“Ignition has standardised our entire process. From proposal to payment, we now have a clear process in place that everybody follows.”
- Robert Erb, Senior Business Advisor, GENFOCUS
Location: Canberra, Australia
Founded: 2018
Team size: 15
Clients: 400 client groups
Canberra-based accountancy firm GENFOCUS focuses on uniting personal, business and financial objectives into one balanced strategic plan. To deliver on this promise, GENFOCUS needed to start automating their process and free their people up from the time-consuming daily admin tasks.
Senior Business Advisor, Robert Erb, explains how the firm integrated Ignition with other business applications to create efficiencies and freed up their people to deliver a service that goes beyond just the basics of accounting
The challenge: create a consistent client experience and do away with time-consuming admin
When Robert joined GENFOCUS in 2020, he noticed more than a few inefficiencies had crept into their process over the years. He also saw some inconsistencies in the way they communicated and serviced clients – and this didn’t reflect well on their reputation.
“Consistency is very important to us. We want to make sure that we project the same image to our clients every time we interact with them. But we were finding that there were a lot of variations in our client engagement letters and proposals,” he says.
Robert had used Ignition at a previous firm and knew it had the powerful yet simple-to-use tools needed to plug the gaps in efficiency and create consistency in client interactions at GENFOCUS.
The solution: Ignition’s smart integrations systemise processes and plug efficiency gaps
Never one to do things by half, Robert invested time upfront integrating Ignition with Xero and Xero Practice Manager (XPM) and making sure the workflows were fit-for-purpose. And while it was admittedly a fair amount of work, this investment has certainly paid off. Since implementing Ignition, GENFOCUS has doubled their revenue growth.
“Immediately prior to implementing Ignition we had 10% annual growth. Last year, we saw 20% growth,” Robert says.
With the help of Ignition, the business has automated its entire client engagement process – from creating and sending proposals, to creating and managing jobs in XPM, billing and invoicing in Xero, as well as collecting payments. All up, Robert estimates this has saved his team around 400 hours a year in admin time.
“Our staff spend so much less time getting proposals out and collecting payments. We’ve crunched the numbers and estimate we’re seeing $100,000 per year in productivity gains.” Robert says.
Ignition has also allowed GENFOCUS to put a clear process in place that everybody follows – a big gain in their goal of achieving more consistency.
“Ignition has standardised our entire process,” Robert says.
“Our engagement letters still have slight variations, but it’s much more standardised. We now have a clear process in place that everybody follows.”
Ignition’s powerful reporting capabilities have given GENFOCUS the insights needed to make confident decisions about the future of the business. One feature that has been a game changer for Robert and his team is the ability to break down revenue by service – a small but powerful tool when planning for future growth.
“At the end of the year, we can clearly see how much we billed in each revenue stream and whether the revenue is recurring or non-recurring, and we can compare that to previous years and see which streams are growing and which aren't. We can then start planning our capacity and the types of staff we need,” Robert says.
“Ignition certainly makes life a lot easier and frees us up to spend more time with clients,” Robert concludes.
