When it comes to increasing profitability and productivity for accounting firms, using automation to create standardized workflows that are as streamlined and efficient as possible is not a new strategy. This is the basic business case for automating as many of your accounting firm’s most time-consuming tasks.
There’s another key reason to leverage automation, beyond the immediate day-to-day workflow gains: a longer term view of utilizing your newly available capacity to expand your firm’s service offering into higher value advisory services, including HR, which could offer your firm new opportunities for revenue and growth.
The good news is that executing an automation strategy like the one outlined below really is as easy as A-B-C (Automation-Bandwidth-Client Advisory Services). This simple but effective 3-step plan can help your firm service offerings.
Step 1: Automation for workflow efficiency and productivity. One of the major benefits of automation, is of course, eliminating repetitive, time-consuming tasks. This allows you to be more productive, freeing your time to focus on developing and delivering advisory services.
Step 2: Bandwidth increases to facilitate higher value engagements. Hand-in-hand with workflow efficiency and productivity, automation enables you to increase your firm’s capabilities to increase the proportion of higher value engagements such as client advisory services (CAS). Once you automate routine tasks such as those related to practice management, you’ll be able to minimize time spent doing administrative tasks and allocate more of your firm’s resources to more profitable services—including human resource (HR) advisory services, which are in demand now more than ever.
Step 3: Client advisory and HR services growth. The final step in the A-B-C model is bringing your firm’s CAS services to market. For example, through the automation available in a comprehensive practice management solution such as Canopy, you will have the bandwidth and the tools needed to successfully onboard CAS clients and deliver these services effectively. In addition, utilizing the data available in Canopy’s reporting dashboard, you can also gain insights to further optimize the efficiency of your firm’s CAS and HR services while also measuring your staff’s current workload capacity so you can plan workflow for existing needs and new engagements.
Learn how to leverage the benefits of practice management automation—register for the Build The Ultimate ROI Machine for Your Accounting Firm with a Connected Practice Management Tech Stack webinar on July 14, 2021. You’ll see first-hand how to create higher efficiencies in your workflow and day-to-day operations, improved employee productivity, as well as new opportunities for expanding your firm’s for CAS and HR offerings. Prior to the webinar, download the whitepaper to learn more about how to integrate your practice management tools with other apps for maximum productivity and profitability.