Big data is just for big firms, right? Wrong. For small tax and accounting firms, learning how to leverage your abundant client and firm data can be a big differentiator in reaching your strategic goals. Despite that fact, according to a 2021 survey done by Accounting Today for Wolters Kluwer:
- Only 8% of firms with 5-9 employees use data analytics technology for reporting and tracking KPIs, compared to 32% of firms with 50+ employees.
- Only 25% of small firms identified using data and analytics as one of their strategic goals in the next three to five years.
Are you missing out on using your internal and client data to drive decision-making? If so, here’s how to dig into that data to identify opportunities to increase capacity and your profit margin.
Data-driven insights
The more you know about your clients and their challenges, the better your firm is positioned to help them succeed. You can leverage predictive intelligence, big data, and data analytics to provide clients with valuable data-driven insights that help set your firm apart in a highly competitive market.
Informed decision making
Comprehensive, real-time reporting and dynamic dashboards turn internal and external data into decision-making fuel. That gives firm management the power to make informed strategic decisions about staffing and identify upsell opportunities as well as additional services to offer.
To determine the best reporting and data analytics tools to integrate into your tech stack, consider how each option can help you answer these questions:
- What are the firm’s strongest and weakest revenue streams?
- Where can the firm achieve strategic growth?
- Which internal processes are inefficient?
- Are staff entering data consistently and following a standard process?
As with any tech tool your firm invests in, ensure that you choose a business intelligence solution that can scale with your firm as it grows. Selecting a vendor with an open API policy will allow all your software, systems, and databases to work together seamlessly.
