Eiden Tax & Accounting Experience: Shifting to a Paperless Accounting Firm in the Post COVID World

Meet Brittnie Eiden of Eiden Tax & Accounting, a one woman show that has been delivering tax and bookkeeping services since 2006. The firm has always been a brick and mortar business with an office in Louisville, KY.

When the COVID-19 pandemic reared its ugly head and lockdowns shuttered business doors and forced everyone to stay home, traditional ways of conducting business were no longer possible. Brittnie set up a remote office in her home juggling work & watching her children. Not wanting to feel guilty of working 80-90 hours during the tax season, she was looking for efficient ways to maintain a work-life balance and transition her business online.

Watch how TaxDome has transformed Eiden Tax & Accounting:

Transitioning from in-person to online

Eiden Tax & Accounting initially conducted most business in-person in their Louisville, KY office. Brittnie made herself available to her clients for drop-off or in-person signatures – this was the norm and expected by her non-tech forward clients. As Brittnie transitioned fully online, the business needed easy and understandable tools for clients to be able to do the same things on their own. 

“Before COVID no one was really used to doing things as virtually as they are now. There were lots of jumping back and forth with my clients. But as a virtual firm, I needed to make the shift as smooth as possible for my clients.”

Eiden Tax & Accounting’s clientele are not startup developers in Silicon Valley or 20-year-old Instagram influencers, they are regular people who have had to adapt to the new way of doing things – everything online. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly required change & adoption of new technologies.

“The adoption of the portal has been fantastic — 98% of people have jumped on board. They were forced to understand that they needed to be able to adapt to using more technology. None of my clients have expressed any issues with the portal, people love it.”

Seeing her clients enthusiasm about conducting business remotely, Brittnie doesn’t plan on going back to the office when the crisis is over: 

“I like my office, but I’m considering giving it up because that’s just an extra cost that I don’t need to have. I also didn’t like being tied to it nine to five every single day, waiting for somebody to stop.”

Making things as easy as possible for your clients

Eiden Tax & Accounting used to utilize three tools just for signatures: Adobe e-sign to send out contracts, a separate tool for KBA signatures, and then she would upload the signed documents to a third tool. With a remote approach, clients would have to know how to access all of these without Brittnie’s help.

“I didn’t want to put that burden on my end user. If you’re not super tech savvy, which a lot of my clients were not, it was a nightmare. Luckily, I was in office most of the time and was able to have them come in and physically sign.

Having TaxDome for my clients has been fantastic — they love it, and especially the app. They can scan the document directly in. I still get someone who takes a picture of the stack of the tax return, but that’s a user issue and nobody else’s.”

Relative: How Joseph & Hetrick LLC grew revenue by 50% with TaxDome

Since Eiden Tax & Accounting switched to TaxDome, their clients have reported feeling more connected to the firm and more in the loop with push-notifications and emails that Brittnie sends them.

Here’s another useful tip from Brittnie Eiden: Email Sync helps her concentrate on client communications instead of sorting through spam emails:

Saving three weeks of work with two clicks

Record keeping, paperwork, endless hours of admin work are tedious, non-billable tasks that every business owner dreads. Eiden Tax & Accounting offers full year tax advisory services, so Brittnie would rather spend her time finding tax saving ideas for her clients.

“I would probably spend two-three weeks to actually going through client onboarding. And now I’ve got that automated. I know where things are and what needs to be done, and it doesn’t let me procrastinate. 

I can spend time in the evenings with my kids and know that all of my stuff has been done throughout the day. I’m also able to spend more time on marketing the business to get more clients. Not having to do all the admin work and being able to invest that time in marketing made my business grow.”

Eiden Tax & Accounting on saving three weeks of admin work:

Brittnie’s automation is not just limited to tax prep, she also offers full year advisory and getting   historical information was tedious and inefficient. Now, she can focus her time more on value-add for her clients while ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks.

“What normally would have been at least a two-hour call with clients just getting information, I can now spend that one-hour onboarding call getting to know them and getting to know the ins and outs of their business and seeing if they mentioned anything that might trigger me that I could find them some tax savings.

I probably still would have been struggling to get out client emails, personalizing them and getting them sent out, if it wasn’t for me being able to drop it into that pipeline [and triggering automations]. Doing it that right there has saved me weeks of work and brain energy.”

Compare the process: before and after automation:

Relative: How Total Tax Services automated new client onboarding

Going virtual without feeling overwhelmed

Eiden Tax & Accounting found it useful to use TaxDome without automations first. Brittnie spent 2020 using TaxDome primarily as a client portal, CRM, and messenger to keep up with clients, arrangements, and tasks in one place.

“I am a procrastinator, I have to set boundaries for myself to get things done. TaxDome helps me to set those boundaries. So I’m actually more efficient being able to work, take on more clients, and still spend time in the evenings with my kids.”

With the 2021 tax season approaching, Brittnie was ready to start using TaxDome’s automation capabilities.
“This year I wanted to roll in more of the automation. So I spent some of my free time in December, making sure everything was flowing nicely. And then it was fantastic: January, 4th rolled around, and I was able to drop everybody in a pipeline with just two clicks”.

Watch Brittnie Eiden taking about starting off with automations: