When asked what has made the biggest difference personally, Grace points to two features of Engager.
The first is email notifications built into workflow, which mean any team member, not just Grace, can trigger client communication without needing access to her inbox.
"If we start a job and the first task is pressed complete, it brings up an email requesting the bank statements, and it sends directly to the client. We just edit the date that we need it for. All the approvals and reviews get sent on Engager as well.”
That same workflow keeps a full communication trail against every client, which has already saved the firm time when a client cannot remember whether something was sent.
The second is visibility across the whole team, so that as soon as one person finishes their part of a job, the next person knows it's their turn to pick it up.
Onboarding without back and forth
Client onboarding used to be entirely manual. Now Grace runs it through a combination of Engager and ContentSnare, with an onboarding flow built in Engager that handles the emails, holds tax references, and manages authorisation, anti money laundering checks and Adfin setup together rather than across separate websites and apps.
"We created an onboarding flow in Engager, so it has all of the emails, and we can keep everyone's tax references in and do the authorisation through there as well. It just saves so much toing and froing from different websites and apps.”
Peace of mind, even on holiday
For Grace, the clearest measure of how far the firm has come is what happens when she is not there. With jobs, deadlines and communication all visible in one place, the team kept moving while she was on holiday, and she came back already knowing exactly where everything stood.
Everything is there, it's so perfect. It helps so much with processes and workflows, especially as we expand. Different freelancers, different employees can come into the firm and pick up things and know where things are. Whilst I was on holiday, people were clicking through Engager jobs, so when I came back, I knew exactly where everything was.”
With TaxCalc and Engager now integrated, Grace describes the day to day experience as seamless, with data passing between systems rather than being re-entered by hand. Integrations with HMRC, Adfin, Xama and Companies House mean even small details, like pulling director information straight into Engager, no longer need manual work.
“It's just having that seamless process so that everything is almost like speaking with each other. The integrations that come with Engager are brilliant. You've got your HMRC, your TaxCalc, your Adfin, your Xama. Companies House is brilliant too. It's really small things, like being able to pull through directors into Engager so you can add them in. It's brilliant.”
