Understand which clients need the most attention

If you have 5 clients or 500, there’s always something that needs to be done. Whether that’s performing a P&L review, doing a VAT Return or reconciling the fixed asset register. However, sometimes you just don’t know where to focus your attention. Effectively prioritising your clients can save you time and headaches, and keep them feeling like you’re always one step ahead of their finances.

Xavier’s client list dashboard offers a way of identifying which clients have the greatest needs for your tasks that day. The consolidated Health Score of your client indicates which client’s data needs the most attention; those with data issues including large numbers of unreconciled transactions, duplicate contacts, or contacts with multiple account codes under their transaction history will cause this health percentage to drop, relative to the client’s size. Why not gamify it, and go for the hi-score!

You can also sort the client list by a number of metrics; e.g. turnover, debtor days or corporation tax for the year to date. This can be useful to group clients together compare them for your own performance reviews, or just want to see corporation tax accrued at a glance.

Housekeeping and data cleanup

At Xavier, we believe that effective reporting starts with accurate data; by making sure that all transactions are recorded and coded correctly against the right contacts in Xero, you can be confident in any predictions or analysis you might want to make later. Much like tidying up your home, it’s easiest, and quickest, to deal with these small issues as and when they arrive instead of having to retrospectively identify the source of a discrepancy later.

These errors can occur from a slip of the mouse, well-meaning mistakes from junior members or outsourced teams, or changes to the way your clients send or receive invoices. Put your mind at rest and cast an eye over your Xavier dashboard to find and fix them, fast, through links directly to Xero. You can use the dropdown metrics from the Client List (if you’ve a specific cleanup task in mind) or simply click into a client to see their overview, where the monthly stats will direct you to anything that needs attention.

You can also monitor the Xero lock dates in Xavier to ensure they are set appropriately and have not been changed. This prevents unwanted changes to historical data (though if that happens, there’s a Xavier tool to detect those too).

Offering an expanded service to your clients

In the age of outsourcing, AI and automation, many accountancies are considering how to stay indispensable. Accountants and bookkeepers are the interface between businesses and their finances, the best way to remain relevant is to use the years of business experience within your accountancy to provide advice and insight beyond the numbers.

Xavier is designed to give you the

confidence and structure to provide additional services to your clients. The Monthly Health Check in Xavier provides a collection of Xavier’s tools and specific stats to run through in a structured way with your client, to ensure you’re hitting all the right touch points on a regular basis. This also ensures the client is up to date and prepared regarding any key liabilities due, accounts and financial control checks; a successful client is a happy client!

Onboarding a new client – Getting your pricing right

When you’re bringing on a new client, it helps to know how much work that client is likely to take so you can price accordingly. Using Xavier’s statistics on data health and activity, you can get a realistic view of how ‘clean’ their historic data is, and you can then price on this basis.

Have you ever tried to estimate the transaction volume of a client, only to be proved wrong? With Xavier’s Activity Stats, you can quickly get an exact picture of the number of transactions, sales invoices, credit notes and journals that have been posted in Xero. Alongside other products such as GoProposal, you can price the client fairly from the onset, making the on-boarding and renewals process cleaner and more transparent – so you can focus on adding value.

Summary

Accountants are being expected to offer more personalised services. With increased automation in cloud accounting systems the data they are being expected to manage is growing significantly, but not necessarily increasing in quality.

You can stay on top of your clients’ needs by using Xavier to prioritise those who need the most urgent attention. By managing any data issues regularly you can keep their Xero accounts up to scratch for accurate reporting, with the structure and confidence to offer more services to your clients.

Interested in how to save time and improve your service?

Xavier are offering a discount for XU Magazine readers, if you enter the code XU-19-OFFER when entering your payment details.