An important criterion for success as the owner/operator of a CPA practice is to see your practice as made up of systems. Like McDonald's, like any business, an accounting practice has to manage, efficiently and consistently, a number of tasks. As the owner/founder, it's your job to make sure systems are in place to do that, for the sake of you, your employees, and your clients.

You need systems to be able to deliver your accounting and tax services in a predictable and consistent way. All successful businesses and professional practices that I have studied have a “how we do it here” manual, also referred to as a “policy and procedures” manual. Standardize your procedures so that everyone knows what they are and how to do them. These procedures involve production systems for your services, systems to deliver those services, systems to track new clients, systems to hire and train new employees, and the list goes on.

Documented systems can make a difference to your own time, as a CPA practitioner. Without such systems in place, everything depends on you. If something happened to you, even for a short period, the entire practice would be thrown into chaos. With properly documented systems of management and organization, a key employee (even you!) could leave suddenly, and the practice would not suffer. You could replace the employee with minimal disruption. As new problems come up, you can adjust the systems you have in place to accommodate the needed changes.

You must think of your CPA practice as a system of systems. Systems of any business can be broken into the following 7 areas:

Leadership – example of a system is writing and revisiting the vision statement.

Marketing: This is the analytical/statistical area where you define who your customers are: their income, their general age, their ethnicity, their geographical locations, etc.

Management: These are systems to manage employees and the facilities.

Money: The key financial reports and key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to keep track of.

Lead Generation: CPA marketing and lead generation systems to bring in customers to grow your CPA firm. Various CPA firm advertising tools that you have to get a lead.

Lead Conversion: Systems, e.g. scripts and the presentation binder you use to convert a lead or prospect to a client.

Client Fulfillment: This is delivering what you promised. You will have systems for how the work is performed so the service can be delivered consistently and predictably.

Documenting systems for all the functions of your practice can make hiring and training new employees a smoother and more efficient process. Well-documented procedures can also enhance the client's overall experience, since it makes it less likely that the client will ever be surprised by a seemingly random change in how services are delivered.

But remember, systems documentation won't do any good if your thoroughly documented systems manual sits in a binder on the shelf and never sees the light of day. If you don't currently have your systems well documented, you will need to do two things: begin documenting your systems or procedures, and, at the same time, begin developing a practice culture that values consistency in systems, so that employees will refer to the documentation when they need to.