Category: Workflow

I'ts okay to say no

IT IS OKAY TO SAY NO!

Posted on | by Jade Donno

Are you saying yes to every piece of business coming your way?

Do you hear yourself saying ‘I wish I’d never agreed to this?

Are you losing money on small jobs that aren’t worth your time?

If you answered yes to any of the above, this blog is for you.

The art of saying NO.

It can be difficult to say no to work. Especially if you are running a small business. However, qualifying leads and setting expectations is vital to move your business forward. Don’t undervalue yourself and don’t take on work that will disrupt your businesses ‘flow’.

The lesson of saying no has been a long one for our Director Paul. He is a yes man. However saying yes to everything has often put us out of pocket and disrupted our business structure, leading to confusion in the practice. Last year we implemented a very strict and lengthy onboarding process for new clients. Starting with a phone or zoom call to see if we are the best fit for the business enquiring. This then eliminates anyone that doesn’t fit into our business model and indeed if we don’t fit into theirs.

Pauls Experience

“With the help of my business coach Heather and nearly 30 years experience I am finally starting to understand the importance of no. This lesson was tested to the full this week.

I have for many years worked with Sage and in particular Sage50, unfortunately the Sage50 platform is not a true cloud product. When opening 1 Accounts, one of our unique selling points was that all of our clients are using cloud based accounting software to keep their records. Using cloud based software allows us to give up to date help and advice to clients that we (and the client) can access from anywhere. This has without a doubt helped us through this pandemic as we have been able to affectively work from home and give our clients the same level of service.

This week I had to turn down a client I acted for many years ago. Despite being a great business and nice people, they do not want to move from desktop sage 50 to Xero. It was with a heavy heart that I wished them well and did not take them on.

Was this a mad decision?

Definitely not. Our service works because all of the data is live and on hand. Our business model is based around this. Our client service would not be as good, and my team would have become frustrated with software they are not used to, or ‘experts’ in. We have taken on Sage50 users in the past, and they have all, without exception, had issues resulting in all of them moving to Xero.”

The lesson of the day

Saying no is an important business lesson. Don’t bite of more than you can chew and stick to your guns. Your business has a brand, stick to it.

How to get back in control of your workload

Posted on | by Jade Donno

For many of us, Covid has caused a wave of work or we’re experiencing challenges with everyone working remotely and there’s just too much day-to-day work that needs to be done. This is an issue that needs to be nipped in the bud quickly so here’s how to get back in control of your workload so that you can make time to work on the business rather than in it.

3 steps to take control of your workload

If you are spinning multiple plates and you have too much on each plate, you need to take back control. This amount of overwhelm can be difficult to shift, so here are the 4 steps that you need to take:

Without valuable deep-thinking time, you are constantly spending your days firefighting. To take back time (and stop firefighting), see the time-management tips below. Start working smarter not harder.

Get more headspace

You need to know where your business is growing and how you are going to get there. If you have this, then you can prioritise work of high-value and ensure that you have the capacity and resources to facilitate this growth.

Once you have a clear growth plan and a capacity and resources plan, you need to make sure that you monitor and measure progress. Whether that’s a daily huddle, a weekly operational meeting, a monthly leadership meeting, and/or a quarterly one big focus reset meeting, find what works for you and your team to keep everyone on track.

How to get back more time

We are all guilty of working too much within the business rather than on it, but how do we make more time? How do we reduce the time spent on low-value tasks and increase the time we spend on the tasks that will grow our business?

Here are our best time management tips:

  • Do a time audit – where are you actually spending your time? Track what you are doing and how long it takes for 2 weeks. You’ll soon see where your time is being wasted and what needs to change.
  • Plan and prioritise work – which tasks are urgent and which are the ones that will help grow the business? Prioritise these to do first.
  • Delegate effectively – start delegating authority as well as tasks so that you don’t have to micro-manage.
  • Minimise interruptions – when you’re doing high-value tasks, switch off your phone, mute notifications, block out your diary, and work somewhere where you won’t be disturbed.
  • Ditch unprofitable clients – low fee clients are often more of a hassle and take up the most time so let them go.
  • Outsource low-value tasks – this is the quickest way to gain back time and increase your revenue.
  • Hold everyone accountable – even yourself. If you and your team are all held accountable for your tasks, they will get done and done promptly.

Start working smarter, not harder

If you’re overwhelmed with work and there’s just too much in the day to do, every day, take a step back and breathe. What are the goals for your business? What do you need to prioritise to get there? What can you delegate or outsource? What are the tasks that you, and you only, must do?

If you take some time to put these three steps in place – get more headspace, develop a growth plan, and monitor and measure progress – you’ll soon find that you’ll be back in control of your workload and you can spend more time working on the business rather than in it.

 

How to prevent upwards delegation working remotely

Posted on | by Jade Donno

Do your staff members often come to you with questions or problems that they could potentially work out themselves just by using their initiative? More often than not, do you end up saying “just give it to me and I’ll get it done, it’ll be quicker?”

While it might be quicker to do this one task right now, what you’re actually doing is training your staff to be helpless. You’re training them to come to you when they are stuck instead of taking some time to work it out for themselves. Ultimately, this ends up taking up a lot more of your time.

To stop upwards delegation, especially now that many teams are working remotely, here are some quick tips for remote managers.

number 1

remote working requires more frequent and clear communication, especially when it comes to delegating tasks. Give clear briefs and explain the impact this task has on the work of others to inspire action.

Discussing important tasks or projects directly with your employee will ensure that they can ask any questions and you can address any concerns in real-time. It also allows you to set clear expectations and to have them confirm that they understand.


number 3

Monday.com, Zoom, Slack, What’s App…use virtual tools to communicate quickly and effectively with your whole team. Make sure that everyone has access so that they can see what is assigned to who and how they all relate together.

If an employee has an issue or needs help with a task, take the time to coach them through it. Instead of giving them the answer, ask them questions to help them get to a solution by themselves.

number 4
number 5

It’s a difficult time where everyone is craving some social interaction. Plus, who doesn’t love to be praised for good work? If a team member has done a good job or they’ve picked up a task really quickly or they’ve made a difference to your day, tell them. There’s nothing more powerful than positive reinforcement, especially when it comes to motivation.

‘What would you do if I wasn’t here?’

Stop saying “I’ll do it, it’ll be quicker” and start asking “what would you do if I wasn’t here?” Delegating isn’t an easy thing for most managers to do and it’s even harder when your whole team is working remotely, so don’t put even more pressure on yourself by taking on the tasks of your employees too. It may take some time investment in the immediate, but if you coach them through any issues as they arise, you’ll be training your employees to be innovative workers who will take the initiative.

skull - To charge or not to charge blog

To charge or not to charge? That is the question.

Posted on | by Jade Donno | Leave a Comment on To charge or not to charge? That is the question.

To charge or not to charge? That is the question.

Right now many business owners are in desperate need of support to help them get through the current crisis. These are unprecedented times and the question keeps popping up “should accountants charge for the additional help to their clients?”

As a family run business, with strong family values at our core – we say NO.

We have approached this current crisis head on and have offered our clients help and support as an extension to their current service. We are extremely proud of the 1 Accounts team for delivering extra services such as processing furlough claims, applying for grants for our retailers and small business rate relief clients and preparing forecasts to help get essential funding from the banks. Not to mention giving advice to all our clients on how to get through this crisis. This approach has not been adopted by all accountancy firms, and has even been scrutinised.

We have looked at why we are able to adapt and support our clients so quickly and this is what we have done to secure our business and help others in their time of need:

  • 100% digital. Meaning the team can work from home easily.
  • We don’t have time sheets and are happy to give extra support and not charge for every 6 minutes.
  • We operate on fixed monthly fees that are easy to understand – https://www.1accountsonline.co.uk/
  • We furloughed three of the team, two admin and one Director
  • We received SBRR grant of £10k. This enabled us to keep paying our landlord and office services.
  • We applied for a loan from our bank under CBILS.
  • We deferred our VAT payment although we expect to pay this very soon.
  • We reviewed our expenses and reduced some of our spending.
  • We paid for Zoom to enable us to service our clients easier
  • We have appointed a marketing company to adjust our website
  • We have been sending our regular updates to all clients
  • We have become a shoulder to cry on and a much needed sounding board.

Many traditional accountants will be struggling with this current crisis. We sympathise with them as they are business owners too. However COVID-19 has highlighted even more that online accounting is the way forward. It is time to embrace technology not to hide in the shadows. Due to the way our business is set up, we have not had to furlough our whole team nor ask anyone to take a pay cut. We will also not be sending out a bill in the post for every 6 minutes of advice we have given. We genuinely want to help our clients – after all we are all in this together.

If you need some extra help and support, and would like to hear more about our services, please email jade@1accounts.co.uk to arrange a zoom call.

#weareinthistogether

An inbox showing 6 emails

Instant Response Time

Posted on | by Jade Donno

INSTANT RESPONSE TIME

Growth in technology has lead to the need for instant gratification. With everything available at the click of a button our patience is dwindling. As a result of this emails can be hard to manage as people often expect an instant response.

The development in technology has been astounding, just 20 years ago iPhones didn’t exist and Spotify was just an idea. Air BnB and Uber were not even considered as possible. Technology has made our lives easier, but also for businesses it has made expectations higher. This is especially true for responding to emails. Here are our top tips for email management:

Instant responses

Instant responses are an unrealistic expectation. You are not a robot. Setting those expectations can be difficult, after all you want to keep your clients happy. Work emails on your phone can then stretch this expectation to be 24/7 rather than just in work time. Think of the effects this may have on yourself and your team. Put yourself first, emails can wait until the morning.

Allocate Time

Allocate time for your emails. At 1 Accounts we get a huge volume of emails with Paul and Jade opening their inbox in the morning to occasionally near 100 emails. These can be overwhelming at times especially when you have planned your day to complete other work. That is why we now allocate specific time to deal with them. We have an hour in the morning, 30mins after lunch and then an hour at the end of the day. Emails then get shut down for the time in-between allowing the team to focus.

Focus

Email notifications can be a huge distraction. To allow for ‘deep work’ these distractions need to be turned off. This means, turning off the push notifications on you phone and computer. This will allow you to focus on the job in hand, probably resulting in a better job and quicker result. You have allocated time for your emails so you won’t miss anything important and your clients will still be happy.

Sort

Sorting your emails is important. We use Karbon as our workflow system, that really helps us with our email management. To sort we scan through the inbox to see if there is any ‘junk’ that can be deleted straight away. This will clear more than you think and make the inbox less overwhelming. We then go through and answer any emails that we know will only take 1-5mins or that you can delegate. If there is an email regarding work that you know a team member is working on, pass it on, you don’t need to deal with it. Anything that will take longer than 1-5mins that you have to deal with gets scheduled into ‘deep work’ as it will require time and focus. Using this method will give your emails structure and efficiency.

So after reading this blog, turn off your push notifications, allocate time for your emails and allow time for ‘deep work’ and focus this should result in a happier team and a happier you.

Automation Cog

Automate, Automate, Automate

Posted on | by Jade Donno | Leave a Comment on Automate, Automate, Automate

Automate, Automate, Automate

The 21st century brings a new kind of technology that has not been around for past businesses. Online tools can help make business more streamlined, efficient and productive. 1 Accounts strive to adapt these new technologies to not only help our business but to help our clients too. With this blog I will talk you through how we have automated our processes to allow us extra time to help our clients.

Karbon

When we receive a new enquiry we start our process on Karbon. Karbon is a work flow program that helps our team work together and not miss any important deadlines. We assign an on boarding template to the enquiry. This includes pre-written emails that can be sent with just a click of a button. We have also used Jot Form to create secure forms for our clients to fill out with all the information we need. The links to these forms are included in our pre-written email. This leaves out any need for unnecessary work.

Practice Ignition

Once a prospect decides they would like to sign up with 1 Accounts, we then create a proposal in Practice Ignition. We love this piece of software. Our proposals are already set up, we just fill in any specific details and send to the client. Once signed Practice ignition automatically sets up the direct debit for our client.

Go Cardless

All our clients are on a monthly fee which is taken via direct debit in Go Cardless. This is set up through Practice Ignition and takes the monthly fee. Go Cardless means that we are no longer chasing payments and our ‘getting paid’ process is completely automated. Go Cardless will then generate an invoice into Xero automatically.

Xero

Once the direct debit has been taken Go Cardless prompts Xero to create an invoice to be emailed to the client. Our whole process is automated, eliminating the need for manual work.

We are working on ways to automate even more of our processes. Information requests for year end accounts and tax returns are now becoming automated so that we can receive information earlier to enable us to complete the work quicker. We are always looking for new ways to help automate our clients business’s. If you need help with this please contact jade@1accounts.co.uk and she will be sure to help.