Amanda Birch

Founder

Birch Accounting and Tax Services Ltd.

Firm Name

Bookkeeping, Tax, Payroll & Business Planning

Firm Type

1,800

Number of Clients

7

Staff members

2006

Year founded

2021

FC start date

Alberta

Location

Hybrid

Working Style

Amanda Birch started Birch Accounting and Tax Services from her kitchen table as part of her decision to stay home with the kids. 17 years later, she has grown the firm into a team of seven (7) that serves 1,800 clients globally while working out of two offices in Canada.

Beyond payroll and taxes, Birch Accounting’s bookkeeping and business planning services gives small and medium-sized businesses the financial confidence to grow their businesses.

Amanda’s flair for technology and an eye for regulatory changes enable her team to do their best work while saving clients thousands of dollars. This contributed to her firm’s ability to acquire a 40-year-old accounting firm (Lea Tax Services) in November 2022.

This growth has come amidst the trial and error of finding a project management tool to manage work and collaborate with staff and clients.

 

Uncollaborative Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets Didn’t Give Her Visibility

When Amanda was the only staff of Birch Accounting, she didn’t struggle so much with visibility. It was easier for her to know where she left things off and could easily pick them up afterward.

But most firm owners look forward to growing and scaling their firms. Amanda was no different, and with time, she needed to add people to her team to stay efficient. That was when the challenges of working with Excel spreadsheets started threatening her team’s productivity.

 

Spreadsheets Allowed “Too Many Hands in the Pot.”

Amanda noticed that using spreadsheets with her team allowed team members to change things—even accidentally delete important information—without her knowledge. This caused things to slip through the cracks and threatened their work quality.

Amanda said,

I don't mind sharing my spreadsheets. But I don't like people being able to change things because they end up removing former things or accidentally deleting something, which can cause things to slip through the cracks."

Spreadsheets Were Not Collaborative

Amanda needed relevant team members to know everything the firm was doing with each client to perform the tasks assigned to them efficiently and accurately.

Navigating spreadsheets was a problem. Searching for information resulted in several wasted billable time. So, they got into the market for a project management solution.

 

Generic and (Un)Customizable Asana

Amanda switched to Asana when her team couldn’t bear the limitations of spreadsheets any longer. But Asana didn’t help either. It was too generic for her team’s niched project management needs.

They had to find a way to manually store information like client name, phone number, and email address, among other important client information, which reduced the team’s performance.

There weren't a lot of force fields in Asana. In Financial Cents, for example, we're forced to put in the client name, phone number, email address," which Amanda believes helps them to “lock that information down."

Too Much Workaround in Asana Caused Employees To Delete Information Too Easily

The manual workaround Amanda’s team did to make Asana work meant that information could easily slip through the cracks, which caused delay and threatened their ability to meet client deadlines.

In Asana, you could accidentally click on something and hit a spacebar and it's gone. But in Financial Cents, before you can delete something, you have to get into that area to delete it. And if your staff deletes information in Financial Cents, you can always find it in the trash section of the app, which gives you more control over your firm's data."

Getting A Project Management Solution Designed for The Accounting Community

By 2020, Birch Accounting was in the market for a new project management tool. Only this time, she wanted one that was made specifically for the accounting industry. In 2021, the team chose Financial Cents (over Pixie).

How Financial Cents Makes Work Easier to Manage for Birch Accounting

Three things stood out for Amanda when she moved her team to Financial Cents in 2021:

1. Full Visibility into Work Across the Firm

Using Financial Cents has not only given Amanda the ability to know who’s working on what task, but it has empowered her to see how each client’s work is progressing and which is nearing its due date (at a glance).

According to Amanda,

Financial Cents allows my husband, who does our business development, to be able to log in and say, Okay, I need to add more clients to this bookkeeper because their hours are down."

2. Her Team Actually Enjoys Using It

Ease of use—or the lack thereof—is a primary concern for every company that wants to buy a software solution. Without it, employees cannot implement the product, and after a while, the money would account for another waste of the firm’s resources.

For Birch Accounting and Tax Services, Financial Cents’ user-friendliness has made it so incredibly easy to implement. Every member of the team uses it, especially the client tasks, tag automators, and task dependencies.

We didn't have any complaints when we implemented it. Everyone's like, yeah, this makes sense. Everyone was on board. I didn't have to pull them kicking and screaming."

3. Quick and Responsive Customer Support

Taya Tattersall says Financial Cents customer support has been phenomenal from the get-go, which first gave it the nod over Pixie, a similar but markedly different tool.

Taya was working from home during COVID when Amanda would send her links (of potential project management software solutions) to try out. She says a few others were also great, but when she reached out to them to understand a feature she couldn’t use, she didn’t hear anything from them.

When I messaged the others for help, we didn't get an answer. Whereas with Financial Cents, we got an answer within a couple of hours (even now)."

Amanda affirmed that

Customer Support has been phenomenal. As Taya has mentioned previously, we can send an email, jump on Facebook and ask a question or report a bug or whatever it is. And we get heard and it's either fixed or explained why it can't be fixed."

 

Major Takeaways

Birch Accounting’s story reminds us of the importance of:

1. Choosing a Niche Project Management Software

It is one thing to get your team a project management software solution. It is quite another to implement it. Choosing one designed for the accounting community makes it easier to understand, customize, and maximize your project management tools.

Having something that was designed for an accounting or bookkeeping firm was extremely important. This last time I was looking for a solution, I only looked at ones that were designed for the accounting community, just because our needs are very niche. Using Asana and Trello means you have to make it work for you, as opposed to accounting-specific tools that get you halfway there already."

Amanda Birch, President (Birch Accounting and Tax Services Ltd)

2. Choosing a Project Management Software That Can Grow with Your Firm

In 2021, Amanda’s team chose Financial Cents and Pixie. Even though Pixie was slightly better in price. Amanda found Pixie more suited to “owner-operators with no staff or one employee.” For someone looking to add more people to her team, Amanda didn’t see Pixie growing with her.

We're really excited. I mean, anytime Financial Cents releases something new, we're all watching. We're like, oh yeah! So far, there's not been an update we don’t find great."

Amanda Birch, President (Birch Accounting and Tax Services Ltd)
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