Course Outline
1) Customize Firm Settings
2) Import Your Clients
First, you need to import your clients and their information to set everything up. This should only take a few minutes.
There are two ways to import your clients:
Import with QuickBooks Online Accountant (Recommended)
This will import the client, keep their information in sync with QuickBooks Online, and allow for advanced features like syncing time tracking, billing, and other data with QuickBooks Online.
Import with a CSV File
Import your client information with this CSV Template.
Check out the articles below for advanced importing tips
Client Import FAQ's
Can I re-import clients to import more client information
Can I re-import clients to import more client information
Yes, you can re-import clients to add more information (groups, custom fields, additional contacts, etc) to each client's profile in Financial Cents.
Will re-importing clients duplicate my clients?
Will re-importing clients duplicate my clients?
It will not duplicate the clients if the names match exactly. To ensure they match, we recommend the original CSV import or export your current client list from Financial Cents and then add the new client information to that CSV and import it into Financial Cents.
What/who should I create a client for?
What/who should I create a client for?
Think of a client as any entity you'd like to track the work you're doing work for.
How do we handle clients with both personal and business accounts?
How do we handle clients with both personal and business accounts?
You should create separate client profiles for personal and business clients. Once created, you can link them together using relationships.
How do I limit team member access to specific clients?
How do I limit team member access to specific clients?
If you turn off the user permission for team members to view all clients, then they will only have the ability to view the clients assigned to them.
Will assigning a team member to a client member assign them to projects for that client?
Will assigning a team member to a client member assign them to projects for that client?
No, assigning a team member to a client will only give them access to the client's profile. It will not automatically assign or give them access to projects for that client. This is done separately when creating the work in Financial Cents.
3) Invite Your Team
Next, we recommend inviting your team to Financial Cents because they can help review and set up the templates in the next step.
User Permissions
This will control what your team can see and do inside Financial Cents.
Invite Your Team
It is common to invite your team members to review or help with the template creation process to ensure the processes are set up correctly.
4) Set Up Your Workflow Templates
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
It is highly recommended that you keep your templates SIMPLE and START SMALL when you first create them and use them to create client work.
Starting small allows you to get your team in Financial Cents faster and improve the templates as you have a better understanding of how Financial Cents best works for your firm, resulting in templates better tailored to your firm's processes.
Overthinking your templates in the beginning will slow your launch of Financial Cents, or worse, likely require you to rebuild your templates if you set them in a way that doesn't work well for your firm.
The Template Set Up Process
Understanding the difference between a Project, Task & Template
Project
A recurring or one-time work item for a specific client
Ex: weekly bookkeeping, monthly bookkeeping, Payroll, tax return
Tasks
An individual step in the process checklist for templates & projects
Template
A generic outline of the process that will be used to create all the projects for all your clients
How to structure your templates in Financial Cents
This is a recommended best practice for setting up your process in Financial Cent, but it is not required. You should structure the work in a format that works best for your firm.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
Learn best practices for structuring your templates from our template library, which has over 100 templates created by accounting firms that use Financial Cents.
You can even add them to your account and customize them to fit your process to speed things up.
If you already have your process checklists in spreadsheets or another app, you can easily add them to Financial Cents. See how in this short video.
Set up your Workflow Templates
Remember to START SMALL with your templates
It is better to improve them over time as your team uses Financial Cents versus trying to perfect them in the initial set up.
Recommended naming conventions for templates
Best practice naming conventions for templates
Add the work type to the template title. Ex: Bookkeeping, Tax, Payroll
Don't include a time period in the template title. Instead, use accounting periods
Don't add a client name to the template title
Add team tasks
A checklist documents the steps your team needs to follow to complete work. There are several ways you can create a checklist.
Copy your existing Excel, Word, OneNote, etc. checklists into a template
Customize our existing workflow templates and their checklists
Use our AI tool to create checklists
Or create your own templates from scratch
Add placeholder roles to the tasks
Placeholder roles will make it easier to delegate projects (work) and assign team members when you create the projects (work).
Add client tasks
You can add client tasks to your templates to seamlessly request client information. Firms that use client tasks get client responses 6x faster and save hours every week with automated client reminders.
Watch a quick overview of client tasks
View the client experience in this interactive demo
If you want to inform your clients beforehand about how you will use this feature to request information, we have tips for notifying clients in this article.
5) Create Your Work
Important Note: Once you create your work from a template, you can customize each project to each individual client's needs. These changes will stay on the project and future recurrences of the project but not affect the template.
FAQ's about Projects
If I customize a project to a client, will it update the template?
If I customize a project to a client, will it update the template?
No, projects are the work for your clients and are designed to be customized to each client, so if you change a project, it will not change the template that the project was originally created from
How do recurrences work?
How do recurrences work?
For the Default Recurrences, the project will recur when it is completed or when it becomes overdue (based on the due date).
For Custom Recurrences, you can select how many days in advance of the future due date you want it to recur. This is great if you only want your projects to recur at a specific time and not be displayed too early on your workflow dashboard.
You can learn more about recurrences in this article.
How to bulk edit project details & assignees
How to bulk edit project details & assignees
You can learn how to bulk edit projects in this article.
How should I use accounting periods?
How should I use accounting periods?
Accounting periods are meant to reference the period of time the work is for. You can learn more about how to use accounting periods in this article.
After your firm has had time to use the projects created with this guide and has a better understanding of how Financial Cents will fit into the firm operations, we recommend optimizing your templates with this guide.