Kierstyn Kalman
Earlier this summer, as an escape from the mask city life, my boyfriend and I decided to take a ride to Cape Cod and hike the Dune Shacks Trail. I still remember how impossibly far the inlet to the water was when we first started our journey. Up and down over massive sand dunes, it felt like we would never reach our destination. However, knowing the relaxation that lay ahead (and of course, the wine!) kept me going until we finally reached that amazing beach on the other side of the dunes. It was a picture-perfect moment, as captured above. (Cheeze!)
So what does this have to do with Botkeeper?
It may seem difficult to implement ANYTHING new at your firm—and implementing new software can be especially daunting. We know. We’ve been there. You’re eager to get to that destination, see a return on your investment, and see that your new solution is bringing value. But, there’s the reality of setup—training staff, doing a knowledge transfer from old software to new software, getting clients onboarded, and the list goes on. It’s a lot to dive into!
This is why the Botkeeper team has put a special focus on empowering and supporting our clients during the implementation process. We want to make sure our client implementation and adoption is as easy and streamlined as possible.
In addition to our outstanding support teams that are always available to you, we also have some amazing resources to make your personal “hike to the beach” a little less strenuous than mine (yes, this is where my original analogy plays in, folks).
Read on to get a look into what to expect during the first few months with Botkeeper as we help you get to your ultimate destination.
Meeting Your Botkeeper Growth partner
Once you’ve decided that Botkeeper’s the right fit for you, you’re immediately assigned a dedicated Botkeeper Growth Partner out of the gate. Your Growth Partner is a CPA with the primary focus of helping your firm scale, and they are going to be with you every step of the way. During implementation, you’ll work with your dedicated Growth Partner to build a roadmap to accomplish both your immediate and long-term goals. The Botkeeper expert will act as a project manager to help hold your team accountable to achieving your objectives, define milestones in the process, and offer best practices to help your team achieve your goals with the Botkeeper solution.
Your Growth Partner gets you started by scheduling a kick-off meeting to review the implementation process and introduce your firm to the Botkeeper Partner Platform. From there, you'll have ongoing support from your BotOps (Botkeeper Operations) team who will keep your firm running like a well-oiled machine!
In addition to the hands-on services provided by the Botkeeper Growth and Success teams, we also provide our clients with our exclusive “Accounting Partner Launch Kit” to help enable long-term success. The kit consists of amazing resources like client announcement templates, FAQs, tips and tricks, marketing plans, and more, to help our partners in all aspects of their practice thrive with Botkeeper.
Think of your Launch Kit as your home base as you get started with Botkeeper: it’s your one-stop-shop for growth resources!
Announcing the Change
Next, we want to get you ready to embrace change by announcing to your clients that you will be doing their bookkeeping using cutting-edge technology—a real differentiator! We know that helping you get the news out early can get you in front of the inevitable deluge of questions and concerns, and it will expedite your client onboarding. Oh, and not to mention, it will make you look even more awesome to your clients!
To get you ready for your grand announcement, we lead you straight over to that handy Launch Kit. Within the Launch Kit we provide you with an entire section on “Introducing Change to Your Clients,” which includes templates for all client communications, including the initial email detailing the change. We even provide an email template and reminders on how your clients can access their new portal. Your clients will have everything they need to know when they need it with these pre-made templates.
And for those who want to highlight their Botkeeper relationship beyond their internal firm and clients, we also have a “Press Release How-To” guide and a full plug-and-play “Press Release” template that you can use in the Launch Kit. Tell the world that you’re now a Botkeeper Accounting Partner—we know we’d want to do the same!
Custom-branding
Of course, if you’d prefer to keep your Botkeeper relationship under wraps to minimize the amount of questions it might raise (we get it!), we can work with you to custom-brand Botkeeper as your own services. Just talk with your Growth Partner about the process, and they’ll take care of you!
Knowledge Transfer
Now that your clients know the amazing technology you’ve implemented at your firm, we work with you to begin the process of moving your bookkeeping clients onto the Botkeeper Platform. To get those clients up and running, we connect to the client's general ledger, financial institutions, and any third-party applications that would be integrating with Botkeeper for a seamless and consolidated experience.
If you’re coming aboard with a large number of clients, we can help speed the process along with an option called “batch onboarding.” Instead of bringing on client data one by one, we can bring on several of your clients at once, saving you some time during the setup process. Your Growth Partner will also advise you on how to group and prioritize clients into lists based on key factors like level of adaptability and overall bookkeeping similarities.
We know that a lot of firms are working with more traditional clients who are used to handing over paper documents (bank statements, receipts, etc.) and may take a little longer adjusting to a fully automated platform. And that’s okay! Our Partners have found that transitioning the more “adaptable” customers first (those who are a bit more tech-savvy or comfortable with change) is a great way to prioritize. You’re able to introduce the process, start documenting your customer questions, and get really familiar with the motions—then by the time you get to your more traditional customers, you’re armed and ready.
Handing Over the Bookkeeping
Once your clients’ financial data and third-party applications have been added and connected to the Platform, we’ll make sure we have everything we need to do the bookkeeping. As we work in your client’s books daily, we may have questions along the way, for which we’ll ask your guidance from within the Platform.
Your Growth Partner and BotOps team will continue to meet with you on a recurring basis to verify that your clients’ books are meeting your expectations. We want to make sure you’re always getting the most out of your Botkeeper partnership!
Training for Success
Now that your Client Portals are set up and connected to their accounts, it’s time to begin training your clients and your staff on how to best use the Botkeeper Platform. Don’t worry, this is another superhero moment where your Growth Partner team steps in and provides you hands-on training as well as guides. And yes, there are so many tools in the platform, but each tool was purpose-built to save you time and create efficiency.
Here’s a brief breakdown of the various tools we’ll review with your firm before your clients see them in their portal:
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Home: Where your clients will find any pertinent tasks, reminders, or messages that they need to review. It’s also a place where they’ll find a welcome message from your firm as well as any pertinent contact information.
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Dashboard: A tool that consists of various widgets that connect to and pull data from multiple sources, allowing your clients to get all of their data in one central location.
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Files: Where your clients will be able to easily pass those sensitive and important files needed to complete their accounting in a super-secure and easy file sharing and storage environment.
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Discussions: Where we’ll bring all communication into one place between your client’s business, Botkeeper, and your firm. Once a discussion thread has been started in the Discussions tool, responding directly back to the email copy you receive automatically updates the communication string, giving you and your clients a nice audit trail of the conversation to reference it in the future.
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Tasks: This tool ensures Botkeeper and your firm have everything needed to perform your client’s bookkeeping, close out their month-end, etc., allowing us to assign tasks to your clients. We can even assign due dates and set them as recurring if it’s something that’s needed each month.
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Smart Connect: This is where your client’s various credit cards and bank accounts will be connected so we can recreate their statements for the month-end close.
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Transaction Manager: Using machine learning, the tool automatically categorizes transactions based on historical patterns and macro data, looping in our human team to validate the information and apply critical thinking. This feature automates a large amount of the manual work, making us more efficient, highly accurate, and way faster than a traditional bookkeeping approach. Transactions that we need input on will appear here. The cool thing: once you provide input, the machines learn from you and never ask that same question again!
Understanding and taking advantage of all the functionality within the Portal is the key to creating that time savings and efficiency that you hired Botkeeper for. We offer you as many training opportunities as you need, and we’ll even train your clients on your behalf. To keep your Botkeeper knowledge fresh, we also host ongoing webinars to help share guidance and best practices for making your firm a successful Botkeeper Partner. They're absolutely worth joining each month!
Your Beautiful Firm of the Future
Ah…we did it! Nothing makes us happier than when our Accounting Partners get to this phase of their Botkeeper relationship, and they can focus on what’s next. With everything running smoothly between your firm and Botkeeper, you’re able to focus on your firm’s goals...maybe that means growth and scale?
Specifically, are you looking to target a specific industry? Botkeeper has templated one-pagers for various industries, from restaurants to dental practices, that you can append your logo and contact info onto, then distribute to your target audience.
Or perhaps you’re trying to get more social followers to help expand your book of business? We have a social media calendar with 12 months of content to post, and we’ll provide you with a well-detailed marketing template for you to use, too.
Finally, the “Growing Your Firm” section of your Botkeeper Launch Kit provides these resources plus a media kit, free stock images, sales sheet templates, and some helpful social media guidelines. And with Botkeeper supporting you in onboarding 10+ new clients per day, we encourage you to use our marketing templates to attract the clients you want for your firm!
Ready to get started?
There’s no doubt that using the Botkeeper solution can help you achieve your firm’s goals, and let’s face it—change can be a labor of love! Botkeeper's growth and success teams are here to support you every step of the way through a process that’s designed to help you reach your most important goals faster. Contact us today to learn more about how we take the time to get our Accounting Partners set up, integrated, gaining confidence, and achieving their goals with the Botkeeper solution.
