Customer story · Wheelhouse Advisory
Wheelhouse Advisory turned firm-wide visibility into more hires and higher fees.
Wheelhouse ran workflow in a separate spreadsheet for each person, with no way to see capacity across the firm. About 18 months ago it moved workflow into AccountKit, and the shared overview let it run separate advisory and compliance teams and see where to hire.
“It has just done a whole 360 on our whole entire firm. Everyone loved the overview of not just their own workflow, but everyone in the firm.”
- Who
- Alycia Stanton, Client Services Manager
- Firm
- Around 25 staff and growing, split into advisory and compliance teams
- On AccountKit
- About 18 months
- Stack
- Xero, XPM, AccountKit
The starting point
Nobody could see whether the firm had room for more work.
Every person kept their own spreadsheet of what was on their plate. “You don’t know if person one has capacity compared to person three,” Alycia says. Without that picture, the firm held back on taking new work in.
The firm’s week, before and after
Every Monday
BeforeA workflow meeting run off separate spreadsheets, and a round of confusion about where each job was up to.
NowOne overview of everyone’s jobs. “If it’s sitting on your workflow, it’s your responsibility.”
Shared clients
Before“A lot of back-and-forth emailing between different managers and accountants.”
NowAdvisory and compliance teams see the same client’s work side by side and act on it together.
New starters
BeforeNo generalised step-by-step process for how the firm runs things.
NowA junior can open the task list, put in an individual return and follow the steps.
Support questions
BeforeThe worry Alycia describes as “scary to people when you start a new software”.
Now< 1 hourA support reply within the hour, and a requested change shipped within a couple of months.
What they switched on
The tools Wheelhouse Advisory runs in AccountKit.
Alongside Xero, XPM. Each tool links to how it works.
- AdministrationWorkflowOne overview for the whole firm, shaped to “the way that Wheelhouse runs”, admin staff included.
- ComplianceInter-entity loansThe compliance tool the accountants lean on hardest, because so many client groups run multiple entities.
- ComplianceDivision 7AAdded more recently, after a training session with the AccountKit team.
The result
What changed at Wheelhouse Advisory, in their numbers.
- more staff hired, using the workflow overview to see where
- 3–4
- months since workflow moved into AccountKit
- 18
- people working from one overview across two teams
- ~25
“I’ve definitely seen an increase of our fees over the last year since we’ve been using it.”
Figures and quotes from the Wheelhouse Advisory case study, first published on the AccountKit blog.
See how it fits your firm
Try the tools behind this story on your own clients.
Start a 14-day trial, or book a demo and walk through the setup Wheelhouse Advisory uses with the team.
