From Paper to Digital: Our Firm’s Journey in Adopting Engagement Letter Software
Moving from manual engagement letters to engagement letter software for accountants was a difficult decision for us, coming from a firm that has always been very traditional. The last 25 years had very well-established processes, and Artisans had a very familiar team who really enjoyed writing engagement letters on Word templates. As such, the transition would prove to be daunting. Nevertheless, clients have been exerting pressure to speed up turnaround times and increasing compliance requirements.
Thus, we began the transition from manual engagement letters to software with careful research and stakeholder consultation. We are looking for solutions that will maintain our professional standard while streamlining processes. The implementation phase has thrown up unintended benefits far beyond digitisation: Automated templates reduce errors and hours in repetitive work.
After lots of options, we landed on the engaging letter software offered by Figsflow, as it paid the bill, keeping in mind functionality and user-friendliness at the same time. The use of customisable templates and maintaining compliance was invaluable. Modernisation of the client portal in the software changed the way we collected signatures and approvals and reduced the average time for preparing engagement letters from five days to just hours.
Indeed, this has impacted the practice quite favourably. The client onboarding has become automated and seamless, where nothing falls through the cracks. Even our partners appreciate that, instead of having to chase down correspondence, they can review and approve letters from their mobile devices—and the admins who love having automatic archiving and retrieval as well.
Certainly the most noteworthy advantage is client relationship improvement. Modern customers expect this sort of efficiency digitally, so this new system has delivered that promise. Communications are down 40% in the repeat back-and-forth, and signatures are down by 95%.
For firms that hope to travel the same journey, we usually suggest that a pilot be run at first before gradually rolling it out. The focus of the success will be on training the staff and opening channels for communication during the transition.
