Are you managing your firm’s service delivery with a carefully planned suite of tools? Or do you have a system of randomly cobbled-together parts adding up to a monster that is horrifying to behold and terrifying to manage?
Everyone has a some sort system to help them manage their delivery of client services, whether it consists of sticky notes on a computer and maybe a spreadsheet (or two), or a deliberately designed set of tools centered around a workflow system like Aero. It’s spookily easy for a simple system to suddenly become a monster if you aren’t paying attention. To help you decide whether your system has become something that goes bump in the night, here are some questions you can ask yourself.
Does everyone know what work needs to be done each day? Do they have the resources they need?
At first all you needed was a simple spreadsheet with columns for the client name, task description, due date, who it was assigned to, and so on. But, as your practice grew, you and your staff spent more and more time updating (and repairing) the spreadsheet. And there were problems: where to put comments and status updates? How to control access to certain information? How do you store sensitive client information so that it is secure, yet accessible when needed for client work? As time passed, you may have found an app here and a workaround there that answered each particular need, but maybe it’s time to ask yourself if there is a better way.
How are you tracking time spent doing client work?
Perhaps your staff tracks their time manually or you use time-tracking software. Are the entries accurate? Does your time-tracking software interface with your system of tracking client work or does your staff have to make notes about the job in one place and then go and make their time entry in another? Can you track both billable and non-billable time? Do you know what the actual time spent on a task is vs. the estimated? If you bill on a fixed fee basis, do you know if you’re charging enough?
Do you have an overview of the work done on any given day?
A cobbled together system rarely gives a manager a bird’s eye view of the firm’s workflow. How do you make sure that all the client work has been assigned and is being done? If someone is sick or on vacation, is their work getting done? Do you have any idea what everyone has done each day? Can you tell how close to completion tasks and projects are?
Is your firm actually making money?
This is perhaps the scariest question of all. If your various spreadsheets, apps, and systems aren’t tracking time spent on each client, billable vs. billable, actual vs. estimated, how do you know if each client is profitable? Do you have any way to spot scope creep and seep? Are you able to identify which types of engagements or clients are the most profitable?
Aero Workflow is designed to put Frankenstein’s Monster to rest.
Aero is designed to bring all the resources needed to delver client services together in one place. It give users a clear picture of what they need to do each day and managers a clear picture of what is happening in the firm. The reports give you an accurate picture of firm performance and profitability. In other words, Aero turns managing your workflow from a tricky balancing act to a real treat!
