2024 Report: The State of Accounting Workflow Automation

We uncover insights into how accounting firms used workflow automation in 2023 while answering two important questions — Is workflow automation worth it and at what stage of a firm’s life cycle? Hear directly from your peers who shared their insights with us.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Overview
• Who weighed in?
• Biggest challenges in 2023
• Workflow automation temperature check
• Before automation
• Finding what sticks
• The Moment of realization
• A case for workflow automation (or not)
• Case study
• Post-workflow automation
• Deal breaker workflow automation features
• The litmus test for success
• Introducing Financial Cents
• Conclusion
• Study methodology

Introduction

The 2024 State of Workflow Automation Report highlights the experiences of 367 accounting, bookkeeping, and tax firm owners primarily in North America. Our respondents include firm owners and admins who have insights into the daily workings of managing an accounting firm.

We share insights into:

• The biggest challenges firms faced in 2023
• Why workflow was one of the biggest challenges firms struggled with
• What managing a firm without workflow automation looks like
• Areas of a firm that can and should be automated
• The immediate and future benefits of workflow automation
• How you’ll know it’s time to get automated — through real life experiences of firm owners like you
• The most important features your workflow automation software should have
• How to know if workflow automation is working for you

We started the State of Workflow Automation Report in 2023 because we wanted to share insights from actual firm owners on the impact of workflow automation on their firms and how it affects their ability to get work done.

In this year’s report, 41.6% of respondents have 2 to 5 employees, 29% are solo, 15.1% have 6-10 employees, 7.1% have 11 to 20 employees and 7.1% have 20+ employees. Apart from firm size, 49.3% are fully remote firms, 36.7% are hybrid, and 14% are onsite.

This report is brought to you by Financial Cents.

Before automation

45.8% spent an average of 1-5 hours scheduling and assigning work

45.5% spent an average of 1-5 hours reviewing and updating work status

The general consensus is that the less you automate, the more of your valuable time you spend on repetitive, manual tasks.

51.4% had clunky onboarding processes

Successful onboarding — whether of clients or staff — requires certain things to be in place. When those things are not in place, the process becomes clunky and inefficient.

53% felt their firms were somewhat collaborative

Staff collaboration is at the heart of any business and in a world of remote and hybrid firms, collaboration has never been more important. Without automation, 18.5% of firms report a team that’s not able to collaborate at all. Imagine staff not being on the same page on client updates, notes, files, and tasks. Team members have to look at multiple places to access the information they need to collaborate and get work done.

52.4% got documents from clients after several days, making it a slow process

Clients forget, period. And to increase the chances of clients sending the correct information and document on time, while having enough time to get the work done, firms may need to automate some or all of the process like automatic requests and follow up.

Finding what sticks

68% attempted to solve their workflow issues by setting up processes and 55.2% bought workflow automation software

Other:

• Follow up emails mostly
• Just dealt with it but have now added late penalties if more than one month late
• Hired operations manager
• Started using Financial Cents
• Looking at practice management software options

59.2% say their initial attempts worked slightly while 27% are confident that their initial attempts worked

34% say their initial attempts did not work because their team slipped back into old habits

In seeking a solution to workflow issues, focusing on just one thing will often not work. For example, for newly set up processes to work, you most likely have to train your staff and implement workflow software. You may also need to run regular follow up training sessions to ensure your team continues to operate according to your newly set systems and processes.

Why initial attempts worked

• Because it’s automating our firm
• It helped me become more organized and on a schedule.
• Set boundaries in the beginning
• Because I focused on the plan of action
• Standardized processes and facilitated easy document collection.
• We were very thorough in our processes.
• It put pressure on clients to be more involved in the onboarding process.
• It was easy to use and I made the commitment
• Automation made things happen smoother
• It was an actual solution
• Had buy in from staff.
• More streamlined and easier to process
• I had employees
• Workflow processes are important, however, the users need to follow up on the handoff. That has been the challenge. It worked because I actively managed and watched it like a hawk. I need it to get to a point where my team relies on the software. If it is in there and it says do it, it’s all them!
• Consistency! The entire team was on board with the setup, so it was easy to communicate it to the clients as well and get them to follow the rules!
• Because we put the processes in place to handle the work.
• Once properly thought out and set up, it flowed better
• The software could regularly message our clients for us so we didn’t constantly need to check in.
• Putting automation makes things smooth for clients. Them receiving task reminders to upload documents and employees getting task reminders as well for work to be completed.
• Because I purchased Financial Cents and it is awesome!
• Ability to mark work completed.
• The implementation of workflow processes made the process faster and much easier to manage and track tasks. In addition, tracking time spent on work allowed us to maximize productivity.
• Workflow made our processes more transparent and smooth.
• We are implementing Financial Cents along with our already established SmartVault and Outlook. Gradually getting it up to speed.
• Informing employees and communicating clearly with clients
• I was very disorganized, so attempting workflow processes enhanced my work.
• Workflow software has allowed me to move tasks from my brain to an electronic, repeatable, remindable task
• Easier to track where the work was at.
• Staff responded to training.
• Got everything out of my brain!
• We were able to remove a lot of the human error in the workflow because of tag automation. As we continue to train staff on the processes and procedures, the workflow seems to be moving in the right direction.
• Getting good processes in place always works if you follow them
• Forcing compliance for my staff via follow-ups and setting clear expectations
• We have very good communication and were all keen to change
• Because it was Financial Cents. (Not my initial solution but it was my only solution after I found it) 🙂
• It wasn’t our initial – Financial Cents was a smart move.
• Because it was better than a excel sheet
• Utilizing Financial Cents App for Workflow Management, Client, and Employee
• My processes were written down and democratized to my team. My team had a process to follow.
• I know where everything is and when it is due
• Better communication between staff and visibility to the project status.
• Getting a single system in place to centralize client onboarding, communication, and task management.

The Moment of realization 🤯

1. Working too many hours based on the number of clients I have
2. Having to revisit the same tasks/issues multiple times
3. Turnover of staff
4. Increased workloads from clients to keep track of everything.
5. When work kept piling up
6. When I started delaying work distribution
7. When I met the Financial Cents Team at QB Connect
8. Hearing from other CPA’s that have done it and the difference it made!
9. Spending too much time trying to motivate clients for information and too much time spent trying to figure out what needed done put me over the edge!
10. Losing a handle on where in the process each client is
11. When client is not following through on getting stuff in
12. There was more work than I could manage in my head.
13. When I realized how stressed and burnt out I was because of poor work life balance.
14. I kept forgetting to follow up with clients.
15. Missed client deadlines
16. Errors
17. WorkflowCon 2023
18. When they sent documents through text message
19. When I was a client and my auditors did everything by email and on excel worksheets as checklists – HORRIBLE organization, and I wasn’t going to put my clients through that
20. When I fell way behind on my work
21. Once I hired someone, I needed the processes and workflows in place
22. When we didn’t have enough staff to review client files before we prepared their tax returns two seasons ago.
23. Wanting to work smarter not harder
24. Spending too much time on admin work and not productive work
25. Missed a key component of a tax plan.
26. “No real defining moment other than OMG I’m overwhelmed and cannot be in the business – I need to Run the business. With workflows, I can run the business and still be in the business where I am needed and when it makes sense.”
27. When I realized that everything could no longer be housed in my brain and I needed to know that others could replicate my processes without needing me to tell them what to do.
28. As the firm grew, we knew we needed to automate our firm’s contact lists and jobs we do for clients
29. I realized we are calling our revenue if we don’t get this running more efficiently.
30. Daily stress
31. When our spreadsheets got out of hand during COVID.
32. Having more than a few clients
33. When we lost client revenue which resulted in less employee compensation.
34. When I kept getting asked where everything stood and where in the process everyone was
35. To get to the next level, automation was a must.
36. When our work flow process was not getting better after implementing a new process several, different times.
37. I hated tracking my time in a google sheet!
38. Planning a big vacation and needed to delegate my work to others
39. Realizing that every team member was doing the work a little differently. Training was like a game of telephone and firm wide consistency was being lost.
40. There was no specific moment.  I always knew we needed it, however, what was the correct tool? That was the toughest process.
41. When I saw what Financials Cents (FC) could do and the plans it had for the future, I knew we needed to get our act together by purchasing FC. We had to create concrete processes that would automate themselves and easily identify who was responsible for each task in a process. I had hope for growth again.
42. Being stressed out as I gained new clients and not having enough time for
43. I came from Corporate America where we used a multi million software to manage workflow.
44. When we had to cover large amounts of filing penalties for us not keeping on top of files.
45. When I felt disorganized mid-month, still trying to collect records from some clients, trying to work on regular service work for other clients, and also doing one-off projects for two new clients
46. When we constantly had to request clients for paperwork
47. When I worked for a firm that still used paper files and looked for files all day
48. When we kept having issues with training and people not knowing who is taking what. It was horrible.
49. Due to staff turnover, we were losing things in the mix.
50. Seemed I was the only one looking at what needed to be done
51. Our staff! We needed it and we know it and they confirmed it by the ask’s
52. Lack of visibility & missed deadlines
53. With client growth, there was too much to keep up with.
54. The defining moment for automating workflows usually comes when a business or individual recognizes a repetitive and time-consuming task that can be streamlined for efficiency
55. Workload became too much and I spent a lot of time emailing clients for information.
56. Too many different spreadsheets and things getting missed when spreadsheets were created
57. I could not add any more hours to my day and I know something needed to change
58. Not having qualified staff in place and needing to prioritize what staff members are working on (hands-on). Removing tasks that could be automated.
59. I attempted to build good workflows in Asana before taking my first client, however, it wasn’t the correct software to automate anything, just kept me on task. As soon as I saw what Financial Cents could do, I was sold because I didn’t want to keep repeating the same tasks each month (reminding clients etc.)
60. No longer able to name all clients and their respective compliance deadlines
61. Reached too many clients to keep track of on a notepad
62. Lack of balance
63. When I completely forgot about a job a client hired me to do since I didn’t have a proper task listing. The client wasn’t angry, but I did give them a discount.
64. Slow closing processes
65. The first time I broke down in tears and started screaming at 1 past midnight on whichever tax deadline that was.
66. Work overload
67. New staff member. More clients made me realize that streamlining workflow was becoming more necessary.
68. Insomnia, stress, smaller clients leaving
69. Tired of feeling responsible for missing deadlines because I “failed to remind clients about documents”.
70. Poor work life balance
71. Like a Christmas miracle, when all seemed lost in the darkness of chaos…automation was the gift our firm needed to streamline workflows and bring joy (and free time) back into our lives.
72. Not knowing what work was needed.  Not knowing status of the work and information needed
73. Too many sleepless nights to get stuff done
74. I would spend 2-3 hours on a sunday writing an email of who was doing what – too much time delegating. Then we doubled out client size and that was not sustainable.
75. As the manual process was very slow then the need for automation arose
76. When I saw I didn’t have enough time to accept new clients I needed to get to be a profitable-enough firm.
77. I’ve partnered with legal practice management cloud based providers
78. When I started missing deadlines and felt overwhelmed and disorganized.
79. I am always working
80. Manually moving people around every morning!
81. Never enough time to get stuff done.
82. Emails became inefficient and overwhelming resulting in lost or forgotten tasks/items
83. Gradual recognition, not a single defining moment
84. Too much time spent on admin side of things and wanted to free some time for the owners to work on the growth of the business and not just work in the business.
85. spending too much time finding the same things over and over again
86. Onboarding new clients is not consistent among all clients (it varies by client); so every client has a different experience. Also, workflows/processes are not documented in one place.
87. I was fired by a client because they didn’t receive their monthly financial report. I explained to them that I did not receive any monthly bank, credit card and loan statements. They acknowledged that they didn’t meet their obligations but I was still fired. At that point I knew I needed something to help with automating document retrieval from clients and something that could send email reminders to clients to send documents.
88. Larger number of clients with the same number of staff
89. When I was no longer thriving in choas
90. I always knew it, however the possibilities I learned from workflowcon sealed the deal!
91. I started my own business and knew this was important to me to get right because
92. I knew I wanted to grow and expand but the way I was doing things, I became a huge bottle neck in the growth of the firm and was working well over 9 hrs per day.
93. Couldn’t scale
94. When I had to be involved in every step of onboarding a client, and having to oversee all client communication at all times.
95. When communication was missed and colleagues started butting heads
96. We had a whole lot of returns to complete before the extended deadline. We worked every day until the deadline (including weekends) to have them all completed.
97. When we lost an employee and didn’t know where her assignment list stood.  We had a difficult time reassigning her work as we didn’t have enough employees and didn’t know the bandwidth of the employees we had.
98. Documents were sent via too many places, email, text, portal, etc.
99. When staff was complaining there were too many places to look for information and they didnt know which client to work on first.
100. When my firm grow and I hired my first employee
101. When we exceeded 75 clients
102. Spent too much time on admin stuff
103. All the scraps of paper and notes on my desk.
104. Clients not submitting their information timely
105. Headaches
106. When I was ready to review the client’s work but was still chasing bank statements because the client had not been asked for them.
107. Missing deadlines repeatedly.
108. When I realized that I was spending most of my week chasing clients, then spending nights and weekends doing the work!
109. All my work was helter-skelter. I was trying to enjoy time with family, and vacation and was worrying about what needed to be done for clients.
110. Managing retainers was arduous and time consuming. Hiring staff, having to train them and provide detailed step-by-step instructions as well as all info about the client and the work we do for them, whether project or ongoing.
111. We hired someone to help as we were all overburdened, but in trying to hand off work and explaining processes, we realized how bad it was and that we needed to tweak the system. We immediately shopped for a new system, delayed the new hire 3-5 months, and hire a junior bookkeeper now instead of a senior level.
112. When business partner died
113. Revenue
114. Needing to establish a Hybrid work environment.
115. I knew I could recover lost time, and therefore lost revenue.
116. We knew we needed automation when managing the work started taking more time than completing it.
117. Unable to keep up with time spent on client’s work. Missing out on revenue
118. Realizing that spreadsheets were not the answer to know what is going on
119. When I tracked my hours and realized how much time was being wasted that could be automated
120. Besides wanting to have good visibility of all projects, we wanted to take our firm paperless and throughout the USA.
121. When we didn’t know how utilized a team member was. It made the sales process difficult because we didn’t know when to bring on new clients.
122. When I saw I needed more clients but did not have the time to take on more
123. When I couldn’t answer a clients question of what stage their work was in.
124. The feeling of absolute OVERWHELM!
125. When a client called the main office to check the status of a project and admin had to call three people to find out.
126. Crush of work near tax deadlines.
127. Constant stress and paralysis when you sit down and have no idea what to work on, but you know there are a million things to do.
128. Too many emails, and becoming a bottleneck between staff and clients
129. When the time difference between first contact, first meeting, employee assignment, and actually starting any work became drastic. It bogged down existing clients and even after some people (staff & clients) left, it was not manageable
130. Watching videos and webinars of others who have done it
131. Feeling overwhelmed
132. Missing tax deadlines and having too much work remaining until due date
133. Frustration with process
134. When my client base grew to over 30 clients
135. I lost 25% of my business this year because I don’t feel that we were fully delivering on commitments.  It was so hard to see good clients go, based on our lack of “easy to do business with”.
136. I knew we needed to automate workflows when there was no way to take on the new client. Hiring was not an option.
137. Too many hours managing client workload and data. I literally had NO time for anything else.
138. I wanted to keep a small workforce.
139. When I was getting, “I don’t know what more information I need to provide,” type questions and couldn’t keep up with answering them because the work and process to look that up for each of 100 some odd clients was more than one person could do.
140. When I kept having to repeat processes over and over; knowing I want to be 100% paperless, I knew automating workflows was a huge part of this.
141. The turning point was when we found ourselves unaware of how our accountants and bookkeepers were handling client work. We lacked visibility into the progress and were unable to provide clients with updates. Clients would inquire, and we struggled to answer because the process was unclear. Additionally, the challenge extended to obtaining necessary documents from clients, who often sent them late or not at all. Documents were scattered across emails, making it difficult to track and manage effectively. This highlighted the urgent need for workflow automation to streamline our processes, enhance communication, and gain better control over our operations. We started using Financial Cents app and things have changed drastically.
142. I realized that I would not be able to grow that way because I would be the bottleneck of the business
143. Client work has become more complex and we must meet their needs.
144. My firm grew, both in clients and in staff, so we needed something better than Excel to keep track of all deadlines
145. I spent too much time working in my business instead of on my business.
146. My processes were only in my head, and my team did not know how I wanted things done.
147. Retirement of long-time bookkeeper
148. Constantly flustered and forgetting deliverables
149. Pulling my hair out and constantly being on edge about deadlines
150. Constantly doing manual, repetitive tasks
151. Knowing that I want to scale the business and have a life!
152. As a Founder, I was bogged down in the details too much
153. Architecting for scalability and pressures to move from tactical bookkeeping to more advisory services.

A case for workflow automation (or not)

30.4% of spreadsheets users say they don’t use workflow automation software because of ‘app overwhelm’

App overwhelm is a thing. Just do a Google search of apps for anything and several options will be presented to you with convincing details, fascinating reviews, and unique features. What we’ve seen work for most firms is talking to their peers and getting honest feedback about the apps they’re interested in. This can include asking on online communities or requesting a virtual coffee chat with a peer to go over app features and performance.

Equal split between those who think workflow automation is possible with software and those who don’t

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What about you? Do you agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below.

What spreadsheets users wish workflow automation software would do for them

• Increase number of clients
• Improve processes
• Create easy to follow workflow that will create efficiency and consistency
• streamline processes
• Make things run smoother with less input dedicated to admin work.
• Work smarter
• Allow us to see what has and hasn’t been done, where help is needed, etc.
• create a more seamless process, and keep better track of client work/updates
• Efficiency and consistency
• Speed up data entry, ensure receiving complete data ‌getting answers from clients faster.
• Set up reminders of who has something coming up or if we need to contact a client because we are missing something.
• Have more time to work on finding better clients.
• Transparency of status and priorities. Easy to update so firm owner and staff can stay focussed on client work and capacity/ helping each other to deliver rather than just updating the admin.
• Reduce time spent on admin tasks
• Keep us (me!) on target with deadlines/commitments
• To make things more organized and up-to-date
• Improve time management, communication internally and with our clients
• Auto upload source documents and organize client file
• Delegation
• Allow me to increase my revenues by getting more clients due to time efficiencies gained
• Keep me on track with tasks and automating client reminders, collecting documents and info needed
• Help me manage the workflow and keep on top of the status of projects.
• Track deadlines
• Streamline onboarding and task management
• Streamline, organize/collect data securely, relieve my stress
• Create consistency
• Streamline processes for improved status communication internally.
• Provide standards and consistency
• Take over a lot of the administrative things
• Help manage work. Knowing it is done.
• Help to organize processes and alleviate the stress of forgetting/dropping information
• Save time
• Make sure deadlines aren’t missed.
• Save us time and make us more efficient
• Be able to take on more clients

Post-workflow automation

Since implementing workflow automation software,

34.8% now spend an average of 0-1 hour scheduling and assigning work per week

33.5% now spend 0-1 hour reviewing and updating the status of work each week

A great workflow automation software will significantly cut the time you spend on manual, repetitive tasks through features like recurring work, a dashboard that shows you the status of work in one view, automatic project hand off, task dependencies, among others.

55.2% say automation made their onboarding process smoother for sure

With automation software providing you with the opportunity to automate the whole onboarding process from start to finish, it’s easy to see why firms experience smoother onboarding post-workflow automation.

32.9% say automation has made their firm very collaborative

Picture this: 

Pre-workflow automation, your team is working in and out of different spreadsheets and missing important client updates, making managing your workflow feel cumbersome and inefficient.

Post-workflow automation, your team can see all client updates and notes, discuss tasks, ask questions, share files, and get notified within their workflows without having to check their emails.

Bliss!

45.5% say receiving documents from clients became fast since implementing workflow automation

With good workflow automation software providing auto reminders and follow up so you never have to chase down clients again, combine that with easy-to-use client portals, it’s only normal that clients would respond faster.

27.6% of respondents say the biggest impact of workflow automation on their firm is helping them implement standardized systems and processes

Firms that implement workflow automation software report better and consistent work quality across the firm, alongside reduced errors on client deliverables.

Deal breaker workflow automation features

66.1% say recurring projects was the major feature they looked out for before buying workflow automation software

Recurring projects in workflow automation software significantly cuts down time spent on scheduling work. Firm owners and administrators can set up recurring work on both ongoing and project-type deliverables so they can focus on getting work done with clarity and ease. It’s therefore no surprise that it’s the number one feature firms look out for in workflow automation software.

Other important features include a workflow dashboard that gives great visibility into the status of work, automatic client tasks and reminders, easy-to-use client portal, and streamlined communication and collaboration.

The litmus test for success

66.8% measure the effectiveness of workflow automation through smoothly operating systems and processes

Firm owners and administrators are convinced that workflow automation is working for their firms when systems and processes run smoothly. Nothing feels like a bottleneck, everyone is on the same page, there’s peace, and work gets done as at when due.

Introducing Financial Cents

Financial Cents is a workflow management software that has all the features you need to get work done in a simple user interface that your team will love and find easy to use.

Whether you’re just beginning to document your processes or have been doing it for a long time, our workflow checklist templates that are both editable and customizable will get you up and running in no time.

Track & assign work, set up recurring tasks, store client information, automate client data collection, and more with Financial Cents.

Conclusion

Like the data shows, 45.5% of those who implemented a workflow automation system get documents from clients faster, 32.9% of them now have very collaborative firms, 55.2% of them have smoother onboarding workflows, 34.8% of them spend less than an hour on admin tasks.

The sweet spot like we also saw in the data is having documented systems and processes then using a workflow automation software to implement and automate them.

— — —

A big shout out to everyone who responded to our survey and thank you for reading this year’s State of Accounting Workflow Automation Report.

View last year’s report below to compare the results:

2023 State of Accounting Workflow Automation Report

You are welcome to share and republish the stats on this page with proper credit to Financial Cents. This data was collected between November 9th, 2023, and January 18th, 2024.

Study methodology

This report was developed ethically and scientifically.

We drafted the survey questions with a focus on uncovering workflow challenges in firms. The questions were previously reviewed by a certified bookkeeper. We sent the link to the survey out to our email list of accounting, bookkeeping, CPA, and tax firm owners, including users and non-users of Financial Cents.

514 people started the survey, and 367 people completed it, for an overall response rate of 71.4% completion rate.