The Freedom & Profitability You Desire Are Achievable w/Dawn Brolin

For years, accounting professionals have worn long hours like a badge of honor.

The narrative is familiar: success demands sacrifice, and the harder you work, the more you achieve.

But at WorkflowCon 2024, Dawn Brolin shattered this illusion, asserting a radical truth:

Brolin’s perspective is clear—profitability and freedom are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one enables the other. The firms that master workflow efficiency, set strategic boundaries, and leverage technology are the ones that thrive financially while enjoying the personal time they deserve. Yet, the path to achieving this equilibrium requires a deliberate shift in mindset, structure, and execution.

This article breaks down the core strategies Brolin shared, providing an analytical, step-by-step approach to gaining control of your time, optimizing workflow, and building a profitable, sustainable firm.

Master Your Mindset and Define Your Why

Most accountants wear “being busy” as a badge of honor. You might feel proud of working long hours, answering client emails at night, and handling every task yourself. But busyness is not success.

Dawn warns that without the right mindset, you will never build the freedom and profitability you desire.

How to Shift Your Mindset

• Stop glorifying overwork. The number of hours you work does not determine your success—your efficiency does.
• Identify your biggest time wasters. Are you spending too much time on low-value work, unnecessary meetings, or inefficient processes?
• Define what success looks like for you. Do you want to work fewer hours? Increase profits? Take more vacations? If you don’t set a goal, you will never reach it.

This shift in mindset sets the foundation for everything else. If you believe your firm must always be chaotic and exhausting, it always will be. But if you start focusing on efficiency, profitability, and boundaries, you will create real change.

Set Boundaries That Protect Your Time

One of the biggest mistakes firm owners make is allowing constant interruptions. If you are always available to clients, always checking notifications, and always saying “yes” to last-minute requests, you will never achieve the freedom you want.

Dawn learned this lesson the hard way.

She was referring to her Apple Watch, which constantly interrupted her focus with notifications. The moment she removed it, her productivity skyrocketed.

How to Set Boundaries That Stick

• Turn off notifications during deep work. Your phone and email should not dictate your schedule, you should.
• Block time on your calendar for focused work. If it’s not scheduled, it doesn’t exist.
• Set clear client expectations. Clients should know when you are available and when you are not. If you answer emails at all hours, they will expect it forever.

By protecting your time, you can take control of your workday instead of reacting to interruptions. This allows you to work fewer hours while getting more done.

Optimize Your Workflow to Scale Profitably

If you feel overwhelmed in your accounting firm, chances are your workflow is broken. Every minute of inefficiency in your process costs you money.

Dawn warns that firm owners lose thousands of dollars simply because they don’t have a well-defined workflow.

How to Build a Profitable, Efficient Workflow

1. Map out every step of your current process.
   • Write down each action you take from client onboarding to project completion.
   • Identify bottlenecks, slow tasks, and unnecessary steps.
2. Assign clear responsibilities.
   • Every task should have an owner. If multiple people are “responsible,” no one is truly accountable.
   • Stop doing everything yourself. Delegate where possible.
3. Implement workflow automation tools.
   • Use project management software for accounting like Financial Cents to keep tasks on track.
   • Automate repetitive tasks to save time and increase accuracy.

The goal is not to work harder but to work smarter. The better your workflow, the less time you waste and the more profitable your firm becomes.

Stop Overworking and Start Charging What You’re Worth

Many accountants work too many hours because they undercharge for their services.

You might feel guilty about raising prices, but if your fees are too low, you will always be overworked.

Dawn explains that increasing profitability is not about working more hours—it’s about pricing and efficiency.

How to Fix Your Pricing and Reduce Your Hours

• Evaluate your pricing structure. Are you charging based on value, or are you stuck in the hourly billing trap?
• Stop giving away time for free. Every call, every email, every additional service should be accounted for.
• Raise prices for high-maintenance clients. If certain clients require extra work, charge accordingly or let them go.

When you charge what your services are truly worth, you will no longer feel pressure to take on excessive work just to make ends meet.

Invest in the Right Technology for Efficiency

Technology should make your life easier, not more complicated. If your tech stack is slowing you down, you are losing money.

How to Choose the Right Tools

• Invest in efficiency, not just cost savings. A cheap tool that slows you down is costing you money.
• Ensure your tools integrate smoothly. If your software isn’t talking to each other, you are creating more work for yourself.
• Regularly review your tech stack. If a tool isn’t saving time, replace it.

When you choose the right technology, you will reduce manual work, improve client experience, and free up more of your time.

The Firm You Want Is Within Reach

If you feel stuck, overworked, and underpaid, it is not because freedom and profitability are impossible, it is because you haven’t structured your firm for success.

You can build a firm that works by shifting your mindset, setting boundaries, optimizing workflows, pricing correctly, and using the right technology.

The only question now is: are you ready to take control of your business and build the profitable, balanced life you deserve?

This is where Financial Cents plays an important role in your accounting firm’s transformation.

If your firm lacks visibility on deadlines, projects, and client deliverables, you will always be in reactive mode instead of running your business with confidence.

With Financial Cents, you can:

• Automate workflow tracking so you don’t waste time micromanaging tasks.
• Improve team accountability by giving everyone clear assignments and deadlines.
• Improve client management by ensuring no project falls through the cracks.
• Save yourself hours every week by reducing manual work and keeping your team aligned.