Before switching to Ignition, the team at CTB Advisory had inefficient client engagement workflows that hindered their ability to scale. Despite serving 2,000 clients, the firm also had limited visibility into service adoption and revenue streams, which prevented them from gaining deeper insights into the business.

Nicole Hart, Client Coordinator at CTB Advisory, recalls using disconnected systems and PDF files to facilitate client engagement. There was no central hub for clients or service libraries, and the information lived in static documents. This created difficulty in tracking and managing client info accurately.

A lack of standardisation of the way services were packaged and priced created confusion within the team and made the client engagement process longer than necessary.

The CTB Advisory team also faced challenges with reporting. According to Nicole, they struggled to gain insights into client engagements and billing discrepancies. This made it difficult to identify problem areas, such as services that were undercharged or find new growth opportunities. 

"[Ignition] brought a lot of benefits, especially in understanding the differences in engagements and clients. For example, if we increased our charges, we wanted to understand the reasons behind those changes and where they came from."

On the financial side, CTB Advisory grappled with managing invoices and payments. It was hard for the team to see when payments were outstanding, and they manually reconciled payments, leading to delays and errors. 

Without clearly defined and standardised services and pricing, CTB Advisory was undercharging some clients significantly. On implementing Ignition, it was easy to identify this and now with a comprehensive service library, they can prevent that from happening again.

As well as undercharging, vague and inconsistent service names meant it wasn’t clear when work was technically out-of-scope, making it harder to get paid for that work. This meant CTB Advisory was leaving revenue opportunities on the table.

CTB Advisory adopted Ignition in 2021 and saw a massive improvement in internal processes, leading to time savings and a better client experience. 

Ignition allowed CTB Advisory to leverage templates that streamlined client communications and documentation. So, instead of manually creating PDF proposals and engagement letters to send to clients, they could use templates for consistent and efficient client interactions.

On acceptance of the proposal, clients then receive the next steps, and jobs are deployed in Xero Practice Manager (XPM) immediately.

As Nicole explains: "We've created proposal templates tailored to our needs. Instead of emailing clients their appointment confirmation, we include everything in the proposal — tax checklists, appointment details, and all necessary information for them to accept before the appointment.

"And then once they accept it, everything flows as it needs it, and it's just in that one space. That has saved us a lot of time because it's all in the one spot."

Proposal creation was previously a 20 minute process. Since implementing Ignition, CTB Advisory now spends on average 5 minutes per proposal - a considerable time saving across a 2000+ strong client base. 

This approach not only improved efficiency but also facilitated compliance with industry standards.

As well as efficiency, having clearly defined services in Ignition has helped CTB Advisory set expectations with clients and charge for out-of-scope work. 

“It keeps it really clear for us and the client”, says Nicole.

CTB uses Ignition reports to better understand areas like billing accuracy, client engagement, and service utilisation. This has helped them identify and correct issues when undercharging clients and make sure payment collection is 100%.

"[Ignition] definitely gave us comprehensive reporting. I actually see what's going on… what we're charging, who we're charging, what services — everything. Those reports helped us understand each individual client."

Nicole also appreciates that Ignition's reporting capabilities have become more powerful over the last few years, saying that continuous improvements have made managing client accounts and billing easier.

"There's just more and more reports. It's really helpful to us to filter out clients we're not charging correctly for, as well as billable clients who haven't billed yet. All of those elements have been incredibly helpful to me. I also like being able to export something and then filter it. I can get the answers I need right away. It's fantastic."

Payment reconciliation has become much simpler since CTB transitioned to Ignition. The team used to spend quite a bit of time reconciling payments, but thanks to Ignition's built-in billing and payment capabilities, the task has become much more streamlined resulting in time saving of 30% on these tasks. 

"The automated payment side of it was beneficial because reconciling all of those transactions was such a pain in the neck. With Ignition, it's all in one transaction each day, so that's very helpful."

That, and the fact Nicole has more insights into their billing and pricing data, have enhanced the overall efficiency of their accounting processes.