How to Eliminate Admin Tasks with a Smart Workflow

There are a few customs that have been thrown out in favor of (clearly) superior ones: landlines have been replaced by mobile phones, email has taken precedent over post-mail, and thankfully we hardly have to go into a bank branch anymore. Within business, many traditions have been carried over from decades of having little to no technology-- admin paperwork, time-wasting meetings, and creating reports. Even when it’s all digital, the work is still being done manually.

For KickIt Digital, these processes were taking up to 10 hours. After using the features provided by Accelo, they efficiently reduced that amount to only 2 hours per client. “Our timesheets directly line up with our billing and internal activities, so we no longer need ‘manager’ roles for our consultants,” Alexander relays.

Alexander Leslie of KickIt Digital shares how they use Accelo to eliminate 99% of their admin and management-level work just by simplifying and defining workflows.

CEO of KickIt Digital tries and tests the latest cloud software

Alexander tells us of his experience as a management consultant. He’s started half a dozen companies and has consulted for “nearly a hundred in the last ten years.”

“I have tried, installed and used close to ten of the latest cloud crm/invoice/project management/scheduling/timesheet software,” he writes. After deciding on Accelo for its customizability, he reported that its modestly priced features are “typically found in extremely high-end products like Oracle's Primavera or SAP.”

Alexander continues on with how KickIt Digital uses Accelo’s features to streamline their work and save time.

Fossilize your typical workflow

With all of the back and forth that comes with consulting work (NDA’s, draft proposals, accepted proposals, draft contracts, signed contracts, etc), a lot of it can be scattered in different places amongst different people. With a single holding place for all of this information, you can turn these communications into tasks.

This is how KickIt Digital set up their process:

• “Assign a number of hours to different components and let the assigned staff pick their own tasks.”
• “Once the first project template is completed, it comes with a mini-GANTT chart complete with components and tasks, their dependencies, typical duration and efforts.

Standardize your packages and rates, then bill right from your timesheet

• After a workflow template and rates are set, billing becomes easy.
• Have staff log their time against tasks, and then bill the client for these logically grouped activities.
• The timesheets can also be simultaneously used as payroll.

Auto-generate invoices

• This helps with ongoing projects within a business.
• Set to auto-generate invoices at the end of a billing period.
• Alexander tells us that he “literally can't count the number of administrative hours that will save, especially as the company grows.”

Administrative work down from 10 hours to 2 hours per client

“We’ve been able to eliminate an entire middle level of management, and spend most of our time delivering value or advice to clients, instead of having our people swapping information and doing mundane tasks like locating files or having constant project update meetings.”

Alexander adds that their finance administration “is next to nothing, as far as internal time, payroll, billing and external invoicing go.”

If you’re interested in learning more about how to eliminate management with smart workflow, sign up for a free trial today and we’ll get you started.