The expanding challenges of the workplace globally demand accountants, attorneys, CPAs or bookkeepers to do more in less time. They are expected to deliver best-of-breed solutions to their clients quickly. To deliver right decisions at the right time, CPAs must be capable of analyzing and structuring mounds of data quickly. This helps in leveraging the business productivity and improving the company’s bottom line.
To achieve excellence in business performance accountants must focus on tech-oriented solutions that can help save time and money simultaneously. CPAs can eliminate the non-productive time by learning these time-saving tips:
1. Make Accurate Searches for Emails
Finding the exact email you are looking for, can be sometimes challenging. You can make it less of a chore by implementing some of the tips such as use quotation marks to search exact phrase “tax-saving”, a hyphen to eliminate the messages such as Accounts payables-Accounts receivable that would exclude all messages pertaining to accounts receivable. Typing commands such as from: dalex or to: dalex in the search box will show results only for the emails received from and sent to dalex respectively.
2. Organize Tasks Precisely
Consolidating tasks such as finding contact information, general inquiry, and professional or personal appointments into one calendar can help in simplifying task accomplishment. Also, a comprehensive list of the entire work can be created and tasks can be scheduled that can block out the nuts and bolts associated with them. Deploying software to manage workflow and track client contact information can help to gather information on what clients are up to during the tax-season.
3. Implement Add-in “Save as PDF”
Save time, keep documents safe and secure by saving the documents in PDF format. It enables long-term accessibility of the documents. Documents look the same way to the clients as viewed by you, regardless of the software used by co-workers. In Microsoft application, saving documents in PDF format is easy, just click on file — click save as – choose save as type XPS or PDF from the drop-down list.
4. Incorporate Outlook Rules
Outlook can be used in more than one way to create a new task. Outlook is one of the best solutions when it comes to the tracking of tasks assigned to yourself or others. With the integration of tasks into calendar view, the rich interface of outlook enables to keep track of daily appointments easily. As per the criteria, messages can be sorted into folders, forwarded or redirected. Its integration with SharePoint enables the users to receive notifications of any changes in content by email.
5. Make Wise Use of Technology
Effective time-management tools such as smartphones and computers can be used to organize and manage projects and ideas. Evernote, Google calendar and several other avalanches of other apps and technologies are available for great syncing and scheduling options to stay organized. BA II plus financial calculator is another app that helps to do cash-flow analysis and perform calculations easily.
6. Stringent Control of Time:
While delivering services to the clients ensure that none of the conversations is repeated. Services may include explaining a simple procedure of how to perform a certain task to a new client or understanding a new project. Making a video or a handout of the procedure quickly can help to avoid repetition and save time to focus on execution of the main tasks.
Summing it up:
Taking it to the extra mile, these simple tips and tricks beyond saving time can help CPAs to free up their time and schedule it for new personal and professional initiatives. Successfully implementing these time management tips can help to become twice as competent, capable and productive while working 50% less. So, start exploring the secrets to breaking new grounds with effective time management skills.
Comments (1)
Email searches are an often overlooked feature. They make the whole process of accessing and browsing your email highly simple and enhance productivity.
Great article Aditi. Time management is very important for CPAs and with all the ways you’ve have put up, CPA can save a lot of time that was being wasted in doing menial tasks.
Technologies like cloud computing, mobile access, etc. go a long way in increasing time efficiency for any individual but for CPAs they are almost irreplaceable.
There are various time management apps both for your phone as well as computer that can help you efficiently organize your daily task and automate many of the things that are supposed to be done daily. This frees up time to be invested in more important matters.
PDF are multi-platform. Thus if you save your data in pdf format, you can share it with your colleagues and clients easily.