Episode 33: Power of Effective Quality Control in Bookkeeping and How to Implement It

Sep 27

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Conquering Workflows & Systems for Bookkeepers & Accountants podcast with Alyssa Lang, founder of Workflow Queen and Magnetic Bookkeeping & Consulting. Episode topic: Power of Effective Quality Control in Bookkeeping and How to Implement It.

In this solo episode, Alyssa Lang covers all things quality control. She shares why you should have quality control in place if you have a team (or plan to), the exact step-by-step process and everything you need to know to implement it.

In this episode you’ll hear:

What quality control is and why this process is one of the most important processes to implement
Who is involved in quality control and who does what
Step by step process for quality control
What assets you need to create to put together quality control

Resources mentioned in this episode:

⚙️ Loom

⚙️ Notion

⚙️ Asana

⚙️ Google Docs

💻 Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants

Listen to the Full Episode here 👇🏼

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If you think you’re the ONLY one who can do client work that actually meets your standards — I’d challenge you to think again. Sometimes, it’s less about what your team member can actually do, and more about how much helpful information they have.

I hear this kind of thing all the time!

“I can’t hire because no one can do the work like I do it.”

“It’s faster if I do it myself.”

“What if I let someone else do the work and they make a mistake?”

“What if I look stupid in front of a client because of something my team member did?”

And if these are your concerns, just know you’re not alone. Every firm owner has at least a little fear around hiring team members and letting go of control!

In our group coaching program, we teach our students to overcome this fear with 2 things: Processes and KPIs.

Logically, the solution to avoiding mistakes is to give someone step-by-step instructions on how to complete the work. And if you have high expectations, you can make those instructions as detailed as they need to be in order to ensure consistent results. This is called a process!

One process you should absolutely have in place, even if you’re a solo firm owner, is a process for quality control (aka QC, which is how I’ll refer to it in the rest of this blog).

It’s a simple, repeatable method that keeps your clients happy and your team (or yourself) out of the danger zone where mistakes are made.

When Should You Create a Quality Control Process?

It doesn’t matter if you’re running a team or you’re still doing everything in your business yourself: You need a QC process.

Solo firm owners need to start documenting processes and procedures ASAP for easy handoff when they’re actually ready to hire that first team member. And it can’t hurt to test out your own QC process to make suuuuuper sure you’re not making any mistakes yourself!

Teams can benefit SO much from a QC process too, because it eliminates all the questions around what to do and which specific things to look out for per client. Which means that if you have bookkeepers and an account manager, you (the owner) aren’t stuck in the day-to-day of the firm anymore and can focus on bigger projects.

What Does a Quality Control Process Look Like?

The process might look a little different depending on your team setup, your niche, or your client roster, but for the most part it would be:

Step 1: Bookkeeper does month-end close for the client

You might already have a process in place for month-end (check out this episode if not), so you or your bookkeeper would follow that as usual.

Step 2: Bookkeeper fills out End of Month Handoff

Now, they’ll complete a checklist to double check for any mistakes or errors they overlooked during month-end close. This is just a general checklist, not client specific (that comes later). The bookkeeper would also leave any notes at this point to alert the Account Manger of anything weird they noticed on the books or anything that needs to be addressed.

Step 3: Account Manager (AM) reviews books

The AM will go through the books after the handoff and make sure there aren’t any additional errors the bookkeeper didn’t notice. At this point, the only errors that might pop up are client-specific nuances that wouldn’t be on the general QC checklist. Each client has a more detailed checklist the AM will go through to ensure accuracy. If they notice anything that the bookkeeper missed, they’ll make note of it and record themselves fixing the error using Loom.

Step 4: Account Manager produces reports

Once they’ve made all the necessary adjustments, the AM will produce the reports and send them off to the client. Or, if they offer consulting, they’ll schedule a call with the client and get ready to deliver the information.

Step 5: Account Manager sends the bookkeeper a Slack message

We use Slack at my firm, but it could be another messaging system of course! Once the books are approved, the AM will send the bookkeeper a message to either say: 1. The books have been approved, yay! Or 2. Please review the changes I made to this client’s books for future reference.

Step 6: Account Manager updates KPI tracker

So we use a spreadsheet at my firm (the same one we provide inside of Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants) to keep track of errors and growth for both our Account Managers and bookkeepers. We use this to measure performance across the entire firm so we know exactly what’s working and what needs more attention!

Step 7: Bookkeeper reviews Account Manager’s feedback

In this final step, the bookkeeper would go into Slack and see if their Account Manager left any notes or feedback for them based on the End of Month Handoff. If they DO have something to review/watch/learn, they’re expected to review the notes and respond in Slack that they’ve done so. If you’re following this process and you notice that your bookkeeper makes the same mistakes over and over, that might be a good indication that they’re not a good fit.

Our Favorite Tech for the Quality Control Process

If you haven’t already heard me talk about Notion, let me put you on to my absolute favorite software for housing information and keeping our whole team on the same page! Notion is the frontrunner in apps that help you organize information across your entire company. We use it for our QC checklists, bookkeeper notes, and Account Manager feedback for each client (and literally soooo many other things too).

Keep in mind that Notion is just the hub for “how to do the thing”. Asana is still what we rely on to tell us “what the thing is and when to do it”. Tasks get checked off in Asana so everyone knows where the rest of the team is on a project or what’s holding up the process.

Want to Snag Our Proven QC Process?

Everything I’ve covered here in this blog and podcast is included in our group coaching program called Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants. Of course, I’m a coach in the program, but we also have Brooke Swan coaching students in the community and bringing all the golden nuggets on creating the perfect QC process.

Brooke has even helped ME improve QC in my firm — she’s pretty much the QC Queen. Inside Breakthrough, we actually hand over all the checklists, spreadsheets, and tasks you’ll need to start implementing in your own firm right away. No need to spend time figuring it all out from scratch when you’ve got better things to do, right?

Join us in Breakthrough and come introduce yourself in our kickass community!

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @workflowqueen

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