How well do you know what your team is working on? Do you know all of the small tasks that fill their day? Do you have an easy way to check when a client was last contacted? And exactly what was said?

A huge problem in accounting firms is the lack of visibility. Not only in relation to what people are working on at any given time, but also regarding communication with clients.

Even if you are part of a smaller team, if your firm is looking to grow and operate at its most efficient, you must have systems in place that will provide complete visibility over who is doing what when, and with who.

How does it impact you?

If your firm’s staff all work in silos you are probably left with many tough-to-answer questions—are we on track to meet our goals? Where are our bottlenecks occurring? Are all our clients being managed correctly?

You cannot have complete knowledge or know how your business is performing if you have no way of viewing everything happening across it.

To ensure all staff are aligned and working toward the same goal, everyone must be able to look at the big picture and understand everyone’s role within it. Transparent workplaces help employees understand the firm’s vision and see how their own efforts contribute toward the overall goals.

Your client relationships will also thrive. Everyone can be across all the clients that matter to them—not only the conversations they are directly included on—and the progress of any job, big and small.

Finally, visibility across your firm builds trust. Staff who have an understanding of what their managers do, and feel they are honest and open with them, are understandably much more likely to trust and be loyal to their employer. An outstanding workplace culture can be built upon this.

What can you do about it?

Reduce your emails We spend a staggering 28% of our time at work sending, receiving, reading and answering emails—many of which feel unnecessary or frustrating.

Managing correspondence by email is a major challenge; managing a team via email is total chaos. It’s a tough ask to keep track of progress via isolated inboxes when a manager’s view is dictated by the verbal updates, CCs and FYIs given to them.

Make an effort to reduce the emails you send and receive by