In a constantly evolving accounting and bookkeeping industry, strong client relationships are key to the success of your firm. If consistent and timely compliance work is the foundation of your practice, and happens every month without issue, great relationships will emerge as a result.
But the best client-advisor relationships happen when bookkeeping becomes seamless: you get all the source documents you need, along with detailed information and insight into your small business clients’ operations. When this happens, you can provide monthly bookkeeping quickly and efficiently, but you’ll also be able to go beyond the basics of bookkeeping and engage your clients with their finances.
Hubdoc’s Document Audit Trail feature helps accomplish this. It provides information regarding who uploaded a document, when, and how (email, scan, etc.). This information can prove incredibly valuable if questions about a receipt or invoice arise during reconciliation. You’ll know exactly who to contact, which is particularly useful if multiple people at your client’s business send you documents. Moreover, this “upload trail” can save you time and effort, enabling you to easily meet deadlines.
Audit trail information can benefit your firm in a number of ways. Let’s take a closer look at how Hubdoc’s Audit Trail feature can improve relationships with your clients.
Gauge client engagement
Setting expectations during new client onboarding is crucial for successful client relationships. A standardized implementation plan will help align your expectations with your client, and an audit trail can enable you to measure how each client is meeting those expectations.
Hubdoc’s Audit Trail can help you determine if a client is meeting the deadlines and standards you’ve set out for sending source documents, and who at the business is actually working on the books. Essentially, having audit trail information readily available in your bookkeeping processes allows you to understand how engaged your clients are with your firm, and can help you determine whether there is any need to revisit the initial client agreement.
Avoid unproductive time
Bookkeeping can be an industry of minutes and seconds. That is to say, every second counts!
When a document fails to match to a bank feed in your accounting software, the time you spend tracking down the specific uploader at your client’s business is time that could be better spent on more valuable services (this is in addition to going through the books and identifying where a transaction failed, in the first place).
A clear audit trail provides a failsafe against this unproductive time. If a receipt fails to match to your client's bank feed, you’ll be able to pinpoint exactly when and where things got muddled, and you’ll know who to contact (if necessary).
Eliminate guesswork
Automated bookkeeping workflows are great. You receive client documents when you need them, they match to the correct bank feed, and reconciliation can be as easy as one click (particularly if you’re utilizing a software that fetches documents, extracts the data, and automatically syncs to your accounting software 😉).
While the workflow described above is ideal, it’s still smart to have a record of who uploaded each transaction, and when, to help if a client undergoes a government audit, or simply to eliminate the guesswork that might arise at the end of a month or year.
If you are receiving documents and they are matching to a bank feed automatically, Hubdoc’s audit trail provides additional information you might want, given that you may not have needed to look at a document until clearing it from the bank feed. It can be helpful to have a document’s who, what, when, where, and why, as this information gives you clear insight into account activity.
Great client relationships start with the details
Audit trail information can be an invaluable resource for bookkeeping. Having key data on a document’s journey gives you usable, real-time information about how you and your staff are interacting with clients, and how clients interact with you.
While not having this information won’t grind your bookkeeping to a halt, you may lack the insight needed to provide comprehensive compliance and advisory. Hubdoc’s Document Audit Trail feature can help you get the details you need to better engage your clients and improve your working relationship for mutual success!
Elminate guesswork and improve your client relationships – learn more about Hubdoc today!
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