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.
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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

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Clients want proactive advisory, not just compliance. Practices are struggling to deliver that without adding headcount or radically changing how they work.

Accountancy practices have always been asked to juggle competing demands. Deadlines need to be met, regulations need to be navigated, and clients need to be supported. But it feels as though the balance has shifted. The expectation today is not simply to do more, but to do more with the same.

Whether it’s MTD or increasing client demands, there’s little sign that the workload on practices is going to ease anytime soon. This is compounded by the challenging recruitment market, which we’ve highlighted in our latest Accounting Talent Index. Many practice leaders are thinking twice before increasing headcount in an uncertain economic environment.

The result is constantly making trade-offs. Time spent keeping on top of compliance is time away from developing people, strengthening client relationships, or growth.

Beyond compliance, towards value

‍And it’s more than a compliance burden. Clients increasingly expect their accountant to help them understand what the numbers mean, identify opportunities and navigate uncertainty. They want proactive advice rather than a conversation once the accounts have been filed. That trusted adviser role is becoming harder to deliver when teams are consumed by operational demands.

Change is required. Instead of capacity being a blocker, the focus must be on changing your approach.

If every available hour is absorbed by recurring compliance work, there is little room left for the client-facing conversations that create long-term value. Those conversations are often where practices differentiate themselves, deepen client relationships and generate new opportunities. Yet they disappear when workloads begin to build.

Recruiting more people isn’t always possible, certainly in the current market. While attracting and retaining talent remains important, many firms know that finding experienced accountants is easier said than done.

A new approach to resourcing
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Instead, the approach has to be: how can we make better use of the people and resources we already have?

That means embracing technology and more efficient ways of working. Review processes that have evolved over time rather than by design and consider flexible resourcing models that allow teams to scale without carrying permanent overheads.

Most importantly, it means ensuring qualified professionals spend their time doing work that clients truly value, rather than becoming trapped in repetitive tasks. This is about enabling people rather than replacing them.

The best-performing and sustainable practices going forward won't necessarily be those with the biggest teams. They will be those that create the capacity to focus on advice, relationships and strategic thinking while building resilient delivery models behind the scenes.

Practices have always adapted to change. But the pace of change has increased dramatically. So, standing still is a huge risk. Firms that want to deliver the proactive support their clients increasingly expect will need to rethink not just how much work they do, but how that work gets done.

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Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

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