David Wickenberg, CPA and Partner at KWB Chartered Professional Accountants, shares their firm’s journey to the cloud and how QuickBooks Online has helped them find more clients and offer new services.

First, a little about KWB:

• Location(s): Edmonton, Alberta
• Year established: 1996
• Industries: Small to medium size businesses in any industry with a focus on physicians, trades, and auto repair.
• Services offered: Cloud migration, Quickbooks Online optimization, advisory and coaching, bookkeeping, integrated planning including financial statement and tax return preparation, and workflow optimization.
• Started using QuickBooks: QuickBooks Online in 2016, QuickBooks Online Accountant in 2017

What made you move to the cloud and how has it changed your day-to-day?

We saw the need to move to the cloud in 2016. The biggest motivator for us was being able to offer more value to our clients and drive innovation. We saw the opportunity to simplify our operations to drive efficiency and make us more effective when collaborating with our clients. We wanted to focus our time on the services that provide more value to our clients.

QuickBooks Online allows us to spot and correct errors easily and helps us identify opportunities for our clients. We can provide the advice they need to grow their businesses more effectively while saving time and money.

Since 2016, we have migrated over 200 clients to the cloud and have not looked back.

What’s the biggest impact cloud accounting has had on your firm?

Cloud accounting has not only helped us forge stronger and better relationships with our clients, but has helped us attract new clients to the firm as well, including a younger, more progressive demographic. Clients are looking for software and support that is easy to use and allows them to get ahead of their competition.

We like to work with businesses who embrace technology and see the value in doing so. Being able to offer cloud accounting plus QuickBooks Online services and training helps us to connect and work effectively with our ideal client.

With added efficiency and financial data at our fingertips, our team has been able to offer additional services to our clients that we weren’t able to before. These include cloud accounting implementation and training, related app integration, and COVID-19 benefit related calculations and applications.

How has moving to the cloud changed your client relationships?

With cloud accounting, we have access to real-time financial data. So when our clients need to make critical decisions quickly, we have up-to-date, accurate information and can provide them with timely advice.

We can also help our clients plan strategically for the future and achieve the outcomes they desire for their businesses and lifestyles by using accurate historical information to budget and forecast. We can use reliable data from QBO and related apps to analyze how different options can impact the future for our clients and help them make the best choice possible to get them where they want to go.

How has the cloud impacted your clients’ business?

Access to financial data: The biggest benefit has been real-time access to financial data. With QuickBooks Online, we are able to provide our clients with the insights and advice they need, when they need it to make better decisions.

Automation: Features like bank feeds to automate data entry and apps like Dext (formerly Receipt Bank) to capture receipts, have allowed us to simplify our clients’ accounting workflows and save them a lot of time manually entering data. This has helped them have more time to devote to what they feel is important and, in some cases, has added profit to their bottom line.

What advice would you give a company like yours who’s interested in moving to the cloud?

Don’t wait. Start as soon as you can. Make sure your firm has bought into it and you devote enough time and resources to make it happen. It takes a fair bit of effort to make the move but is worth it in the long run.

Want to connect with KWB Chartered Professional Accountants? Follow them on LinkedIn.