Accelo is a client work management platform for all types of service businesses. Because it was built with client-facing needs in mind and thus connects all stages of the client journey, including sales, project management and billing, it’s well-loved by accounting professionals.
If you’ve been looking for new software for your accounting firm, there’s nothing like hearing about its effectiveness directly from users. Here, we’ll share why some of our accounting industry clients have been raving about their Accelo experience.
Features of Accelo That Are Popular With Accountants
Users in the accounting industry love Accelo for a variety of reasons. Here are some of the features they commonly point out as their favorites:
Activity stream: When you sync your company emails with Accelo, you’ll see every client’s communication history. No matter who’s assigned to an account or whether they’re in the office, you get a complete picture of what’s been happening. A fan favorite in many industries, the stream is the ultimate visibility tool.
Why it’s great for accounting: Forget guessing the perfect search term to find the email referencing that one thing you’re looking for. Accelo’s stream is like a social media feed, displaying a client’s emails and requests as easy-to-navigate conversation threads.
Projects: Project management can be an automated process in Accelo, thanks to custom workflows and status progressions. You can visualize and edit in a Gantt chart, plus forecast when a project will finish and see how it aligns with budget at any time.
Why it’s great for accounting: Your team won’t have to waste time in meetings to check on a project’s status. Use templates and task auto-assignments to match your team’s capacity and stay on top of client work deadlines.
Here’s what one Senior Manager had to say about Accelo’s Activity Stream, budgeting templates and project visibility:
Client portal: A client portal is a great way to ease your clients’ minds about the work your team is completing. Accelo’s portal allows them to accept quotes, access sensitive documents securely, assign custom permissions to their team and submit ad-hoc requests quickly.
Why it’s great for accounting: During your busy tax season, lessen the burden of low-priority requests and status checks by offering on-demand project updates, important resources, billing history and more via a convenient and encrypted portal.
Retainers: You won’t find another client work management platform that empowers you to manage retainers in the intuitive way Accelo does. Set the retainer period that works best for your business cycles and client preferences and choose from prepaid or postpaid pay structures.
Why it’s great for accounting: Smoothly manage one-off projects and ongoing work without worrying about how much of your team’s time is dedicated to each. In Accelo, time logged on tickets and projects gets automatically added to a client invoice for the given retainer period — and the invoice can be set to send automatically.
Read why one Accounting Administrator loves using Accelo for prepaid retainers:
Time tracking:Automated time tracking erases the need for your busy employees to accurately recall how much time they’ve spent on each task and for each client. Comparing actual vs. estimated time using Accelo’s auto-generated reports can help you set rates and produce more accurate estimates.
Why it’s great for accounting: More than many other service professionals, you likely understand how true it is to say that time is money. Accelo will tell you how much of your team’s time is billable and non-billable, allowing you to make smart decisions about workload and hiring.
See what one Accounting Assistant says about tracking time in Accelo:
Invoicing: As one of the most important functions of your client-based business, invoicing is something you need to do well. Create detailed, templated invoices automatically — and bill clients in bulk — in Accelo. Then, allow them to pay balances easily using Stripe, PayPal or Authorize.net.
Why it’s great for accounting: Accelo syncs ledgers, tax codes and service items with your accounting platform to ensure accurate billing. See when invoices are overdue and send automatic reminders.
Discover the benefits of project time synced with invoices for one bookkeeper.
Integrations: Already using a software that works well for your business? Consolidating doesn’t have to mean you only use Accelo. A range of seamless integrations can help you keep workflows intact.
Why it’s great for accounting: Depending on the size of your business, you may have multiple departments that need different tools to accomplish their goals. When Accelo is your primary software for managing client work, it’s simple to connect others via integrations and ensure that client account history is synced across the organization.
How Accelo Improves Efficiency for Accounting Firms
Efficiency is key for profitability. Accelo’s accounting clients frequently point out how much more efficient their teams are after centralizing sales, projects, client requests, billing, retainers and reports in one place.
Organization-wide visibility: It’s impossible to solve problems if you can’t identify where they’re popping up in your workflows. Discover how a financial consulting firm improved productivity via detailed project progress tracking for its high volume of client work.
Administrative time savings: Many of us don’t realize how much time we spend on simple admin work — time that could be billable instead. Learn how a Quickbooks and NetSuite consulting firm saved its remote team 200 hours per year by replacing a case management system with Accelo.
Error reduction: Disparate tools can confuse your team and result in unintentional duplicate entry and other mishaps that slow down client work. Read how one accounting firm mitigated this risk using Accelo.
Accurate profitability analysis: Have you considered that some of your clients could be costing you money? Using Accelo’s robust reports, a tax consultancy discovered just that, then cut their client base and doubled their profits in three years!
Join these Accelo clients in reducing overwhelm, workflow inefficiency and subpar profitability. See how your team could be more impactful with the clarity and visibility offered by an end-to-end client work management platform — schedule a demo today.
Author Bio
Chelsea Williams
Accelo's blog posts are brought to you by a team of experienced subject matter experts. With a deep understanding of client and sales management, resource planning, and project efficiency, we aim to share our knowledge and practical insights to help you navigate the complexities of operating a service based business.
Our goal is to provide you with expert-driven content, up-to-date information, and actionable advice on Professional Services Automation, designed to help your business succeed.
