·         Today’s thirty-two mission critical digital best practices that will push your firm forward with quantum leaps in productivity

·         A structured process to prioritize those opportunities

·         Solutions targeted to your firm and your clients. 

Working under the premise of the Pareto Principal, the goal of this Guide is to expose you to the 80% of important firm optimization opportunities in a clear, condensed, and comprehensive format that will require 20% of your time to thoroughly identify and understand.

TO MAKE QUANTUM LEAPS IN YOUR FIRM’S PRODUCTIVITY:

1.      Optimize your time by reading this Guide in one sitting, which should take between one and two hours.

2.      Complete the Firm Optimization Checklist while you are reading and thoughts are fresh in your mind.

3.      Put it away for a day and then re-evaluate your prioritization focusing on the top one to three initiatives in each area. 

4.      If other personnel can provide valuable input, have each individual read the Guide and complete their own Checklist.

5.      Meet as a team to set priorities at a firm wide level. 

Overview

Every accounting firm is unique in the production processes they have developed over time to service clients, produce tax returns, complete audits, enter time, and produce billing.  While each firm is unique, the transition from traditional manual processes to today’s digital solutions is remarkably similar and it is primarily a matter of identifying where the firm is today and implementing the next proven process that firm personnel are sufficiently capable and willing to adopt.  

Talking about hardware may seem like an odd place to start a discussion on optimizing your firm production. However, without a basic framework in place to promote a stable working environment and take advantage of today’s technologies, your firm’s ability to effectively implement solutions will be severely restricted. 

Pushing your IT infrastructure, which includes all of your file servers, cabling, applications, workstations, and Internet connectivity beyond basic limits will lead to more “dinking” time by your professional staff.  (“Dinking” is the technical term for the massive amounts of time wasted by your personnel when computers lock up or don’t do what is expected and when they have to “dink around” trying to figure out a solution). 

Even though people are an accounting firm’s biggest expense, very few firms effectively track the lost downtime caused by IT issues which usually ends up being buried within chargeable time to the client.  The cost of your personnel’s down time dwarfs the cost of having the proper IT infrastructure.