Accounting
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How Aprio Cloud, an outsourced accounting firm, automated accounting, and financial documents requests. Alex also shares her tips for better business processes and workflows.
We caught up with Alexandra Jumper from Aprio Cloud to understand the impact of implementing FileInvite across an Outsourced Accounting and Financial Services firm.
Tell us about Aprio Cloud
"Aprio Cloud is a professional services firm. We all work remotely and we rely on technology to help all of our clients. Here in the US, we are tax advisers, we are accountants, we are CFOs. We utilize Xero and we help all of our clients get into the cloud and get into 2019, in terms of technology.
Our clients have businesses all over the world. There are many that want to expand into the US, and ensure they are compliant tax-wise here. They need advice on everything from hiring staff, HR, advisory for accounting, financial tax, and we do it all. We're a one-stop shop."
We use FileInvite for managing the request of accounting documents and files from our clients.
What led you to FileInvite?
"Collecting client documents was totally a pain. We would kind of email back and forth with the clients and then they would get lost in what they had and had not submitted. We had clients uploading stuff directly to Box and kind of just keeping a running list through email.
From a client experience standpoint, that's not great at all! There's a lot of times where we're asking for things and they get lost off the list through lots of email threads. We're all about, efficiency and the cloud and what we had was neither efficient nor cloud-based.
So that's what led me to look for a solution. FileInvite is super intuitive. We cater to remote working entrepreneurs and small businesses. They're not keen to take on anything they consider convoluted or complex. I think what's great about FileInvite is that it's simple. It helps us stay organized and it's user-friendly."
It's been super helpful for our firm in terms of organization and providing a great client experience.
How are you using FileInvite?
Templates and recurring Invites.
"We have a lot of the same requests, quarter after quarter, year after year. So I know it'll help us make our processes more efficient, save time and money.
We can focus on more important tasks at hand. If you can automate it, why not? That's my mindset."
How are your clients finding FileInvite?
"Our whole firm works remotely. Actually, it's funny. We have over 250 clients and I've never met one of them in person. All of our communications are done on zoom or video conference.
So we have to make sure that any tech is secure and simple for our clients to use. That it’s easy to follow and that the service is intuitive. Otherwise, our clients will fail and go to another firm.
I think that having FileInvite be the first thing that they see when they come on board and it's a super easy process has been kind of great starting off their experience on the right foot."
What tips do you have for accounting firms?
Having simple processes that work for both parties is crucial
Now, more than ever, the buyer has the power versus the seller. There are so many options out there. So I think finding a solution that works for you, which FileInvite does, and then also works for our clients is really important.
Focus on your core competencies
Customers come to us to help take the burden of running parts of their business off their backs. We want our clients to be out there focusing on growing the business and doing the things they love and not worrying about all of the things that drag them down.
I think you have to focus on your core competencies, what you're good at.
We're not good at sending multiple reminder emails to a client, sifting through attachments, and chasing files. Doing this distracts us from our core competencies. Using FileInvite eliminates this. It lets us focus on bringing insights and value to our clients.
Look for productivity tools and SaaS software that lets you optimize your business processes. When you find a great product, don’t be afraid to implement it. This has been crucial to our success and growth.
Innovate and continuously improve your offering
We are really focused on data visualization and providing our clients with charts and graphs that can give them an overview of their finances at a glance. I think it really helps them to understand how healthy, financially, their business is. We can quickly add commentary to explain any changes too.
It helps both of us and I think it adds a lot of value.
Our company is growing quickly. I think the sky's the limit. We’re helping companies from all over the world manage their businesses, so I'm excited for what's to come and how we can better serve our clients.
To learn more and request a demo, visit FileInvite today.
