Email overwhelm is real - is there a more secure alternative for accountants and their clients?
Is email overwhelm real? Most likely. Is there an alternative to email that can work better? Yep. Keep reading.
The pinging.
The million unopened emails.
The endless threads where you lose both the subject, the attachment and your thoughts.
Sounds painfully familiar, right?
In this digital day and age, many of us rely on email as our main form of ‘formal’ communication.
Just in 2022, the predictions are for global email users to grow to 4.3 billion and up to 4.6 billion in 2025¹, making up for more than half of the expected world population.
We can’t deny that accountants rely on email as one of the oldest and very well proven methods of communication with your clients, but is it really serving accountants well in supporting their clients, saving enough time and making things easier, or is it creating more clutter and overwhelm?
And as much as we are used to them, how secure are they and how much is at stake?
Your burning questions answered below…
¹https://www.statista.com/statistics/255080/number-of-e-mail-users-worldwide/
I love my email inbox. No One. Ever
Before we start the serious talk, let’s recognise the elephant in the room - emails can get overwhelming. We have all experienced this before - wondering how many times you are allowed to follow up on that query, attachments that always get lost, being ghosted for days by your client.
E-mails have turned into a great communication tool of the modern world and it’ll be weird to say you don’t have or use one. However it does come with a lot of downsides when we look at the way accountancy practices use it. The digital accountancy world is in need of a software that allows more efficient communication, makes it easier to maintain good relationships with clients and reduces time and energy wasting (and, well, increases income).
The reality is that you can’t always escape or control all the emails that come in and out your inbox - it can get messy, demanding and out of control fast, as you find yourself jumping from one task to the next and wondering if that end-of-summer sale is worth taking a look at. This further leads to decreased productivity, because you have so much to tackle and you haven’t even sipped on your first cup of coffee yet.
Knowing how productivity is directly linked to business profitability and sustainability, as well as client and employee retention we can’t blame you for being concerned about this!
Another reason to be mindful about email overwhelm is that it could increase your risk of burnout, causing both you and your employees to ultimately not want to show up for work at all or not bring the same quality of work and client support they usually would.
It’s important to mention here that the number one reason clients leave their previous accountancy firm is a lack of fast communication, especially over email². With an extremely busy inbox there is a higher possibility of missing what could be an important email, resulting in client dissatisfaction or lack of trust.
²https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/2022/08/17/how-accounting-firms-can-prioritize-client-relations/69472/
Are you keeping things private?
If you like getting in trouble, then please do so without compromising your accounting career!
Yes, maybe emails do cut it for you (sometimes). News for you - it is not the safest method when dealing with clients' private data.
As much as email has a reputation of being a safe form of communication, you would be surprised that it really isn’t. In fact, before your email reaches your client it passes through a lot of online servers, increasing the risk of data breach when it ‘sits’ between these multiple points. When they are in this unprotected state, they could be altered or even deleted (which is not what an accountant wants to even think about with the laws around audit trails).
With the advent of GDPR and tighter data protection laws, it is not really a risk worth taking as it can damage your reputation and worse. In fact, it is essential for accountants and firms to have total confidence that the systems they are using are on the highest level of encryption and security as well as organised in a GDPR compliant fashion to ensure ease and speed when you need to pluck data out of the system.
Grab our GDPR-made-easy (really!) for accountants White paper so you always know whether your firm is using GDPR compliant forms of communication or not.
It’s important for accountants to be able to communicate and convince clients to switch away from using only emails for communication, so that everyone complies to the GDPR rules, and the easiest way to convince them to use another platform would be if it’s simple, fast and secure - which is why Timworks is one ‘download’ button away!
Security is underrated
Protecting your clients data from breach and ensuring that you are using the right communication platform that complies with GDPR and allows you to do your audit trails is crucial.
Cyber attackers are always looking for new ways to access your personal information, and email remains the easiest point of entry, say experts.³
So let’s get back to emails and why they are not secure. Accountants send hundreds of emails every day, many of which include tax returns, statements and common reports. If you send them directly rather than send a secure link to a document, you may be playing with fire and risking data breach.
You can allow extra security by not only ensuring that private information is safely transferred (for instance by using a GDPR compliant software, like Timworks or secure links in a cloud) but by adding authorisation and audit to the mix. Having an audit log will help you to quickly identify who did what and when and help you trace your own steps when needed. Authorisation is also important as it means you are in control of what individuals can access, giving you an extra peace of mind.
³https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/news/atwork/2019-06-14-client-email-risk
What’s the alternative?
With the rapidly changing accountancy industry and the ability for many professionals to work from anywhere, there is definitely the need for communication and client support software that allows instant chat, integrations, flexibility and is GDPR compliant and secure.
How does Timworks offer a better and more secure alternative to good ol’ email? 👇
Accountants turning Digital Nomads & needing fast communication
Accountancy has changed and evolved a lot over the years and things are very digital now. You may not even have a physical practice or point of contact with your clients and embrace the digital nomad living while still having the opportunity to serve your clients well. This being said, operating digitally does not mean less human communication. Accountants are still trying to support their clients the best way possible, and to do so they need to reply to their need for speed, ease, flexibility and efficiency.
And there is nothing better than being able to reach out to your client and chat with them in real time (works both ways). Emails take too long to be composed, sent out, be read and replied to, especially when they are the only point of contact with your clients. This is just not sustainable.
As mentioned earlier, an estimated 65 percent of data leaks are the result of malicious malware or phishing attacks mainly happening through emails. Having a fully digital accountancy practice, you will surely communicate with most of your clients over email, increasing the risk of data breach.
Timworks offers instant live chat, as well as the convenience of being able to loop someone else in the conversation to best deliver on request and solve queries in minutes rather than days (or even weeks!).
Integration nation
Ah the joy of downloading a bunch of attachments and then having to manually upload them to your accounting software (whether you are using Xero, Dext, Datamolino - you name it). Emails are simply not flexible enough to allow native integrations that can speed up the whole process for accountants, keep everything organised and fast.
It can also get hard to keep things organised, which can decrease your focus and productivity as an accountant.
In this digital day and age, integrations are something that we not only value, but can’t really do business without.
Ensure that those invoices are automatically going straight to your favourite tech tools with native integrations on Timworks which currently integrates with Hubdoc, Dext, AutoEntry and Datamolino plus has a few more integrations on the roadmap.
App alternatives
So how can you avoid the overwhelm? Phone calls are great, but you can’t really spend time transcribing them to have a written proof of your communication and they are so limited when it comes to practical features. To keep organised and responsive conversations, many accountants are turning to chat apps and platforms allowing the desired level of fast communication between them and their clients such as WhatsApp, Slack, Teams to name a few.
The issue with those platforms? As much as they are easy and convenient, they are not specifically designed for accountants and their clients, and therefore have a lot of gaps creating more unnecessary complications and possibly causing overwhelm. Using a single, streamlined platform instead makes the whole process smooth and simple when there is a dedicated app for that.
What is more, certain apps should not be used to share personal data and confidential information as they face similar security problems to email. If you are using WhatsApp to communicate with your clients, be wary that in case of breach, you are liable in accordance with Art. 5 GDPR (MRS, 2020). Doesn’t sound ideal, does it? You can learn more about the do’s and don’ts of GDPR compliant software by checking our latest Whitepaper here.
There is a safe alternative
It is obvious that a better, safer and more streamlined way of communicating successfully with your clients is needed. Let us paint a picture: a platform that allows you to connect with your team and your clients quickly, without second guessing the safety of it, and without interruptions from third parties. Add the native integrations and a few other perks and it sounds like a dream come true, right?
Well it is not a dream - it’s the reason why Timworks was born. An app that is exclusively designed for accountants and their firms.
You can bring your communications and files together in one platform and sync on everything from gathering paperwork to reconciling transactions.
Furthermore, you get increased productivity since your team is not worried about their messy inboxes and gets more headspace leading to better focus and boosted creativity - needless to say how this is positively impacting the business. Less clutter also reduces the feelings of burnout and allows clarity and therefore better client support, with the ability to log off at the end of the day.
Timworks is designed to help you reduce the email overwhelm and make everything smooth so you can focus on what really matters, and never have to ‘just follow up’ again.
It is also a secure alternative to email since it is fully GDPR compliant and allows an audit trail.
It therefore presents an opportunity for accountancy practices to establish themselves as trusted business advisers, capable of not only gathering and analysing client information, but also protecting business data, whatever the sensitivity, using software that offers security, speed and flexibility.
Conclusion
Email will always be an important part of accountants’ world. It is vital however to adapt and overcome when it comes to communicating effectively, safely and professionally with our clients and support them in real time. No accountant or finance professional wants to question the level of their security when it comes to communication.
Timworks has been specifically designed to ensure you have a peace of mind when it comes to security and time, and that you build long-lasting relationships with your clients.
Now go enjoy reacting to a text from your client with an emoji ❤️
