Thanks for the comment. Yup a lot of hot air with some people and recruiters, this is why I'm so pleased to see firms searching for the right candidates themselves on sites like linkedin. Easier for larger firms to do, not so easy for smaller firms who need to find the time. However searching yourself > recruitment agents in my opinion.

Thanks Mark for your thoughts, I agree that tech will evolve and become 'smarter' over time, I have worked on apps which are already crunching sequences faster than a team of 100 people and providing outcomes faster than ever before.

Hi Mark, Thats the million dollar question, what will become the norm. It is however interesting how we're accepting of app only banks, paying for stuff by touching our apple watch and driverless cars (60% of U.S orders for the Tesla model 3 have paid for the additional automated driving upgrade) so is it really a stretch to think people may pay us in an alternative form of currency? may not be bitcoin but another form could actually happen. Let's see how this evolves :)

Thanks Steve, a good question, I think many accountants are more than capable of helping their clients with KPIs, retention, conversion ideas etc but it may not be at top of mind for them to discuss or promote when meeting a potential client.

Your experience with your previous accountant is very similar to the businesses I speak to regularly. There are however a growing number of accountants leading the charge and supporting their clients beyond 'accounting' which is great to see. I hope this continues.

Hi Justsotax,

A very valid point, in larger firms you do tend to see a disconnect between client and upper chain. At 'Propel by Deloitte', which is in effect a small/mid size firm within Deloitte, we tend to meet our clients on a monthly basis for up to an hour. At times, our clients are busy and feel they're on top of their businesses and only reach out if they have a question. It's something we and our clients value. This is however will become a challenge as you scale and grow your firm but its key our clients value this service and pay for it accordingly.

hahaha I wish I was on commission from them. It's just a great tool to use. It's free and its fully functional for the needs I've encountered.

I've made the example board public and visible to all - https://trello.com/b/qyiMOSrG
You can make a copy of this rough and ready board I created and start populating your own info. Enjoy and let me know how you get on. Cheers, Bobby

Hi there, yup Richard from AccWeb has just asked me for a high quality version of the images. I'll update the pics shortly. Thanks for your comment, Bobby

Hi accountsman, what you describe is fantastic. I've seen some firms draw columns on their whiteboards too and use coloured magnets from Amazon to indicate exactly what youe coloured cards do. It doesn't haven't to be hi-tech but just understanding the WIP with in your case colour indicators is also a great way to manage jobs and workflow. Thanks for sharing,
Bobby

Thanks Yaakovgrant, Its a very good question re:Google sheets/shared spreadsheet for deadline mgt and I've come across this many times with firms. Whilst it solves the pain of job awareness and management within a firm its not as effective to use as something like Trello. Here is a list of some differences I've observed when faced with Shared spreadsheet vs Trello question-

* you can quickly lose control with spreadsheets. your team WILL end up adding additional 'phases' which will make life difficult when managing the workflow. Phases such as 'Called client but didn't pick up the phone' is one such example.
* Collaboration in Trello is very good. You can literally add specific people to specific jobs so they understand what they personally have to do which helps immensely. The chat functional and alerts too are fantastic in trello.
* Mobile app for Trello is great. you get alerts on your phone/email when there is movement on a job or when you have added a comment.
* Its made for project management. So a job may have multiple smaller aspects to it, trello allows you to create sub tasks within a job card whilst looking neat and not too overwhelming.

I'm sure there are others but I hope this helps. P.s Trello is free to use, just sign up and play with a demo 'board' and see if it works for you.

Cheers, Bobby

hey Charlie, this particular firm uses Iris with the tax / stat / open docs modules and they pull the job list from Iris and then enter it in to Trello. I have yet to come across a good practice mgt solution which allows the flexibility of Trello with all the modules of tax / stats etc built in.

I've also seen firms who simply use Trello or similar kanban style software whilst using Taxfiler/VT for their tax and stat accounts. You can simply add a card with a due date in trello (which in effect is the job you want to call in at X date). You can then allocate your colleagues to the job (job mgt) and then seek updates and collaboration around the progress of the job (workflow mgt).

For you, I recommend using Trello or QBOA (which recently started to look more like Trello) but doesnt yet have the flexibility of Trello. If you get the time, check out the trello integrations too.
Cheers, Bobby