If you search the internet for “CRM,” you have more than 125 million results to sift through. Narrowing the search to “CRM for Accountants” returns 583,000 results. Even searching for advice on finding the right CRM for your company returns innumerable results, most published by vendors!
Big-market CRMs have invested significant time, energy, and money to elevate themselves in search results to reach as many potential clients as possible. Unfortunately, as an accounting professional, this means you have thousands of websites to comb through in order to find a product that meets your specific needs.
Most CRMs position their service as “all things to all people.” Some will even promote the wide range of clients they have. They want you to understand if they can support retail and manufacturing companies, as well as payroll service providers, they can handle your firm’s business.
One Size Does Not Fit All
In order for these sales-oriented platforms to satisfy your firm’s needs, you have to invest in customizations and adapt your business processes to fit the functionality of the platform. This ultimately costs your firm money and frustrates your team.
From another angle, most CRMs are geared toward the sales process and targeted to sales professionals. This can be advantageous to win new business, but what happens after that?
As a CPA, you need software positioned to serve your needs as an advisor, not a vendor. You need relationship development, content delivery, and collaboration tools. That’s more than most CRMs offer.
Comparing CRMs to ABLE
We recently compared ABLE to a small business CRM aimed at sales teams. Check out the full comparison here. We looked at three major areas: relationship management, accountability, and content delivery.
Here’s what we found:
Relationship Management: The CRM’s design helps sales teams close more deals, but the functionality to nurture relationships over time was minimized. ABLE’s core functionality centers on developing and growing relationships with your most important clients, referral sources, and prospects. Clear visual reminders offer an indication of each relationship’s health and when to take action.
Accountability: The CRM allowed only users with certain permissions to see their team’s performance statistics. With ABLE, all users can see relationship statuses and firm activity across the entire team. Additionally, ABLE is equipped with a survey module to assess client satisfaction, providing additional accountability opportunities.
Content Delivery: The CRM can send plain-text emails directly from the system and integrates with outside providers. ABLE’s Thought Leadership module allows you to send a one-to-many email in a one-to-one format without required integrations. As a bonus, ABLE’s Content Library provides hundreds of relevant articles and resources for you to send to your contacts. Our team actively procures the content with CPA firms in mind.
The dynamic needs of the accounting industry influence ABLE’s functionality. The simple interface and continual enhancements play a major role in helping firms achieve sustainable, profitable growth.
Ready to see ABLE in action? Schedule a demo to see how ABLE is the perfect CRM for accountants.