Does Your App Stack Resemble Our Landscaping Equipment?
Oh, dear!
It may not look like it, but our golf-cart-child-wagon combo is heckishly convenient and fun for small jobs - and for my doggos - they love a golf cart ride. Heck, who doesn’t love a golf cart ride⁉️
But it’s not the most efficient setup for actual yard work. It is simple for small one-off jobs like taking away downed twigs and garden debris. Quick, no fuss, toss a bag of plant material in the back and off we go, simple.
The girls and I took a break from writing this and went down our lane to collect the mail. The golf cart feels like a spreadsheet - comfortable, simple, fun, and useful when deployed under the right circumstances. We may or may not also use it for toting around cocktail coolers…
But we actually do have a pick-up truck that we can haul away our leaves and detritus from the Spring and Fall clean-ups. And we invested in some decent yard equipment last year. We bought a rechargeable electric mower, a weed-whacker and a leaf blower; all of which we love. Well, maybe we don’t love everything about the leaf blower - there’s no getting around the fact that it is loud.
When we decided we needed to invest in the new equipment, we tossed the idea of new-fangled technology around for a while. A long while… We overthought what the rechargeable electric options would feel like for us. We dillied & dallied about whether they would have enough power to do a good job. We perseverated on whether we would be able to get a decent amount of work done on the batteries’ charge. We dinked about wondering if we should get the DeWalt brand since that’s the manufacturer of some of our tools, thinking we could interchange batteries.
By the time we decided to move ahead, we were in the throws of “supply chain chaos,” so DeWalt had no inventory.
Oh, and our current equipment had died.
You may notice I keep saying “we” in the decision stalling. One of the things we did not do was segregate the investigations, and we should have. It didn’t require both of us to see what was out there, decide what we favoured and go check it all out. We should have left the initial work to one of us and had them come back to the other with the shortlist.
I bet the overthinking and the lack of a champion on the technology vetting sounds familiar.
You have a system and technology cobbled together that are getting the job done
You are busy, so you keep riding along with what you have
You ask your friends what they like, even though their firm is nothing like yours
You have group consultations where nothing gets decided
You kind of decide you are going to set something up, and something shinier appears
You are scared of new technology even though the traditional systems are not being updated
Inefficient, outdated and broken, you keep chugging along because you are stuck on how to move forward.
Change is hard. Not changing will be harder. ™️
Our lawnmower and weed wacker died, our leaf guy retired (we never had a leafblower, we had a people), and we had not made a move on getting new stuff into place. We were backed into a wall and forced to act. So we did what we should have done four years previous. We decided Jeff would go and check them all out by himself and make a choice he felt confident in. He read a few reviews, then went to three places and discussed the options, and got demos of their offerings. He called me from the shop where he felt best about the equipment to give me the final run down, and away we went.
And it turns out he made great choices! We love our rechargeable, electric lawn toys. They start easily, we don’t have to refill messily with the stinky gas can (which, of course, we have let run dry), they do a great job, they are super quiet (save the blower), they are light to maneuver, and they are easy to store. There was a slight learning curve on remembering to exchange batteries and to plug them into the charger when we were done using them and on how to unfold the lawn mower (okay, not we - just me). But other than that, we were like, “Where has this stuff been all our home-owner lives”.
I know lots of folks have hesitation in making the leap to cloud technology, the analogy equivalent of rechargeable electric lawn equipment. But I know very few folks who have regretted finally taking the leap - even when it’s been one of blind faith.
Like the golf cart is to the spreadsheet, you don’t have to give up all of the old-fangled ways that work. I have a few spreadsheets I live and die by - my not-client-work to-do list, my quick links sheet, and my speaking gigs sheet, to name a few.
But you do need to move to new tech if you are going to build an efficient firm you love.
Getting by without some sort of practice management app if you have more than a handful of clients is a hassle, the work is inconsistent, and stuff is going to fall through the cracks. Booking meetings through a ten-email chain is a time suck. Gathering information without a form builder is a lousy client experience, and information is siloed.
You get the idea; there is a ton of great tech out there to make our lives joyous! Get to know it! Learn to embrace it!
Here is an article on the Keys To Building A Tech Stack For Cloud Accounting Firms.
And here is one on technology, Systems And Automation I Love.
And tomorrow, I have a session with Dext and Financial Cents on All the Apps You Need to Run a Successful Virtual Firm. Register even if you can’t join us so you get the recording and the slide deck :-}
I get it, it’s hard to make a leap of faith on moving to new technology, but it is better to be the master of your change than experience the fallout of not making your moves until you are desperate*!
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Featured Template ~~~
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Let’s go with a Financial Cents template this week since I’m doing a webbie with them and Dext tomorrow.
Onboarding a new client is an opportunity to set the stage for a collaborative relationship.
Drop the ball during this critical process, and they may question their decision to add you to their trusted business team. Not to mention the wasted time and energy for you.
It takes immense energy and time for you to get the processes & systems mapped out tightly.
Luckily for you, we’ve already done all the leg work! Created by accounting professionals who know and love Financial Cents, these templates make onboarding your new client harmonious and efficient.
What You Get:
• Email templates
• Google Form questionnaires with logic jumps (to vet the fit of prospective clients and gather key information)
• Contracts (need to be legally vetted for your region)
• Best Practice Notes
• Checklists of tasks & to-dos
This is a kickin’ start-to-finish onboarding system: vet clients, gather info, engage and integrate with your existing tech stack.
• Video walkthrough
Join Your Peers Here
- Dext & Financial Cents Present All the Apps You Need to Run a Successful Virtual Firm
Thursday, July 27th, 2023
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
There are a lot of apps being used by accountants and bookkeepers, and app fatigue is real.
How do you know which apps in the space will benefit your business? You may not even realize how many apps you're currently using - from accounting software and online document managers to online schedulers and zoom
Join Dext, Financial Cents and moi, on July 27th as we discuss navigating the wide world of apps and how to pick the right tech stack for your business.
Sociable
- said in your head in a loud sing-songy voice
Nayo Carter-Gray posted on #TaxTwitter expressing her gratitude of community and it holding us accountable.
#TaxTwitter Do you have someone in your inner circle that challenges or disagrees with you? If not then you have a bubble 🫧 and not a community. Your ⭕️ of influence should make you better, not agree with you 💯 Their job is to help stretch your current way of thinking 1/3
Nayo knows about community - she is a builder! You should check out her Taking Your Firm Virtual Summit coming up!
I have been invited to host a session - “Onboarding With Confidence”. Yay, I love this topic!
Simply yours, Kellie :-}
::Shameless Call To Action::
I sell bookkeeping templates, standard operating process handbooks and client guides.
15% off discount code: BLOG
We were desparate on our lawn. After the mower died, the lawn got out of control and we had to hire someone to tame it. Classic case of spending extra money because we stalled on investing in new tech!
