For many accounting firms, workpapers are an essential part of their day to day. However, the way they’re prepared, managed and reviewed doesn’t have to stay the same.
For years, firms have relied on Excel, PDFs, shared drives and other manual processes to get the job done. While these systems may work, they can also create unnecessary double-handling, make information harder to find and leave teams spending more time managing workpapers than actually working on them.
Moving to cloud-based workpapers can change that.
But the biggest benefits aren’t simply about replacing spreadsheets or paper with software. As the experiences of Paul Money, ERY and Nexis Accountants show, the real value comes from creating more connected, consistent and automated processes while making sure the technology works for the people using it.
Here are five lessons from accounting firms that have made the move.
Before moving to cloud-based workpapers, Paul Money relied heavily on Excel for preparing workpapers, with documents also managed across Excel and FYI Docs.
For a firm operating across multiple offices, these manual processes could create double-handling and inconsistencies, making it more difficult for teams to collaborate and review work efficiently.
Moving workpapers into the cloud helped create a more consistent end to end workflow for workpapers. The result wasn’t simply a more digital process. It was a less fragmented one.
When reviewing your current workpaper process, don’t just ask how long it takes to prepare a workpaper. Look at how many times information is entered, moved, saved, checked or searched for along the way.
Those small inefficiencies can add up quickly across hundreds of jobs.
One of the biggest opportunities with cloud-based workpapers is reducing the amount of information that needs to be manually entered.
For Paul Money, Workpapers Sorted can import key financial information directly into workpapers from connected accounting systems, helping reduce manual data entry and the potential for errors.
Nexis Accountants has seen a similar opportunity. Rather than completely replacing its existing templates, the firm worked with Cloudoffis to incorporate placeholders and automation into the templates its staff were already familiar with.
For manager and chartered accountant Jacklyn Ersan, this became one of the biggest potential time-savers for the firm. The ability to populate information automatically means less repetitive data entry and less opportunity for transcription errors.
The important distinction is that automation doesn’t have to mean completely redesigning the way your firm works. It can simply mean finding the repetitive parts of an existing process and creating a smarter way to handle them.
Start by identifying where staff are repeatedly entering the same information, copying data between systems or performing manual tasks that technology could handle automatically.
One concern firms can have when introducing new technology is that they’ll need to completely change the way they work.
Nexis Accountants’ experience shows that this doesn’t have to be the case.
The firm had spent years developing a detailed PDF-based workpaper process, with bookmarks, references and supporting documentation. When its previous workpapers solution was being discontinued, the goal wasn’t simply to start again.
The firm wanted to modernise its process without reducing the quality and detail it had built up over time.
Instead, Nexis worked with Cloudoffis to bring its existing templates into Workpapers Sorted and add automation through placeholders. This allowed the team to retain familiar processes while gaining the benefits of cloud-based functionality.
That flexibility helped make the transition easier for the broader team.
Before changing systems, identify the processes that genuinely add value to your firm.
Then look for technology that can improve those processes rather than forcing your team into an entirely unfamiliar workflow. Also look for technology providers that provide your team with the required level of support from day 1 – from onboarding to making changes along the way.
As firms grow, standardisation becomes increasingly important.
Different offices, teams or individual accountants can easily develop their own ways of preparing and managing workpapers. While that might work when a practice is small, it can make training, review and collaboration more difficult as the business grows.
For Paul Money, cloud-based workpapers helped establish more consistent templates and workflows across its offices.
For ERY, the move to cloud-based technology is part of a broader strategy to modernise more than 20 years of established practice processes. The firm’s goal is to simplify workflows and move towards best-practice systems without overcomplicating things for its small team.
The firm’s experience also highlights another benefit of a structured workpaper process: information and notes can be carried forward into new workpapers, reducing the need to revisit previous files and recreate documentation from scratch.
A good cloud-based workpaper system can give your team a consistent framework while still allowing your firm to adapt templates, checklists and processes to suit the way you work.
Choosing a cloud-based workpaper platform is only part of the transformation.
How a firm introduces the technology can have just as much impact on its success.
Nexis took a staged approach, initially introducing Workpapers Sorted to a pilot group of five to six team members. This gave the firm an opportunity to test templates, refine workflows and gather feedback before rolling the platform out more broadly.
The approach meant the firm could manage feedback from a smaller group rather than having the entire team learn a new system at once.
For a firm making a significant change to its workpaper process, that can make a big difference.
ERY’s experience reinforces a similar point. The firm’s move to modern systems is a staged evolution rather than a single transformation. While its Workpapers Sorted implementation is still developing, the firm sees the value in having a structured system that can evolve alongside the business.
It’s also worth asking software providers your considering what onboarding and ongoing support your team will get. Having actual human support to help along the way makes all the difference.
Invest time in setting up your templates and workflows, test the process with a smaller group where possible, and give your team time to become comfortable with the new system.
The goal isn’t to change everything overnight.
It’s to build a better process that your team will actually use. And get the most out of your software provider – leverage onboarding support, ongoing training and any customer resources they provide.
When firms start looking at cloud-based workpapers, it’s natural to want to find the perfect solution.
Some firms may be waiting for a particular platform to develop further or for a quieter time to take on the transition. Others may be considering whether they can build something internally that works exactly the way they want.
But there is another question worth asking:
Every month spent managing workpapers through a process that doesn’t work is another month of repetitive data entry, double-handling, document management and manual checking.
And while building a solution internally can appear to offer complete control, the real investment goes beyond the initial build. Someone still needs to maintain it, integrate it with other systems, adapt it as technology and compliance requirements change, and support the people using it.
The opportunity cost can be just as significant.
For firms like ERY, the approach has been to find a solution that provides the right balance between structure and flexibility. The firm recognised that its move to cloud-based workpapers would be an evolution, not an overnight transformation. Rather than waiting for a solution that could do everything from day one, the team chose a platform that could support its current needs while continuing to develop alongside the practice.
Nexis took a similarly pragmatic approach. The firm had developed a detailed workpaper process over many years and wanted to preserve the quality of that process. Rather than waiting for the perfect system or abandoning what already worked, it looked at how its existing templates and processes could be brought into a modern cloud-based environment and enhanced with automation.
The lesson isn’t that firms should rush into technology decisions.
It’s that perfection shouldn’t be the benchmark for getting started.
A better question is:
Can this solution solve our biggest pain points today, improve our team’s workflow, and give us a foundation we can build on tomorrow?
If the answer is yes, the value of starting now can outweigh the cost of waiting.
The right cloud-based workpaper solution doesn’t need to solve every future challenge on day one. It needs to solve meaningful problems today, reduce manual work, and give your firm a platform that can evolve as your needs change.
The experiences of Paul Money, ERY and Nexis Accountants show that the benefits of cloud-based workpapers go well beyond replacing Excel or paper.
For some firms, the biggest opportunity is eliminating double-handling.
For others, it’s automating repetitive data entry, improving collaboration or creating more consistent processes.
And for firms with years of established workflows, cloud-based workpapers can provide a way to modernise without losing the processes and knowledge that already work well.
Ultimately, the goal is the same:
The move to cloud-based workpapers doesn’t have to happen all at once. Start with the areas creating the most friction, identify where automation can make the biggest difference, and build a process that can evolve with your firm.
Because going digital isn’t really the end goal. Working smarter is.
Workpapers Sorted helps Australian accounting firms streamline workpaper preparation with cloud-based workflows, automation and integrations designed to reduce manual work and make workpapers easier to manage.
Book a demo with the Cloudoffis team.
