As a teenager working in her mom’s accounting firm, Barb Clausen, CPA, found the work a bit boring. But now that she’s owned her own tax and accounting firm for almost 20 years, her work is more high-tech and less tedious — thanks in part to the implementation of CCH Axcess™ and the workflow management benefits it brings.
Clausen & Associates CPAs, PC, in Longmont, Colorado, decided to switch to CCH Axcess for its digital tax workflow for a few reasons: better workflow management, remote access, and improved data security.
Better Workflow Management
Before implementing CCH Axcess, Clausen & Associates was using a process that was “paperless,” but still manual. Files were still going through offices in file folders, and “workflow management” was simply looking at what was on your desk and starting at the front. That’s no longer the case.
“CCH Axcess has helped us address our workflow management. I would say that is probably the biggest area that has been a huge help for us,” Clausen says. The 11-person team at Clausen & Associates uses CCH Axcess™ Workstream to track projects, which helps them know, at any given time, where every return is in the process.
All Kinds of Access with CCH Axcess
Flexibility is an important part of the culture at Clausen & Associates, and it’s one of the other big reasons Clausen chose CCH Axcess. “Our staff is able to come and go as they please as long as they get their work done. We do allow remote access to our server as well as to CCH Axcess so our staff does have the ability to work from home,” she says. That flexibility also helps them with recruitment, which can be tough in a small town like Longmont.
With the CCH Axcess all-in-one dashboard, employees can access anytime from anywhere without logging into the server.
Saving Time and Improving Security
The integrated CCH Axcess platform also makes database management more efficient, with client contact information needing to be updated just once in the tax return, which then flows over into the CCH Axcess™ common client database.
That integration also adds to overall efficiency by providing a single source for all of the firm’s data. The staff can perform all of their functions related to preparing a tax return within one system, including tracking hours and billing with CCH Axcess Practice.
That single-source database helps improve security too. “We didn’t want to be maintaining all of our client data on a server,” Clausen says. “We wanted somebody else who had more experience in data protection and data management.”
Learn more about how Clausen & Associates is benefitting from CCH Axcess. Watch the video and download the case study today.
