Bill payment survey highlights short falls of retail solutions
The results are in from AgilLink’s Annual Bill Payment Survey! We surveyed nearly 200 Family wealth firms and business managers and they highlighted some of the biggest pain points they have with using solutions not developed specifically for their needs. Many firms start with these types of retail solutions because they are cheap and they are easy to implement.
Firms offer bill payment services on a limited basis. Their best client asks for the service (clients love it by the way) and in order to attract and\or retain these clients, you offer it using QuickBooks™ (or in some cases even Quicken™). Unfortunately, as you add more clients and more complexity, you will quickly find out this is not a scalable solution and does not have the necessary controls in place. You have hit the wall on what we call accidental bill payment.
The common complaints we hear include: The need for more visibility across clients, too many steps involved with logging in and out of different client files, searching for back up due to a lack of document imaging and concerns about security and workflows.
Survey Says:
According to the bill payment survey, the biggest pain points QuickBooks users reported are:
- 57% - Relying heavily on manual processes
- 24% - Lack of proper controls for my business
- 14% - Systems don’t talk to each other - rekeying of data
In the same survey, respondents shared what they wish their accounting system would offer. The top five responses are:
- 67% - Integrated document management
- 50% - The ability to scan bills all at once, instead of separately loading each one
- 33% - Consolidated financial reporting
- 33% - Approval from a mobile device
- 16% - Better controls and approval workflows
What firms need to offer multi-client bill pay and client accounting
The good news is that outgrowing QuickBooks is a sign of success for your firm! Since QuickBooks was never designed for the family office world, it’s not surprising that you are struggling with multi-entity accounting, manual errors, and having to ask your staff to constantly rekey information into disparate systems.
With over 45 years of experience working with family offices, AgilLink is designed to help you improve controls, scale your operations and provide more holistic services and reporting for your clients.
After working closely with hundreds of business managers and family offices we know that having a multi-entity general ledger is table stakes, as high-net-worth individuals have a multitude of different entities that need to be accounted for and managed. We also know that your clients often ask questions on the fly and expect fast and accurate answers.
That’s why AgilLink is a multi-entity, multi-user accounting system that incorporates document management into the workflow where images of invoices follow the approval process and can be easily retrieved when questions arise on certain bills. AgilLink also allows you to scan one document and parse that document to different invoices. Integrating documents into your approval workflow means you will always have easy access to the original invoices and source documents for disbursements.
With AgilLink, firms also benefit from:
- Multi-client general ledger with integrated bill payment
- Modern web based platform and mobile application
- Customizable approval workflow with configurable entitlements by user
- Reduced manual data entry
Business managers such as PARR3 have relied on AgilLink to grow their business.
“As we grew, we needed more functionality for a multi-person team and multi-client portfolio. We wanted software designed for business managers as opposed to small businesses.” Mike Merriman, President and Founder, PARR3 LLC.
To learn more about how PARR3 uses AgilLink click here.
AgilLink integrates accounting, bill pay, document management and banking workflow in an all-in-one system that helps reduce errors, ensures accurate transaction processing, and most importantly, lowers risk with better business controls and fraud protection.
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