Is poor communication holding your firm back? Find out (and how to improve).
Summary
Effective communication in accounting, tax and CPA firms can improve client relationships, build trust, and save time.
Poor communication practices can cost accounting firms tens of thousands of dollars each year in inefficiencies and out-of-scope work.
If your firm is suffering from siloed communication, missed deadlines, and out-of-scope and over-budget work, you may need to address how, where and why you communicate.
Understanding your current communication challenges and introducing the right communication tools will help you, your firm, team and clients save time and build trust.
Communication is a key pillar of your accounting firm. It should be an area you are continuously working to improve. Without it, your firm is a mess of mixed messages, unmotivated staff and unhappy clients.
But you already know that.
Most accounting firm owners know communication is important as a general concept, but lack the in-depth knowledge of its true power.
But when you communicate clearly, early, often, and in the right places, you will align your team, ease client anxiety, and save time and money.
Do you know if your staff are communicating enough, at the right times and via the right methods?
“The main characteristic that distinguishes leading accounting firms is a desire to communicate with their clients on a regular basis about things other than what keeps them compliant.”
Here are some reasons why enabling robust communication is one of the most important and powerful things that you can do for your accounting firm.
Benefits of strong communication in accounting
Early communication eases client anxiety
It’s simple: communicating early with your clients will put them at ease. Calm clients are happy clients.
By getting in early, you will:
Confirm that you are addressing any industry changes, milestones, etc. related to their affairs
Set expectations around when they will hear back from you and what the next steps will be
Calm their anxieties by giving them confidence that you haven’t forgotten about them
Your firm is dealing with your clients’ financial information, accounting data, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and financial reporting—it’s critical that they’re confident in your abilities. Proactive communication helps ease their concerns.
Plus, by getting in early, you’ll increase your team’s productivity. They can divert resources away from fielding anxious client emails and calls, and direct them to actions and output.
Communication builds trust
When you communicate with your clients, you are building your relationship. Clear and honest communication helps them trust you.
Communicate early, and communicate often—even when there isn’t much to say.
Jim Buffington from Intuit Accountants explains that when dealing with uncertainties, any type of communication is better than no communication at all.
“The firms that communicated as much as they knew often and early had much better experiences with their clients during the pandemic,” says Jim.
Another way to build trust (and grow your client base) is via content marketing. By producing useful content for your clients and prospects, you’re demonstrating that you:
Understand their needs
Are tuned-in to the industry
Can provide them with useful (and free) tips
According to Karen Reyburn from The Profitable Firm, the firms that made it easier on themselves and their clients during a period of extreme difficulty—i.e. the pandemic—were the ones that “communicated to their clients via content. They wrote blogs, they sent emails, they recorded videos, they posted on social media.”
Clear internal communication will boost culture and strengthen your company
A motivated workforce is well-informed and aligned. If you are not frequently communicating with your staff, you are missing out on opportunities to strengthen your business.
With more teams working remotely than ever before, this has never been more important. Keeping remote employees motivated is a mixture of enablement and two-way communication. One-way communication won’t cut it.
How to tell if your communication practices are lacking
Your clients and team communicate in individual and siloed inboxes
If your team members are operating in their inboxes, they’re operating in silos.
This means all their client communications are only visible to them, which makes it difficult for your firm to be transparent and agile.
How will you know what was last said to a client? How will you cover staff members when they’re sick or on leave? How will you seamlessly hand over client relationships to new hires?
Your projects have unclear deadlines
Setting expectations across all project stakeholders with clear communication is critical. If you’re not communicating clear deadlines with your clients and team, and if your team isn’t communicating clear deadlines with clients, your projects will fall behind and over budget.
If scope creep is one of your biggest issues, then perhaps your communication practices are lacking. Are you communicating clearly enough to clients? Are you setting expectations around timelines and roles, both internally and externally? Is all communication visible firm-wide?
Your team members and clients are consistently communicating back and forth due to unclear processes
Your firm’s processes are a critical form of communication. If these aren’t clearly documented, standardized and accessible, they’ll cause more issues than they solve. When your team members constantly need to clarify unclear processes both internally and externally, they’re operating inefficiently.
There’s always confusion surrounding the progress and status of work
If your team can’t clearly articulate the status of a job because they’re not sure where it’s up to, chances are that there’s room for improvement around your firm’s communication practices.
It’s difficult to collaborate with your remote employees in different time zones
These days, technology has made cross-time zone collaboration an effective way to run and grow your firm. But communication challenges across remote accounting teams are not uncommon. If you struggle to effectively collaborate with your remote staff members, your communication and collaboration techniques likely require tweaking.
Common communication channels for accountants
Common one-way and two-way communication channels at accounting firms
Email
Most of the communication with clients happens via email.
For firms that use an accounting practice management tool that integrates with each team member’s inbox, every client email gets directly attached to the respective client’s individual activity timeline.
This keeps a communication record, and removes siloed communication practices so you’ll always have visibility into how your team is communicating with clients.
Comments and @mentions
Firms with accounting project management software or an accounting practice management tool that enables collaboration on emails and work are able to communicate in-context.
They’re collaborating where the work is happening, which means they’re reducing context-switching, consolidating communications, and eliminating the need for internal email.
Client portal
A secure online client portal is a crucial place for accountants to request information and documentation from their clients, and for the clients to provide what’s required of them.
Video calls
For remote or hybrid accounting firms, a secure and reliable video communications platform is critical for establishing and fostering client relationships.
Text messages
Some accounting firms communicate with their clients via text, particularly if they’re sending a reminder or providing a brief status update.
Phone calls
Sometimes, you just need to pick up the phone. For accountants, a complex issue might be easier to explain to a client on a quick phone call, rather than a lengthy email.
Chatbots
Some accounting firms are using AI chatbots on their websites to capture new leads. For example, they might design a chatbot that encourages visitors to book a discovery meeting with the firm.
How accounting firms and teams can improve communication
Understand the current situation
Before you can improve your firm’s communication practices, it’s important to first understand what’s happening today. How is your team currently communicating with clients? Is there any existing standardization with your communication practices, or is it ad-hoc depending on the team member or client?
It’s important to bring your team into the discussion—after all, they’re the ones who know how they communicate and why. Ask them if there are certain communication practices that work well, don’t work well, and if there are any that are ineffective or waste time.
Don’t forget about soft skills
Good communication skills underpin your entire firm’s communications strategy. Everyone on your team should be able to express information and ideas verbally, particularly in face-to-face situations.
The importance of verbal communication skills can’t be underestimated—knowing what to say, when to say it, and how to say it is crucial in building lasting client relationships and fostering a healthy team culture.
The soft skills your team of accountants need to successfully communicate with clients (and each other):
Empathy
Patience
Creativity
Problem-solving
Confidence
Ability to listen, both actively and passively
Strong written communication skills
Strong verbal communication skills
Ability to negotiate and reason
The soft skills accountants need to successfully communicate accounting information with their clients, and internally as a team
Decide how and where you want your team to communicate
Once you understand what’s currently working at your firm and what’s not, you’ll have a clearer idea about where to focus your communication efforts.
For example, during your investigation, your team might advise you that a serious source of their frustration is internal collaboration. This might lead you to find a tool that enables your team to collaborate in-context where the work is happening, i.e. your practice management software.
Introduce the right communication tools
Now that you understand how you’d like your team and clients to communicate, you need to find the right software to make it happen.
For many firms, an accounting practice management tool that prioritizes collaboration and communication should satisfy several types of communication, like email, internal comments, and a client portal.
Consider how much time you and your team would save if you automate these common communication processes:
Providing project status updates
Handing over projects between team members
Chasing client information
Onboarding new staff members and clients
Software that automates specific communication processes will save you time and simplify your processes.
How Karbon makes communication seamless
Karbon is an accounting practice management tool with collaboration at its core.
Karbon combines email, discussions, tasks and powerful workflows in one place. Everything your team needs to get work done together, including:
A direct email integration
Email is connected to your team and every client and job, not locked away in individual inboxes.
Automatic client reminders and client tasks
Karbon will chase your clients for you, so you don’t have to.
The ability to collaborate in-context with @mentions and notifications
Discuss work with your team right where the work gets done.
Secure client portal
Collaborate with clients in one streamlined workflow with tasks and document sharing.
Built-in CRM
The best CRM for accountants will centralize your information. Every email, internal note and detail, for each client, is in one shared place for your team. Know who last contacted a client, when, and what was said.
Document management integrations
Connect your document management system and access client files easily.
Accounting firms benefiting from Karbon’s communication features
“Before I was using Karbon, I didn't realize how important it was to have all communications in a single place. That was a frustration I didn't even realize I had.”
How can Karbon help your firm’s communication practices? Learn more and book a demo.
Is it time to revamp your communication strategies?
Your communication strategies, both internal and external, are living, breathing and moving aspects of your business.
They should adapt and change, depending on available technology, circumstances, and client expectations.
Are your strategies serving your firm in the best way possible? To start answering that, ask yourself this question from Collbox’s Eileen Adao:
“Do you have systems in place internally that enable you to keep track of your processes, work flexibly, communicate from anywhere and still be able to build culture?”
If not, it’s time to revamp how your firm deals with the most powerful aspect of your accounting business.
