How to Delegate work to Your Accounting Team

Tight deadlines and heavy workload aside, projects won’t get done on time if no one is accountable for tasks, and you can’t hold anyone responsible without assigning them the tasks beforehand.

The average accounting team is pressed for time, making it easier for team members to forget tasks that were not explicitly assigned to them.

This leads to missed deadlines, burnt-out teams, and dissatisfied clients.

That is why accounting, bookkeeping, and CPA firm owners use the Financial Cents task assignment feature to clarify team roles for all projects. This keeps their teams aligned, engaged, and efficient.

Here’s how they do this👇

A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1:  Identify Tasks to Assign

Every task in an accounting firm can be assigned, but some tasks are easier and more important to delegate than others. These include:

• Recurring Tasks: the tasks your team performs repeatedly should be delegated to a team member, who will be responsible for their delivery on an ongoing basis.
  
  You wouldn’t want to repeatedly assign the same tasks every day, week, or month before they can be completed.
• High-Priority Tasks: sometimes, 80% of project success comes from 20% of the tasks.
  
  These tasks should be thoughtfully and proactively assigned.
• Complex Tasks: tasks that require specialized knowledge, like complex tax work, should be delegated to the most qualified hands first. Other team members can easily pick up the remaining tasks.

Step 5: Review and Optimize the Process

As long as accounting regulations and client needs are changing, you’ll need to review and adjust your system of delegating work to ensure client satisfaction at scale.

Here are two ways to do it:

• Gather Feedback from Your Team: your team members will likely be first (and best positioned) to spot the changes needed in your workflows and system of assigning tasks.
• Update Workflows: use your team member’s feedback to adjust your workflows and templates to reflect evolving task management needs and position your firm for efficiency.

Why Effective Task Assignment is a Game Changer

Every well-run firm requires a clear sense of ownership for the individual tasks in each project.

Effective delegation helps you cultivate an ownership mindset by giving your team members the responsibility for tasks and providing them the context and resources to finish the work.

Without it, multiple team members could end up working on the same task, which would amount to a waste of billable hours.

Improve Employee Engagement With Effective Delegation

Effective task assignment is a major reason for missed deadlines in accounting firms. It requires you to:

• Define the purpose of a task
• Provide the context for the work
• State the expected outcome
• Communicate the deadline for completing the task
• Provide the resources to get it done

Financial Cents enables you to clarify these variables to prevent confusion and redundancy.

The task assignment feature helps your team members understand their role in delivering the quality of client service everyone will be proud of. This increases employee confidence and engagement, resulting in a more profitable firm.

Start delegating clearly with Financial Cents today.