IRIS Practice Management

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Chapter One

IRIS Practice Management

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1 Introduction

This document is to be used in conjunction with the Practice Management webinar programme. In this session we look at an overview of IRIS Practice Management and what we are going to cover and achieve in the four main sessions.

By the end of this course you should have IRIS Practice Management up and running in your business and be able to gain the same benefits our other IRIS Practice Management users do. There is the introductory webinar that we strongly recommend you attend. However look out for the other supporting webinars as it is recommended you attend these also to get the maximum benefit out of the programme. All the webinars we provide reinforce the data covered in these notes, plus they always give you opportunity to ask questions and give you the support as you need it.

Setting up a system for the first time can be challenging initially but the experience of our customers has shown that once Practice Management is up and running they do not want to turn back.

1.1 IRIS Practice Management Overview

On average a recent survey shows that an IRIS Practice Management user saves 5 hours per staff member per month (Survey, May 2012).

Use IRIS Practice Management to:

 Know what jobs are coming up – don‟t miss anything

 Plan your jobs – make sure you have the right staff to do the work in the time frame

 Monitor your jobs – make sure no deadlines are missed

 Deal with unexpected problems – if staff are off sick know you can manage their workload

 Use communication tracking – file away all the documents and phone calls automatically

 Use data mining – know your clients for marketing purposes and enhanced services

 Use staff planning – graphical view of what your staff are doing and when

1.2 Course Content

Each session will be 40 minutes or less. 1.) Chapter 1

 Course Goals

 What is Practice Management – an overview

 Course content

 Starting point – quick client lookup and data mining search

 Workflow – getting started

 Homework and quiz before next session 2.) Chapter 2

 Review of Workflow getting started, homework, and quiz

 Workflow – planning, monitoring and reporting (Personal Tax MASTER list and using this for the other products)

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 Review of workflow

 Communication Tracking – logging and filing documents

 Data Mining – saving searches, profiling your clients, categories, attributes and marketing

 Review of Communication Tracking, Data Mining, saving searches, profiling your clients, categories, attributes, marketing, homework, quiz and any feedback received since the last session

 Staff Planning

 Summary of Practice Management – bringing it altogether

 Homework and quiz

2 Starting Point

Initially we will look at a couple of things so you can go away today and start making good use of IRIS Practice Management:

 Review of the on-line help

 How to access your clients files quickly

 How to review your client data to:

 React quickly to communicating with your clients when a legislative change has occurred

 Administer your database and keep it up to date, look for gaps etc.

2.1 F1 Help

Throughout all of the IRIS Products you can select F1 at any time to provide you with the on-screen help. Where it can it will take you directly to the help that relates to the screen you are on.

Alternatively you can select Help | Help off all the main product menus throughout the IRIS products to access the help.

2.2 Quick Client Look up

To get access to your client list quickly at any time:

 Log into IRIS Practice Management as MASTER

You will need to be logged in as MASTER so that we can make changes to your system set up. Note: this will have no effect on your staff working on the IRIS compliance products until you decide.

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 Left click on the PM icon in the bottom right hand corner to display:

 In the Client name field enter part of the client name and hit return to find the client

 Select View to view the details of the client

This will give you access to all your client information (file) quickly. Have a look at the following:

 Select the Jobs tab to know where you are with each client job

 Select the WIP tab to review quickly the outstanding WIP and Fees for the client, and drill down if necessary to see the latest invoice

 Select the Communications tab to look at all the recent communication for the client where it is possible to email the client

This is an excellent tool if the client phones in and you need to get to their client file quickly. Note: we will look at what each of these mean more in detail throughout the programme.

2.3 Data Mining Higher Rate Tax Payer

We will be covering off Data Mining in detail in Chapter 3. This is a taster to show you how much client data you have without an extra data entry process and how you can access this right now. For example; if there is a budget announcement regarding higher rate taxpayers you may wish to identify all your affected clients and write to them promptly.

To do this:

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 Select Field, and left click on the magnifying glass to the right

This will display all the fields that you can search on within the IRIS client database.

 Left click on the

 Tax folder

 Latest tax year folder

 Tax Bourne folder

 Double click on Tax@ Higher / Trust Rate

 This will add the selection to the field line.

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 Select Find in the top left hand corner

This will show all those clients in your database that are higher rate tax payers in the year selected. At this point you could:

 Highlight all the clients you wish to write to, right click and Generate Letter with an AutoMail licence. Following this you could print or email the letter for the client from within the system

 Print the client list

 Select a client, right click and view the client details

 Export the information out to Excel

 Set marketing attributes against all the clients selected for a marketing campaign

 Change the partner or manager responsible for these clients in one quick step We will re-visit all of these in detail in chapter 3.

2.4 Data Mining Database review

Data Mining is an excellent tool for reviewing your client database to check highlight and fill any information.

For example; if you wanted to check all the email addresses. To do this:

 Highlight a single or group of clients using standard windows controls to change the

client email address within client

maintenance right click and select Client

 From the Staff Control Panel select Launch | Data Mining

 Select the Columns button

 Next select the Address folder, followed by the Main folder

 Enter a tick into the Main Email box followed by Ok

 Returning to the Data Mining screen the Main email field will show as a new column

 Select Find in the top left hand corner to display all the clients with their email address

 Note: if you have selected a group of clients once a single client is viewed you can use the Next and Previous buttons to move quickly between the different clients saving time

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Note we will look at Data Mining in detail within Chapter 3.

3 Workflow – Getting started

3.1 What do you currently do?

How do you currently:

 Know what jobs are due in the next few months?

 Monitor the jobs that are in progress?

 Ensure that nothing gets missed?

 How do the staff manage their workload and ensure they are prioritising correctly?

 Do you use Spread sheets? If so where do you keep them, who has access to them and who

updates them? Do you feel you can always rely on them?

A lot of questions that IRIS Practice Management has the answers for.

The workflow in IRIS Practice Management can use its links to the IRIS compliance products (IRIS Accounts Production, IRIS Business Tax, IRIS Personal Tax and IRIS Trust Tax). It already knows key client information:

 What clients are registered and currently active

 What their year ends are

 Which reports you deliver for them and hence the service that you provide

You may use the Master Tax List within Personal Tax that was in the software before IRIS Practice Management was launched. The job tracking functionality within IRIS Practice Management replaces this and goes further providing a list for all the jobs that need to be tracked; Accounts, CT600‟s, VAT returns, payroll etc.

3.2 The Aim

The first thing we are going to do is set up the workflow within IRIS Practice Management, the aims of this are:

 To enable each staff member to log in every day and work their way through their to-do list on the Staff Control Panel in the correct priority order

 With an IRIS Time & Fees licence post the time as the jobs progress for accurate and easy time recording

 The partners and managers to have a high level view of the work that is progressing in the business and making sure everything is on track

 Anything that is highlighted as being in danger can be acted upon quickly

3.3 Where to start with the workflow

As a starting point for each of the key jobs that are processed within your business think of the stages you go through from start to finish to complete a job successfully. In IRIS Practice Management we refer to this as Job Stages within a Job Profile.

As every business is different this next section goes through how to set up these Job Profiles within IRIS Practice Management to suit your business.

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3.4 Set Up the Standard Job Profiles

There are the Standard System Jobs within IRIS that we recommend you set up as the first step. These are integrated with the IRIS compliance modules so this will ensure that you can gain maximum automation in your workflow.

To assign a job type to each standard system job:

 Log into Practice Management as MASTER

 From the Staff Control Panel select Setup | Standard Jobs

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There will be a job set up for each description above within the Job Types list, so highlight the correct job, for example Personal tax and click Select to assign the job to the Standard System Job Types.

Once you have assigned the first job, repeat this process and make sure each System Standard Job has a job allocated to it.

The next step is to create the workflow for each job within the business. Let‟s take a look at two jobs that we do within an accountancy business:

 The stages that we go through to complete a standard set of Accounts.

 The process and stages that are followed when a new client arrives at the business.

3.5 Set Up the Accounts Job Profile

 To set up a Job Profile within IRIS Practice Management log into IRIS as MASTER

 From the menu select Setup and Job Types | Profiles

 Highlight Accounts and click the Profiles button

The Job Profile for Accounts will be displayed showing the stages the job can go through from start to finish and will look similar to the screen below. This can be amended to suit the way that you work within your business.

The next section explains the columns on the screen and how you can tailor the Accounts profile to suit your business.

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On this screen the columns are:

 Description showing what the job stage is.

 Exclude shows the client types where the stage is not relevant. For example you would not need to file a sole traders accounts at Companies House showing as job stage 11.

 Due Date Basis is the date that the job stage is due. It is recommended to set this up to calculate automatically if you can. This means when you come to plan and as the work is progressed you have already decided the key criteria to completing a job which contributes towards not missing anything and will save you time. We will see more on this later.

 The staff member responsible shows the staff member that is allocated to the stage. This can be a particular staff member, assigned partner, manager or staff member. We will see more on this later.

 Automatic Completion shows the function within the software that will complete the job stage. Again where you can use this, it will save you time.

 It is possible to attach an AutoMail letter to a job stage, in this case there is an extra column showing the letter.

3.5.1 Edit the Job stage Year End Reminder

Let‟s start with the first stage. In this case it is the Year end letters, so select this and ensure it has the right letter attached to it, the right staff member allocated to it and we are comfortable with how the due date is to be calculated.

The first stage on your system may show something different, do not worry the process is the same. Make the first stage what you need it to be in your process.

 Highlight Year end letters and click the Edit button to bring up the Edit job stage details screen Link the job stage to a letter

 Use the Link stage to letter field to select the AutoMail Year End Reminder letter template located within the Word templates no header & footer folder towards the bottom of the folder selection

 In this example we selected a

template that does not

automatically fill out a header at the top of the page as we may be using pre-printed paper

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Decide who is responsible for the stage

 If the Staff member responsible for stage is always the same person, in this example; KR, set it to this

 As we are setting this up for the system as a whole, select the type of staff member that does the work. It will be in the planning stage that we would allocate the individual staff member

 If it is the partner, manager, or the staff member (job assignee) on the job then select one of these

Decide what the due date for the stage  Amend the Due date Base to be the Job

p/e and set the Offset to be 10 days

 This means we have said the Year End Reminder letter is due 10 days before the Accounting Period End

 There are other options on which we can calculate the due date. For example it could be based on the Job Start, the Job End, The Job Period End, Statutory Deadline, or when dependent on another job stage completing.

 Lastly this stage is included for all types of business so tick all of them

 Click OK to save your changes

Note: here you are editing/deleting/adding job stages at practice level. You set these job stages to suit your practice. The list of stages can be as long or as short as you wish them to be. Experience proves that the list of stages should be kept as short as possible.

It may be the case that however much thought you give to job stages you do not get them right first time.

Do not worry as you can go back to job stage editing at any time. After saving the changes the new list will be applied to every client to make sure your reporting is consistent.

3.5.2 Edit the Partner Review Stage

To edit the Partner review stage, assign the Partner to it and ensure it is due after the Journals/adjustment stage is completed we need to go through the following steps:

 Highlight Partner review on the Job profile maintenance screen and click Edit

 Ensure the Staff member responsible for the stage is Partner. This will make sure that the partner assigned to this client is automatically assigned to this stage during planning (see later) that will save time

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 Select the Due date base to be the Stage completion

 Enter Stage 7 the previous stage

 Click OK

3.5.3 Edit All the Job Stages

The next step is to go through each job stage in turn and set it to what you want it to be:

 To set up a new job stage select the Add button, or edit an existing job stage

 It is possible to delete a job stage by selecting the Delete button

 It is possible to change the Description for a job stage

 To move the job stages up and down to get them in the right place within the profile, use the Re-order arrows on the Job Profile Maintenance screen

 To save the job stages click Save on the Job Profile Maintenance screen and this gives you a message box headed Job Profile Maintenance informing you that due dates just set up will be applied to all existing job stages, click Yes

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3.5.4 Summary Hints & Tips

 Keep the number of job stages used to the minimum possible and meaningful to your practice.

 From the time that the books are requested / received most job stages should be given a due date inlcuding those based on when the previous job stage was completed. This will allow you to set a standard turn around time for jobs in your practice.

 There is no problem in setting a turn around time that may be difficult to achieve on many jobs. After all we want to make your practice more efficient by moving jobs forward to completion as quickly as possible.

3.6 Set Up „Take on New Client‟ Job Profile

There is so much IRIS can help you with when you take on a new client, so make sure you have this profile set to suit your business.

 As above, select from within the Staff Control Panel Setup | Jobs and highlight the job you have added to the Take on New Client job and select Profile

As you can see from the above, there are lots of automatic job stage completions that you can allocate to this job.

Analyse your process before looking at IRIS, and then map that onto the steps above keeping it down to a minimum of around 10 stages if you can.

 If you highlight the first stage, in this case the Perform Anti Money Laundering Checks, and then select Edit to display the details of the stage

 In the example below the stage will automatically be completed when “Perform Anti Money Laundering Checks using AML Search” is complete. This is the AML button on the Client Maintenance screen. This uses the Searches Group system to provide an AML report for your client that you can use as part of your AML checks.

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The other automatic completion stages are:

 Setup Services for New Client – this completes as you set up the services within IRIS Practice Management, we will look at this in detail in Chapter 2

 Engagement Letter produced – this completes as the Engagement letter is generated for the client from within IRIS AutoMail

 Form 64-8 produced – generate the 64-8 from within Client Maintenance

 Form CT41G produced – generate the CT41G, where applicable from within Client Maintenance

 Fee agreed with Client – with a Time & Fees licence it is possible to set up the invoice and payment arrangement within IRIS Time & Fees

 Form CT41G Dormant produced – generate the CT41G Dormant where applicable

Repeat this process for all the standard system jobs within IRIS now, and later on you can set up the profiles for the other jobs in your business such as Payroll and VAT (we will see more on the other jobs later).

4 Introduction to Job Planning

Once the jobs have been set up for your organisation you are now ready to start planning. The aim is to plan the jobs to ensure they get onto each staff members to do list, the partners and managers are able to review progress at a high level, and have the ability to drill down to look at the detail. To use Job Planning:

 Log into IRIS Practice Management as yourself

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 Where it says Service in the top left hand corner, select the magnifying glass to display the list of jobs. We will look at Services in more detail in Chapter 2

 Highlight the Accounts job and click Select as shown above, followed by Find in the top left hand corner to display all the jobs coming up

 Select the Bridge Services button to make sure all the services are set up for the clients you have registered within IRIS; this is a once only operation. We will look at Services in more detail in Chapter 2

The system will automatically know what clients you have for the Accounts job that you need to plan for, so it will set them up for you.

Note: this is the difference between an automatic and manual job such as VAT where you will need to set up the Service manually for each client. This is a once only operation and is not as onerous as it might sound and we will cover it in more detail in Chapter 2.

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Have a play:

 Move the columns around

 Right click on a client and select client

 Right click on a client and select Job followed by the Assignments button

 Assign a couple of staff to the job and see it filter through to the staff control panel

 Look at the Jobs tab on the Staff Control Panel and see the jobs listed

 Right click on the column headings and select the Group, Ungroup option

5 Homework

5.1 Set up the Job Profiles

This week set up all the main job profiles for your business where relevant. For example; 1.) Personal Tax Returns

2.) Corporation Tax Returns 3.) Partnership Tax Returns 4.) Sole Trade Tax

5.) Trust Tax returns 6.) Accounts Production 7.) Take on New Client 8.) VAT

9.) Payroll

5.2 Take a Look at Job Planning

As you log into Practice Management and the Staff Control Panel take a look at Launch | Job Planning and have a go at planning a job as described above.

5.3 Post time

If you are an IRIS Time & Fees user as you log into IRIS Practice Management, on the Staff Control Panel select the Timesheet tab to post your timesheets.

Hint: on the current timesheet see the IRIS ball in the bottom left hand corner, this is a stop watch, have you tried it?

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6 Quiz

Have a look at the following and determine if they are true or false: 1.) VAT is a standard IRIS Job

2.) It is possible to link a letter to a job stage

3.) The system will automatically calculate the due dates for VAT returns

4.) If you have a right handed mouse left click on the PM icon to bring up the client browser 5.) The year-end reminder letters can automatically have the client‟s year end populated 6.) It is possible to assign a client partner in bulk to a selected group of clients

7.) You need to set up every single job against each client within IRIS as a manual task

8.) On the Job Planning screen it is possible to group the jobs together by the statutory year end 9.) If I change a job profile, it will only change the new jobs that are created

10.) The stop watch is only available on the current timesheet

The answers to this quiz are in chapter 2, and they are also discussed in the Communication Tracking webinar.

IRIS Practice Management

Chapter One