For thousands of years, humans have dreamed of getting work done without requiring humans to do the work. This is the basic principle behind automation; it’s getting work done with little-to-no human intervention. We’ve been achieving for as long as we’ve been trying.

Automation often sounds like the best solution for any inefficient process in your business. If you automate a process, you’ll get more done with less time and effort in the long run. But, you often have a large upfront investment of time and resources which can be an overwhelming hurdle to overcome. Just because you can automate something doesn’t mean you should.

Instead, consider all of the possible approaches to increasing efficiency in your firm. The three major approaches include improving existing processes, automating, and hiring.

1. Improve: Start by examining your current procedures. Next, identifying areas for improvement, brainstorming new processes, putting the processes in place, and managing the change in process. Operational efficiency can involve automation, but it doesn’t always. Sometimes, you can take tasks which must be completed by human hands and make them more efficient.
2. Automate: Automation can offer the most value for your dollar. After all, hiring and operational efficiencies can be expensive and time-consuming. Automation allows more work to be done with less human effort or intervention.
3. Hire: You hire another human to take over a portion of work your firm already does and work you’ll add in the future.

This specific order is important, as you’ll see in each breakdown section. Let’s dive into each step of the process.

Improve

Start with an attempt to improve the efficiency of a process and standardize it before trying to automate it or hire more people. The first step of improving a process is to map the current steps needed to fulfill that process.

How to make an underlying process more efficient:

1. Map the steps of your current process.
2. Collect input from stakeholders about which steps can be improved or changed.
3. Identify which step takes the longest time, or is the least efficient.
4. Brainstorm ideas with stakeholders about how to improve the process.
5. Solidify buy-in from stakeholders about the proposed improvement.
6. Train your staff on the new process.
7. Go live with the new process.
8. Lead the change management to ensure the improvement becomes permanent.

Making a process more efficient isn’t always easy, but it can be the best option and often provides the best ROI.

Importance of starting with mapping current steps of a process:

1. This exercise will tell you what people are actually doing right now. This will sometimes be enough to help spark ways you can improve it.
2. It will help you to gain buy-in from the stakeholders who execute the process on a daily basis. You get the chance to listen to them and figure out what’s important to the people with boots on the ground.
3. It will encourage alignment within your team. Creating a process map allows people to visually agree on the current method.
4. A map of the process will help you to automate the process later if you decide you need to automate.

The main benefit of starting with improving is that it requires the least amount of upfront investment of capital. You don’t need a new budget to map a process. You don’t have to hire someone new. You only need to solicit feedback from existing team members, then make a priority of improving the process.

WARNING: Automating a task is often suggested during the brainstorming stage. This is where many firms go wrong in their priorities for increasing efficiency. People might lean into automation before they’re ready or have sufficiently optimized the underlying process. It’s hard to hold back from the lure of, “just let the robot do it.” Instead, start by “doing things that don’t scale.” Put in the manual effort first, then apply the wonders of computers after you fully understand the manual effort to never have to do it again.

TLDR: Start by improving the process without automation first so you better understand the underlying process. This will help you to locate the point for maximum leverage to use for future automation.

Automate

After you’ve improved the process as much as possible without automation, it’s time to consider automation. What tasks should you start automating first? Highlight the steps in the process which do not require specialized training or client interaction.

Ideal steps to automate include tasks like data entry between systems. Manual double entry can be a big timesuck; this is where redundancy-reducing tools like Zapier come to the rescue. If you can automatically update your client list in all existing locations, then that’s often a great place to start.

Pro Tip: Automate the flow of information from your chosen single source of truth (SSoT) out to the dependent softwares.

Your SSoT should always be accurate. Accountants often choose a billing software as their SSoT. Your billing software will need to have an up-to-date customer profile because it helps to ensure you get paid. Multiple sources of the same kind of information could place you in an infinite loop: one software updates the customer information, another sees that update and updates its own version of that information, then the original software sees that update and tries to update itself again… Your automations should be one-directional.

High Value vs. Low Value Tasks

In your accounting firm, any automation focuses on taking low-value tasks and making them automatic. High-value tasks require some sort of skill or expertise to perform. Low-value tasks do not require a lot of training or experience to perform.

You get the same 24 hours in the day as Beyonce. The difference is she figured out how to best leverage her time for maximum results. Automation is a great way to leverage your time and effort; you’ll be the Bey of your firm in no time!

Benefits and Risks of Automation

The benefits of automation are simple: with more low-value tasks automated, you save time on each low-value task. That time adds up when automation frees you up to focus on more profitable, high-value tasks and strategy to move your firm forward.

Conversely, consider the time it will take to set up an automation. Hard work is necessary to automate a process correctly. Automation is not a set-it-and-forget it solution; you’ll need to manage and maintain any process you automate. It may not be a Catch-22 situation, but it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of automation before diving into an automation project.

Behind-the-Scenes Example: How We Messed Up With Automation

Back when we were a small software company of 6 people, we once tried to automate how records were updated in our CRM. We thought we had everything set up correctly and set the automation live. The initial tests said everything was a go so we set it and forget it. Can you guess what went wrong?

We didn’t monitor the system after we set it up.

The automation went bonkers and wrote new attributes to every contact in our CRM. What should have been a time-saving venture became a large data clean-up project and a slight reticence to automate processes in the future. Heed our warning; this too can happen to your firm!

Hire

Hiring should be your last resort when increasing the capacity of your firm. If you’ve improved the process and automated what you can, then you can consider hiring new employees.

Hiring is an expensive and time-consuming process. There is always a possibility you could hire someone who doesn’t work out for your firm. And, even if they do work out, you’re going to have to manage that employee, ideally, forever.

Traditionally, this is the first step firms consider because that’s how firms operated for hundreds of years. The tools did not exist to manage teams or automate processes like they do today. Now though, you can easily automate a process to increase productivity, then shift your human resources to more intellectually demanding tasks. If you jump right to hiring before you improve and automate the process, then you could end up hiring an employee to do a broken or extremely inefficient process. You may have increased capacity, but you’re sacrificing your margins before you actually have to.

Conclusion

Humans have always been searching for ways to get more work done with less human effort. If necessity is the mother of invention, then human laziness was the mother of the invention of automation.

Looking to save more time in your firm? Automate your workflow with a 14-day free trial of Jetpack Workflow today!

We had an amazing time hosting the first ever virtual Cloud Accounting Summit. Not only did we learn a ton about how to run a virtual summit, but we also gained some valuable information from the guest speakers who made the event a success.

Full summit replay

Top 10 Takeaways from the Cloud Accounting Summit

In case you missed it or couldn’t attend all of the sessions, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite quotes and concepts from the summit’s expert guest speakers.

1. Throughput = the speed at which your firm is making money. Increase capacity at the weakest link in your business to improve your throughput. –John Bowman

Our own Director of Customer Success, John Bowman, shared one of the secrets behind Jetpack Workflow’s success: managing throughput well! Thinking of your firm as a chain of interlinked departments, which link is weakest? The slowest-working department is likely the weakest link overall for your firm’s throughput.

Putting on your throughput monocle, investigate the cause of the weakness that’s causing the slow pace of the department. Then find the tools this department needs to increase its capacity. Rinse and repeat for all departments.

2. Make sure you’re celebrating continuous improvement instead of getting caught up in the things that might not be going perfectly with your processes. Take the time to celebrate successes, because that’s what helps to truly keep the momentum going. –Arianna Campbell

Here at Jetpack Workflow, we’re all about celebrating the big and the small moments of success together as a team. Even in our summit retrospective meeting, we started with a discussion about what went well, what we’re grateful for, and what we’re excited to continue to do as a team and for future events.

Arianna’s advice is simple and critical – an easy win! Celebrating success is not only easy to do, but it helps support individual and collective morale that’s necessary for your firm’s success.

3. One size does not fit all in tax and accounting; you have to find the right client fit for your firm. –Jackie Meyer

Explaining her client retention method, F.O.R.E.V.E.R., Jackie explained how she increased her firm’s revenue by focusing more on going the extra mile for her clients. The “F” in FOREVER stands for “Fit.” Interview potential clients to make sure they’re not only a good fit for the services you offer, but also the right kind of personalities you want to work with. Identify the companies you’d love to work with and why; these will become the defining characteristics to look for in your client interviews.

To describe her own good Fit, Jackie explained that her niche of companies are high net-worth executives. The characteristics she looks for in a potential client include people that are respectful, a kind person, and tech savvy.

4. If you hard pitch on the first email to a new lead, it’s like proposing on the first date. It works for some people, but not for most people. Nurture your email list over time, so when the prospect is ready, they come to you. –Nate Hagerty

It can be tempting to cold call, cold email, and hard pitch prospects when you’re trying to grow your client base. But this is not always the best strategy. Nate explained that the sales strategy that works better for him is lead nurturing.

Warming up leads through a series of messages that specifically benefit them allows for a much greater chance that they will convert to becoming your clients. Continue to provide value for your leads through content that speaks directly to the problems they have, and they’ll not only stay engaged and spread the word of your firm, but will also be ready to say yes to being your client over anyone else’s when they need the services you offer.

5. Firm leaders can use scenario planning. Plan ahead for possibilities now so you’re not scrambling to resolve the conflicts if they happen in the future. –John Seiffer

Create 4-5 different future scenarios. For each scenario, really consider the details of what might happen and how your firm should respond.

Maybe in one scenario, the recession is over in 6 months. In another scenario, we have a 12-month recession or an 18-month recession.

PRO TIP: Don’t forget the best-case scenario: We can come out of this stronger. In the best-case scenario, you can hire more people, buy out your competitors, add new tools or equipment, and increase your advertising spend (especially because it’s currently cheaper than before COVID-19).

The future might not look exactly like any of the scenarios you come up with, but it will likely look like pieces of each. Taking the time to think through scenarios will help prepare you for more possible outcomes, and will reduce the anxiety and uncertainty we’ve all been experiencing during the COVID-19 era.

6. Effective marketing right now is all about support. It’s about giving your clients the resources they need during this time. –Ryan Lazanis

The three main tactics Ryan suggests for helping your clients include live video Q&As, step-by-step blog posts, and simple weekly newsletters. Choosing 3 different media (video webinar, blog post, and email newsletter) is a great way to ensure that you’re reaching as many leads as possible while limiting the workload you have to commit to.

It’s no small feat to take on three separate media for your content marketing plan, so take it easy on yourself if you don’t have a full marketing team to help you with content creation. Ryan’s advice about the frequency of posting is priceless, though: stick to publishing your content on a regular schedule (i.e. weekly newsletters every Tuesday at 7:40 a.m., weekly blog posts every Thursday at 6 a.m., monthly webinars on a Wednesday at noon, etc.).

PRO TIP: Don’t forget to add a call-to-action (CTA) to every piece of content you release. Free advice and information from your content is valuable in and of itself, but if your content is missing next steps for the audience to take to use your services or product, then you’re missing out on built-in advertising for your firm.

7. Set up things that are replicable; systems that can be repeated from customer to customer. This allows you to do value-based billing. –Jody Grunden & Jamie Nau, SummitCPA

Obviously, we love talking about workflow. So it’s no surprise that we cheered when Jody and Jamie of SummitCPA explained their tactics for how they use tools like Jetpack Workflow to automate tasks and jobs for different customers.

It was especially insightful to connect automation to value-based billing. Because they’re able to replicate tasks and projects, they’re able to charge based on a specific service instead of by the hour for all of the work they do for their clients.

8. When there’s chaos, there are opportunities to serve. You must charge for those services. Every time you charge a client, you’re saving another job in your firm, and you’re increasing your chances of being able to hire more talent off of the unemployment market.  –Andrew Argue

It’s a beautiful sentiment to want to offer services for free to clients who are struggling financially. You likely have a lot of clients in this category during COVID-19.

However, if you stop charging fees for the services you provide, as Andrew illustrated, you might make it out of the recession with your job; your employees may not. Instead, his firm focuses on offering services that directly solve the relevant problems his clients are facing, and he’s charging for them. Because he’s continuing to charge, he’s able not only to keep his own paycheck but his full payroll going.

9. Legacy is the creation of permanence. It’s where business owners discover they have always been business stewards. –Mike Michalowicz

If you remember psychology class and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you’ll love Mike’s adaptation of the hierarchy pyramid illustration: the Business Hierarchy of Needs. While at the top of Maslow’s pyramid is self-actualization, Mike’s version leads to legacy as the final step.

Starting with sales to create cash, then earning profit to create stability, automation of order to create efficiency, using your business to positively impact lives will create transformation, and finally creating permanence through legacy. When you create a legacy, you allow your business to run without you and to have a brand so strong that it exists as its own entity.

Echoing the warnings of Andrew Argue, Mike Michaolwicz detailed the dangers of focusing too much on impact and giving services away for free. Some of these businesses have already given so much away that they’re hurting, downsizing, and shutting down. Instead, Mike advises to build up on the foundations of sales, then profit, and order before focusing on impact.

10. Double-down on relationships. The subscription model, or Value Pricing 2.0, puts relationships at the center of the business. Focus on efficiency with your processes; focus on the effectiveness with your clients. –Ron Baker

One of the founding fathers of value pricing in accounting, Ron Baker is no stranger to ebbing and flowing with the changing tides of economic change. Unpacking the concept of “Value Pricing 2.0,” Ron explained how subscription pricing is like pricing the relationship and the portfolio, instead of pricing the customer in Value Pricing 1.0.

Using the example of Fender Play as a marketing strategy to acquire 1,000,000 new prospects, Ron illustrated the importance of finding a pain point for your niche and leveraging your unique solution for them.

Expanding on Value Pricing 2.0 with more examples of successful subscription models, Ron hit us with the knowledge that accountants are similar to concierge doctors. Concierge doctors are here to help their patients’ physical and medical health; as an accountant, you’re here to help your clients achieve their financial dreams and stay financially healthy.

BONUS: You get to decide whether or not you’ll participate in the downturn. Decide to come out stronger instead of falling with the recession.  –Dan Martell

Dan hit us with the knowledge in his fireside-style chat with David Cristello. Here are three lists of top-three tips that he offered to our audience.
Three parts to a turn on a race track:

1. Hit the brakes. Decide how you can reduce extra costs in your business.
2. Look at the apex of the turn, not at the possible dangers or barriers you might hit. We don’t know where or when the apex is, so we’re constantly readjusting our focus. But it’s better to keep looking for the apex than to be overwhelmed by the barriers.
3. Power on out of the turn as you exit. Get ready to capture market share for now and when the recession ends.

Three mindset tips for thriving during COVID-19:

1. Pivot to a business model that the current market needs. HINT: The pivots we’re making now might well be the new models for business for the future.
2. Protect the business. Get your economics, metrics for success, and team in order.
3. Profit is necessary. You have to generate revenue. Now may not be the time to think about scaling, but choosing what and how to monetize if your business needs to pivot.

Three actions you can take when you decide not to be part of the downturn:

1. Evaluate how you’re consuming news. Consider consuming less news overall and choose sources that are more factual and less focused on click-bait, ratings, and fear-mongering.
2. Move your body daily. Although some people exercise for physical appearance (an added bonus), regular workouts are more important for strengthening your mental health.
3. Surround yourself with people who share the same belief and passion for life. You will always lower your drive to the average level of drive of the people with whom you surround yourself. Choose your community wisely.

Ok we couldn’t stop there. Here are three bonus Dan Martell-styled platitudes:

1. Opportunity is sometimes disguised as hard work. What if what you’re going through is preparing you to be the person who’s ready for the thing you’ve been asking for?
2. No million-dollar business was built on $10/hour tasks.
3. Never hire a new employee until you can see that they’ll give you back 10% of your week. Use new hires and outsourcing to vendors to buy back your time from your calendar.

Want more time back in your calendar? Try Jetpack Workflow for free for 14 days, and discover how you can automate tasks to free up more of your daily schedule and focus on bigger and better things.
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