How Strategic Tax Planning PLLC Reclaims Time to Serve More Clients with Financial Cents
Strategic Tax Planning PLLC was still a side business when Carter Lance began searching for practice management software.
He learned a lesson many accounting firm owners discover too late: Technical accounting skills alone won’t lead to success if your workflow systems are manual and disconnected.
Carter was determined to help businesses create financial plans that met regulatory standards and enabled confident decisions through bookkeeping, tax planning, and fractional CFO services.
However, his search for a suitable workflow software led to an unpleasant realization: most tools were strong in some areas of accounting practice management but lacked in others.
He wanted a tool that checked enough boxes and solved enough problems to warrant his financial commitment.
This decision to discontinue the search and continue with manual workflow systems opened the door to some of the worst challenges an accounting firm can face:
1. Asking, Begging, and Pleading to Get Information from Clients
Like every firm that doesn’t have practice management software, the Strategic Tax Planning team members had to email clients to request the necessary information.
They used Excel Spreadsheets to track which clients had responded and which hadn’t.
Since there was no way to automate follow-up, they also drafted fresh emails to follow up with clients, which drained their productive energy and slowed down their workflows.
There was no way to automate the follow-up, so if we don’t hear from them in a week, two weeks, etc., we’d send an email to follow up again. We had to ask, beg, and plead with them to provide the information.”
2. Manual Work Prevented Them from Taking on More Clients
Even though they had given up on finding the right accounting practice management solution, the challenges they faced forced them to search again.
Carter knew that they should be serving more clients and generating more revenue, but with everyone struggling to complete their tasks due to administrative work, he couldn’t see how that would be achieved.
How Financial Cents Helps the Strategic Tax Planning Team to Reclaim Their Time
1. Automated Data Collection and Follow-Up that Reduces Client Chase
The Financial Cents Client Task feature enhances their data collection workflows by enabling them to clarify their requests.
It allows accounting firms to create a checklist of the files, information, and actions they need their clients to take, making it easier for clients to understand what is expected of them and perform it without losing time.
The best part of this feature is the automated reminder that frequently notifies the clients to grant their requests.
Team members no longer have to worry about the clarity of their requests or leave their current tasks to follow up on outstanding requests.
Centralized Client Collaboration that Increases Response Rate
The Financial Cents client task feature doesn’t stop at informing clients about the files and information Carter’s team needs. It also directs them to the Financial Cents client portal, where they can upload files, answer enquiries, and sign documents securely.
Since clients do not have to dig through emails or log into multiple apps to track conversations, they are more responsive and collaborative.
Our major benefit from Financial Cents has been organization. We have full insight into what our team is working on. We can assign projects, create filters, and see what is assigned to each team member to help capacity management.”
This improvement in response rate has helped the Strategic Tax Planning team to complete projects faster than usual.
3. Effective Task Assignment that Improves Consistency
Financial Cents practice management software has also empowered the firm to delegate tasks more effectively. Using the Workflow Templates feature, the team has been able to define the tasks needed to complete each accounting process, which is the first step to effective delegation.
This has also helped the team to provide more context, how-to guides, and other resources that help team members deliver client projects to the firm’s standard.
“If they don’t know how to do something, they know there’s a resource (process document or Loom video) right within the project that walks them through what they’re doing. This increases consistency in our work quality regardless of the team member doing the work,” added Carter.
4. Employee Onboarding that Enhances Productivity
The ability to delegate tasks has also helped the Strategic Tax Planning team to onboard and get value from new team members more quickly.
Financial Cents enables Carter to tailor the workflow templates to reflect each client’s unique financial situation, eliminating second-guessing and empowering team members to complete tasks efficiently.
We often customize each client’s templates according to their unique financial situations. Following the template that has been created for that client or the recurrence of the work makes it easier to hand off tasks to new team members. We know that they’re doing it the way we expect as long as they follow the process.”
How Financial Cents Helps Accounting Firm Owners (According to Carter Lance)
After about one year of using Financial Cents, Carter believes that its greatest benefit is the ability for firm owners to free up their time and mental energy by automating routine, administrative tasks.
