Working with businesses who aim to learn
Steph is a proud accountant and lover of all things tech. She started her accounting career at 17 and hasn't looked back.
About Growthwise
Growthwise is a small accounting & advisory business in Newcastle NSW. We started nearly 8 years ago (time flies when you are having fun!). We work with small business owners and help them with everything from compliance to growth strategies to what tech to implement. We really try to be the partner to our small business clients. Nothing is off limits!
We help just over 300 businesses kick-arse each year. We don't have a niche in the traditional sense of only dealing with 1 or 2 Industries. Our niche is more about what the owners want to do. We work with owners who want to become the best business owners they can be. People who want to be constantly learning, who are looking for opportunities everywhere and who really care about building great teams around them. We do tend to deal with a lot of tech startups, creatives, trades, hospitality and retail but we also have a mix of everything else as well.
The Problem
We thought we were being fancy - using WorkflowMax Leads and Quotes 5 years ago with an ABA file prepared from Xero to collect payments from clients. But as soon as we turned Ignition on, we quickly realized how inefficient we really had been!
The process of preparing a proposal wasn't time-consuming, but sending it to a client, getting it signed off, changing things if they wanted additional services, then getting the Direct Debit forms signed off, then updating those details in Xero, then creating the ABA file each month ending up being really time-consuming!
The Fix
Smart Proposals - The proposals side of things have had a huge impact on our business. We can get back to clients a lot faster than before. They can sign off with ease and a lot faster. Everything is standard meaning all our clients get the same packages, and it's super simple to create the proposal. Using Ignition has saved us 3 hours/client/year in total.
Automatic Payments - Money just appears in our account each month! How awesome is that!!!! Not to mention that we don't need to mark off payments in Xero either anymore.
Business Insights - I love a good Dashboard! There is nothing better than setting a target for your MRR and getting to see how far away you are from that target each month. I'm driven by targets and having everything I need at my fingertips in Ignition is really helpful. It just pushes you that extra little bit to ensure you are always hitting the budget line! It's also really helpful in planning capacity for the year, in planning cashflow and looking at the services your clients are taking up.
Scope Managment - It's so easy to change a proposal now that we tend to manage scope creep a lot better. It's really easy to go back to the client and say this is what we put in your proposal, here is a reminder link, this is what we need to do for you on top of the proposal. Before it was such a manual process, I'm sure we missed out on a lot of opportunities.
Process and Compliance - Anything that ticks the compliance box and is automated is wonderful in my opinion! We don't have to worry about saving down engagements anymore as this is automatic. We actually have an audit trail of signatures etc. if anyone was to ever dispute a payment. And the fact that we have a menu of services that allows us to break things up in detail is great. We can really customize what our clients need while keeping that automation in place.
Integrations - This process is amazing. We simply load in any new lead in Ignition, when the client accepts they are automatically set up in Xero, Invoices are automatically pushed to Xero and Invoices are automatically marked as paid in Xero once you collect the money. We love #banadmin, and Ignition is certainly a key component of us being as efficient as we can be.
Steph's Pro Tip
Just 1! Implement the entire package, for ALL your clients. I often see people who are still only using the proposals section, or who haven't put every single client in, or who aren't using payments. Ignition is an amazing integrated system that you get the best out of when using in its entirety. This means ensuring every single client is in Ignition, every single client has a proposal, you are using payments, you have integration with your workflow system, you have thought about the best way to structure your services and that you are using the Dashboard to track your processes. So I know I'm cheating here with my #1 tip, but it's so important to use all the excellent features, not just 1 :).