Tips for Efficient Letter Production in a ‘Less-Paper’ Office

If you’re a Partner or Principal in an accounting firm, or the owner or a manager in a business, you might not know—and you probably don’t want to know—the details of how letters are created within your business. And that’s fair enough. You have plenty of more pressing business matters to deal with. Letters? That’s why you have admin and support staff, right?

However, if yours is a business that creates a large volume of outgoing correspondence (such as an accounting firm), it would pay to do an efficiency audit on how many steps are involved in your current process for the creation, approval and sending of letters from your business.

Keep in mind that many admin and support staff won’t question or challenge the way things are done. They might be creating letters ‘the way we’ve always done them’, but you might be shocked at the inefficiency, especially if you calculate the cost of the wasted staff time across a year.

For example, if your business has 500 clients and on average you send each of them 5 standard letters per year (such as covering letters), that’s 2,500 letters. If each letter takes 15 minutes in staff time, that’s 37,500 minutes (625 hours) of time which equates to almost 17 weeks of a staff member’s time.

If you could reduce that from 15 minutes per letter down to 2 minutes—which is very possible—you’d save over 540 hours which is over 14 weeks of staff time.

I’m sure you could find higher value activities for your staff to do (such as running client surveys or producing client newsletters), rather than mess around with inefficient letter production processes.

Here are common inefficiencies we see in letter production:

• Data: Client name and address data not automatically inserted into letters

• Content: Customisation of standard letter content not automated – that is, lots of manual editing and typing

• Electronic Filing: Manual ‘Save As’ filing of letters that involves, “Pick a drive, pick a folder, pick a folder, pick a folder, pick a folder, pick a folder, ah, there’s the folder, click Save” just to save the document. Not only is this slow, misfiling is easy to do.

• Formatting: Formatting of letters not automated causing your staff to have to tidy up letters before they are ready to print or send

• Revision and Approval: Cumbersome process of printing draft letters, putting them forward for review, the reviewers marking up the printed drafts, then making the required changes, and potentially repeating the process with a second draft.

• Signing: Insertion of electronic signatures not automated

• Sending: Printing, folding, stuffing, stamping/franking, mailing of ‘snail mail’ letters (i.e. traditional post); or cumbersome processes for creating PDFs from Word documents, naming and saving the PDFs and sending the PDF documents to clients.

An efficient Document Management System automates or semi-automates all of the above.

Have a look at the following example of the way HowNow creates, files and sends letters. This is from a ‘real live’ HowNow in an accounting firm (not a demo version):

Easy_creation_of_letters_using_HowNow

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• Data: The contact’s name, address and other data is automatically inserted into the letter. HowNow pulls this data from the main database or databases used by the business (for example, the Practice Management System or CRM system), plus HowNow also allows you to create additional custom fields. In the one step, HowNow pulls this data from multiple databases. That’s pretty cool. And efficient. This means that typing and copy and pasting of this sort of information is eliminated. Not only is this faster, it removes an opportunity for error as it’s easy to make msitakes when typnig.

• Content: HowNow has a super neat feature where you can include in a letter or document template all of the optional paragraphs that could apply. For example, in a proposal or engagement letter, optional content could be headings and paragraphs about services that could potentially be included. When the user double-clicks on the letter template, a wizard appears that allows the user to select from a checklist what is applicable to this recipient. Anything not selected is automatically omitted from the resulting document that then appears in Microsoft Word. This avoids the slow a laborious process of going through the Word document and working out which paragraphs to delete. HowNow automates that completely. That’s faster and more accurate.

• Electronic Filing: HowNow eliminates the need to do the laborious ‘Save As’ process of “pick a folder, pick a folder, pick a folder” because once the user selects the client or contact and then clicks Create, not only does HowNow pull the data into the letter, it knows where and how a latter of that type should be saved. This means by the time the resulting letter appears on the screen in MS Word, it has already been filed by HowNow. Kiss that ‘Save As’ good-bye. (We know you won’t miss it.)

• Formatting: HowNow allows you to set up Master Style Templates that control the layout, look and feel of any letter or document created using that Master Style Template. Within a Master Style Template you can specify fonts, margins, headers, footers, page numbering, reference line protocols, how you want the date and address block laid out at the top of the letter, and how you want the signature block and list of enclosures formatted. You can even include your organisation’s logo and letterhead graphics so that the resulting Word documents already look like they are formatted on your letterhead. (This makes sending letters as PDFs a cinch, but more about that in Sending, below.) You can set up more than one Master Style Template. For example, if you also sometimes print letters and documents to letterhead, you’d have a version of the Master Style Template that didn’t include the logo and stationery graphics. If you have different divisions within your firm that have variations of the letterhead, you simply set up two Master Style Templates for each type of stationery in use (one without logo for printing letters, one with logo for PDF’ing letters). You can also create Master Style Templates for Fax Headers, Report formats, or any other purpose that comes to mind. The point of all this is that your staff never again need to mess around with changing fonts, margins, layouts etc. HowNow automates that 100%. If you subscribe to a HowNow Content Update Service such as HowNow Accountants, this Master Style Template functionality also means you never need to format the (‘Merge 2’ version) letters published by businessfitness. Just the body of such letters are published. Your Master Style Templates look after the rest. Easy.

• Revision Approval: When the person who prepares a letter or document closes the Word document, HowNow prompts them, “Would you like to update its Record Status?” Rather than leave the letter at Draft status, the preparer can select Review and then email a link to the person who is to proof the document. After they proof the document on-screen and then save and close the document, they too are prompted to update the Record Status. They can select Approved or if corrections are required they could choose to push it back to Draft status. When the person responsible for sending the letter out finalises and sends it, they can change the Record Status to Final. These Record Statuses of Draft > Review > Approved > Final are customisable. For example, you can create Record Statuses such as Out for Signature, Sent, etc. In the background HowNow automatically records an Audit Trail of who created the document in the first place; whether they changed the status and when; who they emailed the link to; who else opened or edited the document; who marked the document as Approved; who made it Final; who printed or PDF’ed or emailed the document; and so on. These are benefits you just don’t get when you have an letter and document approval process that happens pen-on-paper. You lose all of the workflow and QA information. Using HowNow for on-screen review and approval of letters and documents, not only is it faster and more accurate, you get bullet-proof QA process and audit trail. Comforting.

• Signing: If you’re still manually signing letters pen-on-paper you’re welcome to join us in the new millennium any time you’re ready. Just kidding. Kind of. Signing letters on paper has the same ‘no audit trail’ disadvantages mentioned about reviewing and approving letters. It’s also slower. Ever seen a pile of letters sitting on a Director’s desk awaiting signature? Ever been one of the people waiting on that perennial bottleneck? If your clients would like to receive correspondence electronically (e.g. as PDF documents via email or via download from a web portal), then you should be signing those letters on-screen. It’s insanely inefficient to be printing out letters which to that point have been created efficiently on-screen. This traditional (now old fashioned) approach involves someone printing the letters, getting them from the printer, putting them in your In Tray, coming in to get them later, seeing that you haven’t signed them yet, coming back later to check again, and so on. That’s business at glacial speed. With a few clicks you can electronically sign your letters, including the inclusion of a scan of your handwritten signature that, if done properly, looks to the recipient like you signed it by hand. It looks very professional, you have the event of signing it automatically recorded in the audit trail for the document, and it’s all so easy, once you know how.

• Sending: More and more firms are sending correspondence electronically as PDF documents, whether by email or the web. If you’re still sending a lot of your correspondence via printed and mailed ‘snail mail’, ask your clients if they’d prefer to receive it electronically. Many people do. That’s because it’s often easier to file and later find documents that are stored on a computer or in a web mail system like Gmail. Keyword search is a beautiful thing. For the firm, it’s also faster, saves paper/trees, saves postage, saves the folding/stuffing/franking process and shows you’re up-to-date with technology. An efficient Document Management System should make it quick and simple to create and send PDF documents. In HowNow, you can right-click on a letter, select Email As PDF and in the one automated process HowNow will open the MS Word document, print it to PDF, close the MS Word document, open an email, insert the recipient’s email address in the To: field, insert the Subject line in the email and attached the PDF to the email, ready for you to type a brief message before clicking Send. If you’re into efficiency, that will excite you. That process leaves the original document in MS Word format, which is often handy. (Any document marked as ‘Final’ in HowNow cannot be edited anyway.) When you click Send on the email, if you’re running HowNow Email Manager, you’ll be prompted whether you wish to save the email under the Contact as well. A few clicks later and you’ve saved the record of act of sending the document to the client. That’s thorough record keeping. It also helps find the correspondence in the future if the client ever asks for a copy of it again. If you prefer to keep the finalised original on your system as a PDF instead of in MS Word format, you just right-click it and select Convert to PDF.

If you’re a HowNow user and you have any questions about how to implement any of the above, just email support[at]businessfitness.net or call us on 1300 333 424.

How to (finally) achieve standard file naming protocols in your accounting firm or SME business

Have you ever attempted to achieve a standard electronic file naming protocol for your firm? For example, a standard way of naming and saving certain types of letters (whether Word and/or PDF documents), or working papers (Excel files) so that no matter who saved a file, the file name makes sense to everyone else in the firm?

For example, you might want a standard phrase or acronym used consistently in file names of a certain type. In an accounting firm, an Individual Tax Return could also be referred to as an ‘i-return’, ‘I return’, ‘tax return’, ‘ITR’, and so on. Such inconsistencies in file names make it more difficult for people to find what they are looking for when they are running their eye down a list of files on screen. It is sometimes useful too, to include the client name or entity name in a file name, especially if it is later emailed as an attachment to a client who has multiple entities such as their individual needs, their companies, trusts, and so on.

Chances are, if your approach to achieving standardised file naming relied on team members having to (1) remember to apply the file naming protocol when saving documents, and/or (2) having to manually type the file naming protocol, you probably didn’t achieve your aim of having consistent file naming across your firm or business.

You had human nature working against you.

People are normally too busy in the midst of their day, meeting client deadlines, chasing productivity targets, returning calls and getting through their emails, to have the time or discipline to stick to file naming protocols. Even if you had the most disciplined team members on the planet, there would be variations (not to mention errors) due to the manual data entry.

So what’s the solution?

Automate it!

There is a principle in product design called user transparency. This refers to users receiving the benefits of a new technology, without having to change their behaviour or learn new skills. For example, as Paul Zane Pilzer points out in his book Unlimited Wealth, car drivers did not have to change the way they drove in order to benefit from electronic fuel injection technology when it came in to supersede carburettor technology.

This is what’s needed in order to achieve standardised electronic file naming protocols in an organisation.

The outcome should be achieved through automation, so that users do not have to remember to apply or manually type out the required file names.

A good Document Management System achieves this level of automation.

For example, templates stored in the Knowledge area of HowNow can be easily set up to automatically name the documents (e.g. Word or Excel files) that are created using the templates. This is done simply by entering information in the Default Record Title field in the Profile of the template. This means that whenever a person creates a document by using that template, HowNow will automatically take care of naming the file (‘record) according to the specified file naming protocol.

Your organisation achieves the end result but without the need for training, reminding and cajoling staff. Everyone wins.

A nice aspect of the Default Record Title feature in HowNow, is that you can include variables such as Client Code, Entity Name, Date and so on, which will automatically insert that data into the file name, based on the client or contact selected.

Following is a quick video to put some pictures to those words. Please note that this video is of a real-life HowNow installation within an accounting firm, not a ‘demo version’, hence the firm name and firm letterhead displayed in the video:

Automating_Your_Electronic_File_Naming_Protocols

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Please contact us if you would like more information about how to automate the file naming protocols in your organisation.

Free Webinar – How to Manage a Compliance Assignment in a Low or No Paper Environment

At our November 2009 HowNow User Groups conducted around Australia, one of the most popular sessions was Managing a Compliance Assignment in a Low or No Paper Environment.

Presented by one of our Client Managers, Jenelle Schultz who is fresh out of working in public practice, the session ran through the on-screen practicalities of completing a compliance assignment, right from initial collecting and collating of client data, through to setting up electronic working papers under the client, through to managing and tracking client queries, to presenting a job for final review, reviewing a job on-screen and completion of the assignment.

Jenelle stepped through a range of tips including a simple Excel tip about how to quickly and easily email a specific worksheet (and not the whole workbook) to a client with client queries documented. (That tip drew ‘Wow’ comments from the audience.)

Due to the popularity of Jenelle’s session, we will be presenting it in a free webinar (online seminar) format on Wednesday 9 December 2009. If you’d like to attend that, you can register for free here, regardless of whether you are a businessfitness client or HowNow user.

Whilst we will be using all of the HowNow Document Management modules during this webinar, the techniques presented could be used in other applications. If you’re a HowNow user, the session will help you more effectively implement the ‘less paper’ approaches in your work, and if you’re not a HowNow user, there will be plenty of take home value regardless. The session will also give some insight into the value our clients receive from the ongoing education we provide clients, not just in using HowNow, but in looking at ‘the big picture’ of how to run a ‘less paper’ accounting firm.

Jenelle will step through a number of techniques which allow you to work with electronic accounting workpapers (i.e. Excel templates) on-screen, as well as other resources in a similar way to how you and your team work with manual paper workpapers. Having worked in both ‘the old paper ways’ and ‘the new paperless ways’, Jenelle can relate to the common challenges firms and individuals face as they move towards a low or no paper environment.

We always keep firmly in the front of our minds that ‘going paperless’ is not an end in itself, but rather improved efficiency and effectiveness are the aims. In this session you’ll see how efficient and automated many of the steps in an assignment can be, when done on-screen instead of on paper.

Register for the free webinar

Cool Tool: CubeTree enterprise collaboration suite

There’s a little-known optional feature in HowNow called the ‘Intranet’ tab. This is a screen you can switch on in your firm’s HowNow that can display a web site, such as your firm’s own site, or a 3rd party web site or web application.

In the following video you’ll see a brief example of the use of the Intranet tab in HowNow to display ‘CubeTree’. Please note that this is an example for a “real life” accounting firm in their use of HowNow, hence the mention of the firm’s name and some particulars …

Intranet_tab_in_HowNow_-_CubeTree_Example

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CubeTree is like ‘Facebook for your business’, only a lot more useful and productivity focused! It’s a platform for sharing information across your organisation using status updates (‘micro blogging’), blogs, wiki pages, polls, link and photo sharing, and more.

CubeTree is not related to businessfitness or HowNow. It is simply shown here as an example of the way one particular firm is using the Intranet tab in HowNow.

Why you shouldn’t use your email inbox as a Task or To Do list

You may have heard or, better yet, read, the brilliant book by David Allen called Getting Things Done – The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

Known widely as ‘GTD’, Allen’s methodology for staying on top of all the information, tasks and commitments in our lives consists of a number of simple but effective principles. (You can read a primer on GTD here.)

One of Allen’s GTD principles is optimising (which usually means reducing) the number of ‘collection buckets’ we have in our life. ‘Collection buckets’ are places we have to check to see what we have to do next, or tomorrow, or next week, and so on. It’s all about getting things out of our heads and recorded externally. This frees up ‘brain space’ for real thinking, rather than thinking (and re-thinking) about all the things you must remember to do. This includes tasks (and project plans) that are on paper, on your computer, on your smart phone, on your wall, on the back of your hand, and so on.

There are a number of very good reasons why your email inbox is not well suited to being one of these collection buckets. Email was simply not designed to be a task or ‘to do’ list. It doesn’t do it very well.

Ever had something ‘fall through the cracks’, only to later find it buried deep in your inbox amidst many other not-nearly-as-important emails?

We won’t go into all the reasons in this article (read the GTD book to fully understand it) but for now accept that you need a dedicated Tasks list outside of your email inbox. In a workplace context, this Task list also needs to facilitate tracking tasks you have delegated to others, as well as tasks that are in the ‘Someday, maybe’ category with no hard and fast due date as yet.

Importantly, your Tasks list also needs to be a centrally stored, shareable, filterable and keyword searchable Tasks list so that it’s not only on your computer. It’s vital that your work colleagues can see what’s on your list, in case you’re away, sick or otherwise incapacitated, and just generally to facilitate better information sharing and collaboration within your team.

If you accept that there’s a need to get things out of your email inbox and onto your Tasks list, that begs the question, how can that be done as quickly and efficiently as possible?

We firmly believe that you need a Tasks list system that is integrated with your organisation’s centralised Email Management System where all emails are stored. The Email Management System must be integrated with your overall Document Management System (email is, after all, just one type of document) and must link in with the email inbox system your organisation uses, such as Microsoft Outlook.

We designed HowNow to tick all these boxes.

Let’s step you through the process from getting an actionable email from your inbox onto your Tasks list when you use HowNow …

When you send or receive an email, you are prompted ‘Would you like to add this email to HowNow?’ Click ‘Yes’ and complete a brief filing wizard and the email is then stored centrally under the relevant contact or area. At this point the email is now stored in the Document Management System. (In HowNow terminology, that’s the Records screen.)

To create a Task off the back of such an email you right-click the email and select Create Follow Up Task. You then select the person who is to complete that Task and a Due Date, and the Task is added to that person’s Tasks list in HowNow. Simple. The Task automatically includes a link back to the original email.

The following is a video showing how easy this is to do. Note that this video was recorded on a ‘real life’ HowNow within an accounting firm, not just on a ‘demo version’, hence the appearance of a firm name and some particulars.:

Creating_Follow_Up_Tasks_in_HowNow

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It’s doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Or does it?

In HowNow version 3.2 which is to be released in early 2010, the filing of the email and the creation of the Follow Up Task can be done in the one step.

As we say, “HowNow, how easy!”

Why Document Management for Accounting Firms?

You may or may not be surprised to learn that a typical accounting firm produces approximately 10,000 documents and emails per year. On top of that, a typical accounting firm is also receiving in excess of 50,000 documents and emails per year for every Partner in the firm.

Paper based systems struggle to cope with the shear volume of this and more and more firms are turning to software for a solution. While Windows Explorer is a commonly used alternative to paper filing, it is a bandaid solution at best and definitely not a long term method of managing such a large volume of documents and emails.

Any system that bases its storage and retrieval of documents simply on saving to and later browsing through a folder (directory) storage system is nothing more than a large ‘virtual’ electronic filing cabinet. The documents are there, but they can be slow to find, and are easily misfiled and are not sufficiently managed and controlled.

In the context of an accounting firm, a Document Management System should facilitate not only the filing of documents, emails, scanned mail and clients’ MYOB files, but it should also facilitate the creation of documents from standardised templates used throughout the firm. Imagine the efficiency gains and peace of mind that is instantly achieved by setting exactly what a document should be named and where it should be filed, for each template your staff members create documents from. You can eliminate the need for a team member to do a ‘Save As’ and click their way through a folder structure to decide where to file a client document, and what to name it.

These are just some of the things that an accounting firms’ Document/Knowledge Management System should be capable of doing. For more information on what a Document Management System could do for your firm, email us at hownow@businessfitness.net

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly® of the Accounting Profession

Survey Now Open!

The 2009 Good Bad Ugly® survey is now open for free participation for Australian Accounting Firms. The survey takes approximately 25 minutes to complete if you have the required information at hand.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly® of the Accounting Profession Benchmark Survey is Australia’s leading industry benchmarking survey of the Accounting Profession. As a thank you for completing the survey, your firm will receive complimentary;

• How Does Your Firm Compare Report
• Your Firm’s Efficieny Factor Rating Report

These reports are valued at $450 and yours free for participating in the Good Bad Ugly® survey.

** Survey has been extended and will close 7pm Monday 7th September, click here to participate.

Recorded HowNow Demonstrations Available Now

Historically at businessfitness, we have delivered all HowNow Demonstrations one-on-one over the web. Our recently implemented clients have given us feedback that this process can be a time consuming and expensive exercise for firms to undertake. As a solution, we have created a page on this website containing short recordings on each module of HowNow, as well as an Overview video. This page has been password protected, so to gain access to this page you can contact us for the password. Once you have viewed each of the videos, and have a good understanding of HowNow, you can book a Q&A session with a businessfitness staff member to discuss your particular needs from a Document Management System, and how HowNow can help.

Click here to request the password for the Demo Video’s page.

HowNow Overview Available

We are in the process of creating videos to demonstrate and explain the HowNow Document Management System, and Accountants Content Documents. This is the first in a series of recordings that will be placed within a special page designed for demonstration videos. You can click here to request access to the page.

22 Red Flag Phrases that mean your Business needs a Document Management System

This is a white paper that has been written for accounting firms and small businesses to determine whether they need a Document Management System (DMS) implemented within their business. It includes common problems that arise from not having a DMS, how you can rectify the issue and a general explanation of the benefits of using a DMS.

Do you find yourself saying these phrases?

“I can’t remember where I saved that file”

“Where would he/she have saved that file?”

“I don’t know what emails have been sent to this client”

“I’ll dig that up and get back to you”

“I wish I could see all files for this client on the one screen”

“Training new staff is so time consuming”

If you find yourself saying these phrases often within your company and would like to request the entire white paper, please go to our Evaluation Resources page to download your copy.