Make ‘Digital Impact’ work for your Practice!5 ways to embrace and harness the power of the cloud

Thomas Parackal is the executive director of Stylus Systems, an accounting and bookkeeping partnering service in Bangalore, India.

Thomas operates at the forefront of cloud computing servicing organizations throughout the world. He helps assemble the actual teams across boundaries to address the accounting and bookkeeping workflow needs of small to medium organizations, giving them room to breathe and focus what their customers really need rather than simply provide transactional services.

How to unleash your Digital Game plan!Wield the cloud like Genghis Khan did the sword! The digitisation of services has no boundaries.

1. Digitize your workflow

Whiteboard your workflow, take out a piece of paper and just map it out.

You will begin to observe which bits you can out-task, which ones you can find an app or tool for and even the unnecessary ones that are just slowing you down.

Action: Whiteboard your workflow. Work out how you and your employees spend your time, break it down to steps and chunks, put it out into a map and then pore over each link in the chain to find out if there are more efficient ways to achieve a certain business outcome.

2. Apply Diversified Skills

In the new digital environment, you need to think beyond bookkeeping and accounting skills.

Workflow competency and plumbing various add-ons is a new skill that you cannot ignore.

Xero Practice Manager or Workflow Max or any other workflow management tool is under utilized today because you do not have this skill.

Action: Be bold. The good news is that you can out task even these skills that you are unfamiliar with. Workflow max advisors, Workflow digitizers, Business and Accounting process mappers…they are available to you at affordable prices and as flexible packages. Find them, engage them.

3. Out-task

Many practice owners are nervous about out-tasking and out-tasked workflow management

Start small and take things slow.

If you have a lot of accounts, for example, and payable invoices that need to be posted in your accounting applications, this is a good place to start.

Action: Take baby steps. If out-tasking or cloud workflow management unnerves you, start with just one easy low-level task just to get familiar with how things work and then eventually move on to the more sensitive stuff.

4. Get comfortable with virtual meetings

You don’t need big offices to build a global empire.

With the many free video conferencing apps, you can get things done as a team without having to meet face-to-face often, if ever.

No more unnecessary travel for physical meetings and thus more time to focus on your business.

Action: Install Skype and reach out to a buddy. Get familiar with the ins and outs of video conferencing technology as well as online meeting etiquette and learn to interact and engage with people virtually just as well as you would if you met face-to-face.

5. Adopt outcome thinking

Why digitise workflow? To save money by improving efficiency?

Why adopt virtual meetings? To make more money by having more time to focus on your business?

Think of the end outcome of each of your actions as well as what impact it will have on your bottom line in terms of dollars saved or made.

Action: Next time someone suggests or proposes something to you about your business, ask yourself, “Will this way of doing things help make more money or save more money? And how are we going to measure that?” This is also a great way to evaluate your current methods and processes. Why do you do what you do?