Onwards and (hopefully) upwards: why succession planning is crucial for accountants

In your push towards greater success, it’s empty chairs – of all things – that cause the worst nightmares.

I’m talking, specifically, about the chairs where someone critical sat. The type of person you relied on day in, day out. The face that became part of every “good morning” until one day… it wasn’t. They had left.

You regret not finding a way to make them stay. But in this scenario, another regret is gnawing at you even more: you didn’t put a staff succession plan in place. Maybe you didn’t think such a thing would apply to them.

That has consequences. Once these important staff members leave, everything begins to unravel. Processes grind to a halt, clients lose faith, morale dips and fees nosedive.

PART ONE – Why every “A Team” needs a staff transition plan

In all firms, there are staff who carry extra strategic or operational weight.

Think about the roles that anchor your client relationships: partners, directors, senior accountants, payroll managers, bookkeepers – the list goes on. They do excellent work, your clients know them by name, and you’d be scrambling if they left.

The hidden downside to great staff

Star players come at a price if left untracked. For every good thing you see them accomplish, there are often several jobs done out of sight. This is often because they are self-starters with their own way of doing things, or they are willing to quietly support colleagues.

Sometimes, it’s a mix of the two.

This backfires when they leave. If neither of you tracks their work, then that fine detail will probably not get included in any handover documents. The ground disappears from underneath the firm because they don’t know what tasks and processes need to be done.

Inevitably, clients start to spot the gaps in your operation. As we’ll see, this happens at a time when your firm is already on notice, whether spoken or otherwise.

The bottom line: when a great staff member leaves, it can devastate your fees

Partners and senior staff command a rate, and when they leave, the ability to ask for those fees is suddenly jeopardised. The key staff member built a relationship with the clients through good times and bad, which meant that when an invoice was sent, it got paid.

Now that the staff member has left, the respect and trust they earned for your firm is evaporating by the minute. Make no mistake, clients are not happy when they hear the news.

Of course, this scenario scales according to your former staff member’s client list. So how many people did they help? Was it 10, 50, or even 100 clients?

As I said, empty chairs cause the worst nightmares.

The problem doesn’t stop at senior staff

Of course, key people aren’t just at the “top”.

I’m also thinking of those who handle bulk tasks, like payroll or bookkeeping. These staff members hold a lot of information in their heads, on their desktops and via a constant chain of client comms. Some of these comms will be emails, but could just as easily be phone messages or mission-critical meetings. If you were able to look at those messages, they might baffle – the staff member and the client are often so in sync they will have developed a shorthand and refer to events you’re unaware of.

Again, imagine how those clients will feel when that key staff member leaves. Time is ticking, and you have to prove your remaining staff members can deliver. You must maintain client trust.

The domino effect – will more resignations follow?

Great staff command respect as well as fees. They are natural leaders, regardless of their job titles. That means when they resign, morale in your firm will take a hit. The question is “how much?”

Key staff members set an example that will extend to their decision to work elsewhere. People will look at how things are in your firm and wonder if the grass is greener somewhere else.

Like your clients, your remaining staff will also start to worry that the good times are over. They will ask: is there going to be a replacement, and will they be any good? Should they even stick around to find out?

PART TWO – A quickstart succession plan for accountants: how to de-risk your firm

Begin by identifying the points of risk. In other words, who, if they left now, would inadvertently damage your firm?

Possible candidates include:

• Partners – processes and data flow up to these leaders, but because they are busy, it doesn’t always get shared appropriately.
• Team leaders who look after specific clients.
• People who spend a lot of time on the road meeting clients, including more senior accountants and specialists.
• “Do-ers” who take on more than others because they have experience. They might include junior staff as well as more senior colleagues.

Have you spotted the pattern? As a leader in the firm, you can see the money these people bring in and occasionally meet their happy clients – but you can’t track the processes. In other words, you don’t know how the magic happens.

Preventing the problem

Once you have identified these key staff, you need to better understand their processes. Help them to unpack their workload, job by job, task by task. People of this calibre rarely appreciate how much they do. Document every effort they make, and you will discover far more than either of you expects.

Next, take these workflows and turn them into a shareable, live overview. Everything needs to be tracked in a way that any appropriate team member will understand. Going forward, that means no special spreadsheets that only one staff member can interpret. It means no “quick” jobs are done for clients that are not captured.

Approach this exercise with a measure of tact. Never approach it as “we don’t know what you do, so we need to write it down” or “we’re concerned you might leave, so we want to capture every bit of information we can”. Instead, embrace this as an opportunity to ensure they are not doing uncharged work – and also as a chance to see where other staff can help them.

Approached right, it’s an exercise critical staff members will thank you for. Maybe it will even stop them from looking for other jobs one day.

The secret ingredient

Practice management software (also called task management software) can go a long way to helping you capture and track complex work. It will also save staff from having to track progress using ad-hoc spreadsheets.

What’s good for succession planning is good for every scenario. If a key staff member is away, off sick or on leave, colleagues will be able to support them and their clients.

Consider standardising compliance software if you haven’t already

If staff use different software to achieve the same thing, it becomes difficult to pick up work if someone leaves.

Look at the core tasks and make sure everyone uses the same software. If there are any outliers, get them a licence and make sure they are trained to be comfortable in your standardised solutions.

Success through succession – the final step to averting disaster

When someone key to the firm leaves, keep staff informed (where appropriate) on the succession plan. Tell them if you are hiring, and give them a date once the contract is signed. If there is an interim period, let teams know how tasks will be shared.

This might be a good time to discuss pay rises to recognise the hard work your team is doing, with assurance that any extra responsibilities will be handed over once the new staff member arrives.

During any interim period, some tasks may slip as people take on more than they were hired to do. You can help manage this by using practice management software to support the team – missed tasks can always be flagged and rerouted. That way, everyone feels reassured.

The smart way to future-proof your firm

You’ve seen how vulnerable your firm becomes when key staff leave. That means you need a system that captures work, standardises processes, and supports your team through any time of transition.

IRIS Cloud Accountancy Suite includes a powerful practice management module as well as high-quality compliance tools. It helps you:

• Track every task in real time – so no work is lost during staff changes.
• Standardise compliance across your team, with seamless handovers.
• Use advanced analytics to identify bottlenecks, missed tasks, and opportunities to improve efficiency.