This way, the team stays on the same page, with the Karbon champion being the conduit between your team and Karbon itself.

This includes coordinating with all stakeholders, not just your accounting teams—say your internal IT department, for example. By doing so, they’re able to understand and represent all team members whose work is impacted by the change.

A change champion should:

• Have a deep understanding of your firm’s needs, including staff and client needs

• Have a deep knowledge of the current processes that you are looking to move away from

• Be excited by the opportunities change presents

• Not be afraid to take risks

• Be able to be analytical about the tool/s and how your team is adopting it

• Be passionate about, and believe in, the benefits of the changes being made

Selecting your change champion

Your implementation champion, above all, must firstly be in-favour of the change. Forcing someone to be the internal spokesperson of a system they don’t believe in is a mistake.

Other than this, consider the following criteria when selecting your implementation champion:

1. Be tech-savvy, and ideally have experience in new software adoption—this will make sure they’re already on the frontfoot.

2. Understanding of your accounting firm’s current operations—this will help them to ensure the implementation is well-planned across all parts of the organization.

3. Well-respected company-wide—this will help team members cooperate with the changes that need to happen.

If you have several people in mind, consider an implementation taskforce. Collaborating on implementation strategies can streamline the process even further.

Larger firms may find it useful to have implementation champions per department who each work together as a task force. That way they can share learnings from each department, without being stretched too thin across the organization.

If you’re considering this with Karbon, it’s still a good idea to have an overarching champion for your firm because these departments will still be sharing global settings, and having someone to advise on cross-department interactions can be useful.

Successfully implement change

No matter the scale of change that comes with implementing new technologies, managing the change is critical to minimizing the negative impact to your accounting practice, and maximizing its success.

When it’s time to consider changing tools to comprehensive options like Karbon, an implementation champion will be the key to seeing your efficiency gains and growth as quickly as possible.