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With Melbourne now in a stage 4 lockdown, accounting firms have been forced to close the physical doors of their business. Here’s how one accountant is helping his team not just survive, but thrive.
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How this Melbourne accountant is thriving in lockdown
11 August 2020
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13 minute read
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For Illumin8 director Andrew Van De Beek, the new six-week stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne have hardly caused a hitch in his firm’s day-to-day operations.
The Mount Eliza-based practice prides itself on being fully cloud-based and had sent all of its staff to work from home when the pandemic first sent businesses scattering in March.
“We’ve had four months to prepare for this, knowing that we had the direction that if you could work from home you must, and we’ve also have seven years of cloud-based technology telling us there are better ways to do things,” Mr Van De Beek said on a recent podcast on Accountants Daily.
“It’s not going to just go back to normal — there’s still going to be restrictions placed on us, and if you look at industries that can operate remotely, accountants are one of the industries that can operate remotely with ease.
“There is tremendous opportunity in taking what we learn from here and remodelling how we run our businesses to be more efficient, more effective and more impactful for our clients.”
The firm’s heavy reliance on technology meant they were able to push out client webinars with ease, with the firm producing four webinars a week at the height of the crisis.
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It also ramped up client communication, sending out information packs and regular emails to keep clients in the loop.
“This is where you win clients. This is your brownie point time,” Mr Van De Beek said.
“The more brownie points you earn by helping your clients and being there for them, the stronger supporters they are going to be and the more resilient and sustainable a business you’ll have going forward.”
Mr Van De Beek believes firms should use the opportunity to implement better business practices, leaning on existing networks as a starting point, pointing to an example of how his firm had relied heavily on accounting consultants, Clarity Street, in helping them onboard and implement new technology.
“[Accountants should] go to that point of truth that they know. If they are a Xero user, go to their account manager at Xero and say, ‘Hey, we want to do more, can you point me in the direction?” Mr Van De Beek said.
“There are people that work in that organisation, whether it be Xero, QuickBooks or MYOB, they know other apps, they know other connections and they can point you in the right direction.
“Another one is that there are a number of consultants in the accounting space that help to onboard with technology and cloud-based approaches.
“The third layer is looking at other accounting firms that are doing stuff that you’re interested in and find a way to knock on their door or pick up the phone and say, ‘Do you mind chewing the fat for 15 minutes? I’d love to understand how you got there?
“There is such a wealth of information and the more we share that, the more us as an industry are learning from one another, the faster we grow.”
Keeping staff motivated
While acknowledging that remote working has had its downsides in limiting spontaneous interactions with team members and getting a feel for how colleagues are coping, Mr Van De Beek believes firms can implement small changes to keep staff morale high.
“For starters, we have a video stand-up call every single day so we start the day talking about what we achieved yesterday and what we’re trying to achieve today,” he said.
“We make sure we share a highlight from the day before and it could be as simple as I got a BAS completed for a client, to I saved $100,000, or I won a new client. Just sharing the positivity is really important.”
He also looks to check in with each staff member every fortnight, where they talk about anything apart from work.
“The more we can show that we can actually care about our team and helping them outside of just being a good accountant, they become more connected to what we’re trying to achieve as a business, they help clients more, and hopefully their mental ability is a lot stronger as well,” Mr Van De Beek said.
“Those little, tiny moments are going to make a massive difference in your week and their week as well.
“You’ll find every day and every week will get easier the more you are proactively looking at ways to bring and drive culture in the business.”
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