Today, we take a look at the benefits of synergy and offer some tips to help you promote collaboration at your accounting firm.
Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It’s the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.
Stephen Covey
Successful accounting firms have one important thing in common: synergy. Rather than operating from an “every man for himself” attitude, the professionals at these firms work together in order to accomplish their goals.
When team members work together, it benefits everyone and leads to better outcomes. Like the Covey quote above explains, with synergy, one plus one no longer equals two—it equals ten.
How to Promote Collaboration in Your Accounting Firm
1. Get to know each other
The ability to function as a team—rather than just a group of individuals—is a key part of synergy. There are a variety of strategies for building cohesion within your firm—team-building exercises, firm outings, and group projects, to name a few. Consider facilitating one or more events to help your team bond. Getting to know one another better, both personally and professionally, will help you best leverage the strengths of your team members.
2. Set team goals
Rather than dictating objectives to your team, consider having everyone work together in order to establish goals for the group. Be sure to clearly communicate your expectations, but then step back and let the creative juices flow. Not only will your team bond as they work together to establish objectives, but they will be more invested in accomplishing goals that they participated in developing.
3. Use a customer relationships management (CRM) system
Team building is important, but it’s not enough by itself. Even the best teams can fail without the proper platform for facilitating their work together. That’s where a CRM comes in. A CRM is the central location for all of your firm’s contact information. Each user records their contact interactions, and all interaction information is available to the whole company. The right CRM for your firm will provide tools to help your team stay in sync, remain accountable, and keep each other seamlessly informed about all key relationships.
How ABLE Can Help You Promote Collaboration at Your Firm
ABLE is the CRM for accounting firms. It is designed by CPAs and for CPAs. ABLE promotes collaboration within accounting teams by providing these helpful tools:
- Contact Information – ABLE is a hub for all of your firm’s contact information, including clients, referral sources, and prospects. Each contact page includes a record of all firm interactions with that person.
- Pipeline Dashboard – ABLE’s pipeline dashboard view gives users a glimpse at all ongoing firm interactions. With just a glance, users can know the status of everyone in their pipeline.
- CRoPs Dashboard – This helpful dashboard allows ABLE users to easily keep up with their most important contact relationships. Plus, anyone in the firm can easily see if a teammate is slacking, which is a great accountability tool.
Learn More About ABLE
Now that you know all about how ABLE can help your accounting firm practice collaboratively, perhaps you’d like to spend some time learning about ABLE’s other helpful features. Check out our “ABLE is the Best CRM” blog series to discover more!
Perhaps you’re ready for a guided tour of the ABLE system? Sign up for a no-obligations demo today to have all of your questions answered by an ABLE expert.