Business processes are an area where young and small businesses often excel. But as these businesses grow, the effort put into getting these processes right can take a backseat. After neglect, challenges will emerge, and it comes harder and harder to get these processes back on track.

This finding is one of nine key insights identified in Karbon’s recent report, The Business Ability of Accounting Firms, which reveals the core weaknesses and progress of 250 accounting firms across the globe that were assessed through our Practice Excellence Scorecard.

As Ian Vacin, VP of Education outlines in his video, accounting firms were assessed across 12 competencies that are critical to the long-term success of a business.

Breaking down the average results based on tenure, across these 12 competencies, shows that younger companies in their first year of existence are more proficient in business processes than more mature companies.

However, companies that have been around for more than 10 years demonstrate a big jump in proficiency (particularly compare to companies 5-10 years of age).

Business processes are one of the first things that founders and managers want to get right when they start their business. So they invest a lot of resources in this area.

But as time goes on and they grow larger, they don’t tend to revisit them, except to put out fires as they occur. It’s easy to become complacent, and think that it’s OK to ‘set and forget’ in this area.

As the findings show, it can take businesses an extended period of dwindling results, declining efficiency, and other challenges before any substantial effort is put in to get things back on track.

But business processes require continuous improvement. You need to keep iterating on them over time. Because the longer you leave it, the older and larger your business gets, the harder it will be to make changes.

Do not become complacent as you mature. Follow a path of continuous process improvement to see results.