We are passionate about educating the public accounting industry to improve their practices and gain more efficiency and effectiveness in their profession. These courses have been designed to spark discussion and help CPAs figure out better ways to run their practices and serve their clients.
For questions about scheduling these presentations please contact [email protected]
15-20 Minute Courses
Simplify + Standardize + Automate = Touch it Once
“Touch it once is one of the most fundamental principles of productivity and time management but in the world of tax preparation, it is hard to do.” That quote comes from none other than Intuit, the largest tax and accounting technology provider in the US and they say you don’t have an opportunity to use this fundamental principal for productivity and time management it in tax prep. To many of us, that would appear to be true but this discussion clearly shows how the industry missed the mark by trying to be efficient with the wrong thing. It is not enough to be efficient, you need to be effective as well and this introduction to accounting workflow solutions, as designed by a CPA with over 30 years in the space, creates the touch it once solution for accountants that makes our workflow more efficient than any other workflow solution in our space. It ends with a demo of the power of the technology that demonstrates how the client accounting records are onboarded. A process where CPAs never have to ask for data again and clients never have to send it again. Simplify. It then uses basic accounting standards that every accounting software package follows so connecting to that accounting software one time, effectively connects every user of that software. Standardize. Using these simplified standards, effective automation can be created that yields touch it once solutions for every client of the firm, in one login.
One Hour Courses
How Accounting Technology Broke Public Accounting
This session covers technology and the role it plays in public accounting. With a focus on tax practices, we will lay out how CPA firms prior to the introduction of workflow technology were more efficient, more effective, had less turnover, and had happier clients despite a manual paper workflow. The discussion compares the methodology used for accounting firms before and after the era when desktop solutions became mainstream. Prior to accounting technology, successful CPAs solved their own workflow issues, they understood them better than others so they built and implemented stronger solutions. The main takeaway is to lead CPAs today to do the same - tackle their own workflow issues and seek out efficiencies that address our issues in effective ways.
How My Firm Went From 100hr Weeks to 40hr Weeks
Ford Baker, CPA, and CEO of BaCo Tech provides insight into his journey of reshaping himself and his firm with some key tools and philosophies. Ford discusses creating a standard of excellence and converting from reactive to proactive. This course covers identifying reactive elements in your practice, hinderances to productivity, and the myth of multi tasking. You'll learn some tips on how to eliminate distractions, set boundaries, and automate replies. While BaCo Tech's jouney ultimately led them to create their own software solution, many of the steps along the way are useful and repeatable by other firms.
Learning Objectives:
- Standard of excellence
- Reactive vs proactive
- Identifying reactive elements
- Eliminating hindrances to productivity
- Setting boundaries and balance
- Touch it once philosophy
- Simplify, standardize, and automate
Efficient Technology That Allowed a DFW Firm to Work 40 Hours Year-Round
This course explores the journey undertaken by Baco Tech as they simplified, standardized, and automated their workflow. Included are tips and tricks that help identify problem areas in the CPA practice, areas where more efficiency can be added, and some of the hard decisions that ultimately led to a more balanced workload throughout the year. This course includes discussion of their shift from being reactive to being proactive with clients, IRS, billing, and email. Ford and Kaitlyn discuss establishing boundaries, work life balance, and the 'touch it once' philosophy. While Baco Tech's journey led them to develop their own software solutions, many of the steps along the way provided a large amount of savings in time and effort and can be applied to many CPAs practicing today.
Learning Objectives:
- Reduce reactive elements
- Create boundaries
- Collective value of clients
- Importance of standards
- CPA problems need CPA solutions