Time saving tips for busy accountants
Do you spend much of your day answering emails instead of focusing on client work? Do administrative tasks take precious time away from pursuing opportunities that generate revenue?
In this article, we look at time management tips to help give busy accountants more time in their workday.
What is time management for accountants?
Practical time management skills go hand in hand with a profitable accounting practice.
Time management is vital in preventing you from getting bogged down with repetitive tasks, and admin and error-prone data entry takes time away from what matters to your accounting practice.
It can help you to complete lower-level tasks faster and avoid those that sap so much time. It can also provide a competitive advantage for an accounting practice, allowing you and your team to make time for more billable work.
Employing time management strategies to make your accounting practice more efficient will help it grow and provide a less frustrating environment for your staff. This is especially important to help retain the best accountants and bookkeepers in your firm, a key challenge for many practices in Australia.
How can accounting practice software help my time management?
Technology can often be a hindrance rather than a help for many accounting practices. Effective time management is often stalled by the fact that clients use a variety of accounting practice software applications. This means that to complete compliance jobs, tax returns or produce financials for different clients, an accountant must continually log in to multiple accounting applications.
Having to manage and complete jobs across various accounting applications means that practice workflows aren't as efficient as they can be, with accountants spending significant time and effort simply working and accessing their client data.
Best-in-class accounting practice software, such as accounting practice data management applications, can eliminate this pain point for successful accountants. Because these applications can seamlessly collect data from your clients' accounting applications, everything you need to complete your work is easily accessible in one platform.
The most significant advantage is that accountants can standardise the workflows around their clients' accounting jobs, irrespective of their clients' accounting applications.
You can access your client's data quickly and efficiently to perform adjustments, consolidations, depreciation, finalise the accounts, and prepare and lodge their tax returns. You also don't have to open different accounting applications to understand the progress of projects or the next steps of a client you are waiting to hear from.
Our top time management tips for accountants
We've gathered four actionable tips that accounting professionals can follow to give themselves enough time.
1. Create a system to handle emails
Having a system to deal with the seemingly endless influx of emails hitting your inbox can help save countless hours every week.
Instead of answering emails all day, which diverts your attention as each arrives, schedule a specific time each day to answer emails. Or you can try setting an hour or 90-minute work period, followed by 30 minutes, where you only answer emails or phone calls. This way, you can avoid constantly switching between client work and answering emails, which can make you lose focus on a deadline and sap productivity.
One way to minimise the number of emails you receive is by using the client portal module component of their client management software, which allows clients to upload and download documents anytime. You can also reduce time spent emailing and phoning clients with the notify add-on, which makes it easy to send appointment reminders, alerts for deadlines or bulk text messages to request outstanding signatures.
2. Avoid unproductive meetings
Unnecessary or poorly run meetings are the low-hanging fruit you can address today to reclaim your time.
Simple measures you can take include starting all meetings on time no matter what – if anyone is late, make them explain why. This will help set a precedent for punctuality.
Ensure you set a clear purpose or agenda for the meeting and clearly communicate this to attendees before the meeting.
Only plan meetings when needed – if you can address the meeting agenda over an informal chat, do that instead. And ensure you invite the right people to the meeting and no one who doesn't need to be there.
You can also try dedicating meeting-free days to ensure you can allocate uninterrupted time for important tasks.
3. Make use of downtime
Times spent commuting or waiting at an airport is an excellent opportunity to catch up on work, free from office distractions.
While you could use this time to catch up on emails, with the help of your mobile device or laptop, you can also spend it wisely by catching up on client work.
With accounting practice management software, you enter your timesheet, view, add and edit client information via any laptop or mobile device with a web browser. You can also view and send tax returns and financial statements, plus view and add diary appointments.
4. Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks
If you find yourself regularly mired in admin work, you can quickly gain time by delegating these tasks to junior staff or those with smaller workloads.
Ensure you’re not the only one who can perform these tasks in a workflow. While teaching most accountants how to perform these tasks may take some time, it’s worth the initial investment once they know how it will save you countless hours in the future.
In summary
We hope this article provides top tips that help you appreciate the importance of time management within your practice.
Remember, the key to managing time with efficiency is a combination of many different methods, such as the right time management tools, prioritising urgent tasks, and maintaining a proactive mindset.
