Quality counts
Professionals need to put quality at the centre of their business. This is not mean a slavish adherence to an out of date or inappropriate system but a consistent approach to compliance tasks and an intelligent system for generating new business.
The emphasis should in turn be on the objective not the means. Accountancy firms are probably still rife with staff who are slavishly following checklists without any real thought about what they are trying to achieve.
Putting quality at the centre of your business will help you focus on what is important and attract clients, staff and new business contacts you can partner with. Professionals rarely have a product to market so need to brand their time. Achieving a quality standard awarded by your professional body is an excellent way of doing this because both existing and potential clients know what to expect.
Quality leads to a proactive approach to both running and marketing your practice. Put quality systems in place and then start thinking about how you can offer a guarantee of service. This may be a commitment to prepare financial statements within a certain time scale or an indemnity against tax liabilities.
Having a proper procedure for client engagement has to be the starting point. Make sure that the engagement letter covers the work you are actually performing for clients on an ongoing basis. The letter should be kept to a reasonable length by including terms and conditions in a separate document and should be reviewed annually.
Permanent files should also be used to give a source of reference which is regularly updated. It should contain the usual compliance documentation such as a copy of the certificate of incorporation but also fee invoice and dividend copies.
Current files should be prepared in a consistent way to save time and reduce errors. Checklists should be used not to generate unnecessary work but rather to ensure that the important work is undertaken. This will aid review and help to ensure that the percentage of time recovered is as high as possible.
Client data should also be stored as efficiently as possible. In practice this means adopting client centred to avoid the duplication of data across more than one software program. If paper files are kept they should mirror the way information about clients is stored electronically and every effort should be made to reduce the amount of information that is stored in paper form.
Compliance services have a limited margin and must be delivered as efficiently as possible whilst systems should be designed so as to provide intelligence for value added services. I this way you will be able to make quality count for your practice.
