Accounting firms that improve accuracy and transparency in capturing and recording fee-earner time reap multiple benefits, all of which translate to real value. However, many firms bypass software that’s built specifically for time tracking for accountants, defaulting to time tracking software included with everyday tools and financial management systems, such as SAP and Workday. These rudimentary apps — which look like little more than glorified spreadsheets with a couple of drop-down menus — often fall short in several ways. Because they’re not built with an understanding of time tracking for accounting firms, they’re particularly weak when it comes to assessing actual engagement value.
Using purpose-built tools that manage time tracking for accountants helps firms yield fewer errors and improved employee efficiency. These firms often see a decrease in expenditures while simultaneously improving revenue because timekeeping software for accountants generates reports that display the true costs of every engagement. Knowing the value of client business can directly impact future pricing decisions, employee allocation, and business development with current and future clients.
Execute Deliverables Through Time Tracking Software
The main benefit of working with highly automated timekeeping software for accountants is to gain a deeper understanding of the true value of an engagement. Firm management can use underlying system analytics to view next-level reporting and discover where the firm can be more efficient in managing engagements and executing deliverables to the client. These reports can offer visual representations and breakdowns by job types, clients, cost of delivery, splits of work, budgets versus actuals, and much more.
Automatically breaking down data into usable performance metrics provided by software that supports time tracking for accounting firms helps you calculate a more accurate value of projects, which can lead to better pricing decisions in the future. Accurate project-value estimation is a key element of client profitability and can’t be accomplished without understanding how professionals use their time in relation to engagements — one size does not fit all. In this regard, timekeeping software for accountants yields a clear benefit over generic tools.
Use Time Tracking to Formulate Accurate Pricing
Pricing engagements — by using a deeper knowledge of what similar types of engagements have historically cost — can boost the bottom line. Many firms continue to bill the same fixed fees year after year; automation can help you discover areas where you’re able to price things more accurately, and, hopefully, boost both your top and bottom line. Time tracking for accounting software can provide those deeper insights into the time and effort, allowing firms to determine pricing that maximizes their profits.
Additionally, using timekeeping software for accountants to understand the value of client business helps inform future business development activities. It lets you identify ways to expand your services and increase your engagements with existing and potential clients, allowing you to boost your revenue in new and efficient ways.
Identify and Eliminate Time Leakage
Employees are an accounting firm’s greatest asset, yet many firms work with an incomplete or even erroneous picture of how these valuable resources spend their time. This information deficit can lead to suboptimal staffing decisions and gaps in the data you need to properly evaluate, manage, and retain staff. Leakage can and does occur.
Software that supports time tracking for accounting provides the necessary data to maximize your employees’ skill sets and better match them with your clients’ needs; time tracking for accounting firms also helps identify staffing gaps that could prevent future growth. You can support greater employee focus, helping identify nonproductive time and provide opportunities to retrain or refocus. And you can also identify sources of lost revenue, and determine which additional services you can charge to clients.
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