Measuring and managing your firm’s technology

You’d like to think of your accounting firm as tech-forward, but how do you know for sure? A natural starting point for CPAs and accountancy might be metrics: not only how much you’ve invested in tech but what you’ve gotten out of it for your efforts. The problem is figuring out what, exactly, to measure, and how — but rather than leave it to you to figure out, Accounting Today asked a number of tech-forward firms what key performance indicators they track when it comes to their technology. 

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The KPIs we got back from them cover a wide range of topics, from cybersecurity to business impact to internal efficiencies and more. Turns out that there are just as many ways to measure technology impact as there are accounting firms, as different ones prioritize different things for different reasons. But regardless of what exactly it is they track and how, they all understood the importance of actively monitoring and measuring their technology investments. They may all track different things, but each is part of a deliberate and intentional mindset towards firm technology. 

We’re not presenting every single metric they track, but rather some of the more interesting or useful ones we thought readers might be interested in taking to their own practices. We’ve arranged them by topic for easier organization. 

Efficiency KPIs

• Percent reduction in time spent on manual tasks (tracked via time studies, workflow logs): How much of the grunt work has the firm successfully offloaded to its systems? 
• Percent increase in projects completed on time and under budget: How has this improved the firm’s productivity and efficiency? 
• Margin improvement on service lines using technology-enabled systems: How much more profit comes from using this system than another, or even working manually? 
• Capacity created through automation: How much more revenue-generating work can your team handle now? 
• Data accuracy and reconciliation exceptions: How much, or how little, does your firm need to go back and correct things? 

Financial impact KPIs

• Uplift in client lifetime value: Is your technology helping to retain clients and provide more services? 
• Revenue per FTE uplift: How much more revenue is each person generating? 
• Cost savings via reduced duplication, rework, or admin load: How much money has your tech saved you?
• Margin over revenue impact via time analysis: To what degree have you turned your time savings into tangible revenue gains versus adding non-billable activities? 
• Cost per return / cost per transaction: To what degree does your technology affect the unit cost of your services? 
• Technology ROI and payback period: How long until your investments pay for themselves?

Satisfaction and engagement KPIs

• Reduction in client revisions, delays, or complaints: How much client frustration — and unbillable rework — has your firm eliminated?
• Pulse survey scores around tool usefulness and job satisfaction: Are your tools removing friction for your staff or adding it? 
• Net Promoter Score and client satisfaction: How does this affect how your clients feel about you? 
• First contact resolution: How often can you resolve a client matter on the spot versus escalating and waiting? 
• User adoption and active usage of core platforms: How much do people actually use your technology?

Security and Stability KPIs

• Bugs submitted by employees (count and risk level): How proactive is your team at identifying and reporting technical friction before it impacts a client? 
• Phishing test results: How well can people spot phishing attempts?
• Endpoint compliance: Do devices like laptops or tablets meet security and configuration requirements before they’re allowed to access firm systems? 
• Security awareness completion rates: How well is your firm educating people on security risks across the entire firm? 
• Open vulnerability count: What security flaws have yet to be addressed? 
• Alignment to frameworks such as NIST CSF and SOC 2: How well does your firm hew to security and other IT standards? 
• Security incidents and near misses: How often does something bad happen? How often does it nearly happen? 

Other KPIs

• Ticket volume trends: How many help requests are you getting, and is this number going down or up? 
• Hardware refresh compliance: Are you replacing old devices on schedule?
• Incident volume and mean time to resolution: When systems fail, how fast can you fix them? 
• Tool rationalization and license utilization: Are you getting good value from your tools?