defunct, but see her business site at https://bellevillebookkeeping.com/) which had a lot of information about working with QBO. The rep mentioned that the mentorship program would be with Jennifer

Moore and that sold her.

The training that she received through the program showed her where the future of bookkeeping was going. It was a roadmap of all the reasons to use the cloud to do bookkeeping, how to convince clients to use it, and how it saves time, all topics we’re familiar with here at Jetpack!

Did Moving To The Cloud Help?

Lisa says in the interview that moving to the cloud changed her whole life. Cloud-based accounting turned what had been a passion into an obsession, in her words. She tripled her business in the first year using a combination of apps that she had learned in her mentorship, notably QBO and HubDoc.

She was also smart about folding these apps into her business by choosing to implement one app at a time and bring on her clients slowly. She would start using a new app with her own books first so she would understand how everything worked. Then she would work on her husband’s business, and then slowly bring in clients.
Sometimes she had to make significant changes to her workflow that were challenging. She ran into a problem that Kellie Parks, a former guest, had mentioned about needing a second monitor. That was a game changer as well.

Just by using these apps and the power of the cloud, she no longer had to travel as much. She could do three times as much work without needing to hire any staff.

What Was The Next Step?

Like many of the firm owners we’ve interviewed, once you’re in the cloud you’re able to scale your business and start looking at higher-priced services like advisory. Lisa leaned into the services that Intuit offers by joining their pro adviser network and got several referrals through that, plus she was receiving word-of-mouth referrals.

Her profile on the network is worthy of note because it’s not like a resume. It’s much better. It shows off parts of her personality and explains how she works with clients at a high level of detail, plus has links to her social channels. It’s a little like a mini-FAQ plus just enough personality to make a connection with readers without boring them with mundane details about their bookkeeper. You can view her profile in the resources section.

Also, she leveraged the power of reviews by soliciting feedback from her clients. As of this writing, she has 19 five-star reviews on her QBO profile. There are lots of details about when and how she asks for these towards the end of the interview.

We want to thank Lisa Channell for her time and for sharing her experiences taking her small bookkeeping business to the next level. Bookkeepers who haven’t transitioned to the cloud yet are really missing out on a vital piece of the puzzle. Using the cloud gives so much flexibility and time back to your business and to your life. Many of the bookkeepers we’ve interviewed have followed a similar path. If you’re in the same situation, it’s time for you to start!

RELATED LINKS:

1. 5 Tools To Improve Your Firm (For Accountants & Bookkeepers)
2. The #1 Place to Get Highly Qualified Referrals for Your Bookkeeping Firm
3. 2 simple techniques to get more referrals for accountants and bookkeepers

Whether you’re building an accounting firm or expanding your current team, you’ll probably find that hiring new team members can be a daunting task. We get it. You’re an accountant. You have clients to take care of, and your workflow can’t be put on hold for you to figure out the hiring process.

On the other hand, if you make the wrong hire, your firm can be negatively affected for weeks or months to come, if not longer. So what kind of workflow can help you get the hiring process down? How can your firm, even if it’s still small compared to others, compete with corporate giants to get great new members on your team?

Renee Daggat from Admin Books has worked out a hiring workflow that has helped build her firm to multiple team members. What is her workflow? How can you imitate her process, whether you’re hiring people online or in person? Listen or read below to find out.

In our conversation with Renee, we talk about:

• Figuring out what to say on a job posting and interview
• What kind of accountants Renee looks for
• Including team members in the hiring and selection process
• How to compete with larger firms when hiring
• Trusting your gut when it comes to judging new hires.

Resources:
https://www.adminbooks.com/
support@adminbooks.com

How to Hire the Right Person for Your Accounting Firm

The hiring process is all about finding the right person. You post an ad online or elsewhere, you get back replies, and then you narrow that list of applicants down to find the best fit for your company.

But how can you make the right choice when you’re hiring someone online, someone you may never meet in person? How can you make sure that your next hire will fit with your firm’s culture and style?

Here are the steps Renee shared with us. As you can imagine, it all starts with the job ad you put out online.

The Job Ad

The ad, or posting, you put out online, if you put it on the right job-search websites, might be seen by hundreds of prospective hires. That is a good thing. You want to cast the broadest net so you find that one gem of a team member to add to your company.

But just because you are posting wide doesn’t mean that you want to sift through dozens of applications and resumes for people that are obviously a bad fit for your company. So is there a way to narrow down your search from the start? Absolutely!

One trick Renee uses is to ask the applicant to do something unique and specific in their application process. For example, she’ll ask applicants to put “I’m a Rockstar!” in their email subject lines. This helps weed out those applicants that didn’t take the time to read the instructions carefully. After all, when hiring an accountant, it’s important to find someone that is detail oriented, right?

You could also ask applicants a question that they have to Google in order to provide the answer. That proves that they are taking the time to fill in the application correctly, meaning they really want this job, and they have the basic ability to use online tools to find information.

The First Interview

Little tricks during the initial application process can help narrow down the field, but you’ll still have several prospective hires to interview. How can you make your interview as productive as possible?

Renee spends about 30 minutes for this first interview. In addition to asking general questions about the person and their work history and skills, she likes to add in off-the-wall, personal questions.

“What would you do if you won the lottery?”
“Who do you most admire, and why?”
“What’s your favorite book?”

The purpose behind these questions? It helps you see how confident and self-aware the person is. It also helps you get a glimpse into their personality, which can help you find out if that person would be a good fit for the culture and personality of your firm.

In fact, speaking of personality, Renee has her prospective hires fill out a personality test just to see how they would work with the rest of her team. You may or may not want to go that far, but it is certain that getting to know the prospective hire’s personality will help you, especially if you have a small, close-knit team.

The Second Interview

Renee’s second interview is done through video conferencing. Why is this important?

For one thing, any firm that works remotely will rely on video communication for interactions both within the company and with clients. So it would be essential that any new hire can look presentable on a webcam. Are they comfortable in front of a camera? Are they able to run the conferencing software without troubles? Is their background presentable?

Those questions may make or break a hiring decision, depending on the way your firm works.

The Team-Based Interview

Renee invites other members of her team on the third interview. At this point in the process, she may only have a few prospective hires left to consider. During this group video conference, the team members all get to introduce themselves, and the prospective hire can introduce him or herself, as well. Since these are the people the new hire will be working with, it’s essential that they are able to get along well.

In addition to that, those team members may make observations that you, the employer, wouldn’t have seen. They may spot possible problems with the applicant, or, on the flip side, they may make see things they appreciate that you didn’t notice on your own. That insight can be invaluable.

As an added bonus, involving the entire team in a hire means everyone will be more likely to work together afterward. A more united team can work faster and stronger than without that buy-in.

Final Decisions

Even after going through all of the aforementioned steps, you may find yourself with two or three options to consider. They all seem like wonderful fits, but you only have the budget to hire one. What can you do?

When making your final decision, there are a few additional points you can consider. For example, how comfortable is the person with technology? For an online firm, this is especially important. How fast can they type? That is something Renee takes into consideration, even having applicants take a free online typing test as part of the application process.

You may also consider references, review any notes from previous interviews, and have a final look at their resume.

Then, compiling all that information, you’ll probably be able to make an informed decision.

Constantly Improving your Hiring Workflow

As you continue to grow your team, you’ll come to see what works and what doesn’t work.

Renee has made a few mistakes in her past hires. Each time, however, she was able to see what she could do with future hires to improve that process. Like any other workflow in your business, you can add and remove steps to better accommodate your particular needs.

Has a personality test helped you make better decisions in the past? Continue to use it. Did a recent hire not work out as you’d hoped? Was there a question or test you could have given at some point in the recruitment process that could have identified a potential problem? Implement that new step in the future.

Being reactive in this way, you’ll constantly evolve your hiring process to meet the unique needs of your firm, eventually coming to a workflow that works uniquely for you and your company, helping you to build a dream team of rockstar partners.