VRS CPA
In one form or another, the VRS firm has been in business in Watertown, South Dakota, serving the surrounding area since the 1950s. In 2011, with over 1,700 clients, the newest partner, Mike Snyder pushed the firm to go paperless.
That one decision to go paperless has helped revolutionize their firm. Because they use Doc.It by IRIS, VRS has been able to change how they bill their clients. Rather than billing by the hour, they’ve discovered they can make more money by efficiently completing the same tasks in less time and billing by the task.
Find out why Mike and the team at VRS say that, Doc.It by IRIS is, “what we need as accountants.”
The Problem
In 2011, Mike became a new partner with VRS and pushed the firm to go paperless. He knew they were behind the curve compared to their competition, and there was a need to go paperless to help them have a competitive edge in the market.
Their first paperless solution caused more problems than solutions. Rather than creating a streamlined approach to their processes, it created more work for the entire team. Instead of doing all of their work digitally and paper-free, the team would do their work on paper like they always did and then add the extra step of scanning and uploading any paperwork as their final step.
They needed a paperless solution that worked end to end and would cover three different programs’ loads of work in one solution. By starting with a digital, paperless solution and being able to do all of the work digitally, they’d be able to remove the extra step other solutions required, helping them save time and money while still providing the same quality product to their clients.
The Solution
After scouring the market for the best solution, VRS CPAs discovered Doc.It by IRIS and instantly fell in love.
Doc.It by IRIS drastically changed how the team at VRS worked with each other. Because everything was digital, Doc.It by IRIS made it easier to collaborate and communicate with each other. The highlight was that they didn’t have to change how they worked.
“Other platforms, they report to be ‘flexible,’ but they’re just not. They’re overly complex, and not everybody understands how to manipulate the software or the data.” Mike says about the other solutions. “But the Doc.It platform has allowed us to be much more flexible, and it actually follows the way we work. It’s much more seamless, allowing us to pass things off back and forth and know where jobs are at in any given point in the process.”
Doc.It by IRIS revolutionized how VRS dealt with client information. “Clients like to deliver their information to us in a hundred different ways. And Doc.It has been the only platform we’ve been on that can truly accept the information they send us in a hundred different ways.” No matter how information was provided, Doc.It by IRIS standardizes the data to ensure every client’s information is accurate and up to date.
The Results
The client experience at VRS hasn’t changed much since they adopted Doc.It. The largest, most notable changes are only visible to the accountants, CPAs, and partners who work there.
“The clients didn’t see or feel the struggles we were having. But our benefit has truly been in that we can now add staff and clients because we are working far more efficiently, and the learning curve for new staff in Doc.It is phenomenal. It could take me years to teach new hires how to use our old software, but with Doc.It, I can teach them in a day because it’s so intuitive.”
One of the largest changes that came from switching to Doc.It came with how VRS tracks each task. In the past, clients were billed a flat hourly rate, but with the new streamlined efficiency caused by Doc.It they were faced with a happy problem.
Because work was being done faster, but still billing by the hour, the firm was set up to earn less money, so they changed how they price projects. “Now that we can truly process paperless from beginning to end, and always know where our jobs are at, our efficiency has skyrocketed to the point where through the process of us going paperless, we moved away from billing by the hour to billing based on value.”
Tasks that used to take hours to complete are now finished in an hour, but still provide the same revenue. In some cases, this allows the team to finish twice as many tasks in the same time it used to finish only one, effectively doubling their total hourly revenue.
Revolutionize Your Firm with Doc.It
Doc.It by IRIS helps you streamline your projects by making sure you always have the document you need exactly when you need it. Contact us today and see the difference Doc.It can make for your firm.
