Athene Group experience: managing a team of 100+ staff across 10 offices in 3 countries with TaxDome

Athene Group provides accounting and financial services, as well as ERP (enterprise resources planning), primarily to small and midsize companies. Founded in 2003, it has offices in three countries — Norway, Sweden and Poland — and more than 100 employees and 1,700 clients.

The company’s main focus is on delivering an excellent digital service to their clients, alongside a lasting personal experience. 

The challenge

Recently, Athene Group has started looking for a cloud-based solution to communicate with customers and handle sensitive information while adhering to GDPR guidelines.

TaxDome proved to be the answer Athene Group was looking for. We’ve talked to one of the company’s partners in the Oslo division, Are Berg Hjelle, and he told us how TaxDome provided the company with a convenient client portal, massively sped up the onboarding process, and replaced several management systems with one.

Athene Group’s partner Are Berg Hjelle (right) and TaxDome Nordic country manager Kalle Granlund (left).

Providing clients with a comfortable and secure way to contact their accountants via an online portal:

“Customers can chat with us on their mobile phone, via a laptop, anytime. The accountants can answer faster, easier, and have a better understanding of their customers.”

Switching from several task and document management systems to just one:

“Before TaxDome we used one system for handling sensitive documents (GDPR), one system for sharing documents, one system for task management, one system for time-tracking… Packing that into a single system instead of 10 different ones is great.”

Slashing onboarding time for clients:

“We now do a direct, quick client setup even with larger clients: we only need a few minutes. Our average time for onboarding is two to three minutes.”

The solution

Here’s what Athene group achieved by utilizing TaxDome:

• Quick and transparent communication between customers and accountants via an accessible client portal and mobile app
• Consolidated tech stack: TaxDome replaced several managements systems Athene Group previously used
• Intuitive client onboarding: many clients were able to sign up for the portal without any instructions from the firm
• Continuity in operations: if Athene changed a project leader — or they left the company — transitioning client documents and communication to a new project leader became much easier

GDPR-compliant quick and transparent communication

Handling sensitive data in a professional manner is what accountants do every day. However, this job is not easy when the communication with clients is scattered over several communication channels  and an email inbox. And the level of security these provide is sometimes insufficient. So TaxDome’s client portal addressed a major pain point. Athene Group’s partner Are Berg Hjelle comments:

“A client portal helps us with GDPR, handling sensitive information, sharing documents with customers, and having sensitive conversations.

We are happy we can create our own white labeled, personal customer portal, with TaxDome. Customers can chat with us via mobile, or a laptop, anytime. Accountants can answer faster, easier, and have a better understanding of their customers. They also have better control over documents, while being GDPR-compliant”.

How Eiden Tax and Accounting leveraged TaxDome’s client portal and switched to a paperless approach >>

Consolidated tech stack for project management, documents, communications and more

“We needed to have one system that could solve our whole production. There are a lot of good task management systems, document management systems, customer portals… But the problem was that it wasn’t possible to integrate them. 

Before TaxDome we used a few task management systems. We relied on Google Docs, SharePoint — but they were all using local servers. The risk attached to that was immense.”

Athene Group approached the matter of picking a new platform seriously. They tested more than 100 software systems in different countries and various setups. TaxDome offered what none of those systems could: an all-in-one solution to handle client communications, store documents and monitor work. 

How Bender CPA came to rely on TaxDome as one system for all accounting work >>

Intuitive client onboarding and creating SOPs

With TaxDome, Athene Group reduced onboarding time for their clients to just a couple of minutes. Partner Are Berg Hjelle explains how this helped the company both scale their teams across multiple locations — and ensure same-level quality:

“We’re in three different countries – in seven or eight different cities. It’s important for us to have and maintain the same quality level in each office.

Quicker onboarding means we are meeting the quality requirements and have control of all our deadlines, teams and employees — across every office. That helps us manage teams and grow faster.” 

Continuity in operations with turnover and team growth

Project management without a software solution is often inextricably tied to the particular person who set up the processes. That means if that person leaves the company, a lot can potentially go awry. Are Berg Hjelle describes how Athene Group avoided such a scenario with TaxDome:

“[Before TaxDome] every time we changed a project leader working with a customer, we had problems with moving the whole project to the responsible team, including moving the documents to the correct place.

It was a lot of hassle. These things work seamlessly together in TaxDome. We can manage a client in one place and both documents and access rights are being automatically updated based on who has access to a client. So TaxDome is helping us reduce the amount of time we use on admin overall” .

How Boundless Tax reduced admin load and got more high-impact work done with TaxDome >>

The results

Athene Group started its search for an accounting platform because the company needed a customer portal to communicate with clients and exchange documents, as well as safeguard  sensitive information. TaxDome delivered such a portal — and muchmore on top of it.

The accounting firm replaced other practice management systems, which were neither integrated with one another, nor particularly safe. TaxDome offers a comprehensive solution that consolidates key features — client communication, document management and workflow — under one roof.

In addition, Athene Group considerably slashed onboarding times for their clients — and scaled their own operations. TaxDome’s intuitive interface means both customers and employees can quickly understand how to interact with the platform.

Finally, Athene Group simplified processes for their own accountants. Projects and customers are no longer dependent on individuals, but rather on access rights. When a change takes place within the company, documents and client communications remain where they are: all that needs to happen is an update to access rights.

The next step for Athene Group is integrating TaxDome across the board — in all countries and for each team. Are Berg Hjelle expects this to go well – the company’s managers have found TaxDome easy to adopt:

“The consultants and team managers don’t need a lot of training to start using TaxDome. I think it’s great that it’s so easy to adopt for the employees. It’s easy for consultants to start using it when they need to.”

Do you have a practice management pain point you’d like to address? We’ll be attending this year’s Overskudd 2023 — meet us there, and we’ll be happy to help out!