Wouldn’t it be great to have every manual system in your firm automated? Smooth, streamlined processes, that frees you up to focus on growth? While I am sure, every accountant reading along is nodding, at the same time, for those early on in the automation journey, or perhaps not the decision maker, a truly automated practice can sound like a bit of a pipe dream.

Automating your practices’ processes to foster innovation, really can start with just one part of your processes. Like data entry. And the beauty is, once you get a taste for automation, benefits will be realised and your journey to accounting nirvana begins.

Put your clients in the driver’s seat

Empowering your clients with the right tools to automate their own data entry, is the easiest way to kick-start your firms’ automation journey.

Look for a cloud-based solution like Receipt Bank. The platform handles paperless invoice entry. Your client’s photograph invoices and receipts, upload them to the system to be stored within the app itself, or integrated into Xero for easy reconciliation.

Say bye-bye to boxes of invoices and the tax time scramble. Track your client’s expenses and revenues in real time, giving you the insights to offer value-added advice about current or emerging situations.

It’s all for the client

At its most basic, Receipt Bank saves your clients data entry time. And as we know, anything that saves time is worth it. This saved time can be dedicated to improving other elements of their business or life.

All the data from an invoice is automatically input into the accounting software with the correct expense account allocation, GST treatment, payment terms for invoices that still require payment, or where the invoice has already been paid, Receipt Bank selects the relevant bank account from which the invoice was paid. All without anyone having to review a single step along the way.

As an accountant, you can access your client’s accounts payable, or inventory system, and understand what they’re doing, step by step. You can rest assured you have reliable data to base real-time decisions on, giving your clients the level of advisory service, they deserve. All this shifts your firm away from a compliance-based service into a nimble, value-driven, industry-leading practice.

Learn more about Receipt Bank here.

Already on Receipt Bank, but want to supercharge it more?

Check out: Practice Platform. It’s an additional platform that allows you to view stats and metrics across all your clients on one screen.

It’s an integrated management tool within Receipt Bank. It shows how ‘efficient’ your client is and highlights where improvements can be made. You can also communicate directly with the client via the platform.

Learn how to make Practice Platform work for your firm here.

Getting this started (for real)

One of the biggest challenges of introducing any new technology, stems not from the product itself but a lack of time (and sometimes knowledge) to onboard, train and monitor your clients throughout the year.

Not only can we onboard and train your client on how to use it, bookkeepers like us have regular day to day contact with your clients, so can monitor how they are using it and improve processes to enhance and tailor the technology’s functionality to suit the client’s specific needs.

We can also chase your clients on a regular basis, so come BAS time you’re not faced with the all-too-familiar bottleneck, where you’re left waiting on the client to either get a quarter’s worth of processing up to date or submit a quarter’s worth of documentation for the accountant to then process.

Sounds easy enough right? Now, is the time to consider starting your automation journey. And at SafeKeeping Advisory, we’ve got you covered.

Get in touch to start your journey today.

Renee and the team at SKA.