Well, another tax season is thankfully out of the way.

But what can you do with that extra breathing space? It’s a good time to analyse your firm’s processes.

With the right data and insights, you might lessen the impact of tax season – and make other times more profitable.

Let’s explore some areas where you might want to make improvements. If it seems like a lot, skip to the end – I have some good news!

Practice management

One of the first areas to assess is your practice management system. Do you feel like a winning team, or are you struggling to keep an eye on who’s doing what?

Take a look at:

• Deadline tracking: Some people can fend off busy season entirely with rock-solid deadlines for staff and clients. So, what’s your approach? Is it a pristine online system or a scribbled-on notepad?
• Work reassignment: When things get busy, people are away, or there's a change to the team, can you easily reassign existing work to another team member – and if you do, does that update the system? If sharing workloads creates more problems than it’s worth, it's time to examine this process more closely.
• AML checks: Adding new clients should be painless, fast and a cause for celebration. All too often, it results in an endless chase for client paperwork and the odd sleepless night worrying if you have made a mistake. If that sounds anything like your practice, you might want to think about systems that can automate, track everything, and keep processes aligned with the letter of the law.
• Document sharing: Are you still an “email person”? Worse, are you still digging through letters every morning? Inbound emails from clients lead to an endless cycle of cut and paste. Snail mail results in a retyping nightmare. Online portals, on the other hand, are fast and efficient. They are also more secure, as you’ll see in the next section.
• Document storage: Can everyone get to the documents they need? Also, just as importantly, are your documents stored in compliance with GDPR and ISO standards? These are just two considerations among many about how you look after documents.

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Security

Security breaches cost you money and your reputation.

You can be the best firm in the world, but if a hacker gets through and it becomes known there was an incident (and very often, you are the one that will have to tell your clients), I can think of few things more damaging.

So, how well does your business perform in terms of security?

• Security layers: You have to frustrate hackers at every turn, making you an unappealing target. Good software that’s purpose-built for the cloud can have that capability. Does yours?
• Email and other data sharing problems: We mentioned email and snail mail as things that you down, but they can also be massive security issues. Physical post can be intercepted, and hackers that breach your systems can go through inboxes and “sent” mail to get all the information they need. Meanwhile, spreadsheets are inherently less secure than cloud software, and if anyone passes you information on a memory stick, you should never put it into your system. Consider secure online portals as a better data-sharing alternative.
• Data Protection: Remember – it isn’t just thieves that can rob you of your data or leak sensitive information; mistakes can do the same. So, what happens if your system suffers a mishap? Furthermore, are there safeguards that help mitigate human error?

Finance and HR

Managing finances and human resources effectively is critical. It keeps the wheels turning, clients in check and staff happy.

Here are some areas where you can test how well you perform:

• Billing: Can you easily report on work yet to be billed, or are crucial payments slipping through the cracks? It’s not worth having clients if they don’t pay.
• Profit visibility: Can you instantly see if you are making a profit on a job?
• Payroll: Do you handle payroll internally – and if so, are you using cloud-based software, or are you struggling with other, less effective methods? Would it be better to outsource?
• HR management: Is your HR software a bit of an island, or does it link seamlessly with your payroll to make things work faster and stay accurate?Can staff self-serve, or are holidays an awkward, easily missed request?

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Resources

Time, data and people are your most valuable resources. How well-optimised are you?

Look at the following to find out:

• Advisory services: Advisory services are the Big Thing in accountancy. They add value and profit. But do you have time to deliver them?
• Customer data: Reports are a treasure trove of information for you and your clients… if you can access all the facts and figures you need quickly, that is. If not, it's time to shake things up so you can help clients with speedy, strategic planning.
• Workload management: Does your team ever feel burned out or unhappy with their workload? Check for warning signs as well as incidents where the to-do list became too much.
• Recruitment: Few can say recruitment is easy, but where do you think you stand compared to your competitors? Think about if there is more you can do to attract the best and brightest to your firm.
• Outsourcing:  Is this an area you have thought about? Consider seeing if you can lean on expert, external services in the coming year.

Get the insights you need to check your processes for FREE

If you want to understand all the above quickly and easily, use our free performance analyser and let IRIS do most of the work.

It takes a few minutes:

• Answer the quick quiz
• Discover your score in seconds
• Have a chat with our experts for further insights

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