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accountants and bookkeepers

5 clues that show collaboration produces better outcomes for your client

Working collaboratively has many immediate and long-term benefits. It’s a great way to engage clients and ensure common goals are achieved. This is why expanding your network of professionals and engaging successfully with them will help pave the way to success.

1. Collaboration helps you and your clients to achieve great outcomes


It’s often said two heads are better than one. That’s the essence of collaboration. It allows you to achieve goals that may seem out of reach. An important aspect of collaboration is to identify a network of professionals who will help you serve your clients.

This was the key message delivered by Colin Hunt, founder and director of EzyAccounts, at the 2022 Get Connected event, hosted by Intuit QuickBooks.

2. Working together supports a productive business culture

Gone are the days when working in silos was normal. Today, working together is essential to survive in business.

This might take the form of working in teams across clients, ensuring multiple representatives of the firm are present at client meetings and forming cross-business working groups that spearhead IT initiatives, business planning and risk management.

“When you collaborate, make sure you celebrate small wins and recognise the contribution individual team members make. This will lead to improved performance for the team overall,” Hunt says. 

He uses Formula 1 car racing where collaboration is essential, as a metaphor for his message. “The fans tend to give the glory to the driver, but the driver can't win without a high-performing track team.”

In the same way, collaboration can help you win in business. Working cohesively helps to align team members with client goals and produce mutually beneficial outcomes.

Using the right accounting software such as Intuit QuickBooks can support and encourage collaboration. QuickBooks is a one-stop shop that helps accountants and bookkeepers to manage their practice, run their clients and meet their compliance obligations.

Take the stress out of managing your firm

3. Business growth happens when everyone works toward the same goals

“Working together helps clients grow,” Hunt says. “There are more than two million small businesses in Australia. If we help them to grow, they make an enormous impact on the economy.”

Many small businesses have a huge range of growth opportunities. The difficulty is often choosing which path to follow. Collaborating helps to unlock their potential. In the same way, there are many opportunities for accountants and bookkeepers to work together.

“There are plenty of clients for everybody,” Hunt says. “There is more than enough work for everybody. The market needs a large number of bookkeeping and accounting firms and people. So why are we competing with each other?”

“If we were to collaborate with each other, we could achieve so much more. If we took the resources that we spend on competing, the time, the money, the stress, and we were to transfer that to collaboration initiatives, we would all be much better off,” he says.

4. Collaborating with clients helps their business

Clients require continuous guidance to support them on a permanent upward trajectory. This requires clear strategies, practical tactical implementation and concise communication. This will help clients to achieve superior business performance.

For instance, the end of the tax year is a good time to get together and review the year to pinpoint revenue lines that have performed well and others that have underperformed. Use this as an opportunity to rationalise the business and stop offering products that don’t generate the required return to focus on those that do.  

“We focus on facilitating client growth, business strategy and planning. We do that by segmenting our business into different entities. EzyAcademy is our learning management system, while EzyAccounts manages traditional compliance work such as BAS, tax management and business advisory,” Hunt says.

Facilitating growth has many aspects, including working with people, as well as managing the balance sheet and all aspects of the business.

5. A win-win for everybody

Companies and industries benefit when they collaborate and put competition aside.

“Collaboration over competition is a win-win opportunity for everybody,” Hunt says. “We need a connected, motivated community that will help us change.”

While competition is still an important part of a market economy it needs to be combined with knowledge sharing to deliver long-term benefits for all.

Harness the power of diversity of thought

Collaborating both internally and externally is essential for business success and the more you invest in your clients’ businesses, the better the outcome for all.

Contact us today to find out more about how Intuit QuickBooks can transform your practice and support your clients to be the best they can be.


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