and how to get unstuck.
by seth fineberg
special for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
“what gets scheduled, gets done” is something i recently heard an accountant say. when it comes to feeling bogged down, there are no truer words in my opinion, but how many practitioners actually carve out time to just get unstuck?
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through all of my years covering the profession, year in and year out the largest blocker for most firms (which happen to be of the smaller variety) is time. not just the construct, but actually using time in the best possible way, which is a practice that seems to elude most accountants.
specifically, when asked what prevents accountants from being more efficient and evaluating new technology that would help with multiple tasks or even firing “bad” clients, the answer was almost always, “i never seem to have the time” or, more sardonically, “yeah, go find the time to do that.”
so, what seems to get in the way the most and truly bog accountants down? well, if you are an owner or key decision-maker at a small firm, the things i hear again and again are:
- time management
- finding and retaining staff
- dealing with (prep to completion) “busy season”
- finding and learning new technology
- tending to “bad” clients
how do these blockers happen? not to point fingers, but look in the mirror. accountants allow themselves to become bogged down simply by not putting the time in to deal with it. back to my original quote, no matter what you think bogs you down in your work life, it all starts with actually scheduling in the time to get “unstuck.”
some processes have been in place for years, in some cases, that no longer make sense. maybe it is time to automate even just one task, and right now, when you’re all taking a breath from the past two-and-a-half years, is the best time to actually schedule that in.
seriously, go to your calendars, your schedulers, your practice management system or whatever you have in place to remind you to do something in a given day, and block it out. in short, block out the time to get unblocked!
here’s another, but related conundrum in the being bogged down discussion: having the time to simply evaluate inefficient processes or clients that really need to go, begs the question of what to do with that time. few accountants have thought that far ahead, so let’s give it a go:
what if you weren’t bogged down and had more fulfillment, less client-service work, weren’t reliant on the bad clients and could upsell existing clients?
start by framing the problem and looking at your people and your processes. certainly, technology available today can solve the process problem so firms can focus time and bandwidth on people problems.
but it would help if you first asked yourself the following questions:
- what are you hearing/seeing as your main blockers? what tends to get in the way the most?
- similarly, what problems (or of these blockers) are “self-created”?
- at the same time, what is the one main achievement you’d like to accomplish in the coming year (if you were unblocked)?
- do you know or even have a list of the clients that you would like to fire if you could? also, ask why.
- why do you think your firm isn’t “productizing” its services the way many vendors in the space do?
in the end, there are no real quick fixes to helping firm leaders get out of their own way. if you’re bogged down by processes, time-sucking clients who do not support your practice, or any of the aforementioned blockers keeping you from being more efficient and actually making the most of your time or even growing as a business, the next step can still be a small one.
we’re in an age of untold wealth when it comes to solutions to so many firm problems. at the same time, looking all at once at the myriad of technology choices or problems to fix all at once is, in and of itself, a large blocker. you all do it, and it’s ok.
so, to take that small step before yet another busy season comes your way ask yourself, ask your staff: if you could change one thing about your practice what would it be?