“Ignition has had such a huge impact on our firm. It makes our proposals stand out, reinforces our branding, helps us get paid on time, every time, and their team has been really helpful. They’re awesome, honestly.”
- Alex Beattie, Managing Director, KRW Accountants
Industry: Accounting
Location: Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Team size: 14
The challenge: inefficiency stopping the business from fulfilling its potential
Alex Beattie, Managing Director at KRW Accountants, knew something had to change. His firm was taking on an increasing workload—its 24 staff were servicing a massive 2,253 clients. However, 5 of those employees (21% of the total workforce) were spending the majority of their time on administrative tasks.
In other words, they weren’t fee earners—they weren’t bringing in revenue.
KRW was spinning its wheels. They’d take on more clients in a bid to grow the firm. However, for each new client, they would have to spend more time producing engagement letters, getting clients to sign on the dotted line, and onboarding them onto their systems. The more clients they took on, the more time their staff would have to spend on non-billable tasks.
This was no way to carry on. Worse still, onboarding was only one of their worries. Once they’d completed key client work, they’d then have to dedicate even more time and energy to chasing up late payments.
Alex knew that these administrative hurdles were preventing KRW from reaching its potential. That’s why he got in touch with Ignition.
“It was ridiculous—almost a quarter of our firm was mired in administrative tasks day in, day out. They weren’t adding value to the business beyond simply ensuring forms were sent out, filled, and that payments came through.”
The solution: from proposals to paid in one place
Alex recalled having a few positive conversations in the past with the Ignition team at Xerocon. When he decided that KRW needed to take the plunge and digitise, there was therefore only one provider that he had in mind.
Ignition’s unique proposals software allows KRW to send out jaw-dropping proposals in a matter of minutes, accompanied by a digital brochure outlining their services, their team, and their value proposition. They can capture payment details upfront and direct clients to a customised Google Form where they can fill out their date of birth, national insurance numbers, and so on. By integrating with Zapier and Google Forms, this data is then automatically requested from the client following a proposal being accepted.
“I sometimes shudder thinking about how we did things before Ignition. All the time and energy that we wasted... Fortunately, that’s now all in the past.”
The result: less time spent on admin—and more client love
No longer does 21% of the KRW workforce focus solely on admin. In fact, KRW has managed to save over £20,000 per year in salary costs due to the implementation of Ignition meaning that KRW no longer needed to recruit the next member of the admin team to deal with the volume of new clients being onboarded.
“In the past, it was a nightmare trying to get clients to sign up for GoCardless. But now, we simply ask clients to add their payment details into the proposal. It takes them literally a minute, and from then on, payments are all sorted. It’s been a miracle.”
By taking payment details upfront, KRW now has 100% of its newly onboarded clients on direct debits—whereas this used to be less than 50%. Late payments are a thing of the past. The firm can spend its energy on key client work, not on chasing up overdue invoices.
But the benefits go beyond the tangible time, productivity, and money-savings. KRW positions itself as an innovative, forward- thinking firm. It has an energetic and young team. Its mission is to help exciting businesses pave a better future for us all. However, in the past, this reputation for being innovative and forward-thinking was dashed as soon as KRW sent over a large stack of documents for new clients to sign. Now, the reverse is true.
Alex reports that KRW has received a ton of great feedback about Ignition. Nobody’s ever going to be positive about receiving a huge stack of papers that they have to sign. Yet, they’ve had clients glowing after receiving KRW’s letters of engagement and brochures through Ignition. The tool reinforces their branding: they’re innovative, different, and dedicated to making their clients’ lives easier.
On the odd occasion that KRW has faced a stumbling block, they’ve been able to contact the Ignition customer service team and get the help they need in no time at all. For KRW, Ignition isn’t just another tool in their tech stack—it’s a genuine business partner.
