Pingman

Simplify follow-ups and information requests.

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Tips for Accounting Professionals on building a good website

As an accountant, your skills as a finance professional are of utmost importance. However, without the right brand basics in place, you could lose out on potential clients. Think of your services as a commodity. What words would you use to describe your services? How would you define the value you bring to your clients? Once you start to name these tangible and intangible qualities, you have built a brand that is uniquely yours.

The next step in this exercise is to build an online presence based on the attributes you have defined for yourself. If you aspire to be the sort of professional who needs ‘no words’ to introduce yourself, then you need to work hard to build a website that speaks for you. 

Here are some tips to help you create a website that introduces you to your clients:

Choosing a domain name: before you can get started on building your online presence, you must select a domain name that is easy to recall for your clients and relevant to your area of expertise. If you are just starting your consultancy then having your last name as a domain may not be such a good idea. Instead, focus on the service you are offering and look for available domains.

The right theme: Your demeanour in a client meeting is critical to convey that you are a reliable person who is good at their job. In the same way, your website needs to appear streamlined and well-thought-out to convey your messaging in an effective way. There are a number of free tools and platforms to build your website. However, the help of a professional digital media company will go a long way in creating a lasting impression.

The ‘feel’ of the website: That’s right, the way a website ‘feels’ to a user is a real thing. There are experts who design these effects also known as user interface and user experience designers. The website interface should always go hand-in-hand with what you want to convey. Even the choice between a ‘swish’ and a ‘ding’ sounds effect or the addition of subtle moving graphics can suitably or unsuitably alter your messaging.

Website content: Now this is where you will need to devote a couple of billable hours to yourself. If you have engaged the services of an agency to create the website for you, you will still need to provide them with information to include on your website. The content for any website can be easily structured under the following heads:

Background/About Us: a brief paragraph explaining about yourself. You can include your qualifications and areas of expertise. Include a professional photograph in business formals.

Landing Page: List any unique attributes or business philosophy here. Mention the type of work that you undertake and/or specialize in and the area you operate in, if applicable.

Services Offered: This section needs to detail all the type of services that you offer to clients. You may have to work the hardest on this section, because it needs to be detailed and simple without an overkill of information or numbers.

Contact Information: This should definitely contain your e-mail ID. Anything else is totally optional, as you might get spammed.

Get your branding basics in place and give a thrust to your client portfolio with a clutter free yet professional website!

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Getting started - Managing your contacts

It's great to have you on board! Let's cut to the chase and get to sending your first request in the next couple of minutes.

Step 1. Verify your email account

Once you register, Pingman will send you an email to verify the email account you've registered with. The email might go into your Promotions/Spam folder sometimes so make sure you mark it as "not spam". Click on the link in the email to verify your account.

Step 2. Add/Import contacts

Before we can get Pingman to run after your clients, we need to add their contact details to the app. Login to Pingman and click on the Contacts link in the top menu.

Add contacts one by one

You can add contacts one at a time by clicking on the "Add New Contact" button and filling out contact details. The requests and reminders are also copied to the CC email, if provided. Selecting your client's timezone will help us send them automated follow-up emails and sms messages within appropriate working hours.

Import contacts from CSV file

You can import several contacts at once from a CSV file. On uploading the file, Pingman will check whether the contacts already exist in your list and allow you to set their respective countries and time-zones.

Create and manage groups

Grouping your contacts allow you to assign requests to more than one contact at once. Each contact can belong to more than one group and there is no limit on how many groups you can create. To create a new group, click on the "Create New Group" button. To add contacts to a group, select them and click on the "Add to Group" button.

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How to find your first clients

Building any business from scratch demands immense effort, especially when you are dealing with numbers. For CPA amateurs who are just stepping into the industry, raising the score of clients can be daunting initially. So once you’re done with finalising on a name for your accounting firm, designing a logo and making the online presence felt, the next step in creating a client base is getting in touch with them and turning prospects into leads. Here’s how you can find your first clients and keep them!

Split Your Marketing Plan

This is best divided between local and digital—makes reaching your clients way more convenient, streamlining your efforts in specific directions. Since the approach is different for both, you benefit from the two mediums.

Ask Yourself The Basics

What is the kind of clientele you are looking at? Brainstorm through some of the services you are really keen on providing. Whether you want to freelance, stick to basic bookkeeping or want to venture into larger businesses, make this choice in the very beginning. Find out what will benefit your business the most. When you define your clientele, your marketing efforts are more focused.

Set A Price And Stick To It

Now this can be tricky especially you’re still looking for potential clients at the very beginning of your career. Remember that there’s no way you can really put an accountant's service to an exact value, so this will be an experiment. Don’t overprice yourself. Research the market and stick to a competitive rate.

Make Your Website Interesting

Don’t sweat over the number of visitors through SEO activity in the very beginning. Instead, go with something that focuses just on the content on your website. The copy should not blabber about how great a CPA you are. Avoid fluff. Language should be simple, precise yet interesting. From target market, services, prices and a small note on why they should choose you, everything should be mentioned clearly. Use Google Analytics to know your visitors better. Also, link your website to your blogs, social media accounts, etc. Ensure your blogs are updated at least once in two weeks so that people know you are actively involved on social platforms too.

Target Local Businesses

The first question here is—what are the businesses you’d like to have as a client? Create a spreadsheet of these and find out what they have in common. Profile them under various heads and know the challenges they are facing. Connect with them on various platforms like social media groups, forums, meetups, personal interaction, coffee meets, etc. Get yourself known. Fair chances are that after meeting many of these businessmen, you might want to rethink your target clients.

Related Clientele

You can start with personal relationships. It’s a good idea to work with a business owner who trusts you just because you are related to him through someone. Be it a friend, relative or someone known to your through someone else, these relationships work well when you are establishing your practice. And needless to say, give this person discounts. Try and target at least 5 clients like this in the first two months!

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First impressions matter. Make it count!

We all know it takes a lot more than just luck to get become an accountant but more challenging is securing a contract with clients by creating just the right impression at the very first go. From the first meeting jitters to preparing to face some complicated cases, there are many things that budding accountants go through. And when you are a CPA, there are more industry specifics to remember. Here are some tips to make an excellent first impression and tell your clients that you mean business too!

Keep yourself updated

Just like any other profession, accountancy also requires you to keep yourself updated. But unlike other fields, it’s not as easy for a CPA to keep up with the changing rules and policies. But you don’t really have a choice here. Ensure that you are ready with any questions about new developments in your field. For instance, if you are asked about interest rates, latest tax saving policies or any new scheme in financial planning, you should be ready with an answer.

No room for wardrobe mistakes — look sharp!

Wondering how you can do that? Dress like you know your business well and are there to make an immediate connect. For instance, designers often suggest go with crisp shirts and a pair of well-fitted trousers. Look serious. CPAs are expected to be professionals with a little stern attitudes so a casual dress code may not be the best idea. Remember that people are coming to you with a trust that you can handle their finances better than them so a good dressing sense with a professional look goes a long way in creating that impact.  

Always be on time

In case you haven’t learnt this already—if you are not a few minutes early for a meeting, you are late. You must have heard it many times before but this is a thumb rule to making a great first impression on clients. You have to value their time and yours. Reaching late for a meeting can be the first thing that puts off your client.

Create a logo

Use a logo for your firm or even for your individual practice. This makes your services look more authentic. People will never walk up to a random CPA for their account matters. They want to trust someone with a brand name and your logo will do just that for you! Keep it crisp, attractive and relevant to your industry.  Advertising gurus have often stressed on the importance of an eye catching logo that serves as a great connect.

Make your achievements loud and clear

If you’ve won any awards related to your field or if you secured the best grades in accounting school, let that speak for you. Be it on your website or in your office. Your clients must know who they are signing up for. You must have seen a lot of doctors’ clinics flaunting those achievements. It’s not called bragging. You have to announce why you are an apt professional help.

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The hustle and bustle in an accountant’s daily life!

An accountant is generally at the centre of many important tasks associated with any organization. Right from managing taxes, audits, payroll, investments, and handling individual financial queries, to maintaining a regular follow up with the clients, balancing the multitude of responsibilities can at times be a nerve-wrecking task.

Needless to say, time is the most valued, priced and treasured commodity in an accountant’s life and they need to be extremely proficient in managing it.

Accountants work in a professional and team-centric environment. They need to follow strict deadlines to ensure that a given task is completed in a timely manner. Some of the activities that add to the buzz in a normal day’s work of an accountant’s work schedule are highlighted below:

The various tasks accomplished by an accountant: They not only manage the firm’s payroll and taxes but also look into various other issues such as email-management, client visits, analyzing new ventures, scheduling regular client follow-ups, documentation filing and maintaining critical, confidential client information. On the face of it, these tasks appear very simple and easy to perform but in reality are extremely time consuming.

The super busy tax season: January to April is the tax-filing season in the United States, with April being the most busy period because generally mid-April is the deadline. These four months do get extremely hectic for any account consultant but they are well-compensated during the summer time as every weekend is a long-weekend.

Client management: Client follow ups, relevant communication and issuing them regular reminders is one of the most tiresome yet a very important and significant aspect of any accountant’s job profile. They need to exhibit excellent communication skills and maintain cordial personal and professional relationships with their clients. Generally, such relationships are nurtured and they grow with time. Building trust and understanding are the key factors in establishing good clientele.

Managing and working in a team: To be able to complete all the assigned tasks on time, it is important to manage and coordinate activities in their respective teams. Being a good team player or a leader can only make things easier in an accountant’s life. Everyday is a new challenge and requires versatile, diverse skill-sets to tackle each issue with the right blend of professionalism and straight-forwardness. 

Further, any accountant needs to make important time sensitive decisions on a regular basis. It is imperative to be a good planner as that helps to schedule the routine activities very efficiently. It helps to prioritize the critical and important tasks, which in turn helps to increase the overall productivity and the profit margin of the company. Time and money both are important factors in any accounts professional’s life.

For efficient management of all these tasks, it is very helpful to organize and synchronize all the activities. A simple to-do list app like Wunderlist cal help you create a list of internal tasks and share them with your team. Apps like Pingman can help you manage your follow-ups via email, SMS and also collect documents from your clients for you. These apps provide both free and premium plans offering quicker and reliable services to efficiently manage the accountant’s tasks and businesses. Hopefully, they are able to provide some respite in their super busy lives!

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Client Follow-ups : A Drain on Accountant Time

Often accounting professionals need help to overcome the challenge of performing their operations, in an efficient, organized and well-planned manner. In short, they often need to beat the clock. To add to their woes, client follow-ups can eat up into their most important resource- TIME!

Critical vs. Important

In the mad rush to complete the basket of accounting operations like management accounting, payroll, and tax and in order to raise the efficiency and expected profitability margin for accounting firms, their daily schedule gets skewed towards handling what becomes ‘critical’, instead of what is ‘important’. Hence, accountants need to make a clear list of important tasks and give them their due priority while scheduling their day.

Time is Money

A major perpetrator that causes delays in the accounting processes is the mundane operational tasks like-addressing e-mails to clients, making information and document requests, following up and collecting crucial documents. These laborious processes often consume more than 30% of their valuable time. This indirectly affects the business and slows down the process of effective utilization of resources.

Virtual Assistants for Routine Work

There is a wide scope to structure and facilitate easy documentation and client communication systems for accountants. A request management system, an automated follow-up system or a virtual assistant can be used for standard communication and routine requests. These apps eliminate the difficulty and time lag experienced in following up with clients. They also offer a fitting solution to the problem of capturing and filing documents among accountants.

Email management

Most accounting professionals responds to emails by tracking each item’s arrival manually. This is followed by repeated follow up with the client. This method is time-consuming and inefficient. But apps like Pingman efficiently manage this by helping users create, track and automatically follow up on information requests to collect documents and data from clients required for their work.

Streamline Client Servicing

The time-consuming client engagement process for new accounting projects can lead to an oceanic amount of hours being spent on unbilled man-hours. Now, imagine a system that allows an accountant to organize their contacts into logical groups and send requests for information from specific client groups. The request is then sent to the intended group of clients via email and SMS, containing a specific due date and an outline of specific document and data requirements.

Upon delivery of the request to the client, they stand to receive a friendly personalised well designed e-mail, with a link to the request that can be opened with a single click, through a secure browser window. This displays the list of requirements from the accountant. The client can then reply and securely upload the necessary documents. In case the client fails to respond to the request, the system generates a friendly reminder in a few days. And when the client provides a response to their request, the accountant can close the request. Since the same request can be assigned to many clients at once, Pingman also tracks the progress for that request thus eliminating the need for spreadsheets and manual tracking methods.

Now that’s a system that can save many precious hours for accountants!