As a busy accounting or bookkeeping professional, let’s assume that you’ve weighed the pros and cons of automating your bookkeeping or accounting workload. You’re onboard. Great, so what’s the next step?
Introducing a new method or workflow is always a sticky process. You’re worried about what could go wrong and how much time you’re going to lose until you learn the new process. And if you’re a bookkeeper or accountant with an established client base, how do you onboard your customers to the new way of doing things without disrupting them too much? And the big question: is bookkeeping automation software really worth adopting into your work process?
1) Humans are Resistant to Change – Unless it Benefits Them Right Away
While people may be hesitant to trying something new (“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind), with change comes ways to improve your position or gain an advantage that you couldn’t get at before.
The new trend towards bookkeeping automation is exactly just that. By allowing software to automate repetitive tasks that no one likes to do, today’s modern bookkeeper stands to gain significant advantages.
If you’re already a believer in the bookkeeping automation package that you’ve selected, what you need to do now is demonstrate how it’s going to improve the worklife of your clients.3 Steps to Pitch
Try to show instead of telling your clients. Can you arrange for a webinar, or record a video that they can playback at their leisure? What about a one-pager that spells out how to use the software’s major features? Many apps and software vendors can help you put together this material so you’re not flying solo.
By giving your clients a way to make an early and quick win using the new bookkeeping tool, you stand a very good chance to turn them into converts to this new way of doing things. Something like how to take a photo of a bill and send it to the cloud works, and it can be done in less than 2 minutes, like this video we made for LedgerDocs.
Your clients will then be able to envision how they can use the technology to make their bookkeeping tasks easier and less of a hassle. Come up with a way to show them how easy your new process is to use, and they’ll convert into a believer.
2) Build a Short Case Study for Automation Benefits
Bringing in that first client to use a new process is always harder than the rest. Usually, you’re still learning how to use the software or get up to speed on the way things work. When you show the new way of doing things to your first client, you want to be as seasoned and polished as possible to them.
Write up a short document that outlines how clients in your sector(s) could use bookkeeping automation software to get ahead. For example, when we saw that our LedgerDocs bookkeeping automation solution increased efficiency for bookkeepers by 30%, we created a graphic and shared it online:
You can either use similar studies like this example, or come up with your own showing the end results and improvements to the client’s work process (saving time, reducing inefficiency, providing peace of mind, etc.)
3) Tell Your Side of the Story
Clients trust your word. Why not illustrate how you used the automation yourself to get more productive, or ease your workload?
Example: a bookkeeper uses LedgerDocs to automate reminders to their clients about submitting important documents every month. When those documents are uploaded to their LedgerDocs Inbox, the bookkeeper receives an instant notification that it’s arrived. When it doesn’t show up on time, a friendly nudge is sent to the client via email.
How many times have you lost a minute here or there to unresponsive clients? Add all those minutes up over the course of a year and you could be looking at a considerable amount of time. We know; we were in that same situation.
This personal insight into your internal work process can go a long way to showing your client how you have also “swallowed the Kool-Aid”, so to speak. If your gains are evident using your bookkeeping automation tool, the client has a very powerful example to consider.
If you’re just starting to consider using bookkeeping automation to boost your efficiency, try a 14-day free trial of LedgerDocs. Test drive it and see how it can help you do more with your work day.
