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It’s time to work smarter with a collaborative client communication model

8th Jun 2020
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Caseware financial reporting and audit solutions.

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Accounting has never really been known as a collaborative industry.

Typically, relationships were mainly built up of clients dropping everything on their poor accountants at the end of the financial year, with the hope of them being in some kind of order, and the accountant working through them all to prepare the financial statements.

Siloed processes and very little communication just doesn’t cut it any longer as the amount of compliance rules and regulations is ever increasing for businesses when it comes to financial reporting.

Smart collaboration is something that is very much needed and has become the order of the day.

Creating a more intelligent accounting environment

The inability for clients and accountants to work alongside each other on the same document is one of the biggest barriers to accounting collaboration.

Previously, this was only possible when clients and accountants would have sat together, this is not the best use of time.

Cloud software has helped to break down these barriers, by allowing people to work on tasks simultaneously, anywhere at any time.

With the addition of intelligence and automation, collaboration can instantly be improved by notifying users when they are required to submit documentation (with minimal effort) along with audit trails, so everyone is aware of what is being worked on and by whom.

Smoothing out the friction

Over the last year, removing friction from the customer experience has been something of a talking point, and rightly so.

There are multiple friction points within accounting, at best, they lead to delays and at worst they lead to inaccurate and incomplete accounts which don’t meet regulatory standards.

Cloud hosting technology appears to remove most of the friction, especially from accounting processes as they allow anyone – with the correct authority and permissions to access and work on documents at any time.

Storing everything within one central location cloud system allows your people the time and hassle of tracking down email attachments (which of course are stored in a list in the wilderness of at least 17 email chains).

Security

Ensuring all sensitive data, especially financial data is secure and kept out of the hands of criminals is top priority for any company entrusted with handling such information.

Seeing how many firms or businesses store this information (on-premises on hard drives, on USBs or in filing cabinets) it begs the question, how more data isn’t stolen or lost.

You should be able to offer your clients the highest level of security possible, as your competitors are likely to offer the same level of encryption we see used by banks; this should be the minimum your clients expect.

Training on basic cyber security is always worth its weight in gold, as people are always the easiest route to gaining access to sensitive data.

If you’d like to find out more about how to create a smarter, collaborative communication model using cloud technology, download or new eBook here.