Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/39633
TECHNOLOGY IN PRACTICE I I 5 Outlook Email Tips to Improve Productivity IV If you are like most accountants, email has become one of the primary tools utilized to com- municate with clients, internal fi rm personnel and external resources on business mat ers. While there are a variety of email systems available, most of the major accounting application vendors have inte- grated their products with Microsoſt Offi ce, which includes Outlook as their email client, making it the most prevalent tool we see utilized in accounting fi rms today. So it is important that fi rms become as profi cient as possible with this tool. Below is an outline of fi ve Outlook tips that have made us more eff ective in our practice. Minimize Interruptions T e default for most email users is to notify the recipient whenever a new email arrives, which can Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP is president of InfoTech Partners North America, Inc. and works exclusively with CPA fi rms to imple- ment today's leading best practices and technologies. Roman authored "Quantum of Paperless, a Partner's Guide to Accounting Firm Optimization" which is available at Amazon.com. include an audio signal as well as a visual queue. When this occurs, the user's focus is pulled from what they are working on down to the toolbar where they must decide if that email must be responded to immediately, which, the vast majority of the time, is not necessary. During this brief interruption, focus is lost and the user must back track to where they were before the interruption and get back to work. T ese interruptions can be almost continuous, making it very diffi cult to eff ectively concentrate on the task at hand all the way through to completion. T e solution to minimize these interruptions is to eliminate the visual and audio queues or to delay them for whatever time period the user feels is toler- able (usually 30 minutes or longer). To eliminate the notifi cation within Outlook 2007, go to the Tools/ Options/Prefer- ences Tab > Email O p t i o n s > Advanced Email Options, where you can "un-check" the boxes for what to do when new items arrive in your inbox. If you are waiting for a spe- cifi c email to arrive or want to send an email immediately, you can hit the Send/Receive All but on or F9. T is process has allowed us to focus on projects through completion, and we now only Send/Receive emails on demand, as needed. To delay delivery, users can set the time they want by going to Outlook's Send/ Receive tab > Send/Receive Set ings > Send/Receive Groups, where the default refresh time can be set for "All accounts." If you work on larger projects, you can set the default to 60 minutes or longer. II Organize by Rules & Colors A good percentage of the emails we receive can be grouped together to be addressed at a later time. By using Outlook Rules, they can be automatically routed to a specifi c folder so they can be accumulated until the user has time to access them. For example, many of us receive certain email newslet ers or blogs that we want to read at our leisure but don't want to be interrupted with as soon as they arrive. A "Reading" folder can be setup within Outlook 2007 under the New tab > Folder. When an email arrives that you want to have automatically routed to the Reading folder, Right- Click on that email and select "Create Rule" by checking the boxes that state whenever you receive an email from that sender it should be routed automatically to the folder you have selected. Whenever a new email is routed to a folder, it makes that folder appear in Bold so you know there are unread items. T ese set ings can also be done in the Tools > Organize tab, where they also have a feature to change the color of inbound emails for specifi c senders. For example, all emails from a specifi c client or friends and family members are diff erentiated by a selected color so they stand out from other emails. III Reduce Email Volume More Effectively We all know the amount of junk mail out there, and using hosted remailer services like Postini, AppRiver and McAfee/MxLogic or spam fi ltering programs will clear out most off ending spam emails before they hit your inbox. For those emails that clear the gauntlet but are still junk mail, you should right click on them and tag them as junk mail so they will be routed that way in the future. T e other component of reducing volume is con- sidering who to respond to and how. When an email is sent to a group of users but the response only has to go to one person, train your staff to respond only to that recipient instead of "Reply to All." It's also unnecessary to reply to everyone with acknowledge- ments like "me too" or "I agree," unless there is a specifi c query (i.e., voting or survey). Touch It Once Another key is to set aside per iods throughout the day where you can eff ectively focus on email and clear communications. T is takes a lot of discipline, and staff must be trained to quickly decide whether to handle it, assign it, delete it or plan for it. If the email can be responded to quickly and completely, you should just handle it instead of hoping to spend more time on it later and then forget ing about it. If this requires that the information be saved in an engagement binder or archived in some way, it should be done imme- diately. If the email and/or attachment can be delegated to someone else, you should assign it with input into how the requirements of the email can be addressed. Some emails are only informational in nature, and if no action is required such messages should just be deleted. Finally, for those emails that require additional thought and planning, you should determine whether a task should be created or time scheduled on the calendar. By dragging the email either to the calendar or task pane, a specifi c item will be setup and reminders included so that the item gets the proper at ention of the recipient. V Consolidate Communications Most of us carry a smartphone that can access email as well as our workstation. And over the next year, we anticipate most partners and managers will also carry a tablet device that can access Outlook. To optimize access to communications, fi rms should look at consolidating all communica- tions into Outlook, including fax and voicemail, which is referred to as unifi ed messaging. Digital fax solutions deliver inbound faxes as an at achment to email, which can be sent directly to each person with dedicated fax numbers or to a single admin- istrative person who would update the subject line and forward the fax to the appropriate recipient. Today's phone systems can also create an audio fi le of a voicemail that is emailed to the recipient (which is also referred to as computer telephony integra- tion). By having ALL communications in Outlook, you will only have to go to one place to manage them, and it can be accessed with the widest variety of tools. For the foreseeable future, Outlook will be the communications tool of choice for accounting fi rms so it is imperative that we do all we can to optimize its capabilities. With proper planning up front and ongoing training and reminders to fi rm personnel on features, Outlook can have a signifi cant impact on fi rm productivity. September 2011 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 17