Trying to grow an accounting firm usually involves a lot of late nights – but are all of them really necessary? When you’re growing your firm, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the first step towards real growth happens when you can take a step back.

It’s tough to start delegating, especially when you take pride in the quality of your work. But standard processes are what will allow you to replicate that quality in the work of your entire team, provided you have the right ones in place.

Why is standardizing processes so important?

How standardization can help your accounting firm

Processes drive outcomes – and standardizing those processes replicate those outcomes, making standards a strategic asset that continues to pay off over time.

You may even be surprised by how much it helps to standardize. Below, we’ll walk through some key ways standardization can improve your business, and what types of standards you can implement to see those improvements happen.

Create consistent quality

Looking for rockstar workers who can hit the ground running may be a strategic mistake in some cases, especially in a profession facing serious talent shortages. 

For a lot of roles, it’s possible to hire good enough workers with processes in place that help ensure the consistency, quality, and volume of work you expect.

To do that, you might:

• Create detailed onboarding documentation with clear expectations
• Offer the same upskilling opportunities to all employees at a certain level
• Have standard client intake forms to ensure the right information is always there

You can also introduce checks and balances like approval processes into workflows to review work at strategic points in each project.

Automate work

Once you have clear processes in place, you’ll have a much easier time identifying where to automate work. Automation creates exact standards and reduces the risk of human error in repetitive tasks like data entry. Look for processes that are:

Repetitive: Tasks that feel mindless and that you have to do over and over again are often good candidates for automation. For example, if you have a standard onboarding process for clients, you can create intake forms that autofill data in key places to minimize data entry.

Rule-based: If something you do follows a specific rule, you may be able to automate it. One example might be creating a chatbot that answers common client FAQs.

Data-driven: Not all automation tasks need to be data-driven, but many data collection tasks are also ripe for automation. For example, you could automate billing with a time tracker that connects to invoicing software.

When you start automating, it’s a good idea to start with the automations that would make the most impact – especially since too many apps can create data silos in remote teams.

Make data-driven decisions

Standardized processes are also ripe for embedding data collection into different parts of each process. That can help you quantify the expectations you have for work items and client interactions.

For example:

• Creating forms that ask for client feedback at key points will give you satisfaction scores that you can use to identify areas for improvement
• Recording billable time on each task of a project can help you identify which projects are suffering from scope creep and where it’s happening

Data collection can also help show you where to introduce new processes – for example, you might introduce a review process once hours on a project exceed expectations beyond a certain point.

Identify top performers on your team

When you have processes in place for work, it becomes much easier to identify who on your team is a top performer.

For example, comparing hours spent by the number of projects for each employee can help you get a bird’s eye view of performance across your firm.

That can help you reward employees based on their actual performance – and identify bottlenecks and workers that need upskilling.

Reduce the time it takes to complete tasks

When there’s one standard way to do things, it helps reduce the cognitive load associated with decision-making – and the time it takes to complete each task in the process. 

For example, having a task list for each project means that your staff won’t have to think about what they need to do next, or spend time creating to-do lists for themselves. Things like automations, standard forms, and clear onboarding can help speed up processes too.

Make turnover less costly

Standardized processes help reduce the cost of staff turnover, especially when you introduce standards for documenting work.

When new employees have all the notes and information about client projects in one place, they’ll be much more capable of picking up where your former employee left off.

The same goes for vacations, or employees that call in sick – standardization will help employees step in without having to dig for information on where the project stands.

Preserve the expertise of your best workers

Finally, standardization can help turn the expertise of your best workers into an investment that pays off even if they eventually leave. When you encourage them to document their knowledge, you can incorporate it into your workflows and help other employees learn and grow at the same time.

Important notes about introducing standards

If you’re just starting to standardize, it might not be feasible to create airtight standards for your firm all at once. Instead, choose a few standards that have the potential to make the most impact, and work from there. A few other points:

• Hire decision-makers who can create processes in their area of expertise – for example, sales and marketing professionals who can map and automate marketing data.
• Preserve employee autonomy by staying flexible about some standards. Encourage employees to bring their own ideas to the table if they think there’s a better way of doing things.
• Choose tools that help you standardize multiple processes at once. For example, ProCharted can help you set standards for time, tasks, and projects in one platform where all the data is interconnected.

When you have the right standards in place, growth is a lot easier. You’ll have much more control over the output and quality of work across your firm, and crystallize your brand’s value. To learn more about how ProCharted can help you standardize effortlessly, book your 30-day free trial today.