Prepare your accounting firm for growth in 2018.

2017 is practically beyond us, and for many it has been a busy year, one where maybe you didn’t have much time to think about your plan for next year and beyond. If you haven’t started thinking about 2018 and beyond the next 4 working days are maybe an ideal time to do.

Christmas week tends to be a slow week for many, with some clients on shut down, some accounting firms and maybe yourselves have shut-down for clients as well opting to focus on some time on your internal business matters as well as your family.

Question is what can you really achieve in these four days and what is really important for you to work on?

Below is a list of 8 items which can help you grow your accounting business in a directed manner for 2018.

1. Identify your most profitable clients.

Use the data from the last year to identify who are your best clients, and spend some time to identify what makes them really good clients. Are they from a specific sector, industry or geographic location? What are you able to deliver to these clients which maybe you are not able to deliver to others.

You’ll want to do this for two simple reasons firstly to be able to appreciate their custom and ensure they are well-treated by your staff. Secondly to build a pattern so that you can much easier identify potential customers which can leave a similar positive impact on your business.

2. Identify the most profitable services

Having done your homework from the first point, you should easily be able to identify your most profitable services. Are these compliance related services or are they more going towards advisory?

Are these services possibly valuable to clients which right now just do the very basic compliance related work? If yes do you really understand the end-benefit of these services?

Some times we worry too much about the “Features” of our services rather than the actual benefits. For example You could provide me with VAT or Auditing related services because they make me compliant, so you are providing only “legal compliance” however an Audit can also be sold as “We give you peace of mind that money is not being misappropriated” or “We help you identify leaks in your business and advise on how to solve them”. Sure it might take that little bit extra from your end to provide that advice but the perceived value of the service changes completely. 

3. Identify any loss-making jobs and/or services

Plenty of times we are looking at the big picture and we don’t notice that we’re eroding our margins by offering certain compliance related services at a really low cost. At times to customers who take nothing else. A case in point, one of our customers, let’s call him Joe realised that they were pretty much losing money on each hour their staff spent on book-keeping. They had kept the rate fixed for a large number of years and never adjusted to raises in salary and overhead costs.

Once identified, make an list of all clients and jobs that you would like to revise and get started from early next year to revise the rates as necessary. However before you send any emails or start calling to raise prices continue reading as there may be other things which you can con-currently offer to your clients.

4. Look at your customer acquisition process, and marketing budget.

How has your business been growing over the last year? Has it been all organic? Does it need a potential push or a more strategic outlook in particular.

We have seen over the course of the year a number of firms which more exclusively target their ideal customers. Why? Because the message they give resonates with this audience and it helps you achieve more traction and recommendations. On the flip side you also get a better understanding of their industry and thus are able to serve them better.

If you think you need to get started and have no clue, no worries the same way your clients look to you for advise on their financials you can look for help and assistance. A number of marketing agencies and digital consultants would be able to help and guide you in this regard

5. Get up to date with local tax and new regulation.

If you’ve been caught up with work, now is a great time to look at any changes within your local areas. Things like GDPR and Making Tax Digital are going to be important in 2018 with their respective activation deadlines coming up. Make sure you understand the implications for both yourself and your clients.

You certainly wouldn’t want to lose clients simply because they perceive that you’re not quite prepared to help them in their move towards the digital age.

6. Look at how to leverage technology for your clients.

Making Tax Digital is forcing many accountants in the UK to move away from traditional in-house software to cloud based accounting packages like XERO and Kashflow. Why?, these packages are working towards compliance with the HMRC for making tax digital and will help you file client accounts digitally.

They also provide a number of features which enable to synchronise your bank feeds with their cloud software and speed up your reconciliation process significantly. If you’ve got your clients switched-over great. If not its something you must be looking at before 2018 starts as you’ll likely need to make a technology decision during the year and start the process of migrating your clients.

That said your base accounting software is not the only thing you need to look at, alongside the basic package you can find a number of add-ons such as Receipt Bank which helps in scanning invoices and inputting them in the relevant client’s a account and Futurli, which helps with creating forecasts based on historic data and your understanding of your client’s business.

7. Look at your day-to-day Fulfilment process.

It’s very easy to stop when you think only about your clients, the technology you use to deliver the service and what makes it profitable for you. However sometimes we also need to think of how we deliver that service and experience that our customers truly want.

How do you keep track of client filing deadlines? How are you making sure that you collect the documents on time, and are worked on and completed on time? Does that process involve a lot of manual labour and overheads?

This is a space where you can use technology to get additional advantages when it comes to efficiency. We have seen clients who felt overwhelmed with their workload and processing with a billing backlog of around 3 months, and what they found was that implementing the right technology has helped them reduce well over £20k in administration costs and time saved for the business owners and partners - that’s assuming they decided not to bill for the time saved.

8. Corporate & Employee Goals

Accounting professionals are well known to provide advise to their clients but sometimes we don’t usually focus on creating internal goals. Sure financial goals and targets such as those you provide your clients are great but look at the big picture.

Are you monitoring things like customer satisfaction, employee happiness or maybe even the number of thank you messages that your team gets? These could all be goals and targets which will ultimately ensure you have better relationships in 2018 than you’ve ever had before.

Also think of the individuals, what is each person’s role in ensuring that your business succeeds? There is no better motivator for any employee than feeling that they’re a key contributor to your business and that they are making a difference both to you and your customers.

9. Bonus: Embrace Change

The industry is changing, and we all need to be ready to embrace these changes. Sure the industry has changed from paper-based ledgers to computer-based calculations and excel and now moving towards the cloud.

These changes might mean some of your staff might require additional re-training, to either use the new technologies or develop additional skills which can be used to add value to your clients. Remember that these can contribute towards CPD hours that your team might require to hold their respective accounting licenses.

As you’re deciding to embrace these changes in 2018, make sure you communicate your goals for 2018, including changes which need to happen during this upcoming year. The way you communicate these goals and changes to your operations for 2018 is key towards keeping your team motivated and engaged.

Get them pumped up and ready for 2018 so together you continue woo clients, by helping them grow their business and ultimately growing your firm too! 

Do you feel ready for 2018? Have you done any deliberate preparation to ensure that 2018 will be another year of growth for your business? I know I have, if you haven’t quite yet what are you waiting for?

Jonathan Mifsud is the Chief Strategist at Maze Digital and helps accounting businesses owners increase their margins and win their time back through digital strategy and technology.