Elizabeth M. Byrnes Inc

Firm Name

Taxpayer Representation

Firm Type

2

Staff Members

2011

Year Founded

2020

Financial Cents Start Date

Santa Clarita, California

Location

Virtual

Working Style

Elizabeth M Byrnes, Inc. was founded in 2011 to help taxpayers resolve tax return examinations, non-filing issues, wage adjustments, and levies with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The founder, Elizabeth Byrnes, knew the importance of workflow management software before she started her accounting firm. Having used one at one of the Top-10 largest publicly-held companies in the world, she looked forward to meeting client deliverables and growing her firm more easily with the right workflow management tool.

Even though there are lots of accounting workflow management tools on the market, getting one for her accounting firm was so frustrating that she wound up with Excel spreadsheets. When she finally found Financial Cents, it became extremely helpful in organizing her firm to a point where her absence doesn’t grind the firm to a halt.

Their Goals:

  • Visibility Into Projects and Tasks.
  • Seamless Collaboration with Team Members.
  • Having a Central Location for Client Information (Instead of Holding Them in the Head).

Before Financial Cents

Complex Workflow Solutions  

Elizabeth’s search for a good workflow solution led her to several workflow management software solutions that were:

  • Difficult to figure out because they were built around billing, whereas she needed a tool that would enable her to send invoices on QuickBooks. She tried to modify them, but it felt like she was making them do what they were not designed to do, so it didn’t work out.
  • Too expensive for her firm size. Some cost as much as $ 5,000 a month.

I couldn't figure them out. It was like I needed a rocket science degree. That's why I went back to using spreadsheets to manually keep track. But Financial Cents is different. I can actually use it, and it's intuitive."

Elizabeth Byrnes

Spreadsheets Did Not Give Her the Visibility She Needed

Elizabeth has never been a fan of Excel Spreadsheets because of the manual input and workarounds they require. COVID-19 was simply an inflection point, it denied her access to her team.

Apart from her husband (they work together), she couldn’t see what her team member was doing in real-time. This lack of visibility threatened the team’s efficiency and ability to prioritize. She needed a system that enabled her (and relevant members of her team) to:

  • Track what was getting done and what was lagging.
  • Follow up and collaborate with Ease.
  • Have a central location for client information.

Trying to do these in Excel led to several wasted hours each week.

I didn't know what my team was doing. We needed a way to know where we fit on things. Did this task get done? Did this not get done? A lot of the following-up wasted too much of our time."

Elizabeth Byrnes

Unreliable Storage Systems

Elizabeth could not find a suitable solution to store client information, so she resorted to storing them in ways that threatened the security of the information and organization of the firm. They:

  • Held General Information in the Head

Elizabeth stored general client information in her head. But the human brain was designed to hold less of this information. This system was bound to cause things to fall through the cracks, leading to errors and missed deadlines.

  • Picked Client Information from Previous Tax Returns

For the information they couldn’t remember, they would have to check the previous tax returns they did for the clients to pick information for the current work.

“You’d have to go find it in a previous tax return or from the tax program.”

Checking clients’ previous tax returns for information might not look like a big deal, but doing this daily will amount to several wasted hours a month, not to mention the increased chances of error.

After Financial Cents

Visibility Into Project and Tasks

Tracking work has been much easier for Elizabeth since joining Financial Cents. All she needs these days is to create projects within the system and start tracking them in the dashboard. All projects display their due dates and progress bar, allowing her to see the nearest due dates and how much work is left for the project to be completed at a glance.

She can filter the dashboard to find specific information to make meaningful decisions, like reassigning tasks, monitoring employee capacity, and tracking where her team is spending their time. This frees her team’s time to do more billable work.

I just pulled a report the other day of how many tax returns I have due on September 15 (2022). I didn't have to look at a spreadsheet. I can pull it so that we can figure out how many returns are still left to do. Then I can determine what to do next."

Elizabeth Byrnes

Seamless Follow-up and Collaboration with Team Members

Before COVID, Elizabeth spent ten days with her employee in Los Angeles each month. The physical presence enabled them to collaborate with ease. Outside of these ten days, they collaborated through emails and phone calls. They also shared spreadsheets on Google Docs.

But sharing spreadsheets on Google Docs threatened the accuracy of the work because another person could alter the work and cause things to slip through the cracks. To prevent that, Elizabeth took on more administrative tasks that didn’t add to the firm’s bottom line, which was not sustainable.

“I also tried using Google Docs to share spreadsheets, and either my husband or my employee would log in and update it,” said Elizabeth.

 

She explained that she was “mostly just doing everything because it was easier than having to email my employee.” So, it didn’t work for her.

With Financial Cents, Elizabeth can add comments to projects, tag team members, and add files to a project for everyone involved to work with accurate information.

Having a Central Location for Client Information (Instead of Holding Them in Her Head)

Providing a central location for her team to store and find up-to-date client information makes her firm less dependent on her. Moving to Financial Cents, Elizabeth has freed up her brain by organizing client information in Financial Cents.

From clients’ contact information to client notes and client tasks, Financial Cents’ client profiles help her team find up-to-date information to get work done. The about section of the feature allows Elizabeth to create custom fields to add any information she needs to serve her clients better. This could be entity type, formation date, SSN, or EINs.

There’s also the Client Vault for more confidential information. The Client Vault keeps sensitive information away from unauthorized persons using encryption technology.

With this client management system, the firm can function well if Elizabeth needs to take some time off work.

The best way it's helped us is; it is one place to know where files like the quarterly returns, the annual returns, the W-2s, 1099. It's all there. So everyone that works for us knows where everything stands."

Elizabeth Byrnes
Start a Free Trial Book a Demo