Bookkeeping services company sees uncountable gains with Zoho One
- INDUSTRY Financial services
- Key AppsZoho One: CRM, Projects, WorkDrive, Campaigns, Forms, Sign
The company
Before Arran Finlayson started The Back Office Company, he was a recruiter in the accounting industry. Realising the immense potential of candidates that he was unable to place in companies, he decided to start his own bookkeeping company. "The timing was also just right," Arran, the managing director of The Back Office Company, said. "It was the early days of cloud-based applications, so that made it relatively easy to set up. Or so I thought!"
Nearly a decade later, the New Zealand-based company has grown into a sought-after firm, specialising in reliable bookkeeping services for small and medium-sized enterprises across the country. Their clientele is made up of business people who understand the value of having robust financial data.
The challenge
In the early days, the team at The Back Office Company used multiple technology systems, including accounting software, document management and collaboration software, and sales automation systems.
"Xero Practice Manager was our go-to solution for everything. As the business grew, we realised that we needed additional systems and functionalities to meet our evolving needs. This presented a significant challenge at the time. It turned into a process of trial and error, where we'd regularly evaluate what we had and identify what was still effective for us."
While the company operated well enough with periodic system reviews, after COVID-19, The Back Office Company experienced a big growth spurt, and some of the systems they had at the time weren't working as well as they'd hoped.
“What initially attracted us to a previous application was its ability to capture all attached documents from emails.” As Rosey explained, “we soon realised it wasn't just capturing the documents we needed, but also every other attachment we didn’t want in our system, such as images in email signatures.” It didn’t take long for Rosey and the rest of the team to agree that it was crucial to implement a system that could serve as a reliable single source of truth moving forward.
The solution
As a leading Financial Services provider, having Ignition and XPM is crucial to The Back Office Company’s operations, so they needed a system that could complement these tools and bring everything together seamlessly. The team was looking for a solution that would integrate smoothly with both products without adding to their workload. Fortunately, Arran knew just the right person to help—Megan, a trusted Zoho Partner he had met through his local BNI group. Megan had previously discussed the benefits of a unified technology stack with Arran, making her the perfect person to assist when the need arose. With her expert guidance, The Back Office Company’s team explored Zoho’s capabilities. "We were already aware of the strengths and limitations of our current systems. After speaking with Megan, we were confident that Zoho offered everything we needed to complement our core systems," said Rosey.
"It was clear that The Back Office Company could achieve massive benefits with Zoho CRM. With different systems employed by the business, we could easily reduce unproductive time by bringing all the functionality into Zoho, automating key processes, and reducing the need for double entry."
The team quickly realised that knowing what they didn’t want was just as important as knowing what they did. They had previously evaluated a variety of other systems tailored exclusively for accounting firms. “Many of the accounting products out there turned out to be really expensive,” Rosey, Operations Director at The Back Office Company, explained.
"We had to carefully weigh the costs, keeping in mind our current and future needs. After evaluating everything, we realised that Zoho just made sense. We went from looking at what we wanted now and in the near future, to what we wanted in the distant future. It wasn’t just about solving today’s problems—Zoho felt like the right partner to grow with."
Once the decision was made, the team outlined their requirements for Megan. “We submitted a list of all the functionality we wanted, and she came back with a demo of the product,” said Cindy, Practice Manager at The Back Office Company.
The team’s primary goal was to centralise all business information and internal processes in one reliable platform. The second was automation. “We wanted the ability to tick a box and have other tasks happen automatically behind the scenes. It was crucial for us because it would simplify workflows for our entire team—from admin to bookkeepers to managers—ensuring efficiency across all areas of the business,” Cindy explained.
"It seemed like Zoho would grow with us and provide a long-term solution that fit our needs,” said Arran, Managing Director. “The more we use Zoho, the more we realise how well it works for us, and the more we like it and its capabilities."
Although Zoho CRM was the main requirement for The Back Office Company the more they discussed workflow automation, the sooner they realised that there are other apps within Zoho One they could benefit from. "We talked about different platforms, and whether we just go to Zoho, where we had access to everything that we needed," Rosey said. "And we decided Zoho One was the way to go for us."
“The bookkeepers, client managers, and management each have access to different modules in Zoho, tailored to their specific roles,” Cindy added. “Zoho CRM, Workdrive and Projects have been invaluable in helping our bookkeepers and client managers track progress and manage tasks more efficiently, ultimately benefiting our clients.”
"We've also used Zoho Connect's Manuals function to create 'how-to' and process documentation for the team," Megan explained. "These manuals can include videos, links to other resources, screenshots, and diagrams. They're really easy to update and using them means we're more likely to get everyone doing everything the same way, and less likely to experience 'knowledge deterioration' over time."
"I really enjoyed working with the TBO team. Firstly, they were clear about what they needed. Second, they were actively involved in the project from start to finish, which always leads to a better result."
Apart from core apps and Zoho Forms the The Back Office Company team also uses Zoho Campaigns to send out regular newsletters to both their bookkeepers as well as their clients. Additionally, they've recently implemented Zoho Sign to capture clients' signatures and consent, which also provides our bookkeepers with access to essential client information.
As Cindy explained, having legally binding electronic signatures is essential because "it gives us permission to access the client's information from the relevant government agency, and we must ensure we have the proper permissions in place. Having Zoho Sign means the signature is legally recognised and can't be tampered with, giving us confidence to move forward with the access. This also safeguards the client, ensuring we will only act on the authorisation they have legally provided. In addition, this is crucial as the agency conducts audits of these permissions, requiring us to provide proof that we have the correct signatures in place."
Benefits and ROI
"Change is never easy. Some people embrace it; others not so much," Arran said, reflecting on the new system's impact. "Overall, I think the team recognised that we needed something. Everyone contributed to the implementation and understood why we needed to do it. It helps that our practice manager, Cindy, has really embraced it. She has become the super user and is driving us towards fully utilising Zoho to its full potential," he said.
At the time of writing, The Back Office Company had been using Zoho One for exactly 13 months. "Gosh it's amazing what we've managed to achieve, to be honest," Rosey reminisced.
The biggest benefit that the team has experienced with Zoho is the extensive automation now built into their everyday processes. Not only has this reduced the manual work involved in tracking tasks, following up with bookkeepers, and entering data into multiple systems, but it's also ensured that the team is operating optimally with little to no errors.
Previously, before the team implemented Zoho, there was a lot of back and forth emails between the managers and the bookkeepers. For instance, bookkeepers have to fill up a declaration form for anti-money laundering. One of the managers would email the form to each bookkeeper, constantly follow up with them to complete it, and then update it in their system.
That entire process has been modernised with Zoho. "Now, when a deal is accepted, our bookkeepers just get a Zoho form. They fill it out online, and it's automatically attached to the deal. It's those sort of processes that are just saving so much time for us. For every step in the process, our teams get an automated email reminder, not by Cindy or myself saying, 'you haven't done this, you haven't done that,'" Rosey explained.
Having everyone's work streamlined in Zoho has also meant that the team is up to date with what needs to be done. As Cindy explained, "It's all streamlined and process driven. Everything is in one place rather than emails flying here and there and having to update information in two or three different systems. There isn't a step that's missed because it's all there in black and white."
Commenting on the implementation process and making the system work for The Back Office Company, Rosey highlighted the value of having a good Zoho Partner. "I wouldn't want to take on a project like this on my own," she said. "Otherwise, you would just have to focus on this for a year and do nothing else."
The key to a successful digital transformation project is team buy-in. "Employees need to understand why things are changing, how it affects their work, and what support they will receive," Megan mused on the importance of appreciating the human element in IT projects.
In The Back Office Company's case, Megan took on a train-the-trainer approach, where she trained the senior leadership team so that they understood the system and could train the rest of the team. "We wanted to build knowledge and capability within the core team so that they could become the first line of support after we went live," she added.
"Megan has done some amazing work in the background. We have a pretty open relationship, which was great because we were able to say 'hey, this is working well' or 'can you fix this', and she was also able to talk to us about our processes openly. We couldn't have done it without Megan. She's amazing to work with."
Looking forward with Zoho One
There's a lot to look forward to for the The Back Office Company team. They've recently implemented a cybersecurity system to work alongside Zoho One, so they can manage access centrally and ensure that team members adhere to healthy password protocols. The team is also keen to grow their social media presence and establish credibility as the company grows further. As a first step, Cindy is exploring ways to automate parts of their social media management, including distributing newsletters from Zoho Campaigns automatically to Facebook and LinkedIn.
Additionally, the team is interested in the HR management tools that come with Zoho One. Particularly, they're looking at Zoho Recruit to manage their hiring process, Zoho People to serve as a single database of employees, benefits, and performance evaluations, and Zoho Learn for internal training modules and courses. The company expects some exciting times ahead!