Accounting practice management software (PMS) helps manage and streamline your companies’ front and back-office processes. You can use the software to manage client work from start to finish, use it as a center to develop and track the progress of upcoming projects, automate operations—the list goes on!
Accounting practice management software is commonly used by accounting or tax professionals, CAs, and bookkeepers to manage projects and collaborate with clients.
But what exactly does a practice management software do? What are its features, and what purpose does it serve? Let’s find out!
Purpose of Practice Management Software
A practice management software system is where a firm’s operations are recorded and actioned, from workflow tasks, proposals, and payments to producing reports and client communications.
Moreover, the right practice management software not only increases your productivity by 30% but can also help you save up to $12k annually for your 10-member team.
A few more key purposes that practice management software serves for your business are:
Reduce Manual Tasks
A financial department, on average, uses approximately 60% of its resources on manual processes.
Practice management software improves day-to-day operations by eliminating repetitive and time-consuming chores like manual billing or data input. This allows you to boost your efficiency and focus on more strategic work.
Streamline Workflow
Practice management software helps streamline, standardize, or automate workflows to give greater consistency across repeated tasks and lower the chance of errors.
Plus, you can manage and monitor bills and invoices within the platform, reducing the need to work across various systems.
Increase Efficiency
A practice management system, such as Cone, allows you to consolidate core business processes and procedures into a single system, increasing efficiency and accessibility to critical information.
Using a single central system, your teams may track project status, handle customer registrations, organize billing and invoicing, and exchange information with team members.
Furthermore, you do not need to replicate your data across many platforms, saving time and giving a single source of truth.
Enhance Collaboration
Practice management software enables teams to effortlessly access, update, and share information in real-time, facilitating cooperation and communication.
It can also streamline client management by centralizing client information and communications, such as contracts, proposals, or bills delivered and payments received or outstanding.
This central hub can assist your team in achieving better accountability and visibility, as well as ensure that your client communications are timely and accurate.
Top 7 Things to Look for in a Practice Management Software
A practice management solution is typically adopted to increase overall service and project delivery organization, communication, and efficiency.
A solid practice management platform will also serve as a one-stop shop for tracking and controlling the firm’s performance across processes, workflows, and finances.
So, here are some things you should be on the lookout for when choosing software:
- Automated Reminders: Your practice management system should enable automatic appointment reminders via phone, email, and text message. It can improve your no-show rates while concurrently reducing staff workload.
- Document Management: It replaces your filing cabinets and overflowing file folders, allowing you to store copies in secure cloud locations. Also, through seamless collaboration, document management software saves you time.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A practice management software integrated with a modern CRM system can help manage your client’s entire journey, beginning with their status as a lead. With automation, you can file casework, upload documents, assign duties based on their profile, and increase productivity.
- Project Management: Integrating project management into your software can help you run your accounting business more smoothly. It makes your routine tasks like accounting and managing employees easier. Plus, it enables you to view pending, completed, and active tasks. You can also track their assignees and estimated completion time.
- Customization: The software should permit you to rebrand the application as per your brand. Some software, such as Cone, also provides you with customizable proposal templates and branded apps to improve client experience.
- Track Time: The software should also allow you to keep track of the total number of hours worked on each client’s account, allowing you to generate rapid and accurate bills.
- Client Management: It consolidates all of your client’s data into one location, including the client directory, contact information, potential clients, invoices (sent, signed, and unsigned), documents, and all interactions. With Cone, you get a custom-branded client management portal that allows for secure communication, document sharing, e-signature, and invoicing, among other things.
Enhance Your Business Operations
Practice management software improves the experience for both your team and your clients by reducing administrative burden. As businesses grow and become more complicated, optimizing practice management processes becomes increasingly important to deliver effective and profitable client engagements.
If you’re not sure about the right practice management software for your business, we recommend using Cone. It is an all-in-one practice management solution that replaces more than eight pieces of software you may be using to increase your productivity and the satisfaction of your clients.
Sign up now and experience how practice management software can transform your business!