We all know the feeling when paperwork piles up and administrative tasks steal hours from our day. That’s time we could have spent on work that energizes us and delivers greater value to our clients.
So what can you do about it? Here are five practical adjustments that have helped many firms reclaim their time and sharpen their financial operations. These aren’t complicated overhauls, just smart changes that make a real difference in how your team works.
1. Use Automation to Simplify Financial Processes
Manual tasks quietly drain productivity. By automating routine financial processes such as time-tracking, invoicing, and payables management, you can free up staff to focus on higher-margin activities that directly serve your clients.
Automation also reduces the risk of human error, ensuring that time-sensitive tasks like invoicing and payroll are handled with accuracy and consistency.
2. Streamline Communication for Improved Productivity
How much time do you and your team spend each day sifting through emails, returning phone calls, or sitting in unnecessary meetings? If you’re like many firms, the answer is probably “too much.”
That’s where professional accounting practice management software becomes your secret weapon.
A practice management system changes the way information moves through your firm. When project updates and billing details are centralized, your team can stop chasing answers and start getting work done.
This is especially valuable when people are working remotely or on different schedules. Centralized access ensures everyone has what they need without the back-and-forth.
3. Leverage Accounting Practice Management Software
Spreadsheets and basic task tools can only take a growing firm so far. At a certain point, managing complexity requires software built for the way accounting teams actually work.
When we look at purpose-built accounting practice management software for accounting firms, we look for:
- Customizable workflows that align with your firm’s unique processes
- Real-time visibility into project status and bottlenecks
- Resource allocation insights to balance workloads effectively
- Integration capabilities with your existing software ecosystem
Adding practice management tools provides valuable data about your firm’s operations. You might discover that nonprofit audits consistently go over budget by 20%, or that certain team members process returns faster. These insights help you price services more accurately and allocate resources more effectively.
4. Keep a Close Eye on Metrics
The right data can change how your firm runs — if you’re tracking the right things.
Two key performance indicators (KPIs) offer especially clear signals:
- Utilization Rates: This metric helps you understand staff productivity. Are your team members spending their time effectively? Are there opportunities to redistribute workloads or identify training needs?
- Realization Rates: This KPI is crucial for understanding billing efficiency. It helps you identify discrepancies between time worked and time billed, allowing you to address pricing issues or inefficiencies in your billing process.
Don’t stop with these two metrics. Your work-in-progress (WIP) and billing cycle times deserve regular attention too. A growing WIP balance might suggest delays in your review process, while extended billing cycles directly impact your cash flow.
By monitoring these numbers consistently, you spot opportunities to make small adjustments before minor issues grow into major challenges.
5. Outsource Ancillary Services
Knowing when to bring in outside support is part of smart resource management.
By contracting with third-party specialists for services that aren’t part of your core offering, you can:
- Enhance efficiency by allowing your team to focus on the firm’s high-value specialties
- Provide clients with access to skilled specialists and advanced technologies that are outside of your wheelhouse — without having to hire and train in-house staff
- Scale services up or down based on demand, without the overhead of full-time staff
While the scope of “ancillary” may vary depending on your firm’s focus, two commonly outsourced services are payroll and bookkeeping.
Payroll, with its complex and ever-changing regulations, can be particularly time-consuming and risky if not handled correctly. Outsourcing this function can save significant time and reduce compliance risks.
Bookkeeping, while perhaps less complex than payroll, still requires substantial time and attention to detail. By outsourcing this task to lower-cost providers, you can free up your team’s capacity for more strategic work while still ensuring your clients’ books are accurate and up-to-date.
Building a Stronger Firm, One Step at a Time
When we fine-tune our internal financial processes, we create something valuable: time. And in our profession, time translates directly into better client relationships and more satisfying work.
Each of the strategies above helps reduce friction. And as those improvements build, your team will naturally shift toward the work they’re best at — the work your clients notice and appreciate.
Why not start this week? Pick just one area that’s causing the most friction in your firm and build from there. A small change there could spark improvements throughout your firm. Your clients will notice the difference in the quality of attention they receive, and your team will appreciate focusing on work that showcases their true expertise.
