At the Access Group, we work with accounting firms of all sizes in Australia and New Zealand looking to implement software for accountants that can save time in their day and enhance their workplace productivity.
We have created this guide on workplace productivity to help find ways to work more efficiently and grow your accounting practice. We will first define workplace productivity for accountants, uncover common themes that hinder performance in accounting firm operations, offer tips and strategies to improve accountant efficiency and explain how time and billing software for accountants turbo-charges practice productivity.
After reading this article, you can learn new workplace productivity habits that'll set your accountancy firm up for success.
What is productivity in accounting?
Workplace productivity means different things to different people.
However, most accountants would agree with this definition: workplace productivity means everyone in your accounting team can focus their time on work that creates value.
Productivity is all about a disconnect between core tasks and non-core tasks.
A core task is paramount to organisations and the main reason for their existence.
In accounting practices, a core accountant task may be described as:
- Preparing client accounts and tax returns,
- Providing expertise and advice to business clients,
- Conducting financial forecasting and risk analysis,
- Analysing and managing client data,
- Compiling and presenting reports,
- Preparing budgets, business plans, commentaries and financial statements for clients.
Non-core tasks are all the things that are essential to keep your business running, but they don't add any value or profit.
A non-core accounting task could include the following:
- Administrative duties
- Creating and submitting timesheets
- Managing client billing
- Tracking budgets and paying for firm expenses
Why is productivity in accounting important?
Spending too much time on non-core accountant tasks means your accounting practice will struggle to grow.
According to our research, employees spend 16% of their time on non-core tasks. All this time adds up, so, ultimately, SME employees spend 26 days a year on non-core tasks.
Meanwhile, the same research found that mid-market organisations with between 300 and 500 employees lose nearly twice as much time on non-core tasks as smaller businesses.
We could deduce from this that the bigger your accounting firm gets, the more time you and your team must spend on non-core accounting tasks. The more you grow, the less productive your firm gets.
For all the strategies you'll need to expand your accounting firm, read our article: how to grow your accounting practice.
What is behind workplace productivity issues in accounting?
Why do workplace productivity issues worsen as accounting practices grow?
This happens for many reasons, and they are all in some way connected.
Too much data
What happens when your accounting practice grows? To help meet client demands, you hire more accountants. You might even create whole new departments.
The problem is that the more accountants you hire, and the more departments you grow, the more data you create.
Data can help you make more informed decisions about your accounting practice. But when you've so much data, where should you start? What are you supposed to prioritise?
Not all tech is created equally
Another problem with many accounting firms is that, more often than not, departments don't talk to each other. Or if they do, they struggle to share information and data meaningfully. Why is this?
It may be because you'll invest in several different software systems as your accounting firm expands. Your accounts team will have their own accounting software. Your marketing team will have their own software suites, and HR will use different systems.
Each system will generate its own unique set of data, and people across your accounting practice might have to access this data. But more often than not, they simply cannot. Either their software systems need to communicate, or there needs to be a framework or culture to enable data to be shared between departments.
Plus, not all software systems are built to be intuitive. How many people in your team are required to use systems they don't understand? How much time have you spent training your people to use unwieldy software?
Accounting firms try to fix the wrong problems
If you want to improve productivity in your accounting firm, investing in technology is a great place to start. Unfortunately, far too many decision-makers don't view investment in tech as a priority.
The thinking goes that if you can help your workers achieve more without working longer hours, your overall productivity levels will rise.
But more is needed to equip people to perform their core tasks. You also have to minimise the time they spend on non-core tasks.
What would workplace productivity do for your practice?
With better accounting practice productivity, you'll be able to offer your accounting clients better service.
Your accounting team will be happier and more engaged, and you'll see better-working relationships across your accounting practice.
Your accounting client relationships would improve, too, as you'd be able to meet and exceed their accounting needs.
So, more workplace productivity for accountants means more time to do whatever you do best. It means that, rather than focusing on endless repetitive accounting tasks, you and your team can dedicate yourself to whatever drove you to join or start your accounting practice in the first place.
How can I be a productive accountant?
Improving workplace productivity in your accounting practice is essential for delivering excellent service to your clients and maintaining a competitive edge.
Here are a few tips to boost accounting efficiency and effectiveness for your firm:
Build a positive workplace culture
Creating a motivated and empowered workplace culture for your accounting team is critical if you are a practice owner.
Insights from the Marketing and Growth edition of The Access Group's Your Future Practice report series showed that only 1 in 3 practices in Australia (34%) indicated that their staff are highly motivated to complete their daily tasks and contribute to their firm's success.
The report also highlighted the importance of accounting staff motivation when considering the likelihood that practices will achieve their revenue targets in line with their growth objectives.
An average day for an accountant involves juggling multiple clients, deadlines, and complex client deliverables, meaning that employee burnout is common for accountants when managed incorrectly.
Early intervention and a focus on employee wellbeing can increase workplace productivity for accounting firms. This can lead to results that exceed revenue targets and contribute to accounting practice growth.
Standardise your accounting workflows
Developing standardised accounting workflows and procedures for everyday tasks can create consistency within your accounting firm.
Using workflow software for accounting practices, you can map out steps in a clear structure that everyone in your accounting firm can follow. This will help ensure efficiency and accuracy among your team members.
For greater detail on this topic, check out our guide: What is a workflow for accountants?
Encourage CPD for accountants
Give your team the motivation to pursue relevant certifications and attend workshops or seminars to help them work more efficiently and best utilise their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points.
CPD points are yearly requirements from professional accounting bodies that accountants can leverage to develop and maintain their professional competency.
The more knowledgeable your team is, the better equipped they are to handle complex accounting challenges. CPD points can help address learning gaps that will help accountants to work more productively.
Plenty of free CPD opportunities are available to help accountants learn to work more productively. Read more on this here: The best free CPD resources for accountants.
Delegate accounting tasks wisely
Effective accounting practice management comes down to how you delegate your accountant tasks.
Delegating responsibilities empowers your accounting team and allows you to focus on higher-value tasks that require your expertise. Failing to delegate accounting tasks can lead to accounting firm team members feeling unimportant or apathetic, and this lower morale can lead to lower workplace productivity.
Workflow software for accounting practices can help you boost workplace productivity and better understand your capacity so that you can do more with your resources.
Look at time management techniques for accountants
Practical time management skills for accountants go hand in hand with workplace productivity.
There are many time management techniques accountants use to improve accounting efficiency:
- The Pomodoro Technique: a time management method focused on 25-minute batches of work broken up by breaks of five minutes.
- Time blocking: dividing your day into blocks to tick off specific tasks and commit to a firm schedule for what you will work on and when.
- Task batching: grouping similar tasks simultaneously to avoid jumping between multiple tasks and procrastinating.
For more ideas on how you can be more productive in your accounting practice, check out our blog: time-saving tips for busy accountants.
Focus on your accountant-client relationships
Being proactive about your client relationships can help your workplace productivity.
Strong and lasting client relationships with accounting clients are built on open, clear communication. Your clients should clearly understand what you need from them and what they can expect from your services.
One of the most effective ways to offer better customer care is with client management software for accountants, which can boost productivity and help you send the most effective marketing messages to your clients.
Accounting practice reporting and insights can boost accounting firm productivity by getting on the front foot of information and insights you can provide your clients and help them make data-driven decisions.
For more ideas on nurturing your accountant-client relationships, refer to our article: mastering client relationships for accounting practices.
Utilising accounting automation
Accounting automation can significantly reduce the time spent on manual tasks, and Australian accounting firms are already embracing automation in their accounting process by adopting accounting practice management software.
Accounting automation can improve workplace productivity for the following tasks:
- Online calendar and appointments
- Text message reminders
- General ledger
- Marketing automation
- Automating workflows
- Invoice payments
Read our expansive article on accounting automation and how it can improve efficiency in your practice.
Considering accounting outsourcing
Managing accounting work in-house requires accounting firms to manage many client jobs in their day-to-day operations. Outsourcing lower-level accounting tasks can give you more time to focus on value-adding, strategic accounting work, such as business advisory services.
Outsourced accounting offers the flexibility to scale back resources in quieter periods rather than having paid staff members with nothing to do. Outsourced accounting providers can help elevate practice performance to maximum efficiency.
In our article, accounting outsourcing vs Hiring an accountant, we explore why this resourcing option has been more common in accounting practices in recent years.
Capturing accounting KPIs and benchmarks for productivity
Regularly tracking and analysing key performance indicators will help you identify bottlenecks and improvement areas. Using accounting practice reports and insights, you can extract practice information and research and monitor it to maximise the efficiency of your accounting practice.
Making practice productivity improvements may take time and experimentation. Remember to adopt an open mindset, embrace feedback from your team and clients, and think creatively about how you could improve efficiency in your accounting practice.
Benchmarking for accounting practices can help firms measure and evaluate their performance in many different areas to identify where they can make improvements to reach established best practices in the accounting industry. Read more on this subject in our article: what are accounting practice benchmarks?
Change your firm productivity with time and billing software
Too many firms need help with productivity because they often think about people first and solutions second. Instead, it would help if you thought about both at once.
Your priority needs to be acquiring and implementing integrated software for accountants that gives you visibility and helps you measure productivity across your practice holistically.
It would help if you had a balance of the right people and the best technology. Want to know how to get there? Time and billing software for accountants can help you increase productivity across your firm while reducing costs simultaneously.
With time and billing software for accountants, you can plan and manage your practice resources, allocate staff to jobs, and identify resource gaps. You'll be able to manage your time from anywhere using online timesheets and increase the work your practice can do with our flexible billing.