Remember when everyone at your practice was working from the same place? If you needed to update colleagues with new information or ask a quick question, you’d just pop over to a colleague’s desk. The absence of this option makes us realise just how important it is. 

Working alone can be lonely, but the negative effects can extend much further – impacting the performance of your team and the productivity of your practice. 

More emails? More meetings?

You might be relying on internal emails or more online meetings to combat the ‘proximity problem’, but there are a few good reasons why you don’t normally do this at your office:

• Efficiency: It’s quicker to simply turn around or get up, than to open your emails and write the obligatory pleasantries or set up a meeting. There’s also the risk of getting sidetracked by your own inbox.
• Immediacy: You get your answer straight away – instead of having to wait for your colleague to check their emails and read and respond to their other emails first.
• Human contact: It’s a great excuse to have casual conversations. Which, by their very nature, can end up solving more problems than a lengthy email chain or an official ‘meeting’.

So, do we need to wait until we’re all back in the office to enjoy efficient, immediate communication with the ‘human’ element? Thankfully not.

Send notifications through AccountancyManager 

If you hit any roadblocks, you just fire a question over to a colleague, keeping efficiency and productivity high. Team meetings are also kept short as some issues are solved with quick exchanges as you work.

Customise your messages 

Of course, you can write whatever you like in your message. The customisations are around how and when your messages appear to the recipient.

• Mark messages as urgent
  When you create your message, you can set it as urgent. Not only will your colleague’s ‘notification bell’ flash, they’ll get a red bar across the top of their AccountancyManager screen that won’t disappear until they’ve read and actioned your message. 
  
  You can also set a message to become urgent after a certain number of days.
• Highlight client-related notes
  If your message is about a particular client, you can send notifications to other staff members and make them client related. When you click this option you’ll get a drop-down list of all your practice’s clients (which also makes them appear on the client timeline).
  
• Set a time for your messages to send 
  Delaying your messages is useful if, for example, you’re going on holiday and need someone else to contact a client for you. Simply set this notification up before you go.
  
• Choose when you’ll get a notification
  Do you want to be notified when the recipient reads your message, when they archive it or not at all? The choice is yours.

Update progress of a task and send as a notification 

If your message relates to a task, you can add a Progress Note directly to a task. There’s an option to automatically send this as a notification to another staff user.  Continue reading...

We recently reported on how AccountancyManager customers have been responding to the lockdown. As we expected there was a direct correlation between the challenges they’re facing, the features of AM that are helping and the spikes we’d spotted in AccountancyManager usage. 

One challenge was not being able to meet clients in person or get documentation and signatures from them. We saw a 20% increase in portal sign-ups over March and April and it was rated third ‘most useful AM feature’ (after bulk emails and tasks).

“Had an interesting chat with one of our customers this morning, they are using their time to get all of their clients portal registered seeing as they won’t be seeing them face to face for a while.”

– Rachel Blacklock, AM Support  

Share docs, get signatures and give your clients more control

Getting your clients portal registered is simple, and you can invite multiple clients at once. Once they’re in, your clients can access any documents you share with them, add their e-signature and directly fill in any online forms (created by you). They can update their details in AccountancyManager directly, removing the middle-person (you). No more printed checklists, temperamental Word docs or time spent deciphering dodgy handwriting. 

“We’re getting more clients signed up to the portal so they can upload documents and we can still do their accounts/tax returns without too much disruption.” Continue reading...

Being able to see what your team is working on when you’re all based at home (or when you’re back at the office) gives you a lot more than just ‘peace of mind’. 

Keep an eye on productivity, track profitability, identify bottlenecks, easily cover absences – and create instant invoices from work in progress.

This is the second in our spotlight series – taking a closer look at the features our customers are finding most helpful while working from home. Read the first – on sending bulk and segmented emails – here.

1. Keep track of who’s working – and on what

See who’s logged into AccountancyManager and what tasks they’re working on in real-time. 

Though time tracking has obvious benefits for management, it’s useful data for the team too.  We’ve found at AccountancyManager that working from home and juggling things like childcare has meant that our hours have changed a bit. Some of us are splitting our working days with partners for example. Time tracking helps to plan our own time better and make sure we’re spending it on the right things – and in the best way.

Recording your time is easy and soon becomes second nature. Often, your tasks will already be in AccountancyManager – automatically generated according to your clients’ accounting deadlines. 

2. Turn logged time into invoices – instantly

See the value of uninvoiced time in your work-in-progress (WIP) log – and generate invoices in a couple of clicks. You can send these invoices to your clients by email, share them through the client’s portal, or send them over to Xero through our integration. AccountancyManager can then chase for payment.  Continue reading...

There are a few reasons you might want to send a bulk email to all your clients at the moment:

• To advise clients on Government support and how to apply
• To update them on the latest relevant news
• To provide answers to frequently asked questions 
• To reassure them and show your support
• To send a monthly update from your practice 

Get ahead of questions with regular updates

The situation is changing by the day for businesses of every size and type. Your clients will be full of questions about the Government’s measures to support businesses and the latest advice for freelancers and the self-employed.

Keep in touch with everyone – and reduce call volume

Get ahead of questions and show your continued support with regular update emails to your entire client base. Sounds time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. Simply choose your trusted sources for information (like your regulatory body, gov.uk, the World Health Organisation or the BBC) summarise the latest news in a few words and link through to the advice/story. 

One email to reach them all (or just some)

Create the update once and AM will send it to all your clients – at a time of your choice. Even better, you can tailor the updates to specific groups or types of clients such as industry, size, business/self-employed and loads more. Just pick the filter you want in your client list and tweak your emails to show the most relevant content. Done.

Send important documents 

A key addition – used by a lot of AM users – is the ability to attach documents to these bulk emails. James, AM co-founder, CEO and former practicing accountant, had this to say about the need for attachments.

“Although the portal is always there for sharing documents with your clients, it’s handy to attach things to bulk emails too – especially at the moment. You might want to send recent news, application forms or your practices’ own advice on the implications of the coronavirus.” Continue reading...