7 Proven Ways Your Accounting Firm Can Be More Efficient

Feeling stuck this busy season trying to find ways to keep up with your workload? To fend off burnout, what you may actually need is better efficiency, not productivity. 

Efficiency means doing more with fewer resources—not just pushing to do more with what you already have. 

It helps cut waste and reduce operational costs, giving you more time and money to invest elsewhere—whether in growing your firm or taking much-needed time off.

On the Growing Your Firm podcast, we’ve interviewed industry experts who have mastered resource optimization for accounting practices. Here are their most successful strategies you can apply to your own firm.

1. Incorporate AI Into Your Workflows

AI tools can significantly boost your firm’s efficiency by handling routine tasks.

While AI can’t replace an accountant’s expertise, it can automate time-consuming administrative work that drains your resources.

For example, accounting firms can use AI to brainstorm blog content, research compliance changes, and sort expenses into categories. 

As the technology continues to advance and become more accessible, firms will find new and creative ways to leverage this technology to improve efficiency. 

Ideas to implement in your firm: 

• Adopt an AI-powered document processing tool to automatically extract important data from client receipts, invoices, and statements.
• Set up an AI assistant to summarize regulatory updates into clear action items for your team and clients.
• Train an AI system to categorize transactions based on your chart of accounts, eliminating this tedious task.

2. Use a Project Management Tool Across Your Team

Project management software helps you stay organized, avoid missing deadlines, improve collaboration, and gain transparency into what the team is working on. 

Instead of hunting down physical documents or sending multiple messages asking for updates, a cloud-based platform makes essential information accessible in one place.

While there are plenty of general project management tools out there, firms should look for a solution that’s tailor-made for accounting processes and workflows, like Jetpack Workflow. 

All-encompassing project management tools typically include features you won’t ever use. However, Jetpack Workflow was created specifically for accountants and bookkeeping professionals to automate repetitive tasks and plan ahead for future deadlines to ensure recurring client work is never missed.  

Plus, Jetpack Workflow includes a helpful Capacity Management feature, giving managers a real-time view of each team member’s workload to assign tasks more effectively.

Ideas to implement in your firm: 

• Set up recurring jobs with specific due dates based on filing deadlines to prevent critical work from being overlooked.
• Use capacity management features to redistribute work when certain team members become overloaded.
• Track task completion rates against expected timelines to ensure all work gets done on time. 

3. Create Systems for Routine Tasks

Building systems for routine tasks reduces the amount of hands-on work required for frequent, low-value processes. These systems free up your time and help your team work more efficiently.

David Jenyns, author of SYSTEMology and the host of the Business System Simplified podcast speaks to the control and freedom that comes from implementing systems. 

“You create systems in place, and it gets all of the parts of the business handled that need to be handled,” explains Jenyns. “If you have a system, that then frees you and your team members up to start to do your best work, because you don’t have to think about all the little things.”

Ideas to implement in your firm: 

• Create a standardized client onboarding process with an automated digital intake workflow to collect necessary information upfront.
• Develop a month-end checklist (like this one) with all required tasks to close the books without missing essential items.
• Design tax preparation checklists (template here) by client type (Form 1040, Form 1065, etc.) to ensure consistent service delivery.

4. Build a “World-Class” Team

Strategic hiring enables your firm to run smoothly, giving you confidence that client work will be handled properly without your constant supervision.

Creating a high-performing accounting team requires deliberate effort to attract and hire the right people.

Austin Netzley, Founder and CEO of 2X and author of From 6 to 7 Figures, stresses the importance for firm owners to find the right team. 

“Take the onus to build and optimize an amazing team – that alone is one of the highest-leverage things you can do,” says Netzley. 

If you’re too rushed to hire carefully, you might bring someone on based solely on their resume, not knowing if their credentials will translate into actual value for your firm and clients.

This shortcut during hiring often leads to more supervision time later if the new hire can’t work independently.

Ideas to implement in your firm: 

• Develop a practical skills assessment for each role instead of relying only on resumes and interviews.
• Design role-specific case studies/interview questions that simulate actual client work.
• Create job advancement pathways with skills assessments and training to help prepare current employees for progression within the firm. 

5. Complete a Time Audit

You might not realize exactly how you’re spending (or wasting) your time each day.

With a detailed record of your daily activities, you can spot where your resources are being wasted on low-value tasks.

Netzley recommends completing a thorough time audit to identify inefficient areas:

“We want you to look at every single minute of your past week, of exactly where your time is going,” explains Netzley. 

He emphasizes being as specific as possible with your time audit. This means listing the exact types of clients and specific services you’re working on throughout the week. Vague descriptions like “client work” or “strategy” won’t give you useful insights.

Ideas to implement in your firm: 

• Track your activities in 15-minute blocks for one full week, then analyze the results to identify patterns and inefficiencies.
• Create an action plan for the highest-impact areas—whether delegating time-consuming tasks, eliminating unnecessary work, or building better systems.

6. Focus Your Service Offerings

As Netzley puts it, “Most people have too many offerings.”

You might be spreading your team too thin by offering services that aren’t profitable or worth the effort, leaving fewer resources for high-value projects.

Your firm can improve efficiency by reducing your service menu and focusing more time on your most profitable work.

Ideas to implement in your firm: 

• Calculate the profitability of each service by comparing client fees with the time spent delivering that service.
• Identify natural service groupings you can offer as packages to clients at a combined, flat rate.
• Build referral relationships with other firms for services you plan to stop offering, and create client transition processes.

7. Focus on Existing Clients

Rather than spending resources trying to attract new clients, look for ways to provide more value to clients who already know and trust your firm.

This strategy was key for Michael Frost, co-founder and president of Heritage Family Offices, in growing his practice:

“Once you integrate outsourcing, automation, [and] you remove and get away from spending time on the commoditized service … do not go get another client,” states Frost. “You’ve got 1,000 clients that trust you; let’s just better serve them and get you better compensated for the advice that you’re already giving them.”

In other words, getting more revenue from existing accounts is more profitable than acquiring a new client. You can either provide them additional services or expand on the current engagement and increase fees accordingly. 

Ideas to implement in your firm: 

• Analyze current service gaps for each client and identify expansion opportunities based on their specific business needs.
• Identify tax clients who don’t receive advisory services and prepare a personalized opportunity analysis to present during tax return reviews.
• Create logical service bundles that address common client needs beyond what they currently receive.