Having to offboard a team member is inevitable. You know the adage (that’s super relevant to accountants), “…in this world nothing can be certain, except death and taxes?”

Well, there’s a third item that belongs in that quote — Change.

The term “offboarding” is a fancy way of saying one of your teammates is leaving your accounting practice. Maybe they were tempted by the big 4 firms, maybe it’s time to stay home with kids. 

Whatever the reason, when it happens you may feel:

• Shocked that this person would leave
• Overwhelmed with figuring out how to get their work done
• Double overwhelmed to find their replacement

That’s exactly why you need a plan. A proper process for transitioning said person out, and working on getting someone else to take their place. 

And that’s what we’re covering here. Let’s get started.

3 Things You Must Do with Every Notice-Giver

When a valued employee tells you they’re leaving, it’s like a whirlwind. Everyone in your firm is ultimately affected. But there are two types of people, in an emergency; those who have a plan and those who don’t.

Be the one with a plan. To start, here are three things you must do when someone is quitting.

1. Find Out Why (Externally and Internally)

Most people have given some thought to how they’ll answer the question, “Why are you leaving?”

Money. Benefits. Flexibility. Family. Retirement.

These are external factors. Things outside of the person, drawing them to go elsewhere. That said, there are possible internal factors. And those are what you’re really after. 

No, employees who leave don’t want to watch your firm burn. Not at all, but there are likely things about the job (or team) that helped nudge them to look elsewhere.

You’re not necessarily trying to convince them to stay. Rather, the goal is to fix potential holes in your employee retention.

The best way to do this is to:

• Schedule one-on-one time with this soon to be ex-employee
• Ask pointed questions like, “What’s the one thing about working here that may have helped you make your decision to leave?”
• Ask follow-ups to those pointed questions.
• Keep it positive, it’s not an interrogation

2. Set the Terms (If Possible)

In your one-on-one, it’s a good idea to discuss the terms of the employee’s departure. But think about what you actually want before the conversation. 

• A valued team member, with integrity? You want them to finish out their 2-4 week notice.
• Someone whose productivity will plummet the moment they turn in their notice? Check your capacity before the meeting, and see if it’s already their last day.

3. Notify the Team

It’s likely that some of your team knows this person is leaving. This is especially true if your firm is tight-knit. 

Even larger crews have groups of friends and work besties.

So, as soon as you have the debrief with the soon-to-be former employee, it’s time to notify the team. Letting them know looks different, depending on your firm. And you know the team best, but it’s best to let them know without hurting motivation.

Here are some potential ideas:

• If the person is well-liked, hardworking, and is leaving on good terms (and possibly not to another firm). For this situation, you may announce it in the form of a meeting to hear the sad “ahh’s.” Then, maybe announce you’re buying lunch or a half-day on their last day.
• Not good terms or not the hardest worker? Well, that’s more of a go-around to each person’s workspace and alert them as the person clears out their desk.
• Remote work situation? If it’s the well-liked person and you trust them, maybe they can craft a goodby for the appropriate Slack channel, or you can either alert everyone or slip into their DMs, if it’s a small team, to start some culture conversations.

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Document this Process as Part of Your Staffing Workflow

Remember, two types of people. Those with a plan and those without. It makes sense to write down your employee offboarding process. 

Here are some things to consider:

Use a Workflow Tool

Use your practice management or workflow tool to document the process of offboarding. This will help you in the moment of loss we talked about earlier. It’s also a great accountability tool, to document and check off tasks for each offboarded member. 

Kind of like documentation. 

A recorded list of tasks and notes you use to see staff trends and to keep a record of what happened (in the unlikely event of legal issues).

Have a Termination Process, too

It’s also a good idea to have a termination process (for the same reasons as an offboarding process).

The two events (offboarding and firing) have the same end, but two radically different paths. Plus, terminating team members (while still unlikely) are more likely to result in litigation.

So, having a digital process to handle the firing, and a digital record of what went down is really important.

Link Your Offboarding to Your Hiring

The cool thing about accounting firms is that all services connect in some way. Bookkeeping is connected to budgeting, forecasting, and so on.

Your internal processes (i.e. marketing, hiring, offboarding, termination, using contractors) also connect. Increase your marketing? Well, that could include contractors. Or you’ll need to hire more accountants.

It’s all symbiotic. 

That’s why you should design your workflow in a way that helps you run your business smoothly.

The point?

When you know someone’s leaving, it’s time to open up a requisition or access your recruiting pipeline. So, when you assign yourself the offboarding checklist, go ahead and begin that hiring process, too.

Offboard, Onboard, and Beyond with JetpackWorkflow

No matter what the process is, from client deliverables to offboarding people on your team, a workflow tool keeps all those steps in a single place. Don’t get caught off guard by a resignation.

Know exactly what to do, from getting them out the door all the way to fully training their replacement. 
Want help choosing the best workflow tool for your firm? We just published a comprehensive buyer’s guide. You’ll find key criteria to include in your search and detailed reviews of nearly a dozen solutions!

Do you remember getting advice for your first job interview? You probably heard things like, “look them in the eye,” or “make sure your handshake is firm.”

But remote hiring changes everything.

Kinda makes you feel for interviewees who can’t shake hands through a computer screen, and who find it hard to look you in the eye while staring into a webcam. And this is only one aspect you’ll need to consider, if you plan on interviewing, hiring, and onboarding talent via a remote setting.

In this article, we hope to give you a firm foundation to create a remote hiring process for your accounting firm.

First, Get Your Hiring Process Down

Having a clear, documented recruiting and hiring process is possibly the most important element of staffing your firm. 

That’s true for in-person or remote hiring.

• If you don’t know who you’re looking for, you could hire someone who doesn’t meet your expectations
• Not knowing how each interview will flow creates awkward conversations that don’t tell you anything about the person (and takes extra time)
• Failing to know where qualified candidates look for jobs, or how to properly filter candidates means even more time wasted

So, how do you avoid these problems? Here are three steps.

1. Create an Ideal Teammate Persona

Similar to an ideal buyer persona, creating an ideal teammate persona is also beneficial. 

Here are three things to consider:

• Your current team: Who are the people you rely on most? Not only for their tasks, but initiative, attitude and a joy to be around? Now write those attributes down, and turn it into the person you’re looking for, during an interview.
• Your current clients: What services are most in-demand? How quickly are you growing? These questions allow you to gauge how quickly you need to onboard new hires.
• Your firm goals: Want to move from basic tax and audit services to higher-value fare? Add a partner? Double the number of clients? Knowing your goals helps you set the pace for your remote hiring and helps plot out when to gather a new round of applicants.

Set the Terms of the Interview Process

Having a few questions in mind and showing up for the Zoom call (or whatever video chat you use) isn’t a process. 

Sure, instinct is an important part of choosing candidates that’ll get along in your firm, but people put on a show during an interview. If you don’t have a firm process and try to get the real person, your interviewee could end up running the show.

Here are some potential tactics to have a firm remote process.

• Multiple steps: In small firms, sometimes the process is a 20-min interview + a gut feeling = new hire. Add steps to your process. Don’t make it excruciating and ensure the steps move the right candidates closer (and the wrong ones further away). Note: The next two ideas could be steps in your process.
• Mixed bag of questions: A candidate who wants the job will have prepared answers for traditional interview questions. But how about sending them a few questions in advance? They turn them in a day before the interview, and you get to drill deeper during your remote call. Harder to prepare, giving you a better chance to see their raw answers.
• Practice project: Prepare a fake project and ask interviewees to handle the deliverable. You could see if they’d do it for free, but it’s a good idea to pay them a one-time fee, if the deliverable is met. This gives you an idea of how they work, which is valuable.

Extra Tip: Use a service template in Jetpack Workflow to see how they’ll work inside your practice management system. Those who make the cut will then already have experience with your firm’s workflow.

Figure Out Your Recruiting Funnel

Did you know that upwards of 70% of job openings are publicly listed (e.g. Indeed, Monster). And more recently, there are about 1 million more job openings than unemployed in the U.S..

Add those two stats together and it’s clear — You need constant recruitment to keep your firm staffed.

Here are some tips.

• Raise awareness about your firm: Marketing is the process of raising awareness and attracting potential clients. This is the same, except for people you want to work with. Do some speaking at college accounting programs (either in-person or virtually), network, and any other format that can be brought over from marketing and applies to hiring.
• Look for new and experienced candidates: Colleges are great to acquire newly-graduated talent. But we’re living through something dubbed the “Great Resignation.” And that means tons of experienced accountants looking for a change of pace. Which leads to the next tip.
• Entice with overt benefits: Many firms have rigid work schedules and traditional vacation/sick policies. Plus, they may not get exhilarated doing bank reconciliations day-in and day-out. Can you offer something different? Cross training? Paid time to get certain financial certifications? Flexible work schedules and vacation? These things make a big difference when you want to recruit the best.

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Then, Get All Your Processes Down (Vital for Onboarding)

After your recruiting funnel and hiring process is down pat, it’s time to work on your firm’s systems.

Onboarding costs money. You’re paying someone for full-time work and they don’t know how to do anything! Plus, other members of your team (and yourself) are spending time training them.

If your processes are clearly documented and quickly understood — onboarding takes significantly less time.

Specific Processes + “Over the Shoulder” Training

Typical training looks something like this:

• Step one: New hire watches a skilled accountant perform tasks
• Step two: New hire helps a skilled accountant perform those tasks
• Step three: Skilled accountant helps new hire perform those tasks
• Step four: Skilled accountant watches new hire perform those tasks

Boom! They’re trained. 

But if both the new hire and skilled accountant work from clearly-outlined tasks, within service templates (specific to your firm), in a project management tool that records progress?

That’s the onboarding process that lasts for the long haul.

Want to go a bit deeper? Here’s a bit more on designing the ideal workflow in your firm, by documenting your processes.

Establish a Timeline for Training and Review

With a full-accounting firm, training can take months (or even years). And if it takes longer to get someone established, you really need timed, structured instructions and accountability.

For example: 

• Basic month-end close process: 2 weeks of training
• Payroll services: Additional 2-4 weeks of training within new hire’s first 90 days
• Budget and forecasting: Additional 4 weeks of training within 180 days
• CFO and advisory: At least one year of regular job shadowing of a current CFO/advisory accountant

In addition to the clear timing of cross training, you’ll also want to have regular one-on-ones with your accountants, if possible. (Note: If you have partners, this process can be divided up.)

Imagine if every 2-3 weeks, new accountants sat down (virtually) with you. After a few months, you’d:

• Be very comfortable with one another
• Know if they’re not going to work out
• Build trust and really have a close-knit team

Remote Hiring Made Easier with Workflow Software

You know where all of your remote hiring, accounting services, and even your new hire onboarding processes can go?

If you said, “workflow software,” you’re right! 

Choosing the right software takes some time and consideration. And we want to help. To do just that, we’ve put together a massive buyer’s guide. In it, you’ll find tips on choosing the right solutions for your firm, and reviews of 11 of the best platforms on the market.

Want it? Download it right here.

How are you handling your CPA firm management? Sounds technical, right? “CPA firm management.” 

But it’s really a fancy way of saying how your business (in the accounting industry) operates. We all know there’s always room for improvement, and for some, that improvement is more pressing than others.

There are three main areas when we’re talking about “management,” and they’re:

• Processes: The specific ways, steps, and tasks that make up everything you do.
• Roles and responsibilities: Who does what within your accounting firm.
• Leadership: How you see, coordinate, and run your business.

Signs Your Firm May Need Some Practice Management

If you have a bit of a breakdown in one of the three areas mentioned above, you’ll notice some things. Try to be a bit stoic when reviewing these potential warning signs. 

Why? There are days you and the team are on fire. Other days, you may think the only thing on fire is the dumpster.

Ok, hopefully not that dramatic, but you get the idea. It’s important to review your firm’s processes objectively. Here are our three warning signs.

1. Deliverables Seem to Be a Bit Out of Hand

Again, this isn’t (necessarily) reflected by clients emailing to ask why their cash flow statement hasn’t come yet. That would be closer to the “bad” end of the good/bad scale.

But, do you notice any of the following: 

• Incomplete reports (e.g. missing key items)
• Having to follow-up with the team to find out where a certain item/project stands
• Not getting the deliverable out at the same time each month/quarter

These are all tell-tale signs of a deliverable problem, and a key indicator your firm management may need some attention.

2. Capacity is Thin and the Team is Getting Burnt Out

Growth is fantastic. That said, it brings its fair share of opportunities (aka potential problems). One of the most common, we’ve heard from accounting firm owners is the balance between growth, team capacity, and hiring new CPAs/accountants.

On one hand, you really want to hire capable people who fit into your company’s culture and are excited to help clients succeed. After all, everyone wants to avoid toxic coworkers.

And on the other hand, you don’t want your current capable, experienced, and excited team members to get burnt out with too much work.

Key question: How do you clearly know when it’s time to begin the hiring process?

Answer; understand your capacity. Jumping the gun here, since we give solutions a bit further down. But a key component of a well-run firm are those with a clear idea of capacity. 

Jetpack Workflow’s newest feature is the ability to see capacity within your company. As you gain clients and input their tasks into our workflow system, you’ll see exactly how much more you can take on. 

If you’re getting close, it’s time to start recruiting the right people.

3. It’s Hard to See Exactly Where Your Firm Stands

As you’ve grown, has it become more and more difficult to see the “big picture,” in terms of project management?

Early on, it was easy to know where everything was, and to keep everyone moving through the work. A quick glance at a couple of spreadsheets, maybe a 5-min stop by so and so’s desk, and everything felt under control.

Now, all the posty notes in the world can’t seem to keep you on task, and you feel like you don’t really know how work is flowing through your firm.

Seeing the macro view of your company is one of the most prominent signs you need a firm management makeover. 

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3 Solutions to Improve CPA Firm Management

Now, we’re taking a turn toward the positive. Documenting processes, getting everyone on the same page, and delivering consistent results to clients (on time). 

Here are three broad steps to take, starting today.

1. Lay Out ALL of Your Processes

This one’s going to take some time. BUT… It doesn’t have to be done in a day, or even a week. 

What do we mean by “lay out” your processes? 

First, there are two types of processes; internal and external. Internal processes are things like:

• How you find and close new clients (i.e. marketing, sales processes)
• Hiring/onboarding new team members
• How you hold the team accountable (role transitions, promotions, terminations)

External processes are essentially all of your services and the specific tasks associated with each. We suggest beginning with the most-performed services in your firm. 

Things like:

• Month-end close process
• Tax filing
• Payroll

Pareto taught us that around 80% of our output comes from about 20% of input. So, it’s not an exact science, but a few of your services probably make up the bulk of what your team does, day in and day out.

Here’s what to do: Lay out every single task associated with your most common services. After your biggest, keep going until everything your firm does (internal and external) is documented.

Further reading: We’ve written about designing your workflow extensively here and here.

2. Evaluate Roles of Your Team (and Yourself)

Seeing what your firm does (in the form of laid-out processes) gives you a great opportunity to evaluate who does what within your organization. Chances are, some are doing more than others. And there’s a bigger chance you’re doing things you probably shouldn’t. 

For instance, if too much runs through you (final approvals, all client communication, etc.) it causes a bottleneck in your business.

With your process tasks in hand and an honest look at who’s doing what, you will be surprised at the number of insights attained. The good thing about you seeing these issues?

You’ll begin forming a plan to better manage your CPAs and accountants. 

3. Use a CPA Office Management Software

Ok, this one is a biggy. Why? Because using a workflow software gives you the ability to objectively solve all of the firm management problems we’ve covered. 

Here’s how:

• You know those processes? All of them can live in a quality workflow software, making it a hub for everything your business does (and all tasks associated with them).
• The team? Assign all tasks individually and see who’s completing what. You can also see who’s having trouble, sending help their way.
• Seeing the big picture? With the right platform, you’ll be able to understand the status of every project. Then, drill down into the specifics and see what’s not done and why. 

Processes Made Easier with Workflow Software

The workflow, or practice management software is the key that unlocks a smooth-running accounting firm (when implemented correctly).

But which solution do you choose? 

We took the time and counted nearly a dozen different solutions for accounting firm owners, like yourself. Then, we put our findings into one massive buying guide. Inside, you’ll find: 

• The most important things to look at, when considering a solution
• Resources to find customer reviews on your top picks
• Detailed comparison review of every single practice management tool

Interested? You can download the buyer’s guide right here.