Many accountants and bookkeepers are interested in finding ways to work less while maintaining the same or higher level of income. It’s possible when you implement one or more of these five tips.
Careful client selection
Once you fill your practice, you can become more particular about who you choose to take on as clients. Consider selecting clients that are similar in industry, size, and need. You will have a good feel for what these clients need and can develop a simplified routine to onboard and serve them. The result is increased efficiency as well as the opportunity to serve the client in a deeper capacity as you learn more about the clients.
For example, serving five homogeneous construction clients is more efficient than serving one retail, one nonprofit, one medical supplies company, one landscaper, and one bank.
Software leverage
The software tools available to accountants are as exciting as they have ever been. They nearly eliminate boring data entry and allow us to automate workflows better than ever before. All we need to do is take advantage of these tools.
One way I have approached this is to look at tasks that take up a lot of time. In 2014, I had a staff member taking about 25 percent of her time scheduling appointments. Today, I let an app do it by placing a button on my websites, netting a savings of over $15,000 per year. We’re always looking at what we can do better. Right now, we are researching membership apps and switching website management software.
Download our free guide here to learn 37 places to find new clients and boost your accounting revenue
Time batching
This one is my clients’ number one favorite secret. Learning the opposite of multi-tasking, where you can get into the flow of similar tasks without interruption, is one of the highest payback efficiency tips there is. Time batching is where you perform like tasks in a batch of time before you move on to other things. Examples include doing your email for 30 minutes, then stopping and not looking at it for hours, setting your appointments back to back on one day, running errands together one day a week, and even asking staff to hold their questions to once per day so you are interrupted less.
Procedures
There’s nothing better to boost personal efficiency than delegating tasks to a staff member. My experience is things get done so much faster when I let them go to staff. To make sure staff do things the way you need them done, develop procedures that outline your requirements. It reduces employee stress and speeds training because they now know what you want.
Find a coach or mentor
Half of the success in being efficient is knowing what NOT to spend time on. Unfortunately, if you are in unchartered territory, you may not know what’s foolish and what isn’t. A coach or mentor who is several steps ahead of you can provide guidance on how to prioritize your projects and ideas.
Which of these five ideas will you implement first to gain efficiency?