Join us this month for a TPN Tax Talks webinar dedicated solely to helping you bring your practice into the cloud.
Not to worry, the webinar—”TPN Tax Talks: Save Your Tax Season with the Cloud”—will be held March 16. Hosted by TPN’s Christine Gervais, the webinar will be a quick 30-minute lunch break at noon (EST).
You can register to attend HERE.
Cloud software is not new, but many firms still are not taking full advantage of the benefits. Taking the time to assess your tech stack for efficiency is highly critical, especially if you are seeking to maintain a competitive advantage during the busiest time of the year.
The No. 1 complaint we hear from prospective clients about why they are leaving their current CPA is non-responsiveness or their tax preparation took too long. With an ever dwindling pool of potential new staff members and an ever increasing workload, how do you maintain efficiency not only to keep your sanity, but also to keep your clients?
Your tech stack can help. Here are five benefits of cloud-based software that your firm needs to consider. If you’re not sure what softwares is the best fit for your practice, click the link above and join us for our March webinar.
1. Cost savings
Staffing in the accounting industry is becoming increasingly more difficult as well as increasingly more expensive. The age old adage of supply and demand means rising salary requirements for not enough qualified candidates to spread around. What if you could eliminate an entire position just based on the automation and efficiency found in potential software solutions?
Cloud softwares are not without upfront costs, and that initial investment of time and money can lead a lot of firms to shy away, but you’re forgoing a long term benefit for short term gain. Cloud solutions often offer pay as you go plans and are more flexible in terms of selecting only the services you need compared to other solutions.
2. Remote capabilities
You are in Denver and the perfect candidate to add to your firm is in Sacramento and unwilling to move, now what? Cloud based solutions make it easier than ever for firms to function fully remotely. The tech tools available on the market now can help your cross-country team feel as if they’re in the office together every day as well as provide that level of personal touch to your clients.
Don’t forgo an ideal staff relationship or even limit your client pool based on geography when cloud solutions can help your practice grow.
3. Collaboration opportunities
Strategic partnerships have boomed since the pandemic. Job candidates are leaving the market at an alarming rate to start their own practices for more control and flexibility. Forming a strategic partnership with another entrepreneur offers a huge number of benefits.
For one, the cost of hiring a great contractor to meet your needs usually is less than the carrying cost of a full-time employee.
Additionally, you may be able to afford a more highly skilled individual with specialized services that you couldn’t afford to bring on full time. Cloud-based solutions make it easier than ever to share work and form collaborative relationships to better serve your clients.
4. Loss prevention
Your employee quits and does not return their laptop right away, the office is flooded in a storm over the weekend, the power is out, someone’s computer opens up to the black screen of death. Any time your firm set up has team members saving client work to their individual machines, you risk data loss in the event that something happens and that computer is no longer accessible.
Cloud software can help prevent all these issues and provide a solution for much faster up time in the event of an emergency. If someone’s laptop dies, no worries, all their work is accessible from anywhere in the cloud. The same is true when the office floods. A cloud based firm won’t skip a beat if you need to transition the physical location of your work.
5. Competitive advantage
Cloud based solutions can really help you enhance your customer service experience even if you’re a small firm. Client portals and communication technology are extremely affordable for small firms. If you want to give your clients a seamless experience of communication and reduced stress on their part, you can make yourself look like an efficient, tech-savvy firm with the implementation of one or two pieces of software.
Creating this experience also helps to encourage timely communication from your clients which can reduce your stress when it comes to meeting deadlines. Giving great customer service is one of the easiest ways to stand out from your competition.
