Accounting CRM: the Essence
Accounting CRM stores customer profiles for accountants and salespeople to have relevant customer data at hand, offers automation of accountants’ workflows related to customer interaction and analytics-driven lead management, and provides self-service features for customers. Accounting CRM can be integrated with relevant business software, such as a practice management system, accounting software, etc.
Key Features of CRM for Accountants
As a rule, ScienceSoft covers the following functional capabilities to tailor CRM to accounting needs.
Customer data and documents storage
- Customer profiles containing contacts, information on purchased accounting services, etc.
- Customer interaction history (to have the context of previous conversations with the customers).
- Customer segmentation (based on the accounting service type they are interested in, customer business size and type, etc.).
- Documents storage (service contracts, invoices, etc.).
- Duplicate customer data detection and merging.
Lead and opportunity management
- Lead generation via online channels (web, email) and offline channels (conferences).
- Referral lead management.
- Lead qualification (based on company size, industry, location, interest in accounting services, interactions with the firm’s website, etc.).
- Automated lead and opportunity distribution (based on pre-defined rules, e.g., a lead’s interest in specific accounting service, to assign them to the right accountant or salesperson).
- Lead and opportunity prioritization (based on predicted conversion probability).
- Tracking past and upcoming activities related to opportunities (calls, tasks, meetings, etc.) in a single dashboard.
- Upselling of accounting services to existing clients.
- Sales proposal templates.
- Collaborative sales proposal preparation by salespeople and accountants.
Customer interaction management
- Multi-channel communication with customers (phone calls, email, chats, social networks).
- Automated email distribution (e.g., payment reminders to the customers, the latest accounting and auditing news).
- Customizable email templates (e.g., announcements on changes in consulting service policy, follow-up letters, customer onboarding letters).
- Activity calendar (to schedule meetings and calls with the customers).
- Automatic reminders for accountants and salespeople (e.g., on appointments with the customers).
Self-service for customers
- Customer portal.
- Customer knowledge base (with accounting services description and pricing, guides and tips on efficient accounting processes, etc.).
- AI-powered chatbots to handle customers’ FAQs (e.g., about accounting services, customer portal access issues).
Practice management (optional)
- Project management (defining project scope, tracking project progress, assigning project tasks to accountants and salespeople, creating task templates).
- Customer document management (adding electronic signatures to documents, authenticating customers' electronic signatures, setting up folder templates to store customer documents in order, automatically filling data into document forms).
- Time tracking (to bill customers according to the time accountants and salespeople spend on their projects).
Security and compliance
- Role-based access control.
- Record-based security.
- User activity logs.
- Data backups.
- Compliance with key regulatory requirements related to GDPR, etc.
Analytics and reporting
- Customizable dashboards and reports.
- Customer satisfaction analysis (based on the customers’ feedback on service provided by accountants).
- KPIs tracking (e.g., customer satisfaction rate, customer churn rate, average revenue per customer).
- Customer profitability and value analysis (to learn how much a customer spends on accounting services).
- AI-driven recommendations on accounting services cross-selling (e.g., based on customer purchase history).
Important Integrations for Accounting CRM
To make accounting CRM easy to use, ScienceSoft automates data exchange with other systems used by accountants.
Accounting CRM + Practice management system
To provide customers with up-to-date pricing and other information on accounting services (e.g., a new service launch or a pricing update); to automatically transfer service order details (service type, duration of cooperation, etc.) from CRM to Practice management system for order fulfillment and customer details from Practice management system to CRM for account development.
Accounting CRM + accounting software
To complement customer profiles in CRM with the transaction and invoicing history, credit limits, etc. to get a comprehensive customer view.
Accounting CRM + payment services
To enable accounting firms to get payments for services quickly and 24/7 and check customers’ payment status (e.g., in progress, completed) in CRM to track whether the transaction has been successfully completed.
What Determines Accounting CRM Success
ScienceSoft recommends taking into account the following factors that can become critical for the success of your CRM implementation.
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Strong security (e.g., role-based, record-based, field-based security) to protect customer data. |
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High level of automation of salespeople’s and accountants’ daily tasks related to interaction with the customers (payment reminders to the customers, automated email distribution, etc.) to increase their productivity and allow them to focus on their core activities. |
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Broad integration capabilities to complement the customers’ profiles in CRM with relevant customer data (e.g., payment history from accounting software) and avoid such human errors as incorrect data input. |
Platforms ScienceSoft Recommends for Accounting CRM
Microsoft Dynamics 365
ScienceSoft recommends
Description
Gartner named Microsoft a Leader in 2020 Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center.
Features
- 360-degree customer view (contacts, past transactions, notes on conversations, etc.).
- Omnichannel interface to help accountants and salespeople communicate with customers through their preferred channels (e.g., chat, email, messengers).
- Self-service customer portal with a knowledge base (containing accounting services and pricing descriptions, tips on efficient accounting processes, etc.).
Pricing
Free 30-day trial.
Pricing depends on the chosen modules and license:
- Marketing: from $750 to $1,500 / tenant / month
- Sales: from $65 to $95 / user / month
- Customer Service: from $50 to $95 / user / month
Salesforce
Description
Named a Leader in Gartner CRM Customer Engagement Center Magic Quadrant for 12 consecutive years.
Features
- Cross-channel engagement with the customers (phone calls, email, chats, social networks).
- Analytics to track your accounting firm’s KPIs (sales performance, customer satisfaction with your services, etc.).
- Salesforce Files to securely share documents, presentations, videos within the accounting and sales teams.
- Calendar and follow-up reminders to manage upcoming activities (e.g., advise the customer on tax planning, provide risk advisory services).
Pricing
Free 30-day trial.
Pricing depends on the chosen modules and license:
- Marketing cloud: from $400 to $3,750 / organization / month
- Sales cloud: from $25 to $300 / user / month
- Service cloud: from $25 to $300 / user / month
Zendesk
Description
Zendesk is named a leader in 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center.
Features
- Unified interface to make calls, send emails, schedule meetings, and view deal history all in one place.
- A self-service portal for customers to track and download invoices for accounting services, pay for them, request service information, etc.
- Creation of email templates with autocorrect input of customer information (such as customer or company name).
Pricing
Free 14-day trial.
Pricing depends on the chosen modules and license:
- Sales: from $19 to $99 /user / month billed annually
- Service: from $49 to $150 /agent/ month billed annually
Custom Accounting CRM Software
ScienceSoft advocates custom CRM development in the following cases:
- You have specific business needs (e.g., implement project management functionality or track billable time for accounting services in CRM) that would require expensive customization of a platform-based solution.
- You have a large number of salespeople and accountants using CRM, which makes the license cost of a platform-based solution high.
Accounting CRM Implementation by ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft relies on 16-year experience in CRM implementation to create CRM software tailored to our clients’ specific accounting workflows.
Accounting CRM consulting
- Defining an optimal accounting CRM functionality based on your business needs.
- Developing a business case (development cost, ROI or NPV).
- Designing a CRM architecture (for custom solutions).
- Selecting an accounting CRM platform (if not selected yet).
- Preparing customization roadmap.
- Preparing integration roadmap.
- Delivering UX and UI mock-ups (for custom solutions).
- Providing timing estimates for the implementation project.
Accounting CRM implementation
- Accounting CRM project planning.
- Custom CRM development or configuring and customizing platform-based CRM software.
- Quality assurance of accounting CRM.
- Integration with Practice management system, accounting software, payment services, etc.
- Data migration from legacy software.
- Conducting user training.
- Providing after-launch accounting CRM support.
- Continuous accounting CRM maintenance and evolution.
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is an IT consulting and software development company headquartered in McKinney, Texas. We provide CRM consulting and CRM implementation services for accounting firms to automate daily sales and other customer interaction tasks and increase productivity of a sales team and accountants. Achieving project goals in spite of time and budget constraints, as well as changing requirements, is ScienceSoft's top priority. You set goals, we drive the project to fulfill them.