iFirm Practice Manager takes a fresh approach in how you charge out your time at the firm. Instead of the traditional method of placing time against a client in general, time is charged against specific jobs. You can also ensure each team member works on the jobs in the order determined by their manager so they are more focused, and less likely to get distracted.

Simply put, a job is created, assigned, worked on, completed, invoiced and then another job takes its place.

• Tabs create quick filters for easy access to jobs, (including ordered jobs, jobs in progress and unallocated jobs)
• Column headers can be clicked for easy sorting
• Click to drill through to the job details

Setting up Jobs is simple as they can be added individually, in bulk or even automatically.

You can specify default resource allocation by client, so whenever a new job is added for a client, it automatically assigns the work for you. You can even specify minimum or agreed fees for a client which will create automatic write-ups when invoicing!

With the automation of your firm’s workflow, it’s quick and easy to allocate jobs, resources and the order of priority. In fact these can all be done in just a few mouse clicks.

You can ensure each team member works on the jobs in the order determined by their manager so they are more focused, and less likely to get distracted. Depending on your security level you can see either just your jobs, or as a director/manager you can view all the firm’s jobs, and see which are in progress, completed,  overdue or ready to invoice!

You can easily change the job priority order for a team member by ‘dragging and dropping’ the different jobs.This alone removes any room for excuses for not working on the most important jobs first.

You can even quickly check the total amount of time allocated, based on the expected number of billable hours for the team member.Quickly add additional jobs to a team member’s priority list by selecting from the list of assigned jobs on the Unordered Jobs list.

Open communication coming through loud & clear.

How many emails does your current practice management software send you, your staff or your practice manager to help manage deadlines & your resources? Communication is key when it comes to managing workflow and monitoring performance.

With Acclipse Practice Manager automated emails are set up to follow rules (set up by your firm) to keep team members on track, and keep managers informed of progress.

There are several different types of automated messages, you can set up to receive including:

• New job alerts
• Job comment notifications
• Variance alerts
• Dynamic field notifications
• Reminder emails for client notes

By encouraging (or enforcing) this transparency throughout your firm, team members are held accountable. Acclipse Practice Manager makes it really easy to see which jobs are being worked on, what stage they are at, and the firm’s and individual team member’s efficiency.

Extensive reporting has never been so easy.

You can now instantly see exactly where things are at in your firm, meaning you can identify what areas need to be focused on.

Acclipse Practice Manager has a wide range of reports to help you measure the performance of team members and your firm. All of these Real-Time reports include a range of filtering options and in most cases you are able to drill down further to investigate a particular point in detail.

You can quickly see how well you and your team are achieving your KPI’s, including:

• Job Turnaround & Profitability
• Annual Accounts Completion Rates
• Cashflow & Revenue Analysis
• Client Profitability
• Work in Progress
• Resource Usage & Allocation
• Staff Efficiency & Productivity

With one click you can drill down to view the specific job, team member and invoice item. And while these reports have been designed to be viewed and used online, you can also choose to print the reports or export to Microsoft Excel.

Easily accessable timesheets means they get filled out!

Recording time to Jobs in Acclipse Practice Manager is made easy by allowing you to add from ‘My Timesheets’ page, the Job you are working on or from the ‘Recently Viewed’ Jobs List.

You can also choose to enter time as Units or Actual Time (with start & end time) and have daily, weekly & monthly timesheets views with totals. And another advantage of being web-based is you can keep your timesheet open in another tab in your browser while working on other areas in Acclipse Practice Manager.

At a glance you can see where you are missing time in your weekly or monthly timesheet or immediately see where you need to increase your billable time, in order to meet your chargeable targets. From the timesheet you can also click through to the Job and the Contact for each timesheet entry.

You can use the Missing and Incomplete Timesheets Report to quickly check whether your team have completed their timesheets. You are even able to set the standard hours for each day of the week for each team member.

Price your Jobs upfront & track your write-ons

You can easily set up agreed fees or value-based pricing with Acclipse Practice Manager to increase your firm's cashflow… you simply choose the jobs you want to set up with an agreed fee or run your entire firm in this way.

And once you’ve set up your pricing model, we’ve made it very easy for you to bill for your work. Acclipse Practice Manager encourages you to either invoice upfront for your jobs or invoice for the work as soon as the job is completed. This pricing model will greatly increase your cash flow as you don’t have to wait until the job is complete to invoice and you can easily create interim invoices as you go.

In fact Acclipse Practice Manager can help you to reduce write-offs in your firm and actually help to create write-ons. One of the first firms who implemented Acclipse Practice Manager increased their write-ons by over 15%.

With the powerful reporting, for each job you can see how much time a similar job previously took to complete for that client. You can also view all similar jobs/clients and even check to see how much you wrote on. This will allow you to make sure you are setting realistic/attainable Value-Based fees

You can also get Acclipse Practice Manager to automatically apply rules you've set for your firm, such as:

• Set an ‘Agreed Fee’ for a Job and automate the invoice value
• Create a ‘Minimum Fee’ for a specific Job Type to automatically “write-up” at invoice time
• Invoice text comes through automatically from the Job Type description - including merge fields populated from the jobs

Freedom to do what you want with your invoices

Acclipse Practice Manager makes it easy to edit your invoices as you see fit.
You have the ability to change the order of the invoice lines, add ‘extra’ amounts, edit text & add an additional message.

And just as you are able to automatically create Jobs individually or in bulk, you can do the same thing with your invoices to save you heaps of time.

The invoicing engine in Acclipse Practice Manager is template driven which means you can use the supplied invoice templates or request customised versions to fit your specific requirements and then print them out as a PDF to make it easy to email.

Acclipse Practice Manager's Invoicing section allows you to see at a glance:

• The Budget and/or Minimum Fee set for a Job
• The Actual WIP compared to any Write-On or Write-Off
• Value of recent invoices for the client

Or you can click through to see the detailed WIP report for a Job.

"Web-based, Online, In-the-Cloud" - it's the future... NOW!

Business as we know it is changing. We’re rapidly moving towards an online world. Simply put, the applications your firm uses every day now are (or soon will be) hosted on the Internet and not loaded directly onto your computers. Acclipse Practice Manager is the ONLY solution available for New Zealand accounting firms who want to take advantage of this shift in business philosophy and strategy.

Here are some of the reasons why using Acclipse Practice Manager can help save you time and money:

• You can use it from anywhere, whether working from home, a client’s premises, or using mobile technology such as the Apple iPad and iPhone.
• It makes it easy to share data with others.
• Improvements are constantly available and automatically applied, so maintenance/updates become easier and cheaper.
• You don’t have to buy, upgrade or maintain your own servers to run web-based programmes.