Accessibility, context and automation will help accountancy firms achieve digital distinction

Digital Distinction will be central to the continued success of established accountancy firms competing against the new wave of digital native companies, says Ville Somppi, Vice President of Industry Solutions at M-Files, a global leader in information 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”

While digital transformation projects are already underway in the accountancy sector, many businesses are still being left with masses of legacy data and continuing to suffer from content chaos.

This may sound counter intuitive but over the past few year's digital transformation although essential, has left many organisations drowning in data instead of a cure all as promised. For many in the field of accountancy, the single most important way to attract new business will be through ‘digital distinction’, something that is upper mind in the industry.

There has to be a better way for accountancy firms to stabilise their data, enabling them in turn to power efficiencies and create that digital distinction so many are looking for. We see three core pillars that any accountancy business needs to look at.

1. Access
A typical issue facing many accountancy firms after they have integrated new technology is that of legacy systems. Access to all systems might not be available to those in need and the institutional knowledge of how that data was organised is often a casualty of change, as staff are moved or leave the business and their understanding of how legacy data is stored leaves with them.

The first step in taking control of that legacy data is to have universal access regardless of the repository. By using repository neutral federated access, legacy data can stay where it is while allowing for a smarter and more deliberate data migration effort.

2. Context
For years firms have relied on static folder-based structures to solve and explain the classification and history of a document. But as data keeps piling up and accountancy businesses continue to evolve, this traditional and static way of managing information no longer serves the needs of the knowledge workers. When searching for information accountants should not need to know or remember where a document is stored but simply define what the document is about, what is it related to or who has last worked on it.

This metadata driven approach can be applied across repositories and legacy data, tagging content with more context, and dramatically reducing search times as firms gain a full 360-degree view of their data. The same approach can be expanded to apply to business rules and actions based on the metadata of the document, such as reviews, permissions, or retention schedules.

3.
Automation
Having access to all data and being able to organise it based on end-user role or business context, enables smart use of automation. AI and workflow automation can help minimise human error and mitigate risk in regulated industries such as accountancy and in their compliance driven processes and protocols. This will have a profound impact, driving efficiencies through the entire firm.

Streamlining business processes whilst alleviating the burden from accountants and enabling them to focus on more skilled and client-facing requirements will help companies ensure compliance and deliver not only improved staff satisfaction, but an enhanced customer experience.

Those accountancy firms who use these simple pillars will enjoy improved efficiencies, deliver a better quality of service and, given they no longer live with content chaos, be able to make a truly distinctive impact on the market. Furthermore according to a commissioned study by Forrester Research, businesses adopting this approach can expect to see a 40% increase on productivity and a 270% return on investment.

Putting data assets in context with the use of metadata, driving automation with help of AI and ensuring easy access to all systems and legacy structures through repository neutrality should be priorities for all accountancy businesses. Firms may be facing very choppy waters, so their data needs to work with them, to mitigate risk and empower growth.

About M-Files
M-Files is a global leader in information management. The M-Files metadata-driven document management platform enables knowledge workers to instantly find the right information in any context, automate business processes, and enforce information control. This provides businesses with a competitive advantage and substantial ROI as they deliver better customer experiences and higher-quality work with lower risk. For more information, visit www.m-files.com.

Dec 2022

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