The Digital Switch
Supporting Accountancy’s Paper-Light Future

How Agilico is helping firms modernise finance processes, document workflows and print management

Accountancy practice management software has come a long way. Today, features like automated billing and reconciliations are easily integrated into the day-to-day practice workflow of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK customers.

Our employees work side by side with our customers to create and manage these solutions – driven by a deep understanding of their needs and addressing the rapid changes in their environment.

However, it’s often hard to look beyond improving performance in day-to-day operations. Amid Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and other disruptions, accountancy practices and their clients are dealing with an unpredictable economic landscape. Future business planning can appear daunting.

However, technology can support accountancy practices (and their clients) in making informed business decisions, and planning for the future. In the first part of our Accountancy Practice Management for Future-Fit Growth series, we’ll explore how they can use technology to define and easily track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Doing so gives practices closer control of performance tracking, and deeper insights that will inform strategic growth plans.

Saving Time

For several decades, business technology platforms have enabled practices to track performance metrics that they have customised. This highlights areas that qualify for improvement and underpins strategic planning.

Contemporary technology, such as CCH KPI Monitoring, makes setting up KPIs faster and easier for accountancy practices than ever before. This is vital today. The current business landscape demands that firms assess and amend KPIs more frequently, based on fresh market variables. KPIs such as client retention rate and business time-to-recovery have become increasingly prominent performance indicators in the past year. If clunky technology makes KPI management difficult, practices have less time and insight to plan future growth.

Reducing Risk
CCH KPI Monitoring makes it far easier to track KPIs and report on them. This is fundamental in minimising risk. For example, if a KPI is set to track and escalate debt filtered by overdue dates, the ability to easily set alerts and automatically generate reports is critical to practice performance management.

Some practices are manually running monthly reports to measure KPIs. Others are running real-time reporting engines, a key feature of CCH KPI Monitoring. This latter solution allows practices to review essential data at any time – covering both performance management and compliance requirements. They can do so remotely or on-premise.

This means that firms can assess issues before they become problems, and thus act proactively. Real-time reporting is a true asset in building a future-fit practice.

The Proof is in the Practice
A number of Wolters Kluwer customers have been using CCH KPI Monitoring for several years now. Our customers look to us when they need to be right. Ryecroft Glenton has successfully integrated CCH KPI Monitoring with its own system. This consolidates information from several sources, including CCH Central and CCH Practice Management.

“We can use the year end date to trigger a sequence of reminders. Have we asked for the books? Have they been received? If a request to a client has been outstanding for a certain period, the partner will receive an alert via email. For limited companies, we can monitor the corporation tax and Companies House filing deadlines – as well as the different deadlines for pension schemes”

– Ian Smith, partner at Ryecroft Glenton

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

At Agilico, we believe innovation should serve a clear purpose. That means helping professional services firms across the UK work smarter, easier  and more sustainably. We’re proud to support many leading accountancy practices including Saffery, DAINS Accountants, Johnston Carmichael and Grant Thornton, as they move towards more efficient, secure and agile paper-light operations.

Whether it’s automating inbound post and email filing, streamlining invoice processing, or embedding more sustainable print practices, our goal is simple: save time, reduce waste, mitigate risk, and support teams and clients wherever they are working.

From paper-heavy to paper-light

While going fully paperless may be the ideal, for many firms it isn’t practical. Instead, we advocate a paper-light approach: reducing paper where it adds little value and integrating with document and client management systems for better governance and control.

This means capturing documents digitally at source, increasing accessibility, and enhancing compliance across hybrid teams. Our cloud-enabled Agile Print and Cloud services give staff flexibility and zero-trust security, without compromising performance.

Our Agilico Zero print platform also helps firms cut cost and carbon without sacrificing reliability. Designed for organisations serious about sustainability, it reduces the cost and CO₂ of managed print fleets, while giving teams greater control over print usage.

Being paper-light also means streamlining processes that still rely on physical documents — such as inbound client and HMRC correspondence, purchase orders, invoice approvals and payments. It’s about moving away from manual handling to unlock time and improve visibility across finance teams.

Green Print: Document sustainability in action

For accountancy firms, the opportunity lies in combining enhanced digital workflows with more sustainable document and print services. This is where our Green Print approach, powered by Agilico Zero comes into its own.

We help prosective firms measure the potential for positive impact of more sustainable print fleet and smarter, digital first habits. We then right-size the fleet leveraging our Carbon reducing Agilico Zero print offerings ehnaced with true zero trust security and agile, print anywhere, scan anwhere cloud services.  Documents are only printed when needed, released securely, and tracked through environmental reporting, reducing waste and improving oversight.

We also digitise inbound post, legacy files and archives, helping to shrink storage needs, reduce reliance on physical records, and support GDPR compliance and collaboration. For hybrid and flexible workforces, this approach makes information easier to manage, wherever teams are based.

Technology that fits finance

At the centre of our finance workflow solutions are two cloud-based platforms: Agilico POP (Purchase Order Processing) and Agilico Verify. Together, they digitise procurement and invoicing processes, reduce admin and support better decision-making.

POP enables teams to raise and approve purchase orders through structured digital workflows. Approvals are routed based on budget, role or department, and requests can be tracked from any device. This eliminates the need for printed forms and email chains, while providing finance teams with real-time visibility of committed spend.

Verify automates invoice matching and approval, comparing each invoice to the corresponding PO and delivery note. Once approved, data is posted directly into the finance system, streamlining payment cycles and reducing the risk of error or overpayment.

Both platforms integrate with popular accounting and ERP systems, ensuring a consistent experience across the finance function.

A focus on impact

Firms using POP, Verify and Agilico Zero are already seeing real results, from faster approvals and lower admin overheads to measurable cuts in print volume and emissions.

Many use our free Green Print Calculator to assess their environmental savings and inform ESG reporting. This tool is available now to all AIT members. The average AIT firm could save between 10-20 tonnes of CO2 in one smart move that is a win for the bottom line and the environment. A compelling business case for change...

We continue to evolve our tools in line with client feedback, improving usability, expanding reporting features and enhancing system integrations to meet the growing needs of finance and operations teams.

Working smarter, working cleaner

At Agilico, we’re building partnerships for long-term improvement, not just delivering smarter print and workflow environments, but helping firms reimagine how they manage documents.

The Digital Switch is not about removing every page or print job. It’s about making document handling more deliberate, more flexible and more sustainable.

By supporting accountancy firms with cloud-based workflows, digitisation tools and low-carbon print solutions, Agilico is helping shape a future where working smarter also means working cleaner.

Discover how much your firm could save
AIT members can access our free Green Print Calculator or request a digital workflow audit today.
agilico.co.uk/agilico-zero-calculator

Aug 2025

The priorities defining the accountancy firms of the future 

Are you making decisions like a high-performing firm?
Are you deploying your people in ways that truly deliver your strategy?
Are you seeing real ROI on your technology investments?

Private Equity and Technology Transformation: A Real Solution or a Mirage?

Private equity investment is bringing unprecedented change to the accountancy sector, so much so that about 30-40% of our clients now have some element of external investment.

How to choose an outsourcer

Taking the leap and choosing an outsourcing partner is, in some ways, as critical as choosing your practice’s tech systems. It cuts to the core of what is the engine room of an accountancy practice: tax and accounts production, and bookkeeping.

Cloud Ambitions vs. Print Realities

Across both public and private sectors, organisations have steadily adopted cloud solutions to improve efficiency, streamline operations, and cut costs. Yet despite this widespread uptake, one key IT function continues to lag behind: print.

Composable Accounting Firms: Why Practice Management Suites Are Losing to Best-of-Breed Stacks

When Accountancy Age surveyed digital leaders among the UK Top 100 firms, they found practices with 75% or more of their tech stack integrated are 63% more likely to achieve significant revenue growth.

Fiction vs. Fact: Why the Profession Still Needs Timesheets—Done Right

A recent email posed the question: is it finally time to “ditch the timesheet”? It echoed a familiar sentiment—timesheets are outdated, inaccurate, and irrelevant in a world of value pricing and outcome-based engagements. It even referenced a 2010 Journal of Accountancy article advocating for a post-timesheet world, pushing for project management tools and After-Action Reviews (AARs) instead.

ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY

Accountancy firms in the UK are increasingly recognising that unchecked data proliferation is becoming too risky and costly to ignore. Yet, many are overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge in identifying, classifying, and minimising vast amounts of data. In this article, we explore key considerations and outline a five-step approach to help firms implement effective data retention and disposal strategies.

Turning Cloud Spend into Strategic Value: Why Finance and IT Leaders Need a Closer Look

Cloud has transformed how accountancy firms and their clients operate. It does all of the good stuff it’s supposed to: agility, scalability, and innovation at a pace that traditional infrastructure simply can’t match.