"Keeper makes us look good."

Highlights:

• Using Keeper’s custom management reporting tools, McBride CPAs received high praise from their nonprofit clients’ board members, who loved the Executive Summary and noted the overall increase in clarity and professionalism.
• McBride CPAs saves 10+ billable hours per month thanks to the ability to ask transaction questions—and send automated reminders for those requests—directly from the Client Portal.
• McBride CPAs transitioned from disconnected Google Sheets and Asana workflows to Keeper, where the team benefits from visibility, enhanced quality control and smoother internal communication.

Supporting local nonprofits

Kala McBride founded McBride CPAs in 2020 fueled by a specific mission: to provide high-quality bookkeeping and tax services to Indianapolis-area nonprofits and women- and minority-owned businesses. Today, the firm manages monthly bookkeeping for over 35 clients and has quickly grown from a solo practice to a busy team of four.

As the team continued to focus on the nonprofit niche, Kala recognized the unique needs within this important sector, specifically when it came to reconciling accounts and financial reporting. Nonprofit boards rely heavily on clear, digestible financial data, particularly to understand cash positions and budget variances. Kala knew that certain aspects of her month-end close process needed optimization, so that she could stay organized and provide an even higher level of service to her clients. So, she started looking into Keeper.

Searching for a better month-end close system

Before adopting Keeper, McBride CPAs struggled with fragmented systems that lacked the structure needed for sustained firm growth. Kala recalled starting out with one other bookkeeper on board, where the month-end close process involved a Google Sheet template and Asana to track tasks. “That was our process, and it wasn't very good. And as we planned to add more teammates, that absolutely would not have been doable," she said.

This exceedingly manual system meant that Kala’s team had to spend tons of valuable time combing through the GL—making sure that errors or inconsistencies in their clients’ books were caught and corrected. But shortly after adopting Keeper, it was clear that the Transaction Review Report significantly improved accuracy, automatically. The report instantly flagged inconsistent categorization and enabled Kala’s team to maintain quality control without the extensive manual reviews.

Saving 10 hours per month in follow-ups alone

Ultimately for Kala, the most attractive thing about Keeper was the ability to send a list of transaction questions to clients, straight from the bank feed. Prior to using Keeper, Kala’s team still relied heavily on those age-old Google Sheets plus manual emails to make client inquiries—a process ripe with delays and frustration. But Keeper’s client communication features made this aspect of the bookkeeping process a smoother and more efficient one.

“It automatically sends reminders to the repeat offenders who just won’t get their responses to us. That alone probably saves us 10 hours a month, and it’s providing so much clarity now that there are more of us on the team,” said Kala.

Clients find Keeper’s portal intuitive, because it offers a centralized place for them to upload documents, answer questions, and access previously published financials. This straightforward hub for communication drastically reduced internal bottlenecks and client frustrations, giving Kala’s team more time to focus on meaningful client interactions.

Making clients look good, and their bookkeepers look even better

While workflow improvements and client communication are crucial to running a successful firm, Keeper’s custom management reporting feature was what truly elevated McBride CPAs’ client relationships and satisfaction, especially for those within the nonprofit niche.

The Indianapolis nonprofit network is relatively small, so the organizations and boards are well connected. Case in point: one of Kala’s clients sits on the Board for a different client’s nonprofit organization. After a board meeting, he wasted no time in sharing the board’s praise about the financial reports they were reviewing that day.

"Everyone went on and on about how professional these reports were, and how easy they were to understand. All of the important information was highlighted,” he told Kala.

Nonprofit boards seem to exceptionally love the Executive Summary. This well-loved Keeper feature allows Kala’s team to present critical financial information clearly, highlighting key metrics like cash-on-hand and budget-to-actual variances. After reading through the Executive Summary’s highlights, the rest of the package contains digestible reports that provide boards with newfound confidence in the financial health of the organizations they advise.

"For nonprofits, we're not helping them make money—so the value we provide lies within making sure they can communicate to the board about how things are going." Kala explained.

While Keeper’s reporting tools did save the team time, it also helped to simplify even the most complex financial reporting packages. One of their nonprofit clients has 15 separate credit card accounts, and before Keeper, the McBride CPAs team had to manually collapse each individual account in QuickBooks. After all, the team just needed to know the total amount of credit card spend in a given period of time. But now, they can generate the exact same report, in seconds.

“We just hit a button and collapse them all. Depending on the client, that feature can save us at least 30 minutes to an hour every time we run those reports,” said Kala.

Scaling a practice with Keeper

Kala also had great things to say about Keeper’s client-based pricing model, which allows her team to scale effortlessly without worrying about seat-based costs.

"The price feels like an inconsequential amount for what we're getting. With other tools, pulling the trigger on paying for new seats is a big hurdle," Kala remarked. "Keeper lets us use the features fully as a team without that barrier."

Since adopting Keeper, McBride CPAs has comfortably added new clients and expanded internal capabilities, exploring even more advanced Keeper features like the new integrated email system–Keeper Emails—as well as Keeper Receipts.

Future growth and peace of mind

When asked about the value of Keeper overall, Kala had this to say:

"We are 100% completing our tasks faster than before. But even if we weren't doing it faster, we have peace of mind knowing things aren’t slipping through the cracks."

For Kala, this integrity paired with a reinforced confidence in her team’s work product is priceless. Keeper not only improves efficiency and accuracy, but also empowers McBride CPAs to consistently deliver the same level of professional, reliable service their clients trust.

Now, as McBride CPAs continues to expand and grow, Keeper remains central to the team’s operational strategy. "It's apparent to our clients: Keeper makes us look better and helps us deliver a better-quality product. And it’s at a really reasonable price,” Kala concluded. “So… I’m a Keeper fan forever!”

Curious to see what Keeper can do for your practice? Book a personalized demo today.

The post How McBride CPAs Saves 10+ Hours Per Month and Nails Nonprofit Board Reporting with Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

Tax season is a whirlwind. Between juggling client communications, managing deadlines, and ensuring compliance, the last thing you need is a cumbersome e-signature process. Enter Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA) e-signatures—a secure, IRS-compliant method for obtaining electronic signatures on critical tax documents like Form 8879.​

At Keeper, we've seamlessly integrated KBA e-signatures into our Tax Suite, eliminating the need for third-party tools and streamlining your workflow.​

What is KBA, and why does it matter?

KBA is a security measure that verifies a signer's identity by prompting them to answer questions based on public records (think previous addresses or loan details). This method ensures that the person signing the document is indeed who they claim to be.

For tax professionals, KBA is a legal requirement. The IRS mandates KBA for electronically signed Forms 8878 and 8879, which exist to authorize the e-filing of an individual’s tax returns.

The old way:

Historically, incorporating KBA into your tax workflow meant relying on separate platforms, leading to:​

• Manual data transfers between systems
• Increased risk of errors
• Additional costs for standalone KBA services
• Disjointed client experiences​

These inefficiencies can obviously slow down your operations and increase the likelihood of compliance issues or overwhelm for tax teams, which is exactly why we built a KBA feature into our Tax Suite. Now, your firm can securely manage and verify signatures without leaving the platform.

The Keeper way:

Keeper’s e-signature features makes sending, signing, and verifying documents simple. The highlights include:

• Uploading documents directly from a client’s tax return page in Keeper.
• Adding multiple signers and customize the signing order easily.
• Customizing fields with various types (text, signature, date, etc.), ensuring all necessary information is clearly requested. Make templates so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each tax season.
• Optional KBA verification enhances security, verifying the signer’s identity through personal information and public records.

How it works:

1. Enable KBA verification simply by selecting "KBA signature required" from the Role drop-down when adding recipients.
2. Pay per signature: affordable pricing ($1 per signature in the US) covers the cost of verification.
3. Pre-fill optional client details (such as Name, Address, Date of Birth, and SSN) or let clients provide this information during the verification process.
4. Signers complete verification by answering KBA questions before being redirected seamlessly to sign their document.

Put simply: clients get a link, they answer a few simple questions, and they sign. They’ll automatically receive confirmation, and so will you. That’s it!

Stay organized and compliant

Once completed, signatures and related documents are auto-organized within Keeper’s Files tab, accessible anytime. Both you and your client receive notifications confirming the completed signatures.

Keeper’s integrated KBA e-signatures simplify your firm’s workflow, ensuring secure, compliant, and stress-free tax seasons. Ready to get started?

The post Simplify IRS Compliance with KBA e-Signatures in Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

When Linda Spinale launched Honeycomb Bookkeeping in 2021, she set out to provide two things: exceptional service to a handful of clients, and a better work-life balance for herself.

What she didn’t anticipate was how quickly her firm would grow. Within just four months, she hired her first employee, and soon, she was leading a fast-growing team. To maintain the high level of service her clients had come to expect, Linda knew she needed systems that could scale with them. That’s when she heard about Keeper.

Implementing Systems for Growth

Initially hesitant about adopting an entirely new platform right before the busy season, Linda was won over by Keeper’s Prepare 1099s Report. She found that it eliminated a notoriously painful part of the bookkeeping workflow by automatically excluding credit card spend from 1099 payments. But what started as a solution for 1099 season quickly evolved into a complete practice management overhaul.
With Keeper, the Honeycomb Bookkeeping team could now:

• Track team progress in real-time, ensuring tasks were completed consistently without micromanagement.
• Automate reporting and analytics, providing clients with tailored insights beyond standard financial statements.
• Standardize onboarding, allowing for immediate client integration that makes way for efficient scaling.

A 30% Time Savings Per Client

With Keeper in place, Linda’s team saved approximately 30% of their time per client. This efficiency gain translated into significant firm-wide growth—Honeycomb Bookkeeping added three new bookkeepers and over 50 clients in just 18 months.

[Keeper] has transformed our firm into what I feel is a truly legitimate business... My bookkeepers can handle more, and I feel very strongly that Keeper has allowed us to become the firm that we are.

Curious to see what Keeper can do for your practice? Book a personalized demo today.

The post How Honeycomb Bookkeeping's Team Reclaims 30% of Their Time Each Month with Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

Ever get stuck waiting on missing receipts or scrambling to reconcile uncategorized transactions at month’s end? Most accounting professionals have been there, juggling multiple apps, and sending clients endless follow-up emails. But what if a single, integrated tool could streamline every stage of your monthly close—from task management to real-time collaboration with clients?

In a recent Earmark Expo, Andy from Keeper demonstrated how one cloud-based practice management platform can tackle the monthly close in a streamlined, client-friendly way.

1. Streamlined Task and Project Management

A smooth month-end close starts with effective planning. Instead of juggling spreadsheets or generic project tools, Keeper lets you create recurring monthly tasks alongside ad-hoc projects (e.g., onboarding, payroll processing, sales tax). You can:

• Set Custom Frequencies: Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly tasks with specific due dates.
• Create Checklists & SOPs: Store all the instructions, links, and passwords your team needs.
• View Firm-Wide Progress: A central dashboard shows each client’s close status, from pre-close tasks to account reconciliations.

From an owner’s perspective, this holistic view helps ensure junior staff follow standardized procedures. No more scattered checklists; everything is tracked and auditable in one place.

2. Intelligent Review: Direct Ledger Integration

Keeper integrates with QuickBooks Online or Xero, analyzing the general ledger for anomalies and inconsistencies. It flags potential issues, such as:

• Vendors with Inconsistent Categories: If a vendor was previously coded to “Software " but ended up in “Advertising " this month, the system notifies you.
• Missing Payees or Transactions: Instantly spot missing or incomplete vendor info.
• Auto-Added Bank Rules: Verify that automated rules are accurate, reducing errors.

Changes can be made from Keeper itself—no toggling between platforms. When you recode a transaction or add a vendor, it updates QuickBooks or Xero in real-time. This ensures everyone from the bookkeeper to the reviewer is working with up-to-date financials.

3. Consolidated Client Communication

If you dread sending 40 emails to a single client each month, modern platforms offer a better way. Keeper consolidates client questions—uncategorized expenses, missing statements, etc.—into a single, branded portal. When you’re ready, you notify the client.

“Rather than sending the client 40 messages throughout the month, we wait until all our questions are ready and then let them know they have new items,” explained Andy from Keeper.

Clients click a magic link—no password needed—and land in a portal with your firm’s branding. There, they see only the transactions or questions that need attention. They can respond by typing an explanation or uploading documents. Communication remains organized with a clear audit trail, so your team can finalize the books faster.

4. Proactive W-9 Collection & 1099 Prep

The year-end 1099 season can be a scramble when you haven’t collected W-9s in advance. Keeper automates the process by:

• Tracking Thresholds: Once a vendor exceeds $600 of reportable spend, the system flags them.
• Sending Branded W-9 Requests: Vendors get a link to fill out or upload their W-9 electronically.
• Syncing Data: Submitted forms are attached to the vendor record in QuickBooks Online (or Xero).

By converting 1099 tracking into a recurring monthly task, you can avoid the January rush of incomplete or missing vendor details. Firms can even export data directly to a 1099-filing solution, turning W-9 collection into a year-round routine.

5. Receipt Management on Your Client's Terms

Receipts are one of the most common pain points in bookkeeping. Keeper’s receipt capture tools offer multiple ways for clients to submit documents:

• Dedicated Phone Number for Texting: Clients can snap a picture and text it directly.
• Magic Link Portal: They drag and drop files from a desktop or mobile device.
• Email Upload: Optionally forward digital receipts to a dedicated inbox.

Once in the system, OCR technology extracts key data and either creates new transactions or matches receipts to existing ones. This eliminates redundant steps like re-keying or reconciling bank feed entries separately.

6. Additional Features: Time Tracking, KPIs, and More

Beyond communication and transaction reviews, Keeper offers tools to centralize your entire CAS practice:

• Time Tracking & Budgeting: Set budgets per client or project. Track time with built-in timers.
• Advanced Reporting & KPIs: Customize monthly financial reports with real-time variance analysis, graphs, and even non-financial metrics (e.g., headcount).
• Inter-Company Transfers: For multi-entity clients, Keeper can sync due-to/due-from accounts across different QuickBooks or Xero files.

The result is a single source of truth for all monthly close tasks, collaboration, and data oversight.

A New Era of Month-End Efficiency

Platforms like Keeper reimagine not just client communication but the entire month-end process—reducing the back-and-forth between email threads, spreadsheets, and accounting files. From automated anomaly detection to text-based receipt collection, these solutions let accountants focus on higher-value advisory work.

Ready to streamline your month-end and client collaboration? Watch the complete Earmark Expo session featuring Keeper. You can also earn continuing professional education (CPE) credit for learning how integrated software simplifies your workflow—giving you time back to serve your clients at a higher level.

The post Earmark Expo - Keeper: Transforming Client Communication in Accounting appeared first on Keeper.

When Tyler Otto set out to grow his accounting firm, he quickly realized that managing day-to-day operations was a bottleneck in and of itself. Without a clear system for organizing tasks and workflows, his team relied heavily on him to stay on track—a challenge that only grew as his client list expanded. He knew his firm needed structure and efficiency to scale.

As an early customer of Keeper, Tyler could see that this tool had the potential to revolutionize his operations, starting with tracking his clients’ month-end close progress. Keeper’s task management tools provided the structure his team needed to take ownership of their work, freeing him to focus on bigger-picture goals. By viewing tasks across all clients in one place, his team could easily identify snags and ensure no deadlines slipped through the cracks.

One standout item for Tyler’s firm was Keeper’s 1099 management capabilities. Keeper simplified W-9 collection by allowing the team to send vendor requests with a single click, turning what used to be a tedious process into an automated routine. This efficiency not only saved time but also demonstrated added value to clients, showing that Tyler’s firm was proactively taking work off their plates each time they paid a new vendor.

Another key differentiator for Tyler is Keeper’s commitment to its users. Whether through responsive support, active user communities, or transparent product roadmaps, Keeper’s focus on customer collaboration made a significant impact. Tyler also appreciated Keeper’s client-based pricing model, which allowed his firm to scale without the burden of increasing software costs.

We can actually see what [features are] coming up, weigh in, vote on it… it makes it so much easier for us to feel like we have a sense of ownership of the product.

Today, Tyler’s firm has grown into a 17-person team with systems in place that foster efficiency, collaboration, and growth. Keeper played a pivotal role in helping Tyler achieve the structure and scalability he needed to turn the vision for his practice into reality.

Curious to see what Keeper can do for your practice? Book a personalized demo today.

The post Tyler Otto Streamlines Operations and Scales His Firm with Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

[Keeper] is worth it for that one feature.

Nancy McClelland, also known as The Dancing Accountant, runs a hyper-local bookkeeping and tax firm in Chicago. Before getting started with Keeper, Nancy noticed that her senior accountant, Kendra, was juggling critical accounting responsibilities while simultaneously supervising the junior bookkeepers. Nancy sought out a solution that could ease Kendra’s workload without compromising the quality and efficiency of the firm’s operations, and she landed on Keeper.

In comparison to other practice management apps on the market, what struck Nancy most was Keeper’s ability to automate those month-end reviews that consumed so much of Kendra’s time. Additionally, tasks that previously fell to the supervisors were delegated to the junior staff with ease, thanks to Keeper’s task management features paired with the intuitive dashboard.

That dashboard also allowed for Kendra to have a clear, at-a-glance view of each team member’s progress on their assigned tasks. Keeper even flagged when someone was “stuck” somewhere in the month-end close process. This new system saved Nancy’s whole team tons of time, simply because they no longer had to engage in endless check-ins and back-and-forthing about who was doing what. Everyone was equipped with an increased awareness of the tasks at hand.

Nancy also highlighted one of Keeper’s standout features: automatic 1099 tracking and W-9 collection. “It is worth it for that one feature,” she said, noting that some of her colleagues initially added the entirety of their client base solely for this functionality. But for Nancy’s firm, Keeper’s use cases went far beyond the 1099 season. Features both large and small were being consistently implemented at a pace that made sense for her team—thanks to the expertise of Keeper’s support reps.

Today, Keeper helps Nancy’s firm operate more efficiently, allowing her team to continue delivering exceptional services to clients. Plus, her 1099 seasons are no longer headache-inducing.

You can find Nancy McClelland, CPA’s award-winning blog at thedancingaccountant.com, and be sure to check out Ask a CPA, which is a community for bookkeepers looking to enhance their accounting skills and increase collaboration with their clients’ CPAs and tax preparers.

Curious to see how Keeper can solve the capacity constraints at your firm? Book a personalized demo today.

The post How Keeper Helps Nancy McClelland, CPA Solve Capacity Constraints appeared first on Keeper.

As the owner of Quick Bookkeeping & Accounting and a self-proclaimed “QuickBooks nerd,” Hector Garcia knows firsthand the challenges of running a busy accounting practice. Before discovering Keeper, Hector’s team experienced recurring chaos surrounding the month-end close—and staying organized was a challenge. The constant back-and-forth over email threads and Slack and endless questions like, “Did I already send that to the client?” or “What’s the status?” created inefficiencies and unnecessary anxiety.

That was until they found Keeper. By centralizing the information on clients and tasks along with the actual bookkeeping workflows, Keeper provided Hector with unparalleled visibility into his team’s progress each month. With just one click, he could check the status of each client’s close. This comprehensive bird’s eye view gave him the confidence and clarity to manage his team effectively.

“[Keeper] moved me from the previous chaotic state, to the ideal future state—and I’m living in that future state now.”

What stood out most to Hector was Keeper’s ability to combine this high-level view with granular detail. He could easily zoom in on uncategorized transactions, make those corrections, and zoom back out to see the bigger picture. The best part was that he could do all of this without switching tabs or apps. With less time spent juggling software or managing the chaos, Hector realized he could focus on delivering more value to his clients.

The post Keeper Helped Hector Garcia’s Firm Eliminate Chaos & Increase Confidence appeared first on Keeper.

“I’ve been in bookkeeping for over a decade, and I have yet to see a product like this.”

Highlights

• Keeper’s dashboard helped Dental Accounting Group (DAG) managers know exactly what the team was working on, eliminating the need for constant check-ins.
• Keeper’s Client Portal and automated email reminders saves DAG 10+ hours per month of chasing clients for answers by email

Growing a firm in the dental accounting niche

In 2022, two successful CPA and advisory firms, Dental Accounting Group and The Dental Group, joined forces to provide a full-service solution for the dental industry spanning bookkeeping, tax, and advisory services. Today, Dental Accounting Group (DAG) manages the monthly books for over 140 clients and has seen substantial benefits by using Keeper, including the addition of 30 new clients and 10 hours of saved time per month.

In order to keep up with this post-merger growth, two talented accounting specialists, Heather Lansink and Caitlin Moy, were charged with overseeing the combined bookkeeping segment of the practice. Heather manages a team of eight bookkeepers, and Caitlin works as an onboarding specialist for new clients.

Disconnected systems and limited visibility

With new growth comes natural growing pains. The systems between the merged entities were disconnected, which led to process inconsistencies between departments, as well. Specifically, Heather and Caitlin noticed their bookkeeping team’s workflows were siloed, which made it difficult for other teammates to collaborate or quickly step in to help. For example, if a bookkeeper needed to take time off, it was up to Heather to backtrack through all of the clients’ files, identify what had been completed or was still left to do, and relay that information to whoever was taking over.

The firm had an existing tool for task management, but it still wasn’t cutting it for DAG’s bookkeeping segment. “The program was not set up for bookkeepers specifically,” said Heather. “I still found myself checking in on the status of each client on a weekly basis.”

Solving the workflow problem

When Heather and Caitlin were asked by one of the firm’s partners to evaluate Keeper, they were instantly impressed (even with the demo meeting occurring during the heart of a chaotic 1099 season.) Keeper’s high-level client dashboard provided the critical insight DAG’s bookkeeping managers were in search of, and eliminated the need to check in with each bookkeeper individually on the status of their work.

“I save at least a full day each month by not having to ask my team where they’re at in the close process,” said Heather. “We also love the internal chat within Keeper, because my team can ask me questions on certain transactions and I can see them directly. They don’t have to write it down, come and find me, and pull up QuickBooks to give context.”

The improvements to DAG’s task management and workflows allowed for increased capacity across the board. Since subscribing to Keeper, each bookkeeper on the team was able to add three to four clients to their workload, totaling to roughly 30 new clients across the entire bookkeeping segment. Beyond the increase of sheer client volume, DAG’s management has been able to step back while still maintaining confidence in the accuracy of client books, and plan to empower the team further with Keeper’s Preparer, Reviewer and Manager designations.

“We plan to assign these roles so that each bookkeeper will be a peer reviewer of another teammate’s work,” said Heather. “I now have more time to manage and perfect our processes rather than worrying about the tasks at hand.”

Reducing manual follow-ups with Keeper’s Client Portal

“Using Keeper for client communication has saved me 10 hours a month and multiple emails.”

In addition to solving the workflow problem, DAG was eager to upgrade their approach to client communication. Before Keeper, the bookkeeping team would email spreadsheets filled with transaction questions to their clients. Follow-ups were almost always necessary, and keeping track of those messages was tedious and took time away from the work at hand. By using Keeper’s Client Portal and setting up automated reminders, the heavy lifting was done for them, and clients were responding with very little friction.

“I’ve seen efficiency turn a corner with our bookkeepers, and they no longer struggle with getting clients to answer questions or upload documents. Since implementing the automated reminders, there has been an increase in our clients already knowing when they need to send us specific items each month,” said Heather. 

DAG’s bookkeeping team now uses the Uncategorized Transaction Report to ask clients specific questions. Clients no longer have to worry about formatting issues when editing spreadsheet files, and they enjoy having the full picture of their bank records in their portal to help answer pending questions. Prior to transitioning to Keeper, roughly 30% of DAG’s bookkeeping clients had issues with responding to questions in a timely manner or utilizing communication methods that were unfamiliar to them. Today, that 30% is engaged and prompt in their responses, which they largely credit to the user-friendly nature of the Keeper Client Portal.

Why Keeper was the clear choice

DAG utilized Keeper’s features to eliminate  the specific issues that were hindering their team’s productivity and growth. But as they continued learning the tool alongside their Customer Success Manager (CSM), Heather and Caitlin realized that they could improve several other processes for the bookkeeping segment. The team plans to leverage Keeper to further reduce stress during the 1099 season, build out unique client properties, and complete their tax-related work months before the deadline.

When asked why Keeper is the clear choice for bookkeeping teams, Heather had this to say:

“I’ve been in bookkeeping for over a decade, and I have yet to see a product like this. Our feedback on the platform is being heard and I cannot tell you how thankful we are for that. It speaks volumes.”

The post Dental Accounting Group unifies their systems and streamlines monthly work with Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

• MCO cut their final review time by 85% using Keeper, resulting in 375 hours saved per month.
• Keeper centralized MCO's task management process, enhancing efficiency and providing comprehensive client insights in one place.
• Implementing Keeper's Client Portal increased client interaction, achieving a 95% adoption rate and reducing follow-up emails.

Building a niched practice

MCO Bookkeeping (MCO) was founded in 2018 with the goal of providing quality accounting services to a very complex and specific niche: UPS franchise locations. While growth was initially slow, MCO’s business began doubling each year starting in 2021 – and the bookkeeping team experienced the same growing pains that nearly every firm struggles with at some point or another. The volume of clients was quickly outpacing the systems MCO had in place, manual tasks slowed down the month-end close, and onboarding additional clients became daunting. If MCO was going to continue its impressive growth, it needed a new solution that was built specifically for large-scale bookkeeping practices.

Saving 375 hours per month with Keeper

The bookkeeping team at MCO was historically relying on dated systems and manual processes, and quickly discovered that the transition to Keeper alone was going to save them hundreds of hours per month across their large book of clients. In 2021, before MCO had subscribed to Keeper, bookkeepers at MCO could conduct a final end-to-end review of a client’s books in an hour and a half. Today, that process has sped up nearly 85 percent, and takes MCO’s bookkeepers as little as 12 minutes per client. Stretched out across their entire book of clients, that totals to roughly 375 hours per month of saved time.

Keeper’s integration with QuickBooks Online and the file review features that come along with that integration were key for increasing efficiencies at MCO.  “Before, we had to log into QuickBooks, which may take five minutes in itself,” said Mike. “You find your login credentials, get into the file, then pull up the transaction. Now, it’s all together in one spot – and that alone saves us a ton of time.”

When it comes to running a firm with a large volume of clients, the team at MCO agrees it is paramount for quality to stay consistent with quantity. By leveraging Keeper’s Automatic File Review Reports, the bookkeepers and reviewers have additional confidence that they are delivering the cleanest and most accurate books possible. These features, paired with MCO’s robust use of the internal chat functionalities, allow the team to provide seamless, quality work while still scaling the business as a whole.

“We’re able to have one supervisor manage upwards of 175 accounts, whereas prior that number may have been half."

Navigating task management for hundreds of clients

Before Keeper, MCO relied on a general CRM system along with QuickBooks Online to manage over 500 franchise clients. Working through these tasks, sifting through tons of client information, and reconciling individual QuickBooks files generated confusing and problematic administrative work that took away from the bookkeeping at hand. 

“We had a ‘square peg, round hole’ mentality,” said Mike Greenblatt, Partner and VP of Operations and Strategic Development at MCO. “We built something within our CRM that worked, but we eventually grew out of it. It was too manual, too many tasks, too many items – and the system was not built for the actual close itself.”

After implementing Keeper and working with their Customer Success Manager, it was clear that they had found a solution that was well-suited for large bookkeeping teams. Instead of flipping through their task management system, CRM, Teams chat log, and QuickBooks Online to complete their monthly work… they could simply login to Keeper. 

Keeper’s ability to support every aspect of the month-end process was incredibly valuable to MCO. The bookkeepers could look at a client’s close page from top to bottom for immediate context by viewing previous internal chats, checking in on client portal communications, and using Keeper’s file review reports to catch errors automatically (without ever opening QuickBooks Online.)

Mike observed that with previous practice management tools, the tracking of tasks felt like an afterthought; teammates were simply checking off tasks with little follow up. “In contrast, Keeper is a system where we use the task feature to efficiently get our close done. It gives us an enhanced level of understanding on a very large scale.”

Engaging 500+ clients on Keeper’s Client Portal

Beyond the increased organization of tasks and saved time MCO experienced using Keeper, the team also benefits from the Client Portal to all their clients. Before using Keeper, MCO’s communications with clients were largely email-driven. While the team did set up automatic notifications through their CRM at the time, MCO’s bookkeepers found themselves having to follow up with individual, one-off emails to clients. Mike observed that this process took time away from the month-end work at hand, and failed to encourage true engagement between the client and their financials.

Mike and his team quickly came to the conclusion that Keeper’s Client Portal would become the single location for their clients to answer questions, submit documentation and access their financial reporting packages on demand. By giving their clients a dedicated platform to interact with their accounting team and the status of their books each month, MCO found a way to make their large practice feel smaller and give clients a truly personalized experience. 

For many large firms, changing systems can seem like a tricky undertaking. However, MCO proves each day that investing in new, intuitive practice management platforms can make all the difference in service quality and client participation.

“Since moving to the Client Portal, we have seen a 95% adoption rate from clients, as well as a rapid increase to our day-to-day communication with clients,” said Mike. “We also saw heightened engagement in their finances.”

Looking into Keeper as a large firm? Here’s what you need to know.

For larger firms that are interested in Keeper to manage a high-volume of clients, Mike offered up a key piece of advice: “Dive into it. The real value of Keeper is seeing how all the features are interconnected, and how they work across multiple teams, individuals, and tasks.”

Today, there are several practice management systems on the market that help keep firm owners organized, but lack the ability to shrink the work size itself. With Keeper, large practices can distribute the work efficiently and give supervisors the ability to oversee their team’s work on both the micro and macro levels. 

“Selecting Keeper for our business has been the right decision. It’s made a tremendous difference in terms of growth and efficiency.”

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• BSFS significantly reduced time spent on manual bookkeeping tasks and email communication with Keeper’s QuickBooks integrated review tools and client portal.
• Keeper’s dashboard and customizable client templates replaced their spreadsheet-based workbooks, giving management a high-level view of all client activities.
• In their first month on Keeper, BSFS saved over an hour per client across their 50 clients.

The post How BSFS Saves Over 50 Hours Per Month With Keeper’s File Review Tools appeared first on Keeper.

• Keeper’s File Review tool helps On the Books’ team catch hundreds of common bank feed errors, like inconsistent transaction coding and transactions missing payees or classes.
• Keeper centralizes account reconciliation and client communication, improving client relationships and decreasing response times.
• On the Books replaced three different tools with Keeper, giving managers more visibility over the team’s work.

“We don’t need to do manual reviews, or use QuickBooks to run 10 different reports – instead we use Keeper.”

The post How On The Books reviews 700 transactions per month using Keeper's File Review appeared first on Keeper.

Automating Workflows with Keeper

Dan Luthi and the Ignite Spot team are all about making accounting accessible and intuitive for businesses across the United States. Combining top talent and tech is crucial for creating automated workflows that help reduce the administrative burdens – allowing Ignite Spot to focus on the “big picture” for their clients.

Dan and the Ignite Spot team go beyond just numbers. With their advanced tools, they help clients make informed and proactive decisions. One of the modern software platforms used to help achieve this outcome is Keeper.

The post How Keeper Helps Ignite Spot Run Quality Control for 200+ Clients appeared first on Keeper.

In 2019, Cheryl Lanahan put her entrepreneurial spirit to the test when she started PlumbBooks. Specializing in accounting and bookkeeping services for residential home service companies, Cheryl’s vision stemmed from her time working at a plumbing company. She realized the need for a specialized bookkeeping practice catering to the trades industry.

The post How PlumbBooks saves 30 minutes per client per month with Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

The post How Perlson grew its CAS practice from $15k to $1M with Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

Highlights

• Adopting Keeper helped Springstead Solutions transform their month-end close, cutting down turnaround times by 10 working days.
• By transitioning to Keeper, the firm moved from tabbing through multiple platforms and manual tasks to focusing on scaling and improving the business.
• With newfound efficiency and time, Springstead Solutions was able to onboard 3 new clients in their first month on Keeper.

Springstead’s start

Christina Springstead has had a lifelong knack for numbers. After taking an accounting class in high school and joining Business Professionals of America, it was clear which path she would take after graduation. However, after two semesters into her accounting degree, Christina pivoted to study sports management as she believed it would be more exciting. Ultimately, all roads led back to accounting as she launched her bookkeeping side business in tandem with her full-time career, to ensure she could provide for her daughter as a single mom.

In 2020, the time had come for Christina to focus all her efforts on running her bookkeeping business, Springstead Solutions. Simultaneously, COVID-19 presented a need for businesses to update and organize their books in order to apply for relief loans. Drawing from her experiences in accounting, management of a brick-and-mortar business, and participation in the Profit First program (PFP), Christina identified the true impact disorganized accounting systems had on small businesses.

“So many businesses’ books were messy, which led to them making bad business decisions. That’s where I found my passion.”

Flipping through tabs to complete the month-end close

That passion was recognized and appreciated by a growing book of clients, which brought with it a need for an additional employee and new processes. As a self-proclaimed “deep-dive software user,” Christina was not afraid to test out tools to organize her practice. At first, she relied on a workflow platform to track daily tasks, QuickBooks Online to manage and reconcile accounts, a spreadsheet to review the monthly close process, and Keeper for final quality-control checks. These spread out procedures caused Springstead Solution’s rapid growth to seem daunting rather than exciting.

“Before diving into Keeper, our process was made up of many changing systems and a lot of wasted time flipping between tabs and tools, with no single source of truth for oversight of operations,” said Christina. “We were always running into the new month scrambling to get things done and books closed out.”

Closing the books 10 days faster with Keeper

After scheduling a call with Keeper to answer some lingering feature-related questions, Christina took the initiative to coordinate a collaborative work group with her Customer Success Manager and her fellow PFP peers to determine the best use of Keeper for bookkeeping firms. As a result of those interactions, she made use of what she learned throughout those weeks in order to do her own software “deep-dive,” and was amazed by the results.

“I built out 20 different templates based on our work strategies. I tested, retested, and tested them again. It worked, and the transformation was overnight. From the moment I showed it to my staff, I had more hope in my business than I had in months,” said Christina. “With the ease of Keeper, I actually had oversight of what was happening for all of my clients.”

Springstead Solutions found a powerful way to condense their month-end close process, all in Keeper. And more than cutting down on extra clicks each day, Keeper reduced the actual time spent closing their clients’ books; to the tune of roughly 10 working days per month.

“When we started completing our month-end closes in Keeper, we had more than half of our client work finished by the 12th of the month. Previously, that was not the case – we would often spend up to the 25th of the month getting these tasks finished.”

Using Keeper to scale the practice

This newly freed up time was historically spent tracking specific client workflows and drudging through tedious and manual bookkeeping processes – while simultaneously researching, testing, and seeking out better systems. Now, Christina was fully invested in Keeper’s various tools, and decided to go further by switching and subscribing to Keeper Receipts.

Springstead Solutions’ tech stack was effectively and intuitively condensed. “I just need QuickBooks and Keeper – and almost minimally QuickBooks – at this point in time.” Christina recognized this as the perfect time to scale her business.

“With Keeper, we didn’t need more employees, but we could bring on more clients. The amount of time I’ve saved in the last five weeks has been so immense that my client success manager told me she needed more work to fill her plate,” said Christina.

Christina took advantage of this additional time by adding extra TLC to her website and business operations. She revamped her pricing calculator, updated her health check template, and held a few discovery calls with prospective clients.

“I have been able to work on my business instead of in my business because I know the month-end close has been taken care of,” Christina said. “I was even able to move up a discovery call appointment because it was important to the prospective client. In my first 28 days on Keeper, I’ve been able to sign 3 new clients.”

“Hands down, the best decision you will make is using Keeper to its full potential for streamlining your operations. I love it.”

Continuing the momentum

Springstead Solutions is just getting started, and the team is identifying new areas to scale and build out by leveraging Keeper to manage the practice. Looking ahead, Christina is eager to build out new financial tools, improve her branding, and engage in discovery calls with clients to find true alignment.

“I can now have a clear mind to actually go through and understand the work that needs to be done each month. Our books have always been clean, but now they’re sparkly clean.”

 

The post How Springstead Solutions closes the books 10 days faster with Keeper appeared first on Keeper.

Client reception and engagement

After REI Bookkeepers introduced Keeper to their clients, the feedback and reception was overwhelmingly positive. “We had 90% of our clients using Keeper’s Client Portal within the first week,” said Greg. Compared to previous portal interfaces which required yet another set of login credentials, Keeper’s use of one-click Google Magic Links proved attractive to their less tech-savvy accounting clients. With enthusiastic support from those clients as well as the bookkeepers who were using the app, Dave was ready to take the leap. “I started to love Keeper, and we decided to go all in.”

Steering clients away from email and onto Keeper has been REI Bookkeepers’ number one priority.  Greg found Keeper’s Client Portal easy and straightforward to use – and his clients agreed. The bookkeeping team also loves the option to set up automated reminders for clients, which get sent twice a week until the client responds to the questions in their portal. Today, all of REI Bookkeepers’ clients are up and running on the new communication system.

“We’ve seen higher response rates across the board, and no one misses the old system of using Google Sheets and sorting through email inboxes.”

Leveraging Keeper as a whole

Keeper has quickly become the single source of truth for Greg and the team. Beyond the overall benefit that the Client Portal provides from a communication standpoint, Greg’s team also relies on the many review tools that Keeper offers.

One of the favorites amongst the team is the uncategorized transaction report. Greg and his bookkeepers no longer have to go through the effort of downloading uncategorized transactions into Excel, tidying up the file, and sending the questions one-by-one via email. Keeper’s two-way integration with QuickBooks gives Greg’s team the ability to mark and edit transactions in the app, and add any questions or comments straight to the Client Portal for his clients to review and respond to.

“Keeper makes it easy for me to do my work where I review my work,” said Greg.

“I would not be able to manage this workload as well as I do without it. Paying to have Keeper on our team is a no-brainer.”

What the future holds for REI Bookkeepers

After buying REI Bookkeepers and assuming the role of CEO, Greg admits that his team has only scratched the surface with Keeper. Their next undertaking is to explore the management reporting packages that Keeper offers. “We still send manual reports out of QuickBooks to do reviews. I am well aware that using Keeper will make our reporting that much more valuable to our clients.”

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• Context switching is the habit of quickly shifting attention between different tasks before they’re done, leaving you feeling unproductive and stressed.
• Context switching is a necessary part of modern accounting, but when it runs rampant you pay in lost productivity, creativity, collaboration, and employee retention.
• The best way to rein in context switching is to streamline bookkeeping workflows using a bookkeeping practice management solution.

Beware the Costs of Unchecked Context Switching

• Dipping productivity. 
• Lacking creativity. 
• Uninformed decision-making.
• High turnover. 

No, these aren’t just “part of the job” in accounting firms.

These issues are what happens when context switching goes too far.

That’s right, we’re hinting at a truth that’s a bit unpopular to admit: Some context switching is a requirement for knowledge workers today. It’s just not plausible for a single tool to handle every single thing that accountants need to do. 

The problems come when it runs rampant. 

When context switching isn’t addressed, it has implications for the health of businesses and workers.

Understanding Context Switching in Accounting

Context switching — or multitasking, task toggling, etc. — occurs when you interrupt working on one task to perform another task.

In the workplace, context switching is often the result of needing to move between different applications to find the information you need to complete your original task. You may also switch contexts in the middle of a task to answer a chat, read an email, or attend a meeting. 

Think about sending a month-end report to a client and catching a transaction that seems inconsistent. Is it a coding error? Something your client needs to clarify? Gotta hop out of the report and shoot off an email. While you’re there, you might as well answer the messages that have piled up. Half-way through a reply — ping! — you got an email back from the client. Time to check that really quickly. Finally, you can make a little progress on that report. But first, have to log into QuickBooks or Xero and make that correction…

If that all seems quite exhausting, that’s because it is. And if it sounds all too familiar, that’s not surprising at all. 

Context switching is more prevalent than ever because of the way technology has become part of our lives and our workplaces. 

On average, workers today find themselves spending more time using email, more time participating in video calls, and more time multitasking. And, the pressure is on to respond immediately to notifications. 

As business reliance on tech continues to grow, the need to switch between tons of tools and tasks may become even more intense. Employees and businesses that don’t have any tactics for minimizing switching and its impact are going to feel the pain. 

4 Ways Your Business is Paying for Unchecked Context Switching

Yes, in the bookkeeping space you’re likely going to need to swap between at least a few different platforms in a day to get your job done. 

But, completely unfettered context switching happens way too often. In fact, close to half (43%) of workers report dedicating too much time to switching between company tools and apps. 

If that’s just as true at your firm as it is at many, here’s the “tax” you may be paying if unhindered context switching continues. 

Deep Work Gets Deprioritized

Deep work, characterized by immersing ourselves in meaningful work challenges, is where we truly hone our skills and create valuable output.

Unfortunately, having to move between different tools to get anything done introduces interruptions that don’t allow for work to go deep. 

An observation of one consumer goods company found that workers used 22 different applications, and switched between them 350 times, to complete a single transaction.

When that’s the state of your workplace, there’s no space left for the deep work and concentration that leads to creativity and groundbreaking ideas.

Loss of Critical Business Knowledge

Considering that 56% of workers report difficulty keeping track of business data across different apps and that they actually have to ask more than one person for help finding information — there’s no way business knowledge is being used to its full potential when it comes to client communications and making decisions that impact the future of your business.

Fatigue + Stress = Burnout

It’s really no surprise that 43% of workers report it’s tiring to have to move back and forth between apps, screens, and conversations at a fast pace all the time. 

But context switching isn’t just physically taxing, it’s also mentally taxing. Science tells us that switching between tasks takes a toll on our cognitive abilities. And, it can even cause the brain to produce the stress hormone cortisol.

Fatigue and stress in the workplace is a perfect recipe for burnout. That’s a big deal because burnout is one of the top reasons why employees leave jobs.

Collaboration and Connection Flounder 

The best solutions arise when diverse teams full of varying perspectives are able to collaborate.

However, heavy tech reliance and context switching stress makes people feel less and less connected. Close to two-thirds (62%) of workers miss being able to collaborate with their colleagues. When tooling becomes so distracting it’s actually hurting workplace culture, is it actually serving you?

Cut Down on Context Switching with One App for Bookkeeping

If you’re ready to cut out some of the email back-and-forth and adopt one app to streamline your workflows, it’s time to try bookkeeping practice management software like Keeper.

Keeper helps automate and streamline bookkeeping and accounting workflows, unite data, and make collaboration simpler both internally and with clients. 

Using Keeper’s branded Client Portal gives you a single channel to manage all client comms and get responses faster without having to switch between emails, phone calls, and texts. Smart file review tools quickly catch coding errors and integrate your workflows directly with QuickBooks and Xero, so you only need to correct files in one location for a cleaner and faster close.

And, when you are done with the review, Keeper makes it easy to craft useful reports clients actually like reading. Stay on top of all these moving parts with Keeper’s task management functionality, where you can create flows and make sure you and your team are performing at peak productivity.

At Keeper, we make it easy to actually work in your workflow software, minimizing the number of apps you need to pivot between over the course of a productive day. 

Sign up for a free Keeper trial today and experience the delight of running a bookkeeping business from a powerful platform.

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