Trying to shuffle between multiple types of software brings your workday to a screeching halt. When you cannot see all your client information in one place, it is easy to make a mistake due to redundancy or accidentally leave a piece of sensitive information in software that is not as secure as you thought.
A client portal offers the possibility to communicate with your client in one place, while a disjointed tech stack can let you hold on to software that you have used for years. There can be advantages to each approach, but you need to know the major drawbacks as well so that you make the best decision for your accounting firm.
Keep reading to learn more.
Pros and Cons of Secure Client Portals
When you implement a client portal, every piece of information and document that is shared between you and your client stays in one place.
A client portal:
- Clarifies communication by centralizing all points of communication
- Answers questions because clients can look through relevant documents
- Eliminates the back and forth of email—everything the client needs is in one place
- Helps build stronger client relationships because your clients can see all the work you have done for them at once and immediately understand your firm’s value
- Keeps clients’ information and relevant documents secure and easily accessible
The biggest challenge to implementing a client portal is that your client may have to remember a password. While this can be annoying to some, others view it as a small price to pay in exchange for all the benefits.
Pros and Cons of Disjointed Tech Stacks
If you have software you know and love, it is understandable to be hesitant to part with it. But do not get so attached to software that you allow it to have a negative impact on your client relationships.
When you use a different piece of software for every task, it can be confusing for your clients to understand how to contact you or to keep track of their data.
While a choose-your-own-adventure tech stack allows you the flexibility to choose the software that works perfectly for your firm, it comes with some hefty downsides:
- Your employees waste time looking through many different programs to find the client information they need
- Files get lost due to someone not logging information the same way across different programs
- Errors pop up because the types of software do not integrate—a client may give you a new address, but you forget to add it to every program, and this could cause security breaches if an employee sends a sensitive document to the wrong address
How Client Portals Change (and Improve) Your Workflows
Client portals keep client information updated, keep sensitive information safe from hackers and save you time that you would have spent switching between incongruent software tools.
To make the most of your client portals, look for accounting practice management software that offers a client portal alongside all the tools you need to manage your firm. For example, if you offer online payments in tandem with a client portal, clients can keep their credit cards on file in the client portal.
This lets you set up recurring payments (if the client prefers this) and bill them monthly at a set rate.
When you use billing software with a client portal, it makes it easy to invoice clients directly through the portal. They can pay right there and have a record of all their invoices to look through at their convenience. No need to bother your team with requests to track down copies of old invoices, because the client will have access to it in the portal.
Tax season
The busiest time of the year becomes more manageable with a client portal. Keep your influx of clients handled: you can store all their data in one place, keep it confidential, use task management to keep track of due dates to upload to their portal, remind them of meetings on the calendar through the portal, and more.
When they see how professional you are at handling their taxes, they may want to accept your offer for year-round accounting services. Take your clients from seasonal to year-round and boost your cash flow with a client portal.
Practice management software
When you use a client portal with practice management software, you gain tools that level up your client relationships. Look for practice management software that offers:
- Document management to implement better filing systems
- Secure file sharing
- Electronic signature
- Time tracking
- Billing
- Task management
When these tools are all in one place, you can manage more clients in less time.
Mango Practice Management offers a client portal and all the tools listed above in their robust practice management system made by accountants, for accountants. If you are ready to leave your disjointed tech stack behind and implement workflows that benefit your firm and your clients, SCHEDULE A DEMO with us today.