Kaizen accounting: how to drive Operational Excellence across your firm

Success in accounting demands the right mix of grit, determination and smart thinking.

If you push too hard or too fast, the dream collapses. You will get extra client work, but you and your team will soon find yourselves snowed under. This is because you don’t have the right systems in place.

The result will be too much work to handle, dwindling efficiency, and low morale. That negativity won’t just be felt by your team; clients will also question whether they want to stay with your firm.

But success won’t wait, and you must act

The stark reality is that you must push for greater success, regardless. Your firm will have steep targets if it wants to stay competitive in the current market. Meanwhile, clients need help to deal with greater obligations and more complex regulations (MTD, for example).

As a result, it’s unsurprising that nearly a third of global firms we spoke to see burnout as their main obstacle. In the UK, according to CABA, it’s being tracked as a growing concern; 43% of respondents experienced its effects.

So how can accounting firms build better resilience? Some of that comes from your organisation’s people and software systems (see our guide), but it can also be supported by individual mindset shifts. 

This is where kaizen can have a real impact.

What is kaizen? How a philosophy can drive accounting success

Kaizen is a Japanese business management philosophy. It has been tried, tested and proven in practically every sector and profession since it first transformed manufacturing after World War II. It’s now considered part of the management framework known as Operational Excellence. Loosely translated, it means “change for the better”.

But unlike many other headline-grabbing ideas, it’s less about disruptive transformation, more about incremental improvements.

Operational Excellence focuses on:

• The customer: They are the most important thing, so how can you make their life better?
• Continuous improvement: Improvement brings success; what ways of working can be better implemented next time?
• Standardisation and process: Good ways of working should be replicated, sowhat do you and your team do best?
• Empowerment: The top of the firm sets the targets, but can individuals and teams step up and contribute?
• Teamwork: Best practices must be shared. How can you work more closely across departments?
• Elimination of waste: It’s time to cut through pointless processes and needless admin. How can you and your team save time and effort?

But how do you get started? Let’s explore our 5-step checklist.

5 simple steps to adopting a can-do, kaizen mindset

ONE: Fine-tuning your day-to-day work

Here are some quick ways to reduce waste and focus on value-driven improvement.

1. Remove pointless tasks and automate repetitive ones. Strive to reduce manual effort in bookkeeping, reconciliation, and reporting through intelligent workflows. Learn everything you can about your existing software system to see how well it can help you with this.
2. Spot and serve needs as they arrive in real-time. How quickly can you add clients through onboarding? See if your digital system has the opportunity to automate this and the rest of the client experience.
3. See where you can make more data-driven decisions. Sometimes there’s valuable data in an organisation, it’s just hidden. Can you uncover it? If so, what can you do to make even more informed decisions for your team and your clients?
4. Act with purpose and confidence. Be unflinching when it comes to upcoming regulations. Are there any on the horizon you have been meaning to research? If so, prepare sooner rather than later, update processes immediately, and ensure any new workflows are backed by a strong audit trail.

TWO: Tackling broader problems

The next essential step is to tackle issues that have been ongoing for you and your team. How do you prevent slowdowns and blockers?

• Process mapping: Check each task you perform for every type of job. Identify bottlenecks and where you want to improve workflows. Can your software system support you in making improvements?
• Smart oversight and & KPIs: Do you have the ability to easily track progress? Can you quantify these efforts and measure them against company targets? The data you hopefully were able to find in Section One “d” can be of assistance here.

THREE: Communicating excellence to clients

Clients are everything to accounting firms – and Kaizen puts them at the heart of what you do. But how strong can you make this working relationship?

• Can I easily translate financial data into powerful narratives?
• Can I effortlessly adjust what I’m presenting to meet the needs of any client… whether that’s a less financially savvy small business owner or a corporate CFO?
• How easy is it for me to provide finance updates that track business goals and campaigns?
• Do clients always get clear guidance on what they can do with the data I provide?

FOUR: Nurturing a kaizen culture

How can you take all this hard work and use it to benefit your firm further? Share your insights with other teams and departments.

• Encourage feedback, learning, and idea-sharing across neighbouring teams.
• Celebrate small wins, like shaving minutes off a recurring task.
• Build a mindset of experimentation, supported by tools that make change easy and reversible.

FIVE: Reinforce your approach

Ask yourself, every day:

✅ Have I eliminated or automated my team’s repetitive tasks?

✅ Do I collaborate promptly with clients or colleagues?

✅ Do I share best practices?

✅ Am I using live data to guide decisions?

✅ Have we tried to improve any processes recently, big or small?

✅ Do my reports tell a story that clients can act on?

Digital systems can make implementing improvements easier

When implemented well, digital systems support continuous improvement across every client touchpoint.

You can:

• Guide decisions and spot trends before they become problems using real-time insights.
• Adapt to your team’s needs, whether remote or in-office, thanks to a “work-from-anywhere” platform.
• Turn raw data into actionable client narratives thanks to advanced analytics.
• Keep ahead of regulatory shifts thanks to regularly updated, integrated compliance tools.

Put simply, you and your team can achieve more, but enjoy better capacity.

Now, transform your whole firm’s growth journey

What can you do to make your firm even more efficient?

That’s where our guide to Operational Excellence comes in. With its help, you can turn obstacles into opportunities. 

Get valuable insights from our experts in accounting, digital transformation, and practice management. 

Discover more about how you can:
✔ Build a culture of continuous improvement
✔ Streamline workflows and eliminate inefficiencies
✔ Harness the power of unified digital systems
✔ Deliver an exceptional client experience