“You can’t change the past – the past is simply the story of what you did today,” she says. “Today, almost a decade later, Jetstream Administration serves about 45 monthly customers, works remotely, is paperless, and taps into the power of the cloud and technology to serve our customers in the best way possible.”
At the foundation of everything Jennifer and her Toronto-based team does is QuickBooks® Online Accountant (QBOA), and now, the new Practice Management feature. With Practice Management, she uses weekly projects as their main template to meet existing deliverables, providing weekly business snapshots to clients, in order to envision key business metrics and tailor to their specific needs. A typical project includes tasks such as routine bookkeeping: processing payables via Hubdoc; issuing payroll; or completing bank and credit card reconciliations. Other tasks include schedule communications for resolving outstanding questions and for reviewing results with business owners. In addition, she has regular internal team meetings where they review the customer files to identify opportunities that may better serve the business, such as tapping into powerful apps.
Practice Management doesn’t just help Jennifer’s clients; it also helps her and the team work better together.
“I can keep track of what’s going on and empower the team to manage their own workloads,” she says. “They are able to see what their work is today and be responsible for triggering their work in the weeks and months to follow. This gives them ownership where they can take pride in achieving deadlines.”
Jennifer knows that if you ever have plans to run or grow a business, you absolutely must have something to manage your workflows and deliverables. Practice Management does just that.
With Practice Management, all checklists are in one location which is streamlined and efficient. For example, Jennifer says Practice Management has allowed her to re-direct the time previously spent managing workloads towards building and growing her business. This can add up to hours each week!
“It’s also very effective; the fewer windows you have open on your screen, the more likely you’re going to capture the detail you need,” says Jennifer. “And, because it’s connected to QBOA, we never miss a deadline.”
Jennifer is also currently tapped into Practice Management’s duplication feature, which has simplified her setup process dramatically. Because she tends to package her services to her clients, she set up a template “project” that can be duplicated for creation when bringing on new clients. In addition, this capability has served as a checklist for her proposal documents.
Having this foundation in place is important, but it’s also Jennifer’s guiding principles that have brought her company to where it is today.
Using the Kaizen approach of continuous improvement, Jennifer and her team make it their responsibility to regularly search for new and better ways for their clients to achieve their goals, and sometimes surprise them with new ways of adapting to changes. It’s a never-give-up mentality to provide continuous improvement and solutions to take her clients’ businesses to the next level.
Complementing this approach is Jennifer’s love for technology. She stays actively involved in a number of in-person and online communities, where she shares best practices, emerging technology and favorite apps. This depth ensures that they are ready to solve problems and implement improvements as they are identified and become available.
"We look forward to tomorrow and to evolving our Practice Management process to keep pace with the growth and changes in our industry and cloud technology," says Jennifer.