Walls Financial Group feared staffing issues could cause major problems
Accounting firms have been struggling to attract and retain top talent for years. Recently, however, this issue has been exacerbated by the “The Great Resignation” caused in part by the pandemic. Walls Financial Group wasn’t able to dodge the effects.
“Finding good staff has been a challenge for me for many years. Early on, it wasn't that hard to find quality people who knew what they were doing. But in the last five years, it's become much more difficult. We've had employees who either weren't invested in their jobs or didn't understand what they were doing,” Brian said.
Brian and his staff were already handling 60 clients when they lost a staff member in 2021. He was then worried about falling behind on the month-end close for their 40 monthly bookkeeping clients.
“Losing an employee that managed all our bookkeeping was the worst of our issues,” Brian said. “And even then, I knew that employee was having issues staying on top of the bookkeeping for the firm. I knew we had to stay consistent with our clients, who expected timely and accurate filing. So, not doing anything ahead of an upcoming tax season was not an option. Technology seemed like a natural fit.”
To deal with their staffing challenges ahead of an upcoming tax season, Brian and Misty Millette, Manager at Walls Financial Group considered a bookkeeping process nimble enough to handle the company's biggest challenge yet.
The search for technology made easy
To keep up with their staffing challenges and provide the best services to their unique clients, technology-savvy Walls Financial Group knew they needed a bookkeeping technology partner they could rely on, fast.
“We’ve been a technology-forward firm since the beginning. I’ve always seen technology as a way for the firm to be paperless, digitize our data, and seamlessly interface with our clients. These types of solutions enable us to work more efficiently and grow,” Brian said. “I knew a bookkeeping solution would help us further empower our remaining staff, help bridge the gap in our services and impact our bottom line.”
Walls Financial Group didn’t look any further than Botkeeper for the solution to solve their bookkeeping challenges. After Misty learned about Botkeeper during an industry webinar, she knew that Botkeeper was the answer.
“I knew Botkeeper was the accounting solution for us when I first learned about it on a CPA Academy webinar,” Misty said. “It ticked all of the boxes we were looking for: it could help us solve our staffing issues, generate more income, and could be integrated with our current software — what more could we want? So, we didn’t evaluate other workflow tools in the market.”
Botkeeper was an easy choice.
Walls Financial Group saves time by putting routine bookkeeping tasks on autopilot
Today, Walls Financial Group has switched over 50% of their monthly bookkeeping clients to the Botkeeper platform and they couldn't be happier with their decision. The solution has saved the firm 300 hours on financial reporting and transaction categorizing in just half a year - that’s a 25% reduction.
“Botkeeper has been a time-saver for us. Our staff used to spend a lot of time accurately categorizing complex transactions,” Brian said. “With Botkeeper at our fingertips, we see a 25% drop in the number of hours spent doing that work for 50% of our clients - that’s a total of 300 hours in six short months!”
Brian and his staff have gained more time to focus on challenging growth opportunities as a result of their newfound operational efficiency.
Ready to have more meaningful advisory discussions with clients
Partnering with Botkeeper freed up the firm’s time, allowing them to spend less time on each client’s books and finish month-end close faster, giving their staff more time to focus on higher-level advisory work.
“We used to spend hours on tasks that Botkeeper now takes care of,” Brian said. “Now that our processes are automated, our staff is relieved from mundane work so they can take on new duties and have higher value conversations with clients.”
Freeing up time allows Brian and Misty to focus on what matters most — growing their business.
Botkeeper is a part of the Walls Financial Group’s revenue path forward
Walls Financial Group is positioned to reach their goals now that they have the right technology and people as partners.
“We’re confident in our ability to reach our long-term goals because we have the right technology and relationships in place,” Brian said. “As we look ahead to our future with Botkeeper, Misty and I want to grow our tax and business management lines of business by leveraging the platform for those clients. We can offer them the same level of advisory we have with our bookkeeping clients. This will help us grow our revenue and eventually allow us to cut the number of staff working in those areas.”
In addition to Botkeeper's powerful automation, Walls Financial Group has its relationship with its Growth Partner to thank for helping pave the way toward a bright future.
Misty said, “We worked with Matt Koller as our Growth Partner. He's been great and a huge help. Matt has been super supportive and very helpful. We couldn't have gotten through without his help and guidance each week. He's been a pleasure to work with.”
