Feeling like there are just never enough hours in the day? Automating repetitive tasks is one of the simplest ways to take back your most precious resource so you can focus on what matters. But what should you automate, and how do you do it?
Here are our top three key business processes you’re doing more than once that you don’t need to, and the one handy software solution that can automate each of them.
Are you copying paragraphs, fiddling with pricing tables, attaching information flyers to letters, and sending proposals back and forth for formatting changes or approval/signing before finally getting them out the door to your new client? Client engagement & re-engagement documents are the perfect candidates for automation – as you frequently use the same or similar information and data across your client base. By leveraging the client data you already store within your practice management and document management systems, you can create a standard workflow that you can use to generate complex letters, questionnaires, checklists, and documents completed with personalised client information (no rekeying or copying addresses).
Wading through electronic bank statements, dividend documents, and receipts for your client’s Self Managed Superannuation Fund to package everything up for audit? When it comes to SMSFs, one thing you can be sure of is the process and list of items the auditor will request. These standard packs can take significant time to collate and prepare manually, but the repetitive nature of the process and the defined list of documents you need to include makes them the perfect target for automation.
Much like preparing your superfund review packs, once you’ve done all the hard work to prepare an annual report or a set of financial statements, you then must piece the puzzle together and make it presentable to send to the client. Once your accounting team complete the financials and tax returns in your chosen software (eg APS, MYOB AE, Reportance, Xero etc), then they, or your administration team, jump in and out of various programs collating those files, preparing cover pages, adding formatting and signatures before we eventually get to a point where we have a pack of documents that we can then send to the client. Given you have to complete a similar process for each one of your clients – it’s a process calling out to be automated.
In fact, did you know that it can take anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours to prepare an annual report package for a typical family group with a handful of related entities? For the average accounting practice with 500 family groups – that’s over 375 hours of report collating annually!
It’s a time cost we realised in our own accounting practice, and knowing there were a host of other more valuable, client-centric activities our team needed (and wanted) to be doing, we created FuseDocs to completely automate the process.
FuseDocs is a robotic process automation platform that allows you to compile, format, and send client ready documents at the click of a button. Fully integrated with your practice & document management platforms, FuseDocs automates not only your annual report package collations, but also the generation of personalised covering letters, client emails, and those engagement letters, fee proposals, and superfund workpapers we mentioned above.
How does it work? Check out this short video to see FuseDocs in action.
FuseDocs is being used by accounting and financial planning practices across Australia and New Zealand to automate a host of repetitive processes – in fact the list is growing daily!
If you or your team are still manually preparing any of these report packs and documents the old way, click here to book an online demonstration to see how FuseDocs could help you to completely automate the process and reclaim your time for what matters.
In both personal and working lives, change along with technology is inevitable. But with change comes faster, smarter and more convenient ways of doing.
In both personal and professional lives, change along with technology is inevitable. But with change comes faster, smarter and more convenient ways of doing.
