Author: gillian

Digital disruption in accounting: it started with cloud-based accounting software; received a boost from government digital tax initiatives; then COVID-19 came along to compound the imperative – for accounting firms to become more digitally advanced in their operations. This, in turn, is going to pave the way for huge, irreversible change for the industry – something firms need to be ready for, while it still presents an opportunity for them to differentiate their services in new ways.

Accountancy Age has been charting the acceleration of digital transformation across the sector since the arrival of COVID-19, noting the growing sense of urgency for firms to update their capabilities.

This is not just because clients expect it, or even that the current climate demands it. The wide-scale acceptance of digital ways of working also presents an opportunity for accounting professionals to think about what they do in new and innovative ways.

A new era for accounting

Post lockdown, accounting firms and their clients have realised that remote collaboration works perfectly well and saves everyone a lot of valuable time. This realisation, coupled with now-widespread familiarity with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, has set new expectations about how accounting work should be managed in future.

For clients, it is a relief not to have to keep track of paperwork as digital records become the norm. When they can submit documents online at their own convenience, knowing the details can be retrieved and reviewed at any point (via a client portal, for instance), there is new efficiency and peace of mind. No one likes meetings, especially if they are paying for the time involved.

For accounting firms, advanced document and process digitisation makes it possible to improve margins, as professionals are able to recoup time previously spent attending client meetings or chasing paperwork.

Moreover – and this is the exciting part – they can start to think about growing the business geographically.

Location no longer matters

In a post-COVID world there is no reason why a small firm in Leeds couldn’t go after business in Hertfordshire. If everything can be done very efficiently at a distance, location ceases to matter.

But this is where firms need to be clever. As physical boundaries dissolve, competition between service providers will soar – and it will fall to each firm to find new ways to differentiate its services. At one end, this is likely to include driving costs down through new process efficiency, enabled via automation and client self-service (eg letting clients upload their own documents or retrieve their own records). At the other, opportunities will be linked to smarter analytics and new value-added services.

It’s why we’re seeing such a surge of interest in Microsoft 365 as a default platform for organising and running accounting operations.

Invest where the innovation is

Microsoft 365’s core functions and means of navigation are already familiar, comfortable and used every day by almost everyone – including clients. So, rather than spend a fortune on special software to support digital reinvention, accounting firms can simply meet clients where they already are.

There’s so much more to Microsoft 365 these days, too – and Microsoft is enhancing and adding to the platform all the time, with the very latest technology. Beyond Outlook, SharePoint and Teams, tools like Cortex, PowerBI and Power Automate make it possible to streamline and optimise workloads. For an accounting team, the ability to rapidly retrieve the details of any clients advised on previous HMRC updates could allow professionals to proactively target these accounts next time there’s an update to tax requirements, for instance.

Repstor can provide direct integration with existing business systems, providing vital links with existing document and information sources, so these are readily discoverable from within Microsoft 365 applications. By helping professional services firm move from costly, bespoke or ‘best-of-breed’ solutions to this powerful, extensible and commonplace platform, we help them take advantage of the billions of R&D dollars MS has invested in it – to transform the way they work, compete and win.

There is nothing like a global pandemic to test organisations’ business continuity plans, and when whole countries locked down almost overnight earlier this year, it exposed the gaps in their provisions – something I touched on in my last blog.

How well-equipped were staff to work from home, in reality? How easy was it for them to access the latest client and engagement/project/matter information, collaborate and maintain productivity, when whole teams were dispersed suddenly?

While some were quick to improvise, many professional services firms were caught on the hop. Not all staff had laptops; nor secure access to files stored at the office. Many had to resort to workarounds to pass files back and forth in order to progress client work. All the while, IT departments and information compliance teams have had the huge headache of how they might bring everything back together if and when ‘normal practice’ resumes.

As that process begins – as businesses continue to reopen, and managers map out a post-pandemic workplace (which supports social distancing, and caters for those team members with underlying health conditions/who may be shielding vulnerable people at home) – firms are looking with a new sense of purpose at where their business continuity provisions fell short and how to plug any gaps.

Speed matters

BUT this is not a time to map out ambitious IT projects with two-year timeframes. As the COVID lockdown highlighted, successful adaptation is about speed – and Repstor, harnessing the familiar MS 365 tools people already use every day, is perfectly geared up to facilitate this.

When Kari Vislosky, Canada’s VP of People Solutions at Baker Tilly, recently reflected on the rapid transition towards remote work during lockdown, she described it as an exercise in ‘getting the job done’ – in contrast to the usual process of assessing all the options from every angle. In the light of COVID, she notes, the firm will be reviewing its relationships with technology.

Baker Tilley is far from alone in this, something we’ll  come onto in our next article – a reflection on the accelerated digital transformation and platform consolidation efforts the pandemic has inspired.