7 Essential Features of a CRM for Accountants

The popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has been making quite a trend for a while now. Not only helpful in organizing the contacts but it also acts as the digital Rolodex – an advanced version. Right now accountants are in need of CRM more than ever thanks to the paradigm of a pandemic. Work from home is the new future for now and therefore using the right CRM for CPA will prove to be extremely helpful to do the work efficiently, easy to keep eye on the customers, and also be able to nurture future leads.

For small-scale entrepreneurs, the best solution is to save time and money on hiring the new suits and instead outsource the help for accounting and bookkeeping. But the use of CRM is not demolished in any way in the near future.

CRM for CPA: The Essential Features of a Competitive Software

The basic function of any functional CRM software is to collect customer data and report it. But it is not only this software that is such a huge success.

A good competitive CRM software must include the following features to give CPAs a winning chance.

1. Customer Information

Customers are the beating heart of the software. Perhaps the most primary reason a business needs to invest in CRM software is to maintain the unified view of the customer i.e. CRM database.

The database contains all information about every client of the company from the basic contact information to the latest set of documents sent or uploaded. Also, the following set of information is also included;

• Call initiations by the customers/company, email communication, or the recent status and history.
• Marketing tactics used by customers, direct marketing emails, numbers of pages visited in a day, customer segmentation, lead nurturing, and other business opportunities.
• Focus on the sales cycle when it becomes live i.e. potential customers convert as leads and so on.

2. Customization

Every client may not belong to the same business category. One client could be a leather manufacturer while another client can be a real estate investor. Since no two businesses are the same, a CRM for accountants is extremely beneficial to maintain the records. One of the crucial features is that it allows you to customize basic areas. This gives the accountant (user) the ability to add contact fields, add members, choose the data to the public on the dashboard, and also create custom reports.

Customization is also applicable with the extensions and plugins since the software requires updates too.

You can buy a package that offers maximum customization, truly tailored features that are usually made available for a premium account. Most of the CRM software providers offer advanced features/options using APIs. Developers can have access to the technical specifications and coding thanks to the full customization.

Also, they can integrate the software with the existing business clients and provide solutions for the company, and also streamline the process.

3. Integration

Third-party integration is yet another solution you can use to save tons of money. One of the specialties of the client CRM portal is that connections are easier to maintain and uphold. Using the most compatible software allows you to do the tasks easily and are easy to assign to. Let the Salesforce users connect with the CRM like QuickBooks or My CPA Dashboard for the accounting software. Now they can

• Run the software and gather the clients via email.
• Sync the sales and information to eliminate the manual data.
• Build email lists and be able to launch email marketing campaigns using CRM software etc.

4. Customer Service

How good is your customer service? When you mismatch the information you might lose a client on bad terms. To avoid such situations, CRM software provides excellent customer service too.

How?

As we mentioned earlier the clients are synced to the software, complete information is available. Also, the support team can do their best to provide a

• 360-degree view of the information to the clients.
• Track all points of communication front, track all leads to acquisition to sales (all history).
• Use of the customer’s name to generate personalized emails to help them keep on the tab.
• Unique reference number for every account made on the software for the customer and to resolve the help issue.
• Support email templates too and calls scripts to answer frequently asked questions and so on.

5. Tracking Progress

Want to track employee activity? Get the CRM for CPA right away then. Once in use, you can track the activity and performance of every employee added to the dashboard. You can easily track the hours, tasks, meetings, sales numbers, goals, and other required tasks. Since working from home is the new norm, you need to be able to use software to track worker productivity.

For an accountant as an admin, they can supervise the members added by them. Supers and upper management also have access to the dashboards to individually view the metrics of productivity of each employee.

So to help managers write employee performance reviews, create motivating incentives the software can be of great use.

6. Social Agent

Social media monitoring features can save the time of the marketing team to a great extent. Creativity is time taking and to analyze the company’s social media the CRM  software can be used to monitor essential tasks like;

• Keep a focused eye on the brand image through social listening.
• Have insight about the social media accounts and interactions they have with your brand like comments, shares, and mentions.
• Customize the social media strategy to enhance the social presence.
• Manage day-to-day tasks for posting and so on.

7. Lead Management

What good is software without lead management? When the client CRM portal is used by the clients and the company they have the control access too. This helps you to identify the lead and the actions you, as a supervisor, accountant, or upper management, have taken in the past working days.

With the lead management process, you can score your lead and filter them according to the new categories. This way you can avoid the leads going to waste that had been waiting for weeks and months otherwise.

Conclusion

When CRM for accountants helps them to analyze the work and results all under one roof. My CPA Dashboard is an authentic software that helps businesses to stay afloat with the competition in the market. Now maintaining the financial records is easy in all aspects. Get your quote now to learn more.