Two of the key challenges faced by accounting firms today are how to improve the efficiency of firm-wide processes to ensure the firm is – and remains – profitable and competitive, and how to ensure all staff stay on top of current rates, legislation and industry best practice so as to manage the risk exposure of the firm.
Indeed, these two challenges have been consistently identified as top challenges over the ten years in which Business Fitness’ industry leading benchmarking study – the Good Bad Ugly – has been carried out.
At Business Fitness, we therefore continue to be surprised that less than one third of Australian firms are paperless or thereabouts, for an effective strategy for going paperless will naturally help an accounting firm to overcome these two challenges. Essential elements of any paperless strategy include effective electronic document management and the use of electronic workpapers – perhaps not coincidentally, these are also two of the most effective (and most easily achievable) ways to improve accounting firm efficiency.
Perhaps we can put this down to a possible misconception that the paperless office is something which can simply be ‘bought’. Or maybe it is due to a lack of a well thought out strategy in place from the start, a lack of leadership, or not having the right electronic document management system in place.
Whatever the reason may be, there is no denying the fact that, by not going paperless, firms are retaining the burden of some hefty costs that are well within their control to eliminate. Take, for example, the fact that, on average, it costs $20 to file a single paper document, $120 to search for a misfiled document, and $220 to reproduce a lost document.1
Just how much could your firm save by implementing smarter processes and technologies in your practice?
Business Fitness are the experts in helping accountants (and their SME clients) to go paperless. Contact us if you'd like to find out more.
The comments in this blog are explored in detail in our first Good Bad Ugly Supplement Report - 'How to Profit from Going Paperless' - now available for purchase from Thomson Reuters. You can download a free copy of the Executive Summary here.
1Source: Kofax White Paper: The Business Case for Automating Document Driven Business Processes (2010) (figures based on the results of a study conducted by PwC)
