Making Tax Digital: Moving your clients to the cloud

Next in our Making Tax Digital (MTD) video series in collaboration with Sage, we address why moving to digital bookkeeping software is beneficial for clients and how to navigate the challenges you might come across.

Firstly, why should accountants be encouraging their clients to adopt digital bookkeeping software?

When talking to your clients about the benefits of digital bookkeeping highlight efficiency to them. It’s about becoming more efficient, creating real-time access to information and, most importantly for the accountant, the ability to deliver compliance in a timely fashion. Most importantly it will allow your client to be compliant for MTD.

Digital record-keeping is broken down in three processes.

1. Getting data in
2. Processing the information
3. Getting reports and insights out of it

There will still be clients who don’t want to make this move. How can accountants change their minds?

Accountants should never assume clients simply do not want to move. Their resistance might be more complicated than this. Discuss the benefits of changing their accounting process but also understand their fears and the challenges they are concerned about.

It’s about having an honest conversation, considering whether the client’s processes can be changed slightly, and deciding on who will do what.

Some say MTD is an opportunity for accountants to deliver additional services to their clients? What approach should practices take in doing this?

It really is all about efficiency because efficiency creates capacity and capacity creates the opportunity for additional services. These additional services include bookkeeping, matter accounts, end-period tax advisory work.

Ultimately it results in happy clients because happy clients want access to the accountant, the trusted advisor, the ability to actually deliver results and answer questions as they arise.