businessfitness™ Overview

At businessfitness™ we are experts in making accounting firms efficient. We provide firms with a range of services including performance benchmarking, efficiency monitoring, process improvement, ‘paperless office’ implementation services; as well as products including document management software, and workpapers, checklists and other templates for standardising and systemising a firm’s processes for achieving optimum efficiency.

As you’ll see below, we’re about far more than just software. Unlike a software company, we don’t see software as ‘the main game’. We see software merely as a tool for achieving the business outcomes such as improved efficiency and profitability. The key, however, to achieving those outcomes lies not just in the software, but in the implementation and educational services that help improve the way a firm operates.

That’s a large part of The businessfitness™ Difference as you’ll learn as you progress through our web site …

- more -  

- SERVICES -

Good Bad Ugly® Benchmarking

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly® of the Accounting Profession is the leading benchmarking report and practice improvement guide for Australian accounting firms. The annual Good Bad Ugly® benchmarking survey is the industry’s largest and longest running. The resulting Good Bad Ugly® reports serve two main purposes as: (1) A benchmarking study analysing the financial performance, work practices and management trends within Australian accounting firms; and (2) Detailed firm improvement guides outlining ‘how to’ strategies for enhancing the performance of any accounting firm.

Survey responses are received each year from many hundreds of accounting firms across Australia, including city, suburban and regional firms ranging from small sole practitioner firms to large second tier multi-partner firms. The benchmarking data now also includes a unique metric called The Efficiency Factor™ which is a single measure summarising firm performance across 11 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that impact significantly on a firm’s efficiency and profitability. The Efficiency Factor™ provides firms with a powerful, yet simple to monitor, KPI that provides a clear focus for a firm’s management team. 

The 2008 survey - Now Closed

Good Bad Ugly® Efficiency Monitoring

The Good Bad Ugly® Efficiency Monitoring service to accounting firms doesn’t just measure quarterly activity and results, but more importantly it identifies key areas that will significantly improve the firm’s results.businessfitness™ provides you with valuable efficiency and performance monitoring measurements based on our in-depth industry knowledge and experience gleaned from conducting The Good, the Bad & the Ugly® of the Accounting Profession research each year. We know what makes the ‘good’ firms tick, and we know the mistakes most ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’ firms make.The Good Bad Ugly® Efficiency Monitoring service includes reporting your firm’s Efficiency Factor™ as well as benchmarking as ‘Good’, ‘Bad’ or ‘Ugly’ your performance in each of the 11 underlying KPIs. This pin-points for you the KPIs you need to address to improve your firm’s overall efficiency and profitability. 

Firm Efficiency Diagnostic

The Firm Efficiency Diagnostic process has been specifically designed and structured to review and assess your firm’s current work environment and processes by:

• Understanding the partners’ goals for the firm and possibly their own lifestyle
• Assessing how team members view the firm
• Reviewing the major processes of the firm with the people who are performing the tasks
• Pinpointing areas for improvement and then providing you with recommended strategies and solutions
• Creating a realistic action plan to implement the recommendations in the most effective sequence.

- more -  

Process Improvement

The Process Improvement service draws on our years of experience working hands-on with accounting firms and will help you refine your major processes and identify critical areas for improving efficiency and effectiveness. The focus is on having ‘the right people on the right job’ which may mean eliminating steps in processes that are not required; or combining, altering or modifying steps within a process; or completely changing the people performing a particular step in a process. By improving your firm’s internal processes you will improve efficiency and your effectiveness which leads to reduced write offs, increased productivity and improved profitability.

- more -  

Team Culture Improvement

The focus of the Team Culture Development service is to provide a positive forum for partners, managers and all team members to offer constructive feedback and solutions to improve firm culture, creativity and enthusiasm within your firm. A major challenge for practitioners is knowing where to start and how to develop and nurture team members in order to reach their maximum potential. Every practitioner knows that working together as a cohesive team achieves better overall results than a group of individuals working largely independently, though improving team culture is easier said than done. The nature of this Team Culture Development process means it is best facilitated by an independent third party. We are typically able to extract far more candid and useful feedback and suggestions from a firm’s team (and its Partners!) than a practitioner can achieve directly.

- more -  

Cashflow Improvement

The businessfitness™ Cashflow Improvement service involves working with you and your team to implement an effective process for confidently dealing with slow paying clients, in the process significantly improving your cash flow. We teach you—and help you implement—a systematic and proven approach to billings and collections. The Cashflow Improvement service offers your accounting firm several options to help reduce your outstanding debtor days and increase cash flow.  

Paperless Office Implementation

What software companies typically do not realise, is that achieving the ‘paperless office’ is about more than having a Document Management System and dual screens for your staff. It’s not ‘something you buy’, it’s something you create. To create a ‘less paper office’ requires a number of elements to be effectively implemented with a coordinate approach, and these elements span not just software and hardware related issues, but also people, process and change management issues. At businessfitness™ we’re experts in helping firms effectively implement the ‘less paper’ way of working and whilst we can provide firms with the industry leading HowNow® Document Management System, regardless of which document management software your firm chooses, businessfitness™ can step you through the many other considerations of going paperless, including selection of scanning hardware, use of scanning automation software for automated filing of scanned documents, whether dual screens or widescreens are more appropriate for your IT environment and way of working, how to design Word and Excel templates for effective on-screen (i.e. paperless) completion, protocols for paperless handling of incoming mail, outgoing correspondence protocols, ideal folder structure in Windows Explorer for electronic filing and retrieval, and so on. The typical “install the software and run” approach of software companies will not help you go paperless. A well researched, methodical approach taking a variety of factors into consideration, will.  

- PRODUCTS -

HowNow® Document Management System

HowNow® is a Document Management System purpose-built for accounting firms. Being a specialist Document Management System, HowNow® provides far greater efficiency and ease of use than a ‘Documents tab’ in a Practice Management System. The HowNow® implementation team at and businessfitness™ are Australia’s only specialists implementers in document management for accounting firms. HowNow® is a tool that makes ‘going paperless’ much easier because it provides your team with one place to look for any working paper, checklist, template, precedent, standard letter, email, accounting data file, reference material, client correspondence, file notes and so on. Any document or file can typically be found within 2 seconds, no matter where or who filed it, unlike other systems. If your team are currently using Windows Explorer or an equivalent ‘browse through a folder structure’ method of electronically filing and retrieving documents (such as a ‘Documents tab’ in a PMS), you are likely to be wasting at least 20 to 30 minutes per team member per day in needlessly unproductive time.

- more -  

HowNow® Accountants Templates & Workpapers

businessfitness™ is Australia’s only provider of template checklists, working papers, standard letters and other tools for accounting firms that is not an accounting firm. What are the benefits of that? This singular focus allows our Content Team to do nothing but research and work on updating the many hundreds of templates, day in, day out. It’s all they do. This means we have Australia’s best track record for releasing updated templates at least each month (we have released over 100 Content Updates without missing one month since we began providing the service). We are also the only publisher of template content to accounting firms who also provides the all important procedures that are crucial for training team members in the overall processes that explain when and how to use the various templates. Firms that use HowNow® also benefit from our ‘content push’ technology that automatically pipes the updated templates directly into their HowNow® knowledgebase each month. Keeping your firm’s templates up to date has never been easier or more cost effective. For firms not using HowNow®, there are also a selection of templates and workpapers now available for purchase.

- more -  

Good Bad Ugly® Report

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly® of the Accounting Profession is available for purchase even to firms that have not participated in the benchmarking survey that provided the data for the report. In addition to the benchmarking data analysis, the report includes sections on tips for improving your firm’s performance in the various KPI areas, as well as insightful practice improvement articles written by a cross-section of accounting industry experts. Click here to order ...   

AccountingNow®

Access comprehensive and up-to-date documents including workbooks and checklists.

• As used by many hundreds of accounting practices of all sizes including 2nd Tier firms.
• Saves many hours of your time. Eliminate the need for costly research and development.
• Purchase only the documents you need, when you need them.
• Documents are easily downloaded to where you currently store your knowledge.

All Document Sets in the AccountingNow™ suite have been developed by businessfitness™, Australia’s leading supplier of best practice content to the accounting profession. Each Document Set has been researched, developed, and is kept up to date by experienced accountants who have worked in senior positions in accounting firms for many years.

- more -