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accountants and bookkeepers

Upgrade Your Practice Productivity for a Better Tax Season

By QuickBooks Australia

July 1, 2022

The end of the financial year is a stressful time for all. For a lot of small businesses, it is a frantic period to clear stock and plan for the next financial year. The same can be said for bookkeepers and accountants, as they too, look to review what can be done to improve their own businesses.

Whether it is upgrading technology, reviewing pricing structures, increasing the array of services on offer or simply assessing the process system for dealing with clients, there is plenty to evaluate in the lead to June 30 - and beyond!

An independent assessment of your own business can help increase revenue and profitability. An honest self-evaluation can highlight areas that can be improved, as well as offering insight into unforeseen costs. To help with this assessment, we’ve published an e-book titled Upgrade Your Practice Productivity for a Better Tax Season, offering plenty of tips to help you navigate the end of one financial year and to set up for success in the new one.

This e-book can help you uncover opportunities for improvement in your firm. In it, we’ve identified three initiatives for you and your team to undertake in the lead up to the end of financial year:

1. A workflow audit

Conducting a workflow audit is a simple way of process mapping all of the tasks in your workflow. What is required to get the work done? What are your outputs? Month-end accounts, BAS lodgements, monthly payroll for example, and what are the inputs – most likely a series of tasks – to get that work completed.

Part of the workflow audit is to help you understand if there is any duplication in the processes. If there is, you can look at ways to eliminate it and improve your efficiency. For example, are you still physically handling paper documentation from your clients? If so, it’s likely an inefficient process which is costing you time and money, and can be eliminated.

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2. Upgrading data collection technology

Are you getting the information you need from your clients in a timely manner? And when you do get it, how much clean-up is required? A lot of time (and money) gets lost waiting for and/or manually processing data.

The reality is that every bookkeeper and accountant is a data controller. You inherently know what data is required, but are you collecting and processing that data as efficiently as you could be? Is your current data collection technology up to the job?

3. Conducting a technology audit

Is the technology your firm is using really working for you? Now’s the time to assess your wider technology needs and make changes in time for a more efficient busy season.

Routinely evaluating the effectiveness of your own technology is critical if you are to survive and thrive. Technology continues to advance at a rapid rate and products are constantly updating and releasing new features. For example, the feedback from the Books Review feature in QuickBooks Online Accountant reveals that bookkeepers and accountants are saving as much as 40 minutes per client*. That is a significant advantage and enables businesses to quantify improvements from the implementation of new technology.

The e-book covers more detail on each initiative above, and also highlights other practical examples of how you can automate routine tasks in your firm. Some are simple updates to technology or processes, others will require collaboration with your team and your technology partners.

Finding the time to work on your business can be difficult, however it’s critical to invest this time so that you can continue to be there for your clients helping them with their most important asset – their business.

Download the e-book now, and don’t forget to check out our EOFY Hub for more e-books, videos and checklists to help you work smarter, now harder this EOFY.

*Intuit conducted a study involving 56 interviews with accountants and bookkeepers who used BooksReview for BAS preparation between March to December 2021 and found that when using Books Review, participants reduced the time spent preparing their clients BAS Reports by around 40%.

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