How a Cutting Edge CPA Firm Handles a Hybrid Team with the Right Cloud-Based Phone System

The CPA Firm of the Future

Accountability Services is a cutting-edge tax accounting and business advisory firm thriving in an otherwise old-school industry. Their hybrid team spans multiple time zones, and services clients in all 50 states. Though other financial services companies remain stubborn in changing times, Accountability Services knows they can’t rely on what used to work, and hope it always will.

“I think it’s very traditional, when you think of a CPA firm, to think of that person you go to once a year with your receipts to get your taxes done,” explains Lera Kooper, Firm Director of Accountability Services. Though she acknowledges that taxes and overall compliance are important parts of the process, Kooper knows that most of their clients have much larger goals, ones that her firm is able to help achieve.

“We work with our clients throughout the year to ensure they’re making well-informed, strategic decisions based on good quality data. We are a CPA firm that is not particularly traditional. And ‘not traditional’ is the firm of the future.”

One way that Accountability Services broke away from other, more traditional CPA and business advisory firms? They canceled $1,160 worth of contracts with Comcast, Vonage, and Lumen per month, and traded up for smrtPhone, a cloud-based phone system, that only cost an average of $70/month.

Hybrid Teams Made Possible by Cloud Telephony

Accountability Services defies traditional models of what a CPA firm “should” look like by embracing distributed workstyles as not just a necessity, but a benefit. Most industries faced remote work challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic, and some adapted better than others. Lera and Sandi Hart, IT Accounting Systems Consultant, saw it as an opportunity to grow strategically.

“One of our requirements when selecting software or technology is whether it’s going to grow and flex with us.” One of the ways that the team needed to grow was beyond the confines of physical offices. Accountability Services does have three offices between Washington and Colorado, but not everyone lives within commuting distance – and that’s ok!

“We can have someone in Seattle, we can have someone in Colorado being the point person, and it’s very easy to transfer from one to another if necessary. We don’t have to be concerned about working in silos because we have two different phone numbers. We’re able to have everything route to one team. So we’re working as a unit.”

“We can have someone in Seattle, we can have someone else in Boulder being the point person, and it's very easy to transfer from one to another if necessary. We don't have to be concerned about working in silos because we have two different phone numbers. We're able to have everything routed to one team. So we're working as a unit.”

smrtPhone’s ability to seamlessly connect everyone boosts cohesion despite dispersed geography. Call transfers, group inboxes and shared phone numbers allow for a hybrid team that doesn’t feel separated from each other. Plus, Lera points out that their talent pool only increases in volume and quality when she can source that talent from anywhere in the world.

Hybrid Teams Allow for the Best Employee Fit

Lera found the right fit for her company and her clients while not limiting the company within geographic proximity to an office.

“Being able to service our clients in a unique way has created a need to find more talent and you’re not always going to have the right fit right next door.”

“Being able to service our clients in a unique way has created a need to find more talent, and you’re not always going to have the right fit right next door.”

Offering remote work benefits has made Accountability Services a more appealing workplace to the types of employees she wants to hire. “It’s been really exciting to be able to extend the benefit to allow employees to work from home.”

Plus – a phone system with KPI reporting means it’s easy to monitor whether lead lists are quality and employees are doing well. Just because a team is spread out, doesn’t mean the performance of the team or the marketing campaigns is left to chance. To put it simply: “landlines don’t offer reporting,” but smrtPhone does – for free at every subscription tier.

Routing Inbound Communication is Simple with Call Flows and Groups

When you run a distributed company with clients in every US state, your tech stack is what unites everyone – especially your phone system. Sandi Hart understands both sides of the coin as Senior Staff Accountant and IT Accounting Systems Consultant. It’s largely up to Sandi to guide her client’s towards making the best technology decisions for their businesses.

With the same care she affords her clients, Sandi oversees implementation of the best technology at Accountability Services. Lera illustrates how Sandi juggles decision-making, considering not only the tools needed for the job but also how employees and clients share and use them.

“Sandy has a really good understanding of all of our tech requirements, not just for compliance, but also for what we need to support our firm’s vision to be scalable, to grow, to have this remote hybrid team and environment, to be able to work with clients that are anywhere, regardless of country or state time zone.”

Everybody is treating me like a hero for bringing smrtPhone in.

Choosing smrtPhone was one of the best decisions Sandi made, saving them money instantly, and helping the team navigate through a merger in December of 2023. Some employees thought they would miss having a phone on their desk, Lera recalled. “It’s this muscle memory of going for a phone. And Sandi told them to give it a month. After a month, we didn’t hear about it again. They loved smrtPhone.”

Customizable Call Flows to Ease Operational Stress

Robust cloud-based phone systems are about more than just making calls and sending texts from anywhere. Customizable inbound call flows are what really make a phone system unique to your individual business. Accountability Services’ business is largely conducted via inbound communication – roughly 80% of calls are coming into the business, rather than out.

Lera recalls a time in early 2024 when a surprise influx of calls overloaded the team and calls were bottlenecked due to manual routing. smrtPhone’s Call Flow builder offered an easy opportunity to create menus for inbound callers to self-select their desired department connection. They also established open and closed hours with different call routes, based on the time of day.

“We decided to do a phone tree schedule via smrtPhone’s Call Flows. Tech stuff went to Tyler, Sales went to Lara. Sandi and I figured that out in less than an hour, and our operations team had relief the next day. We literally had more coordination within one day.”

Customer Satisfaction Requires Proactive Systems

You can route Call Flows to individual users or entire groups, creating more opportunities for answered calls and facilitating coordination between hybrid teams. Simultaneous ringing ensures that multiple employees in different places can be attempted at the same time, increasing the likelihood of connecting with an inbound caller.

Implementing these small changes generates a major impact on customer satisfaction and retention. Quality customer experience is important in financial services, when every client’s business and personal livelihood can feel on the line.

Lera couldn’t stop raving over the simplicity and effectiveness of their phone tree created in the Call Flow Builder.

“When we see the need for refinement and adjustment, we want to implement it immediately and have the power to do it. It’s so nice to have products that work at the same pace as us.”

Does your business require you to receive multi-factor authentication codes to access sensitive information? Do you find yourself asking your co-workers who received the code, wondering where it went? Set up one phone number to receive all of your company’s codes, and check the same inbox every time!