Practice Management Software For Accountants - 3 Things To Look Out For

Are you thinking about some new practice management software for your accounting or bookkeeping firm?

Something to help you manage your clients, your deadlines, your team members and much more?

Well regardless of whether you have something in place already, or you’re looking to start using something for the first time, here are 3 things to look out for…

1. Has it been built specifically with accountants and bookkeepers in mind?

When it comes to practice management software, there’s a lot out there.

But not all of it has been built specifically for accountants & bookkeepers. We often see new customers joining Pixie who have previously used tools like Asana, Trello, or ClickUp to manage their tasks and client deadlines.

It’s important that you choose a tool that’s been built specifically for your business because Accountants & Bookkeepers work in a specific way e.g. with recurring compliance jobs at intervals throughout the year. Therefore it’s important that your practice management app comes pre-configured with workflows and automation to support this (without you needing to do any additional configuration)

What this also means is that in terms of future development roadmaps, the likelihood of new features being released that are beneficial to you (and not to a whole host of other industries and markets) is much greater. 

2. Does it actually save you time? (from the beginning!)

Most practice management apps say that they will save you time, but from conversations we’ve had with accountants and bookkeepers, we know that isn’t always the case. 

This can come down to a few things:

• Long and complicated set up processes where it can take weeks to get everything set up properly before it can start working (not to mention the learning curves that come with it)
• Too many bells and whistles in the features department making it harder to focus on getting the essentials working that actually help to save you time
• Creating unnecessary steps and processes that wouldn’t have been there before 

So when looking at a new practice management app for your accounting or bookkeeping firm, try to find out how long the set up takes, be cautious when there are “too many” shiny features and look for something that is effective, but simple.

3. Is it a single source of truth for all information that you’ll need?

The final thing to consider when looking for new practice management software is whether or not it can be a single source of truth for all of your client information.

But what does this mean? For us, this means that you can access all of the following in one, easy-to-access place:

• Client records complete with contact information for everybody 
• Full visibility of deadlines, jobs, tasks and subtasks for these clients
• All email comms for the client (both incoming and outgoing) sent from any member of your team
• Access to all files (sent and received) relating to that particular client

So why is this important?

Let’s say your team member is dealing with a client query. That team member is off sick for a week. In the meantime your client chases this up. You log into whichever system you’re using to see the client record but what’s missing from there is email comms (what’s been discussed so far by your team member), and files (what’s been received so far). As a result, you now have to go digging around in different systems to find the answers you’re looking for.

This can be avoided by having a practice management app that serves as a single point of truth.

Are you looking for new practice management software for your accounting or bookkeeping firm?

If you are, then as well as making sure the software is affordable and can do the job, make sure that you ask yourself these 3 questions above before making a decision.

1. Has it been built specifically for accountants and bookkeepers?
2. Does it actually save you time? (from the beginning!)
3. Is it a single source of truth for all information that you need?

And if you’re looking for a solution that answers ‘yes’ to all 3, then why not check out Pixie!

We were built specifically with accountants and bookkeepers in mind, the set-up takes hours (not weeks) and everything you need (emails, tasks, deadlines, files) all lives inside Pixie.

Happy practice management hunting!