What are the best tech tools for accounting firms to set up virtual offices?
Due to COVID-19, almost every firm has had to shift to a virtual office. What are your suggestions for an accounting firm in particular? How can we use these tools to stay productive and efficient?
We recently did a survey to determine which tools were used predominantly by small accounting firms. The study looked at it from 2 different perspectives. One was how important they thought a given type of product was and the second was what they used.
The answers were very enlightening but not surprising. Very few of them were using accounting practice management software. In short, the top 4 types of software products most used other than the accounting software itself in order of most used are:
1. Time Tracking
2. Estimates, Quotes, and contract creation and
3. Project management
4. CRM
It was disappointing that the top tool used for Time tracking and project management was Excel and for estimates, quotes, and contract creation was MS Word. This goes to show that there is some room for process improvement.
If you look at what most consider important, the order of the top 4 is
1. Project management
2. Time Tracking
3. Microsoft CRM software
4. Estimates, quotes, and contract creation