5 Ways Collaborative Work Management Software Can Help You Build a Better Client Experience
An investment in improving client experience has guaranteed returns. While it’s true professional services firms face an uphill battle trying to differentiate themselves, the client experience is completely under your control. Learn how work management software can help you improve that experience.
The Ultimate Guide to Project Management for Accountants
Welcome to the modern financial professional’s guide to project management for accountants. In this article, we’ll go in-depth into the benefits of using project management methods for every aspect of project-based accounting. We’ll also teach you what the challenges are and how to choose the best tool for your team. Why is project management for accountants important? In accounting, the goal is always to serve the client or group to the best of your ability. And if you’re not already using project management to do so, you aren’t reaching the full potential of your services. Project management is key for managing resources such as time and budgeting. It’s also an effective way to ensure on-time delivery of paperwork, processing, and payments. For large accounting firms, the balancing act of managing many different accounts and personnel all at the same time is quite complex. But with project management, accounting teams are empowered to be proactive rather than reactive in their methods. In everyday life, this translates to establishing a consistent process for tracking, approving, and updating all active files. Everything from timesheets to taxes can be streamlined with the right project management tool. Not only does this produce better results for your clients, but it also gives you a competitive advantage over firms that rely on outdated methods. How does project management benefit accounting firms? Project management for accounting firms goes beyond simply organizing files (although that is a benefit too). It’s a way to transition from the hourly model to a more customer-centric one. Instead of limiting your assistance to budgeted hours, your team can deliver clients better results without exceeding scope or creating extra work. It’s also handy for setting expectations, even during times of crisis. With the right project management tool, accounting firms can plot out project phases, assign tasks, and create a visual timeline of events. This all accurately reflects when work will be completed when put together. Project management for accounting firms helps with operations too. Managers can create reusable templates for common forms and task types. Team leads can manage and approve important materials. And the rest of the team can efficiently communicate with one another within individual tasks on your chosen project management software. What are the challenges of project management for accountants? One of the biggest challenges of project management for accountants is letting go of timesheets. Timesheets are a measure of billable hours, but they’re not an effective measure of effort and duration. Project management, however, does take these two factors into account. When creating tasks in a project management tool like Wrike, managers can easily add an estimated level of effort to each one so that assignees have an idea of how to schedule their time. As for duration, project managers have a bird’s eye view of all active projects and individual personnel schedules, making it easy to provide accurate turnaround estimates. Accounting firms then use this information to create a fixed and change order pricing model based on a more accurate representation of the project’s value. There’s an opportunity for growth and development with this method you simply cannot get from the timesheet system. For example, if the estimated effort for a task is wrong, managers can do a lot to improve productivity on both an individual level and for the organization as a whole. That includes coaching an individual on how to complete a task more efficiently, resolving workflow issues so that they don’t come up again, and adjusting effort expectations on similar tasks in the future. Put simply, overcoming old habits like timesheets is the biggest challenge, but there are many micro and macro rewards for doing so. How to implement project management in accounting First, take stock of your resources. Consider employee availability, project operations costs, and other related materials. You’ll have a chance to organize and prioritize these in detail later within your project management tool. Then, choose a data tracking system that includes time. In project management, time is a resource, not a product, so it must be used wisely. Managers can use historical time-tracking records to determine how long a task will realistically take and then schedule it accordingly. Next, decide how you’ll manage customer change requests and the ever-changing rules, regulations, and tax codes all accountants must deal with. Other productivity obstacles such as stakeholder requests, unforeseen roadblocks, and everyday inefficiencies get in the way of even the best-planned timelines. To ensure promises are kept and customer expectations are exceeded, accountants should use a visual representation of their project timelines to come up with flexible solutions. Ideally, this will happen before issues arise. Either way, having a project management plan will make teams agile enough to handle common accounting issues without derailing their entire assignment. Finally, choose a project management system for accountants that fits your needs. A specialized tool is helpful for dealing with unique issues that only financial teams face. What features are essential for project management accounting software? Like any profession that deals with professional services management, accounting teams need a project management accounting software that can achieve big picture goals. With the right project management accounting software, firms and individuals can easily maximize milestone billing, streamline processes, and impress clients. Here are some features to look out for: Custom template options Visibility into all active projects Time and resource management Communication tools Data tracking and forecasting Easy to use dashboards and visual charts As you can probably already tell, the best project management accounting software is a comprehensive one. It should serve as the foundation for all of your work. Teams will use it to plan, manage, and finalize deliverables. You’ll also use it for invoicing and other services you provide to clients. In a nutshell: Look for a tool that can act like a Swiss Army knife for your entire accounting business. How to choose project management software for your accounting firm So you’ve found a few great platforms with similar features. Now how do you choose which project management software is best for your unique business? The answer is simple: consider your goals. For most accounting firms, the point of adopting a project management software is to increase productivity. Consider whether or not the solution you’re interested in will expedite everyday deliverables. Can you really see your team using this tool to communicate with one another and stay on schedule? What about external clients? If you’re like most accounting services, your work is dependent on forms and information you receive from outside sources. The right project management software will give collaborators easy access to files while also protecting the privacy of other, unrelated projects. And if you’re getting closer to crunch time, it’s important to consider how your project management software will work side by side with your other tools. Make sure you check out what app integrations are available for each tool you consider. Doing so now will help your team smoothly transition while keeping up with current workloads. Last but not least is privacy. No matter what your goals may be, data privacy is a big concern for every accounting firm. Project management software is yet another outlet that needs to be as secure as possible. So if you have a number of solutions to choose from, make sure you prioritize the ones that make privacy a key feature. Why Wrike is the perfect task management software for accountants Accounting firms are busy all year round, not just at tax time. Wrike offers accountants support for ongoing projects, one-off requests, and heavy workload seasons all in one platform. How? By empowering teams to manage their internal processes as efficiently and effectively as possible. Here are some of the unique features Wrike includes to solve problems for project management for accountants: Wrike Blueprints: If you offer a variety of different services and price points, Wrike Blueprints can help you outline tasks for each one, structure the projects, and track all plans across every service. Microsoft Integration: Combine tools you already know and use with Wrike to automate your team assignment process. Create automated triggers that respond to completed Microsoft forms by creating a new file, adding the new customer data to it, and more. Zendesk Integration: Add Zendesk to Wrike so that all customer tickets that are assigned as tasks are recorded and added to individual to-do lists if and when the chosen employee has availability. Wrike Spaces: Create custom hubs that serve as a communication and document sharing platform for individual clients right within Wrike. That way there is full transparency without compromising the privacy of your other clients and projects. Wrike Resource: Balance workloads realistically and effectively within Wrike. You can track the time it takes to complete certain tasks plus how much availability individuals and teams have to take on new work. Ready to streamline operations and increase client satisfaction? Get started with Wrike’s professional services guide and a two-week free trial of our project management software.
The Nuances of Building Great Customer Relationships With Japanese Clients
Today, even if you are not in Rome, you sometimes still need to do as the Romans do. Thanks to globalization, many of us have clients and partners all over the world. Ignoring the culture differences can be a stumbling block to establish relationship with client and helping your business grow. On the contrary, knowing several important national features of business communications will move you closer to building great customer relationships wherever your client comes from. Our first guest to share her helpful tips in this area is Yuko Ono from Japan, the president of Tsukuruhito Ltd., which specializes in developing online services based on brand strategy. If you have Japanese clients or partners, keep a note and share your observations in comments! Investing in trustworthy relationships takes time and tact In Japan, it takes some time and effort to win people’s confidence and see them share their thoughts and feelings with you. This is a very important stage of building business relationships, so let your clients take their time and try to be as patient and attentive to them as you can. Remember that it’s not common for the Japanese to express their thoughts directly, as people often do in the U.S. “Try to use euphemisms and polite forms, to not make an impression of an aggressive person,” Yuko Ono notes. Make sure the project goals meet the clients’ expectations Communication in the Japanese culture is not simply an exchange of opinions. It’s an important ritual to establish relationships. “Pay enough attention to discuss clients’ needs and expectations in the very beginning and make sure there are no misunderstandings,” Yuko Ono advises. This way, you’ll show your respect to the clients’ thoughts, which will help you build trust between each other. Besides that, communication in Japan often implies the ability to understand the underlying message that is not said directly. This way, if the goals weren’t set up in a clear way, things might get even blurrier as the project moves on, and it will end up in a waste of time and a customer’s dissatisfaction. The best way to prevent it is to talk things through. Lend an attentive ear to the feedback throughout the work “When the project is already in process, it doesn’t mean that now we can drift apart from our clients and then simply show them results of the work,” Yuko Ono says. According to her, attentiveness to the feedback is a key to success in Japan. To achieve this sensitivity, she always introduces the clients to everyone who works on their project and asks their opinion on different stages before the project is completed. Another important thing is to compare the interim results with the essentials that were established in the beginning to make sure clients are satisfied with where things are moving. “Here Wrike helps us a lot, as it is very easy to selectively grant the clients access to the pieces of data they are interested in,” Yuko Ono shares. What are your thoughts? Would this advice work for your country, too? “When several people work on several projects simultaneously, it’s quite a challenge to establish an easy workflow within a team. What I like most about Wrike is that it makes absolutely transparent all the current achievements, responsibilities and schedules of each team member. Now that we always have the most important pieces of data at our fingertips, our efficiency has increased dramatically!”— Yuko Ono, the president of Tsukuruhito Ltd. Tsukuruhito Ltd. is a Japanese company specializing in developing brand strategies through the web in a number of areas from educational systems to e-commerce services.
How to Use Wrike for Professional Services Performance for Project Budget Management
Project budget management is important for professional services teams. Knowing how to calculate project cost and maximize project management efficiency is key for firms looking to boost profit margins.
How Professional Services Teams Are Breaking the Customer Churn Cycle (Infographic)
We surveyed over 1,000 professional services teams to learn about the top challenges they face around client retention, resource management, collaboration, technology, project processes, and more.
Involving Clients in Projects: A Step-by-Step Guide
Both you and your customers hope you do the right thing for moving a project forward. However, the views on what exactly that right thing is might be different on both sides. In the worst case scenario, mismatched expectations get your client frustrated. And you don't want that to happen, do you? In order to eliminate such risk and make sure you and your clients are on the same page, it makes sense to actively involve them in the projects from the very start, using client communication tools to ensure a smooth lifecycle. Want to know how? Check out these tips from today's podcast with Meredith Eisenberg, where she shares her business secrets and one-fits-all approach to involving customers in projects. The founder of "Tame the Internet Monster," she helps small companies leverage the power of online marketing. And one of the main things that make her business a success is the tight, productive relationship established with customers. Meredith's ideas make a neat step-by-step guide that will be helpful for a business of any kind: 1. Let your customers understand your plans "I always start my customers' onboarding with online Gantt chart and share it on my screen with them to discuss everything in great detail. "The main goal, at this point, is to show that their huge projects consist of a number of tiny little steps. I make them understand that it is something like eating an elephant one bite at a time. This transparency in plans helps to establish trustful relationships from the very beginning." 2. Build communication around the tool your customers already use "I never force anyone to change the way they work with information. Instead, I take them from where they are. I have some customers heavily in Google Docs. Some keep everything in their iCalendar, and others rely only on emails. And that's fine, since my project management system supports integration with any of these. "It's fabulous – regardless of how my customers work with information, I still have everything in one centralized place. I can easily see all tasks for all projects, and plan the workload for my team." 3. Fine-tune the scope of involvement "All my clients are different, and I have different relationships with each of them. Some people love having full control over tasks and people, and want to participate in allocating resources and managing the workload. In this case, I create an account in Wrike for them and give them full access to everything they want! "Others don't want to go into project management at all, and just check their Google Calendar once in a while. But if they want to get the list of tasks for next month in an Excel table, with Wrike, I can easily give it to them. "People in general don't want to learn new tools, and they greatly appreciate when they are kept updated in the way they are used to. With its integration capabilities, and with no additional effort, Wrike helps us make customers much happier! Each customer has exactly as much of involvement as they would like to have." 4. Keep completed projects as templates "To set up a new project, I just pull down different elements I had in projects with other customers and put them into a new plan. This way, I have my tasks and check lists ready in several minutes! "The system's ability to copy folders with sets of to-do's makes this very easy and quick. I'm able to impress my customers with my efficiency from the first few minutes!" These four simple tricks help Meredith involve her customers in projects and make interactions easy and enjoyable for both sides. Clients get as much involvement as they are ready to take, and they work with the information exactly the way they are used to. This helps avoid misunderstandings and, eventually, make customers feel happy. By the way, Meredith, the brave Monster Tamer, became our first customer to be featured in a videocast! Check it out to find out more about Meredith's business:
Break the Customer Churn Cycle and Grow Your Professional Services Company
We wanted to understand the challenges professional services teams face around work management, so we surveyed over 1,000 adults who work for an agency, consulting firm, or provide billable services to external clients.
Marketing Agencies: Are You Showing Your Clients the Love?
True story: my colleague was preparing a launch video for one of Silicon Valley's tech giants, and when they were 90% done, their project manager finally showed the clients the almost-complete version of the final deliverable. The clients said they hated it. It wasn't what they wanted. Change it or else. The marketing management was a disaster on so many levels: the team wasted time working on something the clients didn't want, the project manager failed the team by waiting until the 11th hour to ask for client feedback, and the clients waited for something they could've easily outsourced to a different, more communicative agency. As it stood, the team was able to pull some last-minute all-nighters to get the video up to the client's standards. But it was a close call. And yet, this is a situation that is all too common in any creative services organization. So how can a marketing agency manage client expectations better, and avoid such stressful situations? The simplest answer: nurture your client relationship like you would a sweetheart. Here are 3 ways to treat your clients like your sweetheart (and win big in your clients' eyes). 1. Get to Know Them How do relationships start? You get to know the other person. You go out on a date and find out what movies he likes, what hobbies she's into, what he's all about, what values she believes in. If you ever hope to serve your client to the best of your ability, then you have to know what motivates them and what they hope to accomplish. That means investing time to meet your clients face to face, take them outside of the office for drinks, and discover why they do what they do. Insights like these will help you understand where they're coming from when they ask for revisions to your project, or if you get into difficult standoffs about project direction. 2. Communicate Constantly We all know relationships don't work without constant communication. You have to call/text/Snapchat your better half, tell her you miss her, and talk about your day so that you can stay involved in each other's lives, even when you're apart. Managing clients properly means seeking client feedback early and often. You collaborate with your client in an ongoing process to produce something you and the client can both be proud of. By keeping them in the loop you avoid surprises, and you feel like you've accomplished something together as opposed to handing off a completed project as part of a one-sided relationship. By proactively sharing status updates with a project management tool like Wrike, you can also head off persistent “checking in” messages. Clients see how a project is developing at every stage, can look in on progress whenever they want, and are able to give you their insight as needed. This transparent communication will reassure your client. 3. Give Them Something They Want When birthdays and holidays come around and you want to give a gift to proclaim your love, do you give something cheap and generic? Absolutely not. You have to find out what he really wants and then to the best of your ability (and budget) you get it customized with his name, or find something that’s just the right look. Managing a client’s expectations is the same. Ideally your marketing project will have a clearly defined scope and a list of very specific deliverables that the clients have agreed upon. Your job as an agency is to deliver exactly what they want — on time and under budget. Solicit client feedback early and often so slight adjustments can be made throughout the process. The end result should be a deliverable that's exactly what they were looking for. Show your appreciation this Valentine's Day With Valentine's Day just around the corner, take this opportunity to express your appreciation for your clients' business. But more than that, take the appropriate steps to make the relationship work long-term. That means excellent communication skills and excellent service. Read Next:Project Manager from Hell [Slideshare]4 Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders
Why Project Management Tools Are the Key to Great Customer Relationship Management
What is customer relationship management and how can project management tools help you take it to the next level? This post covers everything you need to know about elevating and building client relationships and the benefits of customer interaction management.
5 Steps to a Stress-Free Design Revision Process
Creative projects can often stall if there’s a ton of conflicting feedback, which results in endless revisions. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are five solid tactics to get your projects back on track and across the finish line.