Kaie is the Managing Director of FMJ Accounting. The company employs 7 accountants, has offices in Tartu and Jõhvi and has been providing accounting services for over 20 years. Kaie describes their work as more like a partner system than a boss-subordinate one. She says that she really believes in this model, because she has noticed in other companies that those that recognise that their employees are their real value do well.
In addition, she says unashamedly that she loves accounting. Even when a school friend calls instead of a client, for example, he’s really happy to be able to help someone. “Plus, I like it when people ask me something I don’t know,” says Kaie, “then I get a craving to find out.”
How it used to be
Once a week, secretaries used to come to our office with packets of documents. Or invoices were sent by e-mail. Anyway, once a week we had to enter the invoices for payment so as not to miss the payment deadline. Then the invoices had to be sorted in date order, and that was a tedious job. The order was important so that it would be possible to retrieve the documents from the archives later. Then you had to enter the data and then put the folder away in the filing cabinet.
It wasn’t a difficult job, but it was a simple job that took a lot of time. In the old days, you could also print out the invoices that came in the mail, and later manually bind them into attachments in Merit.
With the cheques, the customer would bring the cheques, the cheque would be photocopied and the cheque would be stapled to it. So that there would still be something to read 8 years later. “Then, of course, the data entry, that was a mega job, the assistants had to do it all the time. Just a few years ago we didn’t have two big screens and we were printing everything out all the time”.
For example, it was also common to ask the manager about invoices that had been sent to the general mailbox, to see if the invoice would be paid.
How’s work now?
Life went on its merry way, until that fateful first July, when it was time to start using e-invoicing. Kaie was already imagining how she would spend her time in the Billing Centre giving customers access and then training them.Then she found CostPocket and couldn’t believe that the app was actually that simple. “I stopped using the old systems overnight.”
If the customer already sends the invoice, this is already their confirmation that the invoice is payable. “I don’t have any folders, I don’t have to print anything out. Some of the old-school accountants come in and ask, ‘Are we really not printing anything out anymore?”
Some of the archive caps may be sent away. “Sorting? The computer does it automatically”, laughs Kaie and thinks of all the hours-days-months spent sorting documents.
Work is definitely smoother now. “Whenever I have a spare moment, I can go through the unapproved invoices again”. We win in terms of time and efficiency. “Today, for example, I’ve already taken five invoices in and the job is now done. All the things are already in the same day payment”. In the old days it was somehow a well-engineered mindless churning and it’s not anymore.
While there used to be 2 full-time assistants, they can now be used as main accountants, as the data entry workload has been reduced. “I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m half as efficient because there’s less work”. The attachments run themselves into Merit and there is no need to remember which attachments are still to be entered. And that preparation for the work is gone, that self-summoning that ‘I see here in the corner of the desk there’s this batch and I’m going to put it all in’.”
What I like about CostPocket is the logic of the workflow. Of course you have to check the data, but it’s simpler and more logical. In addition, Kaie praises the customer support: “When you talk to customer support, it seems like they want to sneak away, but Joonas has always tried to think along and get things done as quickly as possible.”
Changed role of an accountant
“In the old days we saw clients very often, but now there’s no reason to see them very often,” says Kaie, adding that it suits her very much that she now has more time to advise clients and learn more herself. Being a full-time accountant in a company gives you more opportunities for this kind of activity, but working in an office is really good when you have time.
“Some people like to enter data, I don’t. If I have to spend half my time doing it, it’s not normal.” Consultancy work has much more added value. Kaie adds, “It’s a pointless job if a robot can do it. If you had to punch in bills day after day, you wouldn’t have time for anything”.
Kaie thinks that the accountant’s job won’t disappear, but the assistant’s job will. FMJ has been able to avoid taking on new staff, they have had a fairly stable team for three or four years and the number of clients has been growing all the time. “We have been able to increase the salary, not the size of the team. We have a fierce bunch and we are efficient”. In the last few years they have also taken on two large clients, both of whom previously had their own full-time accountants on staff.
“I can’t say I’m a professional business adviser, but I can have a say because I can see how others are doing, where things are going and what’s happening. I’m up to date with changes in the law.” An accountant can also sometimes advise in areas that would otherwise fall under the remit of a financial manager (planning, cost control), a legal adviser (simpler tax issues) or a human resources specialist (payroll). Of course, not as well as each specialist in their own right, but these are the areas that clients are asking about these days. When is income tax due and when is it not? If exemptions have been announced by the state, they should be used and it is good if the accountant has time to familiarise himself with them.
“In the past, advice was not a priority, but now we have the time to do it” and there is a good deal of communication with clients by phone. We have somebody in the office talking on the phone all the time and one big change from before is that clients are starting to trust us more on these issues.”
In addition, more can now be done to prevent problems. You can talk to the client in advance, so that if there are things like a car sale or a property sale, they will be warned in advance. Because if the bill and the payment have already been made, it’s a hassle afterwards, or rather impossible to rectify, and the transaction may incur extra costs that could have been avoided. And it has become much more elementary for the customer to come and ask.
“It’s also changed so that now we can work wherever we want,” says Kaie. “There’s no more just meeting a client and we don’t both have to waste our time”. In the old days, it was sometimes the case that the client had to come to the office and point and say that this cheque is now this project and that is another. “Now, when we get together with the client, we talk about things.”
Author of the story Costpocket
www.costpocket.ee
