There is a quiet IT revolution taking place in Northern Ireland and it is shaping the way many accountants run their practices. No longer, do partners and staff have to spend every minute of every day on chargeable time; they now have a choice and some, like the progressive and dynamic Mcllveen Howard in Belfast, are choosing to spend their time developing their businesses.
Mcllveen Howard has gone from strength to strength since the installation of an integrated suite of software designed specifically for the accountancy profession. The system was installed three years ago in the practice which looks after 500 clients and has 13 staff. Partner, David Logan, explained: “The tax returns, calculations and accounts literally drop out of the system which is very important in this competitive business climate and it allows the partners to get on with the running of the business and work more closely with clients to ensure they succeed with their businesses.”
In the last year alone, Mcllveen Howard has welcomed 60 new clients on board, something David believes only possible because he and his fellow partners have been able to take a step away from compliance work and focus on business development. The aim is to achieve a self sustaining business that is highly controlled and David is the first to admit that this has only been possible because of their choice of IT system.
David explained: “We have always believed in the sharing of data across the practice but had been extremely disappointed with the quality of integration on offer by the major software developers, until we found IRIS.”
David is of the opinion that many Northern Ireland practices have their ‘heads in the sand’ and are loath to develop. They are unaware of the productivity and efficiency gains that can be achieved from automating much of the day to day work. “So many accountants in Northern Ireland are still dictating letters and doing the number crunching themselves, they don’t have the time to develop their businesses. The results we have experienced are stunning. It really is a fabulous system.”
However, he is keen to stress that “It takes commitment on two levels; time and financial, although the biggest cost is time.”
Mcllveen Howard strongly believes that the only way to grow a practice is to have spare capacity and the system allows them the flexibility to take on additional work without having to recruit more staff. David said: “In the three years that we have been using the system we have been able to maintain a constant level of staff but still have the capacity to take on new work.”
The software saves on the overhead of employing staff and enables practices to utilise junior staff to work on compliance work that would normally have been the preserve of those more experienced. Mcllveen Howard finds that using the personal tax package is like having their own in-house tax specialist able to calculate capital gains tax, foreign tax credit relief, top slicing relief and able to plot different pension scenarios at the touch of a button.
One of the surprising benefits is the fact that every member of staff’s efficiencies are utilised, often in surprising ways. One member of staff used to be responsible for the practice filing but now because all the documents generated are filed automatically within the appropriate client folder, she can now draw upon her creative skills and produce the highly professional client newsletter; a job she enjoys immensely.
The practice, Mcllveen Howard, uses all of the products in the IRIS portfolio including Accounts Production, Personal Tax, Business Tax, Time and Fees for billing and the innovative Practice Management system.
Francis Carville, the Production Partner added: “This is a huge package which provides an unprecedented level of control over all work being handled by the practice. The system really proved itself at Christmas, the busiest time of year, we knew exactly what returns were still outstanding and there was no panic.”
The firm’s experiences are so positive that the Partners are offering other firms in the province the opportunity to see at first hand how use of such a system can help to create a totally new business approach.
David concluded by throwing down the gauntlet to practices that are ‘comfortable with discomfort’ and scared of change. He said: “Once you see for yourself how efficiency is improved and the positive benefits of change, there can be no going back.”
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© The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland 2007.