Stepping out of the past: How Wilson Howe transformed its practice tech
When Matthew and Emma Howe walked into their newly acquired practice nine years ago, it felt like stepping into a time capsule — complete with paper piles, manual ledgers, adding machines, and a lifetime supply of clicker pencils and replacement leads.
Determined to modernise, they quickly purchased new computers and servers and installed accounting software to bring the practice into the 21st century. The team focused on growing the business, including acquiring two more practices, but this expansion pushed Wilson Howe into a new pricing bracket for their software. Spiraling license costs forced a rethink of the tech stack and review what the practice really needed.
License fees sparked the shift — but were not the only pain point
With a team of 8 servicing a rapidly growing client base things were busy, so clunky or unreliable workflows which slowed everyone down generated considerable frustration. “Their workflow system was incredibly clunky” says Matthew.
Some key frustrations included:
- Clunky job & workflow systems that made it really hard to track tasks and milestones as they were progressing jobs. The team had to run reports and extract that data into Excel to track their work.
- Uploading documents into Open Space was slow and sometimes the team had problems finding the files they had uploaded.
- Emails were stored in staff inboxes so there was no consolidated view of all the correspondence with a client.
An explosion of choice
Matthew was amazed at how much the software landscape had changed since he’d last taken the time to review it. “There’s so much choice. … There’s been a bit of an explosion of software providers that are providing solutions for doing all sorts of different things.”
Wilson Howe already had clients using Xero, so they reached out to Xero who recommended XPM and introduced FYI for document management.
Five ways the cloud changed everything
- Time savings
Uploading company accounts into the document management system and then filing them used to take about an hour per company — now it takes just 5–6 minutes. “When you apply that across the companies that need accounts filed annually, this represents around 3 weeks of admin saved” adds Matthew.
- Cost savings
By switching to XPM + FYI and cloud-based partners, Wilson Howes have reduced their annual license and software costs by 20%.
- Business continuity and peace of mind
Around 3 months after migrating to the cloud, Matthew received an urgent call — his IT administrators had detected a corrupted hard drive and were on their way to collect the server. Just a year earlier, this would have halted operations for the three weeks that the server was off site. Now they are in the cloud, they didn’t have any downtime and there was no data loss due to the corrupt disk. “Now if my laptop breaks, I’ll just buy another one and log in” says Matthew.
- Increased flexibility
With cloud-based software, Wilson Howe Partners can now service clients from anywhere at any time and their clients can also enjoy this flexibility, being able to sign off on their Annual Accounts or tax returns from anywhere, at any time – even if they are on holiday.
- Reduced frustration and increased efficiency
Staff can work in either Xero or FYI, with updates syncing automatically so they don’t have to keep switching systems. Jobs & tasks make it easy to keep track of how work is progressing, with reports from FYI providing visibility into filing deadlines and job statuses which acts as a safeguard against missed submissions. The integration with FuseSign for document signing works seamlessly and managing documents is now fast and intuitive.
Emma and Matthew’s advice for other Practices considering FYI
From the moment they recognised FYI’s potential, they moved quickly and got their team involved in their transition. “No change really works unless the people who are going to use the system understand what’s changing and why” Emma explains.
Even though some onboarding questions felt confusing at first, the support from FYI was “brilliant” — and Matthew now sees a clear return on the time invested upfront.
What’s next for Wilson Howe?
Wilson Howe has already achieved major time and cost savings, and there’s more to come.
The team is currently integrating BGL’s CAS 360 with FYI. This will allow one team member to manage all company secretarial filings in CAS360. Automated filing into FYI will then give the full team easy access to documents when needed.
Matthew is eager to use FYI’s “no code” automation engine, along with custom fields and custom templates, to launch client communications that will:
- Chase missing records automatically
- Send out deadline reminders at numerous intervals automatically
- Offer new services proactively
- Drive revenue through value-added engagement.
Matthew also plans to invest time in attending Accounting IT shows, as the last year has proven that finding more efficient ways of working can have a big payback.