This is a series of timesaving tips by Firm of the Future authors. More tips are on their way; for now, check out one tip here.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance, less.” – General Eric Shinseki

BaCo Group has embraced change and the idea that we need to stop following what we did last year (because last year was really bad). One change has been overhauling our “batch processing” workflow and moving into a “transaction-based workflow” by using BaCo Tech.

For public accounting, we still use batch processing when we gather an excel trial balance, import it into a third-party trial balance software, and make our journal entries and tax journal entries on dead static balances, only to then import them into another third-party tax software and modify what didn’t get pulled in from the import. Then, we need to go into their accounting software and make the adjusting journal entries we made so that our books reconcile.

The truth is, however, that batch is often a surprise to us, and those batched balances don’t tell us anything. Often times, we have to go back and forth with our clients, requesting the underlying transactions that make up those static dead balances.

BaCo Tech is the first “transaction-based workflow” that allows us to get rid of our old batch processing workflow that works off a trial balance in excel and move into continual tax accounting. Continual tax accounting allows us to prepare all of our clients’ tax returns 365 days a year (while we sleep), while every other CPA firm out there will struggle to prepare one tax return once a year (while working 70+ hours a week).

Because of BaCo Tech, we are the only CPA firm in the world (right now) that has a living trial balance with real-time data. BaCo Tech allows us to do effortless, continuous tax accounting 365 days a year, which is an unprecedented innovation in our public accounting industry. It will make “doing things the old way” irrelevant for those who don’t want to change.