Executive Business Guide for Accountants
How to cut costs
and increase profits
with improved
communications.
Accountants
Sponsored by
Executive Business Guide for Accountants
How to cut costs and increase profits with improved communications.
Executive Business Guide for Accountants
How to cut costs and increase profits with improved communications.
Introduction
Contents
Making Yourself Available 3
Keeping Your Staff Happy 3
Accountability
4
Running Costs
4
Business Continuity in
Emergencies Fire,
Flood, Flu
5
Social Responsibility
5
How to plan for Growth,
Mergers and Acquisitions 6
Legislation
6
Seven Money Saving
Solutions
7
Though there are no hard and fast laws affecting the way that
accountants work, there are undeniable commercial imperatives.
New legislation, the recession and the general evolution of
the industry all have their influences. The bottom line is that
accountancy practices need to be more competitive. We all need
to do more, for less. Technology is the most effective tool in this
war on inefficiency and the battles will be fought on two fronts:
by lowering costs and improving revenue.
Business Challenge 1
Making Yourself Available
Today’s client is more demanding and less loyal, so
communications skills are vital in helping you find and keep them.
Any advantage that communications technology gains for you will
help you compete for clients. Equally, technology will minimise
your overheads by streamlining business processes, cutting the
cost of doing business and increasing the number of billable units
your fee generators can sell.
Consumers are no longer as overawed as they once were by accountancy. With plenty
of online resources and free advice from the Inland Revenue, many small and medium
sized businesses are convinced they can go it alone. Why confirm that suspicious by
giving them the impression that their business is not important to you.
It will be an imperative to maximise billable activity. You can
charge for writing a letter, minutes on the phone, advice and
‘perusals’, but not the time spent on administrative chores.
The already stringent and explicit ethical rules laid down by the
Institute of Chartered Accountants call for ever higher levels of
operational efficiency.
Modern accountancy firms need to support a flexible and mobile
work force. All units of time must be accounted for with ruthless
efficiency, and subsequent flaws and wastefulness in business
processes will be mercilessly exposed.
The key survival skills in an increasingly competitive profession
are communications and accountability. There are a number of
business challenges that need to be addressed in the process of
honing these qualities.
Today’s clients want readily available services, with direct access to skilled
professionals.
Consumer choice is improving. Many potential customers are concluding they can do the
job themselves or outsource it to India. As the market for accounting services becoming
more competitive, first impressions are becoming increasingly crucial.
Most people’s first encounter with their accountants comes via the phone. That crucial
first meeting is the acid test for most potential customers. It tells them much about
the firm they are being asked to put their faith in. The success of their encounter will
indicate whether your company is a friendly but efficient organisation, or whether it’s run
by an old school firm that’s happy to take its time.
Solution
The first point of answer to any client call is critical. Technology these days can tell
support staff the status of a fee earner before passing through calls to them. Even when
companies share desks (known as hot desking) in order to save money, any employee
can be automatically located. Other automated systems (such as voice recognition or
speech enabled directories) can automate the routine processes of putting external
and internal calls through, and free your receptionist to spend more quality time serving
clients.
Business Challenge 2
Keeping Your Staff Happy
Attracting and retaining key talent is an obvious business objective, but these days
money isn’t always the answer. It’s about the work/life balance, rather than the bank
balance. Technology will help your staff enjoy more flexible hours and make better use
of their time.
With flexible working becoming more fashionable, it’s not unknown for an accountant
to work part time, and demand to have documents sent out to them, wherever they are.
Your systems need to support that, while keeping running costs within manageable
limits. Clients who phone your main office need never know their advisor is reviewing
their work from home.
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Executive Business Guide for Accountants
How to cut costs and increase profits with improved communications.
Solution
Take advantage of broadband to extend your reach. Fast Internet connections (AKA
broadband) mean your company network can go into employees’ homes and client
premises. If you are a home working accountant, for example, the phone may be in your
house, but it is programmed to be an extension of your office. Clients calling your work
number have no idea the call is being answered while you are at home.
Mobile broadband is increasing the flexibility of the office. Key staff and fee earners
can work from locations of their choice without having to master complicated
communication tools. Their handset does all the work (such as telling the system
what location their owner is working from) and the mobile accountant is free to stick
to his brief.
Business Challenge 3
Accountability
With accountancy invoices under increasingly keen scrutiny, it is vital that your bills are
open and accurate.
Solution
There is no universal cure for the lack of accountability. There is a raft of measures that
can be used to improve accountability and meet compliance regulations. Digital call
recording systems, for example, enable you to keep a record of every conversation. They
also enable you to pin point exactly how much time was taken up on each conversation,
giving you and your client perfect visibility over how a bill was calculated.
As well as preventing billing disputes, this makes accounting for your billable time a
lot easier. You will spend less time accounting and have more time available for more
lucrative forms of activity.
To create even more billable time, you may want to outsource your time management to
specialists. It’s an investment that brings multiple returns.
Business Challenge 4
Running costs
The trouble with having pervasive technology is that this can sometimes mean your
systems are ‘all over the place’.
Technology is a way of automating your business systems. If you have a good system in
place, technology will make it run faster.
On the other hand, if your organisation is confusingly run, the addition of technology will
only exacerbate any problems you have. Chaos is bad, but computerised chaos is fatal.
It is important that you keep on top of your technology. Standardising around one
system is a good idea. Try to prevent mavericks from bringing their own technology or
systems into work, and expecting the firm to support them.
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Executive Business Guide for Accountants
How to cut costs and increase profits with improved communications.
Phone bills can also get out of hand, if you don’t pay attention to potential problem
areas such as phone tariffs, premium rate calls, international calls and high rate
landline to mobile calls, all of which can be expensive and can land you with
unexpectedly high bills. All are manageable, as long as you put the right measures in
place.
Solution
The cost of doing business does not need to escalate, if you keep the right management
tools in place. Applied properly, even advanced technology like video and audio
conferencing can be tightly managed.
Business Challenge 5
Business Continuity in Emergencies like Fire,
Flood and Flu
Compliance regulations and simple logic mean that business continuity programmes
are imperative. There are any number of circumstances that can bring your company
grinding to a halt, or even put you out of business, if you don’t have contingency plans.
Risk analysts identify the most likely threats as fire, flooding, flu outbreaks, terrorism
and strikes. In these events, staff will either be unable to work or unable to get into
the office.
Solution
In the event of a catastrophe, staff could still work from home as long as calls can be
automatically forwarded to them and their IT systems are still available.
Staff have to be trained too. Remember, the systems can be in place, but unless staff
know the drill, your business continuity plans will be rendered useless. The majority of
companies that have been out of operation for more than two days never recover from
the lost customers and the fatal blow this delivers to their credibility.
Continuity in voice communications is the first line of defence.
Business Challenge 6
Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility and environmental pressures force accountants to be
seen to commit to lowering their carbon footprint.
Solution
Modern technology companies are committed to lowering the carbon footprint of their IT
and telecoms systems.
IT for example, can be bought as a service, which makes it more efficient and lowers
electricity consumption. Phone systems can be chosen on their low power consumption
(Internet telephony has a lower carbon footprint that traditional exchange based
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Executive Business Guide for Accountants
How to cut costs and increase profits with improved communications.
systems) and you can choose systems that have power saving features. For example,
some systems can automatically enter low-power mode that turns off LCD backlight
and uses about 80 per cent less energy than full power.
Business Challenge 7
How to Plan for Growth, Mergers and Acquisitions
In the present market, accounting firms will be subject to mergers and acquisitions.
The compatibility of systems - and indeed the firms - will affect the profitability of
these partnerships.
Solution:
Provide a flexible infrastructure that can adapt easily to the creation or integration of
new offices.
Your computer and phone systems are a case in point. You don’t want your new staff
to be waiting weeks for a new phone to be installed, or Internet access to be created
for them.
Broadband gives you this flexibility. The internet has seen phone systems and the web
converge. Phone calls can be carried over your broadband links and a phone system
can be software that runs inside your computer.
Executive Business Guide for Accountants
How to cut costs and increase profits with improved communications.
In Brief: Seven Money Saving Solutions
1. Save on expensive office space by Hot Desking
2. Let staff work from home
3. Have ‘virtual’ meetings with video or web links
4. Make it easier for clients to contact you
5. Cut your training bill by using easy to use phone systems
6. Reduce the admin bill by allowing staff to manage own phones (or using
IP phones that self configure or use follow me)
7. Adopt easy to use and cheap Web 2.0 technology (such as Spinvox voice to
text, Skype telephony and video, use mobile social networking technology for
legal updates)
The days of waiting for a telecom engineer to arrive and install a mysterious private
branch exchange machine into a closet, are long gone. Telephony is a function that
can now be controlled through your computer and is far more accessible.
In effect this means that email, text, instant messaging, video and, of course, phone
calls, can be managed in one system.
Your firm can enjoy greater flexibility and can waste less time on waiting for the office
equipment to be set up.
The systems are easier to manage too and easier to secure.
Business Challenge 8
Legislation
New Legislation often creates problems. It’s how quickly you adapt to it that cements
your reputation as a company worth dealing with.
Solution
There are few business challenges that cannot benefit from automation. Even the
small claims court is online now. In Sweden the courts are using service providers
who specialise in chivvying jurors defendants and witnesses, by text message, into
turning up for court. If they can prevent one trial from collapsing, they say, the system
pays for itself.
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Executive Business Guide for Accountants
About the Author:
Nick Booth
As a journalist, I’ve written for diverse readerships, catering
for readers of The News of the World, in the same week
I edited Network Reseller. I have been hired to write for a
variety of regional and national publications, including
The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, The Evening Standard,
ES Magazine, Midweek, Time Out, and The Daily Mail.
The subject matter varies from consumer journalism,
to mainstream news and features, to business and
technology coverage. I have reviewed theatre first nights
for Midweek and Ms London, Samsung handsets for mobile
phone web sites and solar chargers for IT-footprint.co.uk.
About the sponsors:
Exchange Communications
Exchange Comms provides complete business
communications solutions to small, medium and enterprise
companies throughout the South East of England.
From our base in St. Albans, we install, maintain and support
market leading business phone systems. To complement
the phone system, we deliver an integrated solution
incorporating voice mail, call centres, voice recording and
VoIP applications, while we also provide network cabling and
business broadband (ADSL ) solutions.
www.exchangecomms.co.uk
0800 6525844