Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/83146
GREAT PRACTICES RICHARD BULLER CPA SERVICES, LLC A Journey from Chaos to Harmony Resilience and a stick-to-it attitude allow one firm to rise above the chaos to achieve streamlined, melodic success an unorganized mess." R ichard Buller, CPA and owner of Richard Buller CPA Services, LLC, referred to the early years of firm ownership as "the crazy days." Aſter purchasing a firm in 2007, Buller had no idea what was inside until he pulled back the wrapping. "It was pure chaos," Buller stated. "None of the soſtware worked together and there were no standard processes in place, so everyone was working differently. Tere was absolutely no collaboration among staff or with clients. " Tere was also no peace—among staff members and between staff and clients. Buller described a volatile work environment where frustrated employees and clients argued regularly. "I remember walking into the office during those first few weeks and witnessing staff and clients screaming at each other. Clients were upset because they weren't geting the level of service they required, and employees were frustrated because the office was With disparate applications hobbled together, integration between solutions was not possible, meaning a lot of manual entry and double work. Te office also lacked standard processes, so there was no uniform way of completing tasks. To achieve any level of harmony among staff and with clients, Buller knew he had to make some big changes. Starting with the Basics "Te firm was broken. Tat was for sure," Buller stated. "I had to fix what was inside first if I expected to repair client relationships. " So fix he did. Buller began making changes, and he started with the basics: electronic file storage and scanning. Buller's first action as the new firm owner was to implement Tomson Reuter's FileCabinet CS (FCS). FCS would support a single repository to store documents so employees would know exactly where to find client files. This would both improve internal workflow and allow staff to quickly fulfill client requests. "FileCabinet put all client docu- ments at my staff's fingertips. It was so much easier and organized. " Scanning was the next big change. Buller made front-end scanning a mandatory process…and right in the middle of tax season! "I couldn't wait until aſter tax season to make changes that would surely improve the process," said Buller. "Some staff were petrified at first, but aſter a short while, a few employees actually told me that things were beter. " Staff of Richard Buller, CPAs, from left: Sarah Cormier, David Edgar, Faline Daniels, Heather Buller, Danielle Menard, Richard Buller and Tara Bouit. 34 October 2012 t www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com A Lead-in to Bigger and Better Things Aſter implementing a few basic changes, Buller witnessed his firm turn a major corner. "There was more harmony among staff because we had diminished the frustration that came with using inadequate soſtware. " When he purchased the firm, Buller did an evaluation of the technology and found that none of the products worked together. Te firm was using disparate apps from a variety of ven- dors, including a third-party time & billing system that Buller had never heard of. "I don't know how the firm ever functioned using that system," Buller stated. Buller moved the firm to Tomson Reuters' fully integrated suite. Aſter less than a year on the soſtware, a staff member suggested moving to Tomson's Virtual Office in order to access the suite remotely and further enhance workflow processes. "Te move to VO made operations even beter. To get the firm in order, staff worked really hard that year to get all documents scanned in. We scanned during the day and worked remotely from home in the evening. VO allowed us to work collaboratively as a team—finally. " With the technology problem solved,