Here’s what you’re looking for: Penny Breslin

Plus two traps to avoid.

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.” – Ayn Rand

The reality is that the robots and AI are here, and they will eventually take over much – if not all – of the day-to-day work that is typically done by a human interacting with a computer. You may not like it, but you cannot avoid it. So utilize robots to make your life easier.

MORE: Use Timesheets for Productivity, Not Billing | Best Practices for Source Doc Permissions and Handling | Every Back Office Support Client Needs a Playbook | Strengthen Client Ties with Workflow Tools | Understand Your Online Marketing Options | Narrow Your Prospects by Choosing a Vertical | Advisory Services Done Your Way | AI Is Not Your Enemy
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Prepare for Your Meeting

Do your homework before going out to the client’s office. If this is an existing client where you have been doing standard compliance work, review the data in their accounting program and make sure you are working with up-to-date information. If this is a new back office support prospect, ask to review their accounting data before going out to their offices. If they are not open to this, it may require an extra visit. The steps below assume you have either worked on the client’s accounting in some capacity, or you have had the opportunity to review the accounting files.
READ MORE →

Four steps to asserting control.

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

Permissions are key. In our company only three people have a connection to their local C drive from our managed server. Also, we can track who is logged in, from where, how long and what they accessed.

MORE: Sixteen Guidelines for Naming Conventions | Revisit Your Back Office Support Procedures | Federated Search: What It Is, Why It Matters | Accounting Tech Tools to Minimize Your Pain | Do Your Apps Play Well with Others? | It’s OK to Have Favorite Clients
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

If documents are in our cloud storage, the permissions to download them can be turned off. Viewing is done from within the document storage app. Nothing is perfect. They can still take a screenshot but we attempt to keep things as closed as possible while still allowing for work and efficiency.
READ MORE →

Why they matter so much.

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

One of the most time-consuming parts of reconciliation is attempting to discover why or where to allocate expenses. You want to find and pay the correct vendor. You also want to be sure that you have the vendor’s correct name and tax ID number when 1099 reporting time rolls around, yet it won’t be easy to do so if you do not have a consistent vendor naming convention.

MORE: Revisit Your Back Office Support Procedures | Every Back Office Support Client Needs a Playbook | Creating a Back Office Support Playbook | Strengthen Client Ties with Workflow Tools | Understand Your Online Marketing Options | Narrow Your Prospects by Choosing a Vertical | Build Your Team, Then Choose Your Clients | How Back Office Support Adds Value
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Consistent naming conventions are a critical component of good file management. The same is true if customer names are in the accounting program. Any list really needs to have consistency of entry. Duplicates and linking to the wrong record are common mistakes that take time to find and fix.
READ MORE →

Remember it’s not just your team on board, it’s also your clients.

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

Once you have your procedures, you can assign tasks to your team members. Because we perform back office work for many accounting firms, we often adapt to other firms’ workflows. We are often on their workflows for our tasking but internally we also needed a simple means of tasking. Another easily integrated app with Slack provided this, Teamline. With Teamline we just type /teamline into any channel and:

• Create a new task on the fly or use a premade template
• Assign it to a team member
• Set a due date
• Attach a file
• Add a checklist of items

MORE: Every Back Office Support Client Needs a Playbook | You Have to Manage Three Kinds of Procedures | Tech Tips for Back Office Support | Decoding Accounting Tech (and All Those Acronyms) | Digital Marketing Strategies Level the Playing Field | Eight Tasks to Delegate Today

Teamline notifies both the assignee and the creator as to the progress of the task automatically. Integration to our Google calendar puts the Teamline task into the calendar. We never leave Slack while doing this as the integration between Slack, Teamline and Google calendar is seamless.
READ MORE →