In 2017, Natalie Lennon took a bold step, leaving her role as a partner at a traditional accounting firm to launch Two Sides Accounting. With a clear vision of embracing modern technology and growing her team, Natalie was determined to drive efficiency by integrating various applications to streamline processes and procedures. Despite her efforts, some inefficiencies persisted, motivating her to seek further improvements.

When Natalie started engaging new clients, she’d hold an initial meeting, then go away, prepare the engagement in Word, then PDF it and email it to the client. Then the client would say yes or no, and if they signed, Natalie would set them up in her system. 

“This whole process was too long,” she says. “And I lost a couple of clients in this process. I was trying to sign up my clients who’d followed me from my old firm, and some of them were already feeling uncertain, and two clients got a bit fed up with my whole onboarding process. They were likely chatting with another accountant who was probably using Ignition or something else to get them signed up quickly. After I lost them, I said, ‘There’s got to be a better way’.” 

The other challenge, says Natalie, was chasing debtors. Two Sides learned some hard lessons early on: the firm had a few big clean-up jobs, where a couple of clients were way behind and Two Sides had to do a few years’ worth of work. “We got 50% upfront, and then we made the mistake of waiting until the client came in for the final meeting, where we told them how much tax they had to pay and then we gave them our final bill,” says Natalie. “You can probably guess what happened next. Bill shock. It took us six months to chase the money, and I vowed to never do that again.”  

These hurdles were impacting Two Sides’ efficiency, cash flow, revenue, and growth potential. To overcome them, the firm needed to simplify engagements and streamline payments. Two Sides needed one solution: Ignition. 

Natalie first encountered Ignition at her first Xerocon in 2017, not long after launching Two Sides.

“At the time, it was a huge leap of faith investing in the software,” Natalie says. “But I knew it was going to deliver tenfold. Fast-forward to now: we can onboard multiple clients in a week – and do it four times faster – because it's simple and it's quick, whereas if I was using that other process, forget it! Who's gonna do that? I’d have had to hire a whole other person to do it.” 

And Two Sides doesn’t use Ignition just for onboarding. “Now, everything goes through Ignition,” says Natalie. “We use the proposal templates. All of our prices are in there, and my practice manager does all the engagements. Just being able to give that to somebody else and not get involved is a huge efficiency gain for me. And she loves it, too. It’s great to get a Slack notification that someone's accepted their engagement.”

Plus, says Natalie, it’s great for the clients, too

We have also had a few clients sign up to use Ignition in their own businesses as they love the customer experience it provides in those early stages of engaging a client.

At Two Sides, shifting to Ignition has not only streamlined operations, but also fundamentally changed the business’ financial dynamics. With Ignition’s client billing and client payment features, Natalie and her team can now require upfront payments from clients before beginning any work. 

“When they put in their payment details upfront, it means clients are committing to working with us,” she says. “Then we schedule in the work – only after we get paid. It's not the other way around. So it's shifted the power dynamic for us, putting the accountant in the driver’s seat where, traditionally, I think it's been the reverse.”

Now, she says, if you want Two Sides to do a clean-up for you, you pay upfront. “And if you don't want to pay us like that, you're not our ideal client, and you can go work with somebody else.” 

Instead of having to call a client and chase them for money, Natalie can now focus on the work. 

Even better, thanks to maintaining a steadier cash flow, now Natalie and her team can take some time off over summer without worry. “If you're not a firm that's doing monthly direct debits, then you need to have a huge buffer of cash aside for that period,” she says. “But we don't have to worry about that, because we're still getting paid!” 

What’s more, because Two Sides uses Xero accounting software – and works only with clients who use Xero, too – the firm can take advantage of Ignition’s easy integration with Xero. “With that integration, we've been able to further streamline our procedures, policies, and efficiencies,” says Natalie. “Ignition not only invoices the client and takes the payment but the integration with Xero allows the invoices to be marked as paid in Xero to easily match with the bank feed.

All in all, Ignition has changed the game for Two Sides.