Managing your firm is a balancing act. With so many tasks to get done – like VAT returns or capital gains tax – it's easy to spread yourself too thin. Sure, we all encounter bumps in the road, but when you’re constantly feeling flustered and fighting to the finish line alarm bells should be going off. Why does this keep happening? What systems are dragging you down? Are your processes as efficient as they could be? If you don’t make changes, your team can get disgruntled, leading to breakdowns in communication, disorganisation, stagnation. and a steep decline in productivity. Not exactly ideal. 

That’s where practice management software comes in. 

What is practice management software?  

Practice management software helps you organise your team, clients and operations more efficiently by automating your day-to-day admin. It gives you more visibility over your profits and workload, and creates a more streamlined service for your clients. No matter how big or small your firm is, practice management software is a no-brainer - especially as it’s completely customisable to the needs of your practice. 

Why should I use practice management software? 

1. Organised onboarding (for once!) 

Who said onboarding had to be so tedious? Bright’s practice management software, AccountancyManager, is integrated with the CRO so it can populate all details and deadlines about your new client automatically. No more chasing up clients. Any compliance deadlines pulled from the CRO, like year-end accounts, are automatically added to the task list too. You can also generate and send proposals from the software, making it much easier for your team to get new clients on as quickly as possible. 

2. All your client data, in one location 

Practice management software is like your internal filing system – holding all of your clients’ records and details in the one place, securely on the cloud. All you need is your login credentials and some decent WiFi and bam – everything you’ll ever need is at your fingertips. 

This way, if a client calls looking for a file, you don’t need to put them on hold for 15 minutes while you’re emptying out the filing cabinets. Just pop it up in the software and it’s there in seconds. Clients can access their files through the portal too – and wait, did we mention they can sign them online? ‘Fully tracked and traced for your convenience. All of this revolutionises your firm’s productivity; your workflow’s a lot less scattered, you can allocate time to more ‘accounting appropriate’ tasks and have an efficient system to handle all the admin work for you. 

3. Whistle through your workflow 

Who said you can’t whistle while you work? With practice management software, you don’t have to micromanage every little task your team carries out. Create workflows tailored for each task they need to get done. Break tasks down into subtasks and assign them to individual team members. Check out a task’s progress and keep an eye on what everyone’s working on. This way, even the tiniest of tasks won’t be left behind. This also helps identify any areas for improvement you wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise. Maybe less tasks get completed on Mondays and Fridays, or maybe a select few employees are carrying most of the workload. The visibility is especially handy during peak times of year when you’re juggling different projects at once. 

Our Irish roots 

AccountancyManager is part of Bright, provider of multi-award-winning tax, compliance, practice management and payroll software. We’re proud to be an Irish-born company, committed to helping hundreds of thousands firms across the nation save time and boost productivity. We work hard behind the scenes to provide Irish accountants with the most innovative solutions tailored streamline their firms – from AccountancyManager’s integrations with government agencies like the CRO to our integrations with leading industry providers like Xero. 

“Before using AccountancyManager to track time, we wouldn’t have realised we were spending three or four hours a month with a client when we’re charging for one or two hours.” 

Paddy Quinn, at Paddy Quinn & Co Chartered Accounting 

Interested in how practice management software can streamline your firm to a whole new level? Book a quick free demo of it today to see it in action. 

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