Best for:
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Firm owners looking to scale their firms without sacrificing work quality.
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Firm owners and managers looking to improve team performance and consistency.
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Firm owners who want to empower their staff to fill in for their team members when necessary.
Scaling a firm requires hiring people to serve your clients. But every new staff you hire likely might have a different way of getting work done that does not align with yours.
So, how do you get them to deliver results that consistently meet your standard?
If you choose the micromanagement route, it would cost you the time you’d have spent doing strategic work.
That’s where our workflow templates shine.
Financial Cents’ templates help you document your workflows to effectively delegate work to your team, knowing they will get the same results.
Here’s how we set your firm up for success 👇
Step-by-Step Guide:
Step 1: Identify Processes to Document
The mere thought of where to start documenting your processes is enough to stop firm owners in their tracks.
It would feel overwhelming if you think about documenting all your processes at once. But if you take it one process at a time (like you should), you’ll see it is much easier.
So, how do you know which process to start with? These criteria will help:
- Complexity: the more difficult a process is the higher the need to outline the steps needed to complete it. That’s the essence of having workflow templates in the first place.
- Urgency: if a key employee is leaving your firm, you’d want to ensure they document their operating procedures so that other team members can do it in their absence.
- Frequency: if your team performs a process every day or week, it makes sense to prioritize it over the once-in-a-year projects.
If someone is already doing the work, invite them to document the process with you.
Their ideas could help to ensure the process is exhaustively documented.
Step 2: Create Process Templates in Financial Cents
Financial Cents offers several ways to document your processes and automate key project attributes to streamline work creation and delivery in your firm.
Watch this short video to see them:
Step 3: Create Projects from Templates in Financial Cents
The prebuilt templates in Financial Cents give your process documentation a significant head start.
The templates outline the tasks that go into completing these processes in a typical accounting firm, so take them as a starting point and customize them to fit your unique processes.
How to create projects from templates:
Step 4: Review and Optimize Documented Processes
Documenting your processes is never done and dusted. Your firm (team, services, and tech stack) is growing, your client’s needs are evolving, and very importantly, the regulatory environment is changing.
These require a regular review of your processes to see where an adjustment might be needed to maintain your quality standard.
Usually, this review should be done on an annual basis, but it can be more frequent in times of significant structural and regulatory changes.
Start a free trialCollaborate with Your Team Members to Refine Workflow Templates
Unless you’re a solo firm owner, you’re definitely not doing all your firm’s processes all by yourself.
Since your staff is doing most of the work, you need their input to ensure the workflow templates are still serving your team and clients.
Why Documenting Your Processes Is a Game Changer
When your firm’s standard procedures are not well defined, each team member will execute client projects however they think best. This will create inconsistencies in your client deliverables.
Workflow Templates will guide your team members to follow your standard procedures, which will help to reduce errors, maintain your work quality, and streamline your firm’s day-to-day operations.
Financial Cents doesn’t just provide best-practice templates; it also allows you to leverage AI for more creative ideas.
Moreover, our templates library shows you how other teams are getting work done. This will inspire you to create and reduce the confusion and procrastination that come with not having a frame of reference for a project.
“Before Financial Cents, I wasted a lot of time sending my staff emails to explain anything I needed them to do.
In Financial Cents, every task has a checklist. Once I delegate tasks to team members, they can see what they need to do.”
Give Your Team the Confidence They Need to Complete Work to Your Standard
Any investment in documenting your processes upfront will save you a lot of time, money, and stress in the long run.
That’s because when your team members are clear on how to complete their assigned tasks, they will channel their energy into finding the most accurate and efficient manner of doing it.
Start Documenting Your Processes with the Financial Cents Free Trial Today.
Start a free trial
Many of the other tools are poor at managing updates and bugs. Some use subcontracted developers, providing real client data samples. Others have suffered breaches without proper notifications.
Of the pre-built systems out there, I do think Financial Cents has a solid offering.
One of my top goals is to make the process easier for clients. Glad I made the switch!
Many of the other tools are poor at managing updates and bugs. Some use subcontracted developers, providing real client data samples. Others have suffered breaches without proper notifications.
Of the pre-built systems out there, I do think Financial Cents has a solid offering.
One of my top goals is to make the process easier for clients. Glad I made the switch!
If you’re not using this feature, I highly recommend it! Remembering to follow up with clients can be a serious bottleneck and I love how this solved that problem!
If you’re not using this feature, I highly recommend it! Remembering to follow up with clients can be a serious bottleneck and I love how this solved that problem!