Pharma Tax: 300% revenue growth after implementing TaxDome, team of 13 reduced time on bookkeeping tasks by up to 73%

How much does your firm want to improve quality of life at work, deliver a superior client experience, and increase revenue?

That’s what Ricardo Ardiles, co-founder and partner of Pharma Tax — a Canadian firm of 11 staff and 3 partners, serving more than 180 clients — achieved with TaxDome in the past year, having:

• Tripled revenue — from $350,000 in 2022 to $1.1 million in 2023
• Reduced hours on monthly bookkeeping by up to 73% — from 20–30 hours per client to 8–10 hours on average
• Saved between $750 and $1500 per month — as a result of the significant time savings 
• Tripled clients — from 60 clients to 180, with increased client satisfaction and retention

We met Ricardo at Accountex Canada 2023 last November, where he told us that TaxDome meets 99.9% of his firm’s needs. 

Now, it’s fair to say that having those needs met with TaxDome has paid off.  

Ricardo and his team faced a number of common accounting firm problems — chasing clients, juggling apps, and time-consuming manual processes — before finding the solutions, and unleashing growth, with TaxDome.

We sat down with Ricardo, as well as accounting managers Ashley Shaddock and Prijesh Sarkhedi, to explore how using TaxDome helped Pharma Tax triple its revenue in 2023 — and start 2024 with more ambitious growth goals than they thought possible.

Here’s the full story, from the problems to the successes.

The problems… and Pharma Tax’s trigger point

Time and money wasted due to a poor client experience

Collecting client documents took weeks, sometimes months, for Ricardo’s firm. This didn’t just mean their services dragged out for longer than expected; it also forced his team to spend more working hours on client follow-ups — which, in Ashley’s words, was extremely time-consuming.

It was taking us about 20 or 30 hours a month doing bookkeeping for a client, and that was way too long. Most of that was just chasing the client… That’s more time that we have to spend and it’s not profitable. — Ricardo Ardilles, Pharma Tax

Like anyone, clients can be forgetful — something that Ricardo is well aware of. 

But Ricardo also knew that the problem was internal. It stemmed from an inefficient document collection process that required clients to log in to different tools and apps, giving them too much to navigate and learn.

“Clients got confused,” Ricardo told us, “because we would tell them, ‘Hey, use this for this, use that for that.’ And so there were multiple touchpoints there, and clients forget where to actually go. Everything was very disconnected, very disjointed.”

And when the hurdle wasn’t confusing logins, it was a bad user experience on client mobile apps:

People couldn’t even take pictures or upload documents through the app. And that was one comment that I kept on hearing from my clients is that, ‘The app sucks, we can’t do anything on it. Sometimes I just have my phone; I just want to take a picture of the document that you’re asking me for. — Ricardo Ardilles, Pharma Tax

To help his team save time and improve their client experience, it was clear to Ricardo that his firm needed to streamline client interactions.

Disconnected tools, no task overview, and difficulty planning workload

When we asked Ricardo about the tools his firm was using, he told us, “They definitely didn’t talk to each other, which was very frustrating.”

With tools that lacked integrations, it was impossible to sync data for clients, tasks, and more — hindering team efficiency.

Making matters worse, Ricardo said that none of those tools gave them a clear overview of the work they needed to do:

We didn’t have any visibility as to where in the process or how long it was taking. We didn’t have a time entry system to track how long it was actually taking us to prepare a tax return, or monthly bookkeeping, or any other tasks that we were doing for clients. — Ricardo Ardilles, Pharma Tax

Due to this, Ricardo couldn’t effectively distribute work across his team. Planning for growth was also impossible as he didn’t have the tools to assess whether his firm could take on more clients.

Overlooked tasks due to manual processes, reflecting badly on the firm

Not automating routine tasks made their day-to-day exhausting, while limiting the team’s ability to provide optimal customer service.

It was just driving us nuts because we were spending so much time doing stuff manually… Work wasn’t being done on time, or mistakes, or not getting stuff from the clients on a timely basis — because everything was very manual. — Ricardo Ardilles, Pharma Tax

This also led to tasks being forgotten. In Ricardo’s words: they fell through the cracks, as they would send out a document request, then forget about it when the client took too long — simply because the tools didn’t provide the team with a clear overview of their tasks, let alone the task status. 

Ricardo added, “And even though the client didn’t give us stuff in the beginning, we are the ones who look bad because we didn’t do our follow-up process because everything was very manual.”

The team came to a decision: their processes needed to change. 

“So that was our trigger point,” Ricardo explained, “to say we know that we could be doing the work much faster. We know that we could be meeting timelines much better… There has to be a better way of actually doing this.”

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The solutions that kick-started growth for Pharma Tax

Time-saving communication tools, and a single touchpoint for clients

“By far, my favorite is not having to chase clients anymore,” Ashley said when we asked for her favorite thing about TaxDome, because what was extremely time-consuming for her before is no longer on her to-do list: 

“We use the automated messages and the tasks that clients have to tick off. So if they don’t tick off the tasks, they get the automated reminders. It’s made my day a lot smoother. It’s less time-consuming.”

Now, the team’s daily workload is lighter, and it’s improved their quality of life. 

It’s been the same for the Pharma Tax’s clients. They’re now permanently kept in the loop, with the ability to access everything they need via TaxDome’s user-friendly client portal — replacing the multiple touchpoints they went through before.

Now I don’t have to spend money on four, five, six different pieces of software. I just have one where I can do everything for a client. And it’s much easier for a client because they just need to know one place to log in for our client portal and not remember, you know, all these different things, log in here for this, there for that…. So having everything centralized into one helps us, and it helps the client. — Ricardo Ardiles, Pharma Tax

Taking their client experience up a level, TaxDome’s client mobile app for iOS and Android made it effortless for their clients to scan, upload, and e-sign documents — as well as manage everything the client portal allows them to, but on the fly.

For Ricardo, it’s an app his clients actually enjoy using. “That was the main reason why we ended up leaving the other workflow tools — because their app was just terrible. So your app is very good. I really like it. Clients like it. So it’s definitely been a game-changer for us.”

One platform for efficient task management, collaboration, and capacity planning

With TaxDome having replaced the different tools the firm used to juggle, Prijesh told us how easy it’s become to manage tasks and collaborate in one place: 

“I can just assign it to one of my team members and then they will get a notification in their inbox from where they can pick up the task, and then we can set certain deadlines in the task. And that’s how it becomes more easier to track the work, and know the status of where it is and when it is to be done.”

Like Prijesh, Ashley praised how TaxDome has streamlined tasks and improved team collaboration:

Collaboration on the team has been much better because everybody knows they can see where it’s at in the pipeline. We all know which stage it’s at and we know when it’s going to be assigned to the next person… So that, for instance, Prijesh does not have to come to me to ask me when something’s going to be done; he can go in and see it himself. — Ashley Shaddock, Pharma Tax

In addition to pipelines boosting the team’s organization and collaboration, time entries empowered them to manage their time efficiently — and get paid accordingly.

“We can enter time for each client for each task,” Prijesh added, “and it certainly helps us to track how much time the staff is spending for the client, and if we are within the budget of time spending, and if we are undercharging any client so we can revise our contract amount.”

For Ricardo, the benefits of TaxDome’s time entry feature went further. It gave him the data to assess how long a service takes on average, manage his team’s workload, and plan for client growth in relation to staff needed — which set Pharma Tax up for increased revenue. 

I’m now able to put much greater dollars and cents to planning out my staff based off of the number of returns that I have and how much we forecast to grow for this year. I know with much greater clarity how much more staff that I’m going to need and what the current workload is for my current staff. So just having that visibility, it’s definitely huge. — Ricardo Ardiles, Pharma Tax

Intelligent workflow automations — eliminating overlooked tasks and improving client satisfaction

Lastly, TaxDome solved what Ricardo called the firm’s biggest issue — tasks being overlooked due to manual processes and no clear overview:

“With the workflow automations, we are able to separate the different stages and what you need to do within that stage,” Ricardo explained, “so that when our staff or when our team is doing the actual work, they don’t forget things.”

Ashley also praised how TaxDome’s workflow automations have benefitted her bookkeeping team: “Instead of having to spend time every day or every week trying to plan out their workflow… everything just populates into their week for them and it helps them stay on top of things. So they are definitely saving time and not having to worry about what’s getting missed.”

Setting up workflow automations in TaxDome enhanced Pharma Tax’s processes and reduced the risk of human error. And with tasks no longer being overlooked, client satisfaction and retention quickly improved. 

We’re definitely losing less clients. We aren’t perfect. We do lose clients every single year, but more so it’s not because of workflow now — whereas, in the past, it was because of workflow. — Ricardo Ardiles, Pharma Tax

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The successes — and Pharma Tax’s new goals for growth

Since implementing TaxDome in 2023, it’s been nothing but growth for Pharma Tax. 

“In 2022, we were at $350,000,” Ricardo shared, “ and we hit over 1.1 million last year.”

Not only has the team tripled its revenue, but they’ve cut the amount of time they spend on each client: “Working on a client file, it saves us at least 10 hours, or more, a month,” Ricardo told us — resulting in savings of $750 to $1500 each month.

By elevating its client experience with TaxDome, Pharma Tax also grew its client base from 60 clients to 180 in the past year.

Now that he has the right tools and processes in place for his firm, Ricardo was clear about his goals for 2024: “It’s just about scaling now.”

We’ve been able to streamline our processes [with TaxDome] and the next stage is now really starting to scale. So, now that we hit our first million in revenue, now the goal is to take it to 2 million and 3 million, 4 million, 5 million… — Ricardo Ardiles, Pharma Tax 

Like Pharma Tax, you can take your firm to the next level with TaxDome. Request a free demo for a personalized walkthrough of how our award-winning practice management platform can power up your operational efficiency — and unleash firm growth.