We love working with our clients to develop cloud accounting solutions. Using great tools, thoughtful consultation, and some old fashioned elbow grease, together we create a process that is efficient and produces useful, insightful results.
But it takes some time and effort to get there.
We’ve done many migrations – both complete workflow migrations as well as migrations to individual tools – and we’ve found that before starting the journey, it’s helpful for our clients to align their expectations and be prepared for some of the challenges (and opportunities) that might come their way. Here’s a short list:
1. Expect the unexpected.
Anyone who has been through a home renovation knows this firsthand. You start with a vision, you develop a plan with budgets and timelines and then you start taking the walls down. Sometimes things go exactly as planned, but 99.9999% of the time something unexpected occurs. Even with the best contractors. Even with the best plan. This is also true for cloud migrations. When you start taking down the walls of your accounting process, invariably you find unexpected surprises. One of your vendors refuses to work with a particular platform. One of your staff has developed an internal reporting process that you weren’t even aware of. If you keep a mindset of opportunity however, you can take advantage of these unexpected surprises as a way to build thoughtful internal workflows and systems that benefit your organization and achieve your key results. Which raises the question; what are the key results?…..
2. 80/20 rule.
Cloud accounting tools have radically changed the world of bookkeeping. Many of the mundane tasks can now be automated. Apps can be integrated. Work and info can be shared seamlessly across teams. But it’s important to remember that you won’t always get 100% of all the features that would work perfectly for your particular organization. After the initial excitement and delight over the flexibility and efficiencies that the cloud offers wear offs, clients can sometimes get frustrated that certain apps won’t integrate exactly as they expected, or that certain features are missing. Understandable! Sometimes I wish my dishwasher would sprout legs, walk over to my dining room table, collect the dishes, wash them and put them away. Now that’s awesome. But, we aren’t quite there yet! We tell clients to expect that they will hit 80% of their workflow goals. After that they may have to develop workarounds or, in certain circumstances, develop their own integrations to hit the remaining targets. It’s important to keep the top five list of workflow improvements at the top of your mind, so you are sure you are hitting your targeted outcomes. The rest fall onto “future development”. Which leads to the next point…
3. Prepare for the pace of change.
Things are constantly changing in the world of cloud accounting. New apps, new integrations, new features. If something isn’t possible now, it might be in two months. App partners are keen to know what you are looking for so be ready to share your feedback to help them grow. This is not a stagnant process and it’s important to stay on top of the developments in the industry.
Keeping these points in mind will help you manage your expectations as you embark on this exciting journey!
We look forward to helping you get started.
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