7 Ways How To Become an Agile Accounting Firm

After the Great Recession in 2008, some tech companies realized that they needed to be more agile in their processes. Consequently, they started being more innovative, employed new technologies.

However, the word ‘agile’ does not only belong to tech companies- any company, say an accounting firm, can adapt the agile methodology to grow. Companies that embrace the change can flourish during tough times, create new business opportunities, and deliver value to their clients.

Below are a few ways that will help your accounting firm become agile.

1. Manage Your Time

Time is of supreme importance for any accounting firm and is even more critical for an agile firm. It is essential to create a strategic plan that calculates the time and effort required for a particular task. Consider your clients’ business requirements and keep some extra time for any deviation from the process.

This way, you will make sure that your business and none of the clients get affected in case anything goes off the track, and you will have ample time to manage all your tasks.

2. Define Your Goal

As a business leader, you must be very clear about the goal you wish to achieve. You must be able to narrate everything about how the future will unfold if your plan goes well. You should have a plan in mind for every department, its functionalities, and its roles and responsibilities.

You will also need to change your plan with time; your team members and senior employees should be crystal clear about what the company expects from them and that they are trusted to put in their best. This way, they know that the firm values them and will inculcate a sense of ownership.

3. Build a Team

Building a team that has the will power to go agile is one thing, but finding people with the right talent is another. Mostly, this is where most organizations face difficulty, and it takes more time and effort than expected. You should deploy a dedicated team that works hard towards making your vision a reality.

Once you find the right talent to build a good team, it is essential to retain the same. It takes significant resources for talent acquisition. Hence, retaining skilled personnel means time savings, which can be deployed in serving the clients.

4. Create An Inspiring Vision for Everyone

Your vision must inspire everyone in your accounting firm, which means that it should clearly portray what you wish to achieve and be practical and meaningful. Your team needs a realistic goal – setting an unrealistic goal is demotivating.

For instance, if you wish to be the most client-centric firm, the team needs to work hard to achieve it. Everything needs to be revamped from the business policies to better customer support (your business model as well).

Start investigating all the areas of improvement and come up with ideas that might help. The best way to be customer-centric is to make customer-friendly policies and build a social media presence to interact with them.

5. Run Sprints

The conventional accounting approach was to deliver what was expected by running a slow marathon rather than running aggressively. This path is full of hurdles, and like any long marathon, some never cross the finish line and give up trying.

However, modern-day agile accounting is very different from traditional accounting. You need to focus on running short sprints rather than marathons. This means that you should look at one big project as a compilation of smaller tasks.

The usual duration of each sprint is 1-3 weeks, and after it is done, there’s a time to catch the breath and analyze the impact and decide the next move.

6. Leverage Advanced Technologies

You should use technologies like cloud hosting that offer agility to accounting firms by deploying the latest solution as soon as possible. It promotes agility by helping the firms keep their policies and business structure agile. For instance, by moving your accounting process to cloud, you can access the critical client data from any location at any time.

Moreover, with the introduction of AI algorithms and business intelligence, accounting firms can automate daily tasks and predict future trends, hence, becoming more agile.

7. Support Those Who Support the Agile Transformation

Accounting firms often fail to become more agile because, in an organization, there’s always a roadblock that might take time to change. For instance, it can be the multi-level approval process for a small change, which delays things. Changing such roadblocks is hard and challenging.

The fundamental solution is to build a team of people with the will power and right skills. Give them access to key decision-makers and provide them the support they need. Also, having a real customer as a part of this team is a great idea. This way, you will be able to offer exactly what your customers need.

Conclusion

Becoming more agile is all about learning while growing and embracing change. In short, it requires the right mindset. It is an excellent tool for handling uncertain situations, implementing change, and leveraging technology to catalyze the change.

Want to know how technology can help your accounting firm become agile? Contact our Solutions Consultant at 855-910-6927.