We use practice software that will remain nameless, and after lengthy investigations I discovered the workflow module (staff planning) is very difficult to use. Even were I to convince partners to use it, it would take somebody else half a day every day to oversee and edit it as it is colourful but not "click or scroll friendly" -and important as planning is, it doesnt need to be a full time job for 10 staff or less
What I think we need , is an Excel based package, with easy to view calendars by staff [week & month views] and with jobs being easy to edit on the calendar itself eg drag and drop ??
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Replies (4)
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Teamwork
Have a look at Teamwork.com. It is not Excel based but is very easy to use. We had been using an Excel sheet and before that practice management software. As you mention, some of the practice management applications out there are not easy to use and can take an age to set up.
The best things about Teamwork (that we have found) are:
* The ability to enter repeating tasks (weekly payroll, annual accounts etc)
* The Workload report. This shows how much work each team member has been allocated for the day, week, month (or any other time period.) This was an eye-opener!
* The ability to enter dependent tasks. For example, Mary is allocated the weekly payroll. When she has completed this task, John automatically gets an email saying the payroll is ready for review. I find this really handy.
You can set it up anyway that you want so it is less restrictive than traditional practice management software but obviously doesn't give you the complete freedom of Excel.
There are three levels of data - Projects, Task Lists, Tasks.
I set each large client as a project. The task lists then became Accounts, Bookkeeping, Payroll, Tax etc. Then I entered the tasks under each task list.
I included smaller tax return clients under one project. The price goes up depending on the number of projects.
Different staff members can be allocated different access rights. I would advise giving only one team member the option to delete tasks, just in case someone goes crazy with the delete button instead of ticking the task as done!
It is working really well for us. You can get a 30 day trial if you want to try it out.
How about something with Excel export?
Teamwork.com does sound rather good... it also sounds quite similar to what we are trying to build at PracticeFlow in that the core of the system is based around scheduling work for clients and keeping on top of it all. In particular those dependent tasks sound very useful indeed.
In terms of features we support even complex schedules such as "every month, on the last Friday of the month" which we have found to be necessary to capture certain accounting schedules.
Regarding the Excel part, we are building in the ability to download all major pages as Excel/CSV files—that way not everyone in the organisation needs to necessarily use the system if they are more comfortable in a spreadsheet.
Please feel free to come and kick the tires; once signed in we will be on hand to answer any questions that you might have.
Practice Flow
Hi @shaflidason,
Your software looks good.There are a few people in AWeb looking for software just like this:
https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/anyanswers/question/practice-management-...
I'll post a link back here.
@Cardigan
Many thanks for that @Cardigan —tracking deadlines and being able to schedule them in a way that makes sense for accounting purposes does seem to be an area that isn't quite given the time it deserves in most accounting software applications. This is a shame because it can be a great feeling to know that every deadline big or small is being prepared for and checked off with no last-minute panics (and no fines!).
If you find that Teamwork.com is lacking something that you need then please feel free to get in touch as I'd be happy to discuss possibilities with you.