1. Saving Trees, Tempers, Time & Money The Impact Of Special Portfolios on Workflow Within Wilder Coe Stephen Landy & Colin Dicks Wilder Coe LLP

2. The Right Tool For The Job… Make Sure You Know What Outcome You Want Before You Start!

3. In The Beginning… Paper Workflow reports were circulated and discussed in meetings.

4. Updating Workflows Was A Pain… To update a Workflow, you had to click on Portfolio, then Workflow, then find the Client and click on the Yellow arrow…

5. Scroll Down & Find The Tasks… Click on Edit To Access The Fields…

6. Edit The Task Fields… By Entering The Relevant Data…

7. And When Complete… Click on Update to Save Changes…

8. Find & Repeat For Any Other Tasks… Before going back and…

9. Laboriously Repeating… For Each Individual Client.

10. Then Along Came Practice Engine Version 8 With Special Portfolios.

11. Where Are Special Portfolios Hiding? In the Portfolio Task Pad.

12. Special Portfolios Screen There are Two Dropdown Boxes…

13. Portfolio Type Select the Type Where Your Special Portfolio was Saved.

14. Portfolio Then Select Your Special Portfolio.

15. Click on Refresh… Find The Client We Want To Update…

16. Update The Relevant Fields… Directly Into The Relevant Box!

17. Then Scroll Down… And Repeat for any other clients. So Much Simpler!

18. We Also Use A Lot Of Exception Reports To Manage The Firm…

19. Old School Exception Reporting… An old paper “Jobs over Budget” report discussed at meetings

20. Again, A Pain To Update Because… To update a Job budget, you had to go through Portfolio, Workflow…

21. Find The Client Job… Right click on the job and select View Job Details in order to…

22. Access The Job Details Screen… Change the Budget Cost figure and Click on Save

23. Repeating The Process For Each Job Again, Quite Slow & Clunky!

24. But With Our Special Portfolio… We can not only update all the Job budgets very quickly…

25. We Record Other Useful Information… Such as the estimated billing month and a variety of pitiful excuses in the boxes provided!

26. Techy Bit…

27. Special Portfolios Use SQL Script… Which Are Saved As Stored Procedures.

28. The Portfolio Table… Details of the Special Portfolio and its sources are stored here.

29. The Portfolio Columns Table… Each Column Has Its Own Customisable Entry.

30. Create An Update Script… Changes To Data Can Be Made Dependant On Which Field Is Updated.

31. End Of Techy Bit…

32. Who Else Enjoys Spending Time Compiling Information For The ICAEW Annual Return?

33. Using Clunky Old Client Attributes… To update our Client classification attribute, we used to have to go Client, Search and find the client…

34. Access The Client Details Page… Then, in the Client Details area, remember to select Client Attributes…

35. Find The Relevant Attribute… Update the appropriate Classification, Click on Apply &…

36. And Then Go Back … And Do It Again For EACH Client. One at a time!

37. Analysis Was Done Using Our CRM System Partners reviewed & marked up any changes on paper copies of reports for Annual Returns. Then sent back to Admin dept to update system.

38. Now, One Stop Classification Within PE… Info for Annual Institute Returns is easily reviewed & amended through a Special Portfolio.

39. Attribute Field Updating En Masse… Update a classification attribute field from options listed in a dropdown box.

40. We’ve Also Solved Our Suspended Pending Loss Dilemma!

41. Before – Status Field Updated Client by Client Using PE’s hard-coded Client Status values.

42. Now, Client Status Is A Special Portfolio And we created our own Client Status field & linked it to the main PE field. Client Status is now updated through a dropdown box, along with the Date Lost, when necessary.

43. What’s the Definition of a good Tax Accountant? How do you improve the smooth running of your Tax department?

44. By Using Special Portfolio Workflows! Tax Job Special Portfolios have significantly increased efficiency within the Tax department.

45. Auto-Populating Job Workflows… Ticking the India box automatically populates a job with the relevant outsource tasks, and allows the outsource worker to access the job in their own workflow.

46. Outsourcer’s Tax Jobs Workflow Any Issues arising are flagged and normally dealt with by phone. Special Portfolio Workflows provide an easy & efficient way to keep the Job data up to date.

47. Minimising Write Offs… This Tax Exception report immediately flags Jobs where Outstanding WIP exceeds the budget. (nb. Interim WIP Budget = Job Budget less any Fees already billed).

48. Special Portfolios Also Helped Turn A Laborious 5 Week Tax Admin Job Done Every Year, Into A 5 Day Job…

49. Annual Tax Engagement Letters… Before Special Portfolios Budget and Engagement Letter information used to have to be entered into spreadsheets.

50. Now, Quick Tax Job Budget Entry… New budget data is captured through a Special Portfolio

51. Linked To Engagement Letter View… Where the Engagement Letter data is reviewed and used in a straight forward mail merge.

52. Courtesy of Our Money Laundering Officer… What is the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion?

53. Don’t Try To Automate Something Until You Understand Every Step Of The Manual Process Because You’ll Only End Up Making A Big Mess Faster! Valuable Tip:

54. Case In Point: New Client Assurance… Forms used to be manually filled in, printed out and sent off to London for gatekeeper approval. This could take several days with different offices involved.

55. Incomplete KYC Data Issues… If the data was incomplete (ie missing signatures etc) forms got sent back, adding to the time it took to process the request.

56. Manual Checks Required Prior To Input The request then had to be signed by gatekeeping before being sent to admin for input. A questionnaire was then completed prior to final gatekeeping approval.

57. Client Assurance – Now, All On-Screen The Assurance form is now completely entered through Web Engine.

58. New Client Set-Up The contact search feature automatically populates the fields in the assurance form.

59. Set-Up In Stages All information entered will be stored in a secure, hidden area in the database.

60. Including Services & Jobs Services and Jobs are also now entered during the set-up phase.

61. Initial Admin On-Screen Review When submitted, admin first reviews the request. It is then either returned or approved.

62. Money Laundering Questionnaire When approved, the requestor fills in the questionnaires. KYC documentation can also be attached as PDF file.

63. Money Laundering Questionnaire The Partner And Manager Must “Sign” Their Own Questionnaire.

64. Gate-Keeping Process The gatekeeper then reviews the questionnaire and approves or returns it.

65. Gate-Keeping Process The Partner And Manager Must Submit Their Own Questionnaire.

66. All Done! It could take up to a week to finalise assurance requests in the past. Now, requests are finalised within a day & Urgent requests can take as little as an hour! How things have changed!

67. Special Portfolios Have Certainly Had A Positive Impact on Wilder Coe We Hope You’ve Seen How They Could Do The Same For You Thank You Stephen Landy & Colin Dicks Wilder Coe LLP