Using technology to document and manage your workflow

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to this session using technology to document and manage your workflow uh my name is heather satterly and i'm really pleased to be with you today um documenting our processes is something that most of us don't love to do in our business but actually it's one of the most important things that we can do especially if we're looking to build a team and scale our practice so during this session you're going to learn about different types of technology that will help you to make short work of that documentation process and you'll learn some best practices that you can use with yourself and with your team to make that process a lot easier so let's go ahead and get started so our agenda today is we're going to talk about the recipe for success so what is the recipe for success we all are running our business or we're working in a firm and we want our firms to run smoothly we want our teams to be working with really wonderful synergy um and we're going to talk about how we can make that happen by documenting processes then we're going to dive into learning how to capture the workflow that's really the hardest part i think that's the thing that we struggle with the most as practitioners is the time and labor that it takes to accurately document a process and actually make it easy to follow for our team and for our clients finally we'll talk about different practice management solutions that you can use once you've documented your processes that will help you keep track of the processes and make sure that all of those really important touch points are covered so that your team and you can make sure that you're doing high quality work and being as efficient as possible then finally we'll talk about getting it right what are some metrics that we can use and what are the things that we need to look at so that we can make sure that our documentation process is accurate that it's achieving its function and make any edits or adjustments as needed so we're going to be together for just under an hour and we have a lot to cover so let's go ahead and dive in so let's talk about the recipe for success so a lot of firm owners and sole practitioners have asked me how do you scale the practice especially the sole practitioners that have been working by themselves for a long time you know what you do in your business you know what the processes are in your firm and with your clients and when you start to onboard new team members it's really hard to effectively communicate what has to be done and what the important things to be looking for are in each of your engagements so really the recipe for success is following a recipe so if we see here this little recipe card we can see that this is the recipe for making a cake and when we have recipe cards what we're writing down is really what are the steps that make that cake taste the same uh every single time right because that's the goal of a recipe is that we're able to repeat the process over and over again and it's always delicious and it's always the way that we remember and it's always delighting the people that are eating the food right including us and that's exactly what we're trying to do when we document our processes is we want to make sure that everything we do is done really well that we have the quality control baked in to our recipe and that our team is able to deliver quality and consistency over and over and over again so that's what we're going to be talking about doing today is we're going to be building recipes for our accounting firms but we're going to be doing that using technology and using the processes that we are following ourselves to make sure that we're delivering really high quality services so there's a really great book out there called the checklist manifesto by atul gawanda and it's an amazing book and it talks about why we need checklists to do a great job and to stay on track and make sure that we have quality control in everything we do now a tool is actually a surgeon and what he found was that when he was doing surgery with different medical teams it's really important that they get it right i'm sure you guys can understand that right if you're doing surgery and something doesn't go right and the quality control falls away well now you have lives at stake so in his book the checklist manifesto he talks about why checklists are so important and why they can be used for just about anything and so this quote is you can't make a recipe for something as complicated as surgery instead you can make a recipe for how to have a team that's prepared for the unexpected and my good friend esther frederick harp she turned me on to this book um we were talking about process and this is so true in firms we have things changing around us all the time we have clients that are doing things we have to deal with their teams we have to deal with their customers we have to deal with regulations uh from the irs and other bodies that are telling us you know changing rules we have to deal with things like a pandemic and how to help our clients stay in business so instead of creating a recipe for something we really want to create guardrails and a system so no matter what happens our team can stay on track and they can be consistently providing quality services to your clients so that's we're going to be doing today now some of the key things that atul gawande said about these checklists is that you need to identify your killer items so when we're thinking about process in our industry which is accounting we're thinking about things like deadlines we're thinking about things about penalties we're thinking about things like materiality right those are the killer things where if we get that wrong you know unfortunate things are going to happen right and so these also are going to be killer items which are the steps that we need to do in our business and that our teams need to do as we're completing the work to make sure that if we don't you know that we're making sure that we're touching on them because if we don't then the end result could be really really bad for our clients right so we also want to he also said that we shouldn't make these checklists thorough guides like they don't need to be a book they don't need to be a novel they really need to be kept short five to nine items are ideal and the reason for that is that as people are reading through instructions and going through their daily work they have about one minute of completely focused time before they start to get distracted so as we work through the different concepts that we're going to be talking about today during the session we need to be thinking about those kind of rules we want to keep it short we want to keep it sweet it should be user friendly meaning that almost anyone can follow it right that they're going to understand exactly what you're trying to say exactly what the steps are going to be and they're going to be able to follow it really easily so our keywords and our our big takeaways when we're talking about process and documenting processes and creating recipes and roadmaps and to do checklists is keep it short make sure we're including the essential steps and that it is precise that our wording is really precise okay so let's go ahead and dive in so why do we document our processes we just talked a lot about that already really we want to provide guidance and clarity to our team and our clients i can't tell you how many times throughout my 30-plus year career where i've asked a team member for something or i asked a client for something and i got something completely different from what i was asking it happens more often i think with clients than it does with our team members and other trained professionals but how many times have you asked a client to upload a document that you need or ask them a question and they didn't quite understand what it was that you were asking them and you ended up having to follow up with that a couple of times before they really understood it well that can be a bit of an art being really precise with our words but it's something that's really important and getting feedback from your team members and your clients is really important to help you start understanding you know how to phrase the instructions so that they can it can be super clear and also learning what terminology your clients understand and actually using that terminology in your instructions is really important as well one of the things i love about quickbooks is that for the accountant-facing product which is quickbooks online accountant all the terminology is in words that we understand we see things like accrual we see cash we see we see you know banking um we see you know the words of uh you know sales coming in we we see accountanese words right but when our clients log into their quickbooks and they're in the business view they actually see words that are really that that they can understand that aren't accountants and i really love that intuit does that because they make it good for both of us right um and it makes it easier for us to work together right so using familiar familiarity using words that whoever is going to be using your chipless checklist can understand is really really vital documenting your processes also maximizes efficiency and consistency right so we go back to that recipe card that we saw a couple of minutes ago you know we want that cake to taste the exact same way every single time we want the consistency to be right we want to delight every single time and so making sure that we have a checklist that we have instructions that anyone can follow that really helps us towards achieving that goal of quality and efficiency and consistency across all the work that we do in our firms it also bolsters that quality control well-placed items in a checklist to say hey make sure that you double check the social security number or make sure that you are you know that the bank statement ending balance matches the reconciliation these are all steps that we put into our processes to make sure that things don't get missed and to ensure the quality of the work that we're delivering to our clients so having a checklist and then making sure that we're focusing on these really important quality checkpoints quality control checkpoints is is really going to allow you to create something that is going to ensure the quality of the work that you're doing for your clients also documenting your processes is is without a doubt the best path to effective automation right so we're hearing a lot about automation right now in our industry we're uh implementing and utilizing technology that's doing a lot of the busy work that you know historically we've had to do ourselves via typing onto a keyboard right or even writing on a piece of paper well if you have documented really good processes then what you're able to do is look at those processes analyze them identify areas where automation can step in and do a really great job of shortening the amount of time that uh and the amount of manual labor that's necessary to get the job done so i'm going to tell you for a long time i've been in this business for a long time and it's much harder to run a firm when you haven't documented your processes than it is when you have when you have them all documented you can literally take your processes give them to someone else and if they're done correctly and well then they can just follow what the steps are and get the job done without a whole lot of supervision and it also ensures you know that quality control that's so essential to our industry all right so let's talk about where we start when we're documenting processes we want to start with the end goal right so what are we trying to accomplish with the process and we want to start there and we want to start looking at what do we have to do to get to that end goal and what are the things that could cause us to stumble or maybe end up with a situation where the work isn't done exactly the way that we would like or isn't done to compliance so you're going to start there by looking at the end goal so an example could be i want to get my bills paid on time every time right so then we want to identify the major steps in that process so we want to look at what are the big things that we're doing in order to make that happen with the accounts payable example it could be that we say all right we get a bill right so that's step one we get the bill right if we're working backwards we could say we pay the bill but what do we have to do before we pay the bill we have to receive it right so we get the bill uh depending on the size of the organization well actually before we dive into the size of the organization we get the bill we record the bill as the next step right we go into our accounting system we record the bill and then we pay the bill so we get the bill we record the bill and then we pay the bill so three major steps in that process now if we look at that process across multiple organizations those three steps are always going to be the same regardless of the organization but for a larger organization that's a little more complex we may have additional steps that we have to add in based on the next thing that we're going to talk about which is the who what when and why right um so we want to talk about who is involved in the process right what are they doing or what are they trying to accomplish when does it have to be done and then why are they doing it okay and so in our accounts payable we've got a bunch of who's right we've got the who which is the vendor who's sending us the bill right and there's the who is the vendor the what is the bill uh when are they sending it to us usually it's right after they've you know sent us products or services and then why are they sending it because they want to get paid okay uh other whose in this process is the bill has to be entered who's entering the bill into quickbooks right what are they entering they're entering in the date they're entering in the amount they're entering in the vendor name they're also entering in the details about the bill what did they purchase right um and then why are they doing it because they need to pay it right they need to record it in their books and then they need to pay the bill and send the payment to the vendor okay on the pay on the pay uh side of it who's paying the bill right who needs to sign the check if you're sending a check or who needs to approve the bill now these are the things that we're starting to are going to start to deviate across the different organizations that we work with right so we could have an organization where they have a purchasing department and so a bill comes in wow we have a who which is who ordered the stuff right we have another who is who approved the stuff right so and then we also have the fight you know sometimes we have a bunch of different approvals approvers so we have to think about who invo who is involved in the in the uh in the process we need to be documenting this and we need to be answering those four questions of who what when and why right then we want to go move on and we want to identify touch points so the touch points are things like applications what software are we using are we using an ap software like meleo payments or bill.com are we using quickbooks uh who is the assignee who's actually doing it who's the person that's approving the purchase who's the person that's entering the bill into the system who's the person that's approving the final payment or signing off on the check right these are the things that we want to look at we also want to look at the approval in qc right quality control that's what qc stands for who's doing that and how do we make sure that what gets put into quickbooks is what's on that invoice right we need to make sure that we have controls in our process that are making sure that nothing's getting missed and that we're putting accurate information into our accounting system and then finally after you've identified all of the major steps you've identified the who what when why you've identified all the touch points in that situation where you're handing off parts of the process to different people within that process within the organization then we're going to fill in the details what are the details that are specific to this vendor what are the details that are specific to this particular client what are the details that are specific to this particular department and all of that the number five all the details are going to vary by client and they may vary by process and they may vary by team okay but now you can see what the major structure is you're going to start wide and then you're going to narrow it down and you want to make sure that you're keeping it very precise easy to follow and that you're not making it too over complicated so it's slowing people down and that's where the art part of documenting your processes comes in and you're going to learn some really really great technology during our session today that's going to make short work of this for you so now that you've learned all the steps uh about who what what when why how to gather all the information and what the structure of the workflow could be now we're going to talk about capturing the workflow and you're going to learn about some really great technology to help you do that and make short work of this entire process all right the first one that we're going to talk about is using video to document the workflow okay so vid as i say a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth ten thousand words right so using video to document the workflow allows the viewer to actually watch what's being done doesn't get any clearer than that right as long as you're doing it very slowly and they can actually follow along it can be really really helpful so when you're documenting the workflow before you actually start to put together the final checklist for the workflow you want to go ahead and record somebody doing it and one way is with the videos now you probably are already using zoom if you're on this virtual conference you're on zoom right now so you can record a session with zoom just as you're going through maybe you're training somebody or you're showing somebody how to do it or maybe you're on zoom yourself as you're doing the work you could just run zoom hit that record button without anyone on the meeting with you and go through the process and just document it just record what you're doing talk to yourself say i'm in quickbooks and i'm recording a bill consider using the transcription feature so zoom house is built in they just released it a couple of months ago it's amazing we'll capture it'll try to capture everything you say in typed words and you can go through and edit it after you've finished recording your session on the next slide i'm actually going to show you a screenshot of where you can go to enable that feature within your zoom settings and then you can even embed or provide a link to the video in a workflow app or you can just keep a library of it you know if you've if you've created a document on how to enter a bill or pay a bill in quickbooks you could save that view that uh zoom mp4 create a link in your dms your document management system and share that with clients or with other members of your team or you can embed it in a workflow app or we're going to be talking about workflow apps towards the end of this session so how do you enable transcription and zoom again if you have zoom you have this you don't have to pay anything additional for it you're going to go into your zoom settings you're going to go into the in meeting advanced settings scroll down on the page and it looks like it's about halfway down the page and you're going to turn on the closed captioning setting and then you're going to want to go ahead and check the box to allow live transcription service to transcribe the meaning automatically and you also want to make sure that you check the box to allow viewing of the full transcript in the in meetings side panel what that will do is that'll actually capture what you're saying as you say it right in the zoom recording so people will be able to see that transcription and then you want to also make sure that you toggle a button right here for save captions because what that's going to do is when you end the zoom recording it'll automatically save a text file that you can open up and then use to either you know put into your workflow program edit it whatever you want to do with it you'll have that already captured automatically so when you download the video it'll go to the documents folder where all your zoom videos go what you'll now see once you've enabled those settings in zoom is you'll now see this closed caption text document and you can just open it up and it's going to have all of the text of what you said verbally throughout the session in zoom so this is really really helpful when you're documenting your processes especially if you have an intern or somebody within your company that is able to go through that and shorten it and make it more precise for you and then you can put those instructions in either a workflow app or in a document this is really amazing we use this in our firm and it does help us to uh to take notes and to delegate so that i'm not the one that's actually writing up the processes i can do the video and then hand it off to somebody else on my team other transcription apps that you can get that might have more functionality and more formatting while you're actually doing the transcription are rev.a.i or otter.ai both of these work with zoom you're going to pay for them i think rev.ai

does have a free version where you can get i think quite a bit i think it's it's something like 500 minutes somewhere around there that you can get um per month um without paying for a subscription but for most of the really good features you are going to actually need to pay for that subscription but it could be very much worth your while to do so so you can check either one of those out uh the next one i'm going to show you i'm really excited about um so i am actually friends with the team over at scribe how i discovered them earlier this year and it really has transformed the way that my firm documents processes what scribe how is is it's an app that works with your browser and it captures every click that you make as you're working through um a task in a in a cloud-based application like quickbooks online or proconnect tax and it has a ton of different features in here you can see here um that it has different sections so if your process is complicated you can break them up into sections you can add written instruction you can add tips you can have heads up and you can also stop edit so as i'm going to show you how this works in a minute you're probably going i'm not quite sure i'm going to show you this i'm going to actually demo it for you and then after you capture it it captures each click and a screenshot of where you clicked as you go through the process saves it automatically and then you can edit it so let's go take a look at this so you guys can see how magical this particular uh this particular app is i think you're gonna love it all right so i logged into my scribehow account and when you first log in i land on my dashboard however this isn't where i'm actually gonna build describe all right where i'm gonna build the scribe is actually in the application where i'm documenting the process so i've got the quickbooks online sample company open right over here in this browser and i want to show my client how to pay a bill i want to teach them how to pay a bill so what i'm able to do is i can come right up here you'll see this icon right up here in your browser uh window right next to the url window and i'm gonna go ahead and i'm gonna click on that and i'm gonna select start recording okay then what i'm gonna do it tells me that it's recording the actions in chrome now i'm ready to go and show the client how to pay the bill so i'm gonna go over and i'm just gonna pay a bill just like i normally would so i'm gonna go to new then i'm gonna go to pay bills it's going to pull up all the bills that i need to pay i'm going to show them that they can check you know they can change the bank account or credit card account and then i'm going to show that they can select the bills that need to be paid right i'm going to print this so i'm going to check the box to print later and then i'm going to come over here and i'm going to save and print okay all right now if i come over here and i stop watch what happens look what it did scribe how actually documented all of my processes automatically so you can see here that it tells me to navigate to quickbooks qbo qbo.intuit.com and it goes through and it starts to show screenshots of exactly what i was doing and it automatically highlights the button that i clicked on so right here it's saying hey go ahead and click plus new then select pay bills then select and here's really cool it says click bank right that isn't exactly what it says it says clickbank but actually what i want it to do is i want to change this and say select oops select the payment account and then i'm just going to click on that little check mark to so that i can edit it right because that's clear remember we talked about being concise is extremely important when we're documenting processes so i'm saying select the payment account right here okay then it says click this check box because it's not sure what that check box is right so i have one two three four of those right so one of the cool things and this is a newer feature in inside now in a scribe how is i can actually merge these together to make them into a little gif so i can go ahead and combine the steps i'm going to go ahead and i'm going to select those four click this check boxes right and then i'm going to go ahead and combine the selected and watch what happens is it comes up here to the click the check box and watch what it does so what i'm going to do is i'm going to change now the words to select the bills you want to pay i'm going to click click on that little button i'm going to click the print later field and then i'm going to click save and print down here look at that can you believe it how long did that take me to go ahead and document my processes maybe definitely less than five minutes so this is a really cool tool that you can use to document your processes and then you can take the document that you created and you can either create a copy link which will create a link so that somebody can just click on the link and go and view your scribe or you can click share and you can export it as pdf html markdown or confluence so those are your options here so what's wonderful about this is what we normally do is we export as pdf and we attach the pdf to our workflow solution which i'm going to show you a little bit later pretty cool right so let's go on back to our powerpoint and we'll move on to our next slide so just to recap describe how features that you guys just saw is scrub how will capture each step as you complete your work automatically you can edit the steps and include instruction tips and placeholders you can add edit delete and combine steps as we saw and you can provide a link or download in multiple formats and there's a free version and don't forget you can get 90 days free from scribe how to see of the pro features to see how much you like those as well so really excited to share this tool with you i think it is a game changer for for especially us accountants who have so many processes all right the next thing that we're going to talk about uh today is mapping the workflow visually so we've documented our steps at the beginning we just went through and this is a way where you can go through and actually see what are the steps to do this now scribe how's going to help with when you're an application but it's not going to help you with things like hey after i you know put the bill in joe needs to approve the bill right before it can be paid it's not going to capture that how could scribe how do that so creating a a flow chart really helps to identify those steps that are outside of the applications and get a whole picture a full picture of what's happening in the process so in this example and you can see here we have accounts receivable process overview example this is a accounts receivable process but you can see what we're doing is we're saying okay a purchase is made by a customer we're going to identify this is a decision is it a recurring sale if it is then we're going to create an invoice from a template if it isn't we're just going to create an invoice then we can see that it's going to send the customer the invoices the next step did they pay it on time yes apply any discounts no assess charges right and you can see that each step in the process is looking at what's happening it's also looking at is there a decision that needs to be made meaning that it could go in two different directions or sometimes in three different directions we want to capture that as well and then we have the ability to go through and add notes to it so you can see that we're putting what are the decisions that are being made um but and and this is a simple process you can have a process that's across multiple different you know multiple applications and in that case you want to add something like a line or something like that just so that you can see the clarity of how the process moves through different applications and how it's affecting different people and different departments so we're going to do this to help us identify the flow of the information through the process dependencies what needs to happen before something else can happen is there an approval needed touch points either for quality control or do we need information from somewhere else or someone else before we can continue on with the process and it also will help us to see inefficiencies right a lot of times when i'm going through this exercise with a client and we're documenting the existing process those inefficiencies just jump out at you right i'm entering the information into quickbooks online i'm also entering the information into salesforce red bell goes off to say hey can we do an integration so that they're only entering the information into one place so as you're documenting through the process you're looking for places that you can actually streamline them reduce data entry reduce steps and make it a more effective workflow all right so workflow mapping apps that you can use the one that i use in my firm is lucidchart but any of these are fantastic smart draw is uh smartdraw and mirror and lucidchart are all cloud-based vizio i believe has a cloud-based option but that's the microsoft version of a workflowy workflow mapping app there is a learning curve not going to lie as you're starting to use these um there is a learning curve to learn what the different shapes mean to learn how to work within the application just like any other application you might use but the good news is is that all of these have templates that you can start from so the this one that i just showed you on the previous slide right here this accounts receivable mapping one this is a lucidchart template it's already created by another user and this is a fantastic place for me to start because i can start with this template and then you know add in any of the uh things that might be different from my particular workflow so all of them have the ability to uh all of them have the ability to use a template so take a look at any of those they're pretty awesome i love using them and the other thing about using these workflow mapping apps is that uh they make you look really professional so if you're doing any kind of process uh you know process work with your clients when you present a workflow a mapped workflow in a in a flowchart it looks really good it really does it looks really professional um and and it you know you definitely are talking about high-end service there um all right putting it all together so we've learned that we can describe how we've learned what we need to document we've now learned that we can use video to document we can use describe how to document and then we can use these workflow mapping apps to go through and create flowcharts to analyze and streamline processes now we need to pull it all together into a workflow app so that we can train our team and other people to go through and follow the instructions that we've created and actually complete the process so let's talk about that so the first thing that we're going to think about is structuring our work right so when we're structuring our work and i'm talking about work i'm talking about a particular process right i'm calling it work because every process that we do in an accounting firm is work that's what we do right so we're going to start with groups or sections right and our groups or sections are typically defined by internal touch points assignees or external uh touch points meaning who's doing the work is going to be a section right and they're going to follow all you know finish all of the tasks in that particular particular section for them and then we'd have another group if it moved on to another person in the firm an example of that could be tax work right so if we have an admin that's gathering all the tax documents from our clients we're going to have a group that says gather tax documents and we're going to assign it to that individual that's in charge of gathering the tax documents then it moves on to the preparation which is typically the staff account or the tax preparer that's going to be a second group and we're going to have all the tax all of the uh tasks related to preparing a tax return then it's going to move on to the reviewer right which is the next group so it's going to move on so when we're talking about groups and sections we're talking about looking at is it an internal touch point an external text touch point meaning maybe we have to move to a different application maybe we have to reach out to a client um is it the assign or is it the assignee that we're changing the assignment who's actually working on the engagement then we have our tasks and subtasks so we have our tasks which is the major task which is the thing that they're thinking this is what i have to do so remember we broke it down to three tasks for the accounts payable receive the bill right enter the bill pay the bill so those might be major tasks but then we could have sub tasks under those major tasks like go to plus new enter bill enter in the vendor information the account information other things like that and then we can have additional details which could be things you know like our scribes or or details specific to a particular client okay so these are the things that you're going to want to be thinking about as you're structuring your work items or you know your workflow tasks in whatever application that you end up using so this is intuit practice management which is a relatively new intuit offering uh it was released back in 20 i want to say 2020 early 2020 what it is is it's if you've ever heard of carbon workflow it's a carbon it is carbon it's powered by carbon but it's an input offering and it integrates very deeply with quickbooks online quickbooks time and pro connect tax online or lesser tax so if you look at this example an intuit practice management you can see that these are the major sections engage client for 1099 work this is a 1099 template engage client for 10.99 work step one engage client for work step 2 what do you think maybe happened here i bet that either this was one individual's handling all the things in this section or somebody else was handling all of all the tasks in this section set up track 1099 then we have a client task they need to review something remember those all important quality control checks we're going to set it up then we're going to say hey we've compiled this list of 1099 recipients we need you to go look at them and say they're right that's on them we want the client to verify that then we're going to send the w9 request and track 1099 to all of the vendors then we're going to prepare them then we're going to review them then we're going to process them and then we're going to send them to the client through a client task and then finally we're going to have a follow-up right so you can see here that each of these sections are based on touch points or changes between who's doing the tasks an application or a quality control touch point where we need somebody to actually review something and say hey this is this is correct it's okay to move forward at this point okay then details can be added in the description so you can see here in our first one setup track 1099 there's three tasks so the tasks are the individual steps that must be followed in order to complete that section right so in this case we have to set up a new client and track 1099 we have to run the 1099 wizard in quickbooks and we have to generate and email the 1099 recipient list to the client so one person the bookkeeper right here that's the person that's doing all these things they're going to go through each step and check off the step as they complete it inside each task we could have subtasks or we can have a description and here we have a description that says hey go set up a new client and track 1099. here's a link if a client already exists mark this task is complete you don't have to do anything okay and then when they're done they can check it off then the details are added in the description so you can add descriptions and links or attachments you can add those videos we talked about we can add scribes and you can see here that we have a scribe in our work item and into a practice management that shows visually exactly what they need to do to complete the task talk about efficiency and talk about clarity right anybody on my team sees exactly what they need to do to complete the task right anybody can do it because we've got it written and it's detailed and it's super clear um and then you also want to put in any quality control checklist right so sometimes we'll have bulleted lists in these descriptions that say did you check the social security number did you verify the name did you verify the address right little things that we want them to do before they move on to the next task all right practice management solutions let's talk about some practice management solutions and the two that we're going to talk about there's a bunch of them out there but we're going to focus on the two intuit practice management solutions which are into a practice management and work inside quickbooks online accountant so selecting a workflow solution there are accountant specific solutions there's a quickbooks online account there's intuit practice management which i just showed you a little bit about that uh we also have carbon which is into a practice management carbon are essentially the same thing but into a practice management has that deep integration with the tax software that carbon does not we also have jetpack workflow aero workflow and canopy tax are just a few uh that you can look at if you're looking for an accountant only solution or accountant specific workflow solution there's also solutions out there that are not accountant specific but actually work really really well for accounting firms and some of those are asana monday.com

process street click up trello and there's so many more there's so many out there that you can look at i encourage you to go out and google a workflow or it would actually be under project management apps and find what appeals to you and your team every team works a little bit differently and the important thing that you're going to want to look at is is it easy to use does it offer all the features that you want does it integrate with other systems that you're using so that you can ensure that efficient efficiency and is it within your your price budget right so those are the things that you're going to be looking for so quickbooks online accountant work this is right inside your quickbooks online accountant so if you are signed up as a if you're signed up for a quickbooks online account then you get this automatically and it has four built-in templates that you can start using immediately or you can create your own templates and then you can assign them to your clients and to your team so let's jump in and let's do a little bit of a a demo of what the quickbooks online account and work looks like and then we'll come back and we'll talk about some of those features so i'm in quickbooks online accountant and i clicked on the work tab over here in the left now bar and you can see this is the work tab you may not have ever seen it or gone into it but it is practice management project management for your firm so you can see that i have different tasks that are uh organized by due date so today this week next week the next 30 days it allows me to view what has to be done i can either filter by project which means the the engagement right our project is considering that's the engagement that we're doing or if i wanted to see what tasks within the engagement or within the project are assigned to me then i can go ahead and select that as well so these are all the tasks i have a lot to do this is just a sample company i can also create client requests so remember we talked about those external uh touch points well you can set up a task for that and then send a client request to all your clients use quickbooks online and then they're they're able to respond to the requests and even upload documents that you can then access through quickbooks online account so this is really great it's totally if you're using quickbooks online account you already have it you just have to start using it the other thing that's really cool is that you get these templates so within quickbooks online account and work tab you get these four templates that already have the tasks set up for you you can change them so if they don't work for the workflow in your firm you can go through and edit them or you can use what the recommended workflow is from into it so you can create a project from a template you can go through and duplicate an existing template and then edit it to match your workflow and then once you do that you're going to find your custom templates that are right up here in the top section okay so that is the work and just to show you how you can create a brand new template from scratch is you can create the template give it a name and then start adding tasks to it and i know somebody's asked is uh thinking this question in their head can i create tasks and projects for non-quickbooks online clients yeah you sure can the only thing you can't do for a non-quickbooks online client is you can't send them a client request okay but you can definitely track the work all right let's head on over back to our powerpoint all right so you guys have learned a ton of new technology that can help you to document your processes so some of the key takeaways that we learned in this session is that documenting processes upfront takes a lot of time it's hard that's why a lot of us don't do it right but the investment as you've seen today is priceless it's going to make your firmware or more efficient you're going to have fewer errors in your workflow and your team is going to have better communication of what they're supposed to be doing and you're going to have better oversight and insight into how your team is performing as well when they're using these workflow apps especially intuit practice management you actually have an insights area where you can see how they're performing based on the budgets that you set for your engagements and based on the time that they're tracking against them so you can start to gauge how efficient are we um so lots and lots of great features there to help you gauge how you're doing as you go through and you start to work uh with your processes you're gonna have to tweak them i've seen lots of firms that start documenting processes and they kind of go overboard and there's too many tasks and it becomes a real drain on the team right they have so many tasks uh in their to-do list that they get a little overwhelmed that's okay you're gonna start i would say start big and then go narrow right so document you know create your tasks in the big ones you know receive bill enterville pay bill and then start filling in the detail as needed within your firm based on the individuals the quality control um and what you're learning as you're documenting your processes make sure that you start with the end goal in mind what is it you're trying to accomplish and work backwards from there use technology to record the steps in the process so that you can correctly analyze it as you're building them out so video is a great resource the transcription that's in the video and describe how as we talked about analyze those processes so once you document and analyze them you're going to find so much found time when you analyze your processes and find that there's duplication of entry or maybe there's an integration you didn't know about taking the time to do that overall is just going to save your team so much time and frustration um it's it's kind of magical and i have your team also help you with documenting the processes if you're working in a firm having the people that actually do the work document the process is the best way to do it don't do it for them delegate them give them the tools and have them do it because they're the ones that know the ins and outs of that process and you'll learn a lot from having them do it and they'll learn a lot from having them do it and then use project or practice management apps to house your processes so that you have those recipe cards and that your cake tastes the same every time and it's delighting the people that eat it every single time right all right everybody that's it for our session today thanks so much for joining me

2021-11-12 10:01

Other news