Choosing a Better Way To Do Time and Billing

This discussion highlights the importance of tracking time and billing in firms, emphasizing the need for efficiency and insights into project costs. They highlight the shift towards value-based billing.

Full Video Transcript:

John Mitchell: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome. My name is John Mitchell, my friend Darren Root. We are going to talk to you today about a better way to do time in billing. Um, Darren, this is something you've spent a good portion of your life doing. Or at least in charge of, if you think about it. 

Darren Root: Uh, John, my best friend. Very first time and billing solution.

I don't even know if it was billing. I think it was just time was time slips. You remember that application? And you're probably too young. 

John Mitchell: I've heard people talk about it, but I think I was, uh, I think I was watching Scooby Doo during those days. 

Darren Root: I 

John Mitchell: yeah, 

Darren Root: yeah. Since Bluey probably wasn't on yet. That's probably, uh, well, yeah, time and billing has been around for a long time.

Uh, at least time tracking and, uh, you know, then the, I think the follow onto that was time and then billing. So you could [00:01:00] relieve time. Uh, and now we're going to talk about a better way to do that. 

John Mitchell: Yeah. Canopy provides just what I think is just a, and you know how I am about aesthetics. I think it's beautiful.

I think it's really clean. It's really nice. Um, one of the things I love about solutions like time and billing is that Is when you can simplify the UX and UI, and you can create as little, um, as a little time between elements as possible. And I think canopy has really worked hard to develop that. 

Darren Root: You know, uh, there, there's, uh, there's been this debate for a while as to whether firms should.

Continue to track time. And I certainly have an opinion about this, uh, but you know, I value other people's opinion on the, on the same topic. My opinion on tracking time is I'm not a huge advocate of billing for time. Yeah. I'm a big advocate of [00:02:00] tracking how much time. Uh, you know, our team spends on projects and the reason, explain that.

There you go. 

John Mitchell: Okay. 

Darren Root: The, the reason for that is I think, so that, um, you know, we get realizations to make sure that there hasn't been scope creep or things that, that me as the person who created the, the quote or the estimate or, you know, the budget for this particular client. Um, is not getting out of hand.

So I really think it's, it's for tracking your costs, so to speak, and not so much for the billing aspects. That makes sense. 

John Mitchell: Yeah, it really does. I think it does feel like most firms that I talked to, especially even the more modern firms, um, they're, they're getting away from. Everything being billable hours.

And that's the way that they build their clients. Um, and, but there are still projects. There are still times when it is the best way, or it is the way that makes the most sense. [00:03:00] Um, so it's more of a hybrid, I think, for a lot of firms right now that you can use it always for an opportunity for realization and for budgeting those, that time inside your own firm.

But then sometimes it's great to. To bill exact and the hours specifically. And sometimes it's more of a project basis. 

Darren Root: Yeah. So I think what I heard you say, um, was. You know, a good portion of your firm may be on some level of fixed fee. 

John Mitchell: Yeah. 

Darren Root: Or value billing. And those two may be different. Right. A fixed fee is, you know, you may say that I'm going to bill you a thousand dollars a month, um, and a value bill.

Maybe. You know, I just saved you 20, 000 and for that. We're going to bill 4, 000, some, some number. So more value based billing. And in both of those things, I think you want to track your costs against the invoice just to know how you did know how your realization is. [00:04:00] But then I think I heard you say that there are times in a firm where maybe, you know, you want to charge for phone calls, right?

What it is, and you want to charge for the time spent. So you want to track that time and have the flexibility. To bill, uh, to bill for time, uh, straight up. Is that what you're saying? 

John Mitchell: That's exactly what I'm saying. You know, I think the reality is as, as firms become more modern in the way they think about their pricing and the structure of their, their work, they do begin to realize that.

Straight up billing for time is not always what your clients want. And it's not always what's best for the firm, but one way or the other, and this is what I love about your opening comment, one way or the other, you need to know how much time is being spent in your firm for a specific project, no matter how it's built in the end, because it is about the efficiencies.

It is about gaining insights into how your firm is actually working and how much, how much time your, your staff has spent. [00:05:00] Well, 

Darren Root: You and I are in agreement on this, but realize that there are, uh, a lot of consultants out there who, you know, would vehemently disagree with us. And, and that's okay. I think the important takeaway from this is with a product like canopy.

You can track time, you can bill for time, you can bill for fixed fee, you can bill for value billing. You have lots of flexibility in how your firm chooses to do this. And the really nice thing is the ease at which you can track time and bill it and relieve that time. You know, in, in, in the process, um, canopy allows for all kinds of different billing methods.

You know, you want to just put one line item on the invoice. Fine. You want to put multiple line items on there? Fine. You want to have a recurring fixed fee? Fine. So it gives you a lot of flexibility. And then the thing I really like, John, about where Canopy's at with [00:06:00] their, uh, you know, I would say with their contacts, their time and their billing is it seamlessly integrates, syncs.

With QuickBooks Online 

John Mitchell: and 

Darren Root: most firms I know are using probably QBO to run their accounting system and in a lot of systems out there, you just have to take some data from your time and billing system and key it in or not have it at all in QuickBooks Online with Canopy. You can easily sync those two together.

And makes for a really a win win. 

John Mitchell: Yeah. You know, we always talk about the idea of your tech stack, being able to integrate, being able to share assets. Um, this is a perfect example, Darren, of a, of a modern, um, solution that allows us to, to work with QBO in a really, really clean way. So, 

Darren Root: you know, when I was, when I was running the firm, we were using, [00:07:00] um, a practice management tool that we did our time and billing in, um, and And it was sort of walled off of you, if you will.

And I was running, you know, our accounting records with, with QBO. And all I was able to do really was to, to get my reports out of my practice management system. And then, you know, we'd key our deposits into QBO. So no, really never had a, an accurate picture. I mean, I guess I had an accurate, an accurate cashflow picture because I was keying cash in to QBO, but I didn't have really an accurate, accurate picture of how we were doing because all my time and billing was seamlessly integrated.

And so, man, having, having the, uh, functionality that canopy has to do that is fantastic. The other thing I would say, John is, you know, it's one thing to, in today's world, to have an integrated time and billing system with, with customers. QBO, but then it's also another [00:08:00] thing, how you interact, interact with clients today and, and, and, and they're shifting expectations of how they get invoices, how they pay invoices.

You want to talk a little bit about that? 

John Mitchell: Yeah. You know, being able to work with a firm that has created a clean, smooth customer experience is something that Darren, it used to be. You know, when, when I first got in around the profession, it was like, you were an anomaly. If you were providing that kind of an experience now, it's just table stakes.

It's what it means to be a part of a customer's life and work that we have to provide them a customer experience that makes it as easy as possible for them to work with your firm. Um, which is, is what we love about canopy from a lot of the features is that there is this two way street. Yes. It's a great experience for the firm, but.

It's a wonderful experience as well. Um, in an app, in the portal and in all of the things that they need to do become a really seamless, modern experience for them. That's really good for [00:09:00] your firm. 

Darren Root: Yeah. It's fantastic to think John, that I could finish a project. Relieve the time, know what my realization is, send out an invoice.

That invoice show up on the, uh, the firm's mobile solution powered by Canopy. The client can click and pay it and all that information flows seamlessly back through, relieves the receivable, flows back to QuickBooks online. Fantastic process. And if you're doing. You know, sort of recurring charges. Let's say you have a bookkeeping client that you have a card on file for, uh, you know, to pay that monthly fee.

Processes that as well. It handles recurring charges with a card on file. So you can relieve, uh, that invoices as soon as you bill it, which is fantastic. So, 

John Mitchell: you know, what I think of when I hear all of that is I think that often the firm forgets that. It is [00:10:00] canopies app, but it's your customer's experience with your firm and your name on it.

Honestly, in the long run, when a customer works with you, the apps you use, the apps that they use to integrate with you and work with you become part of your brand and they become part of the experience of working with you. And that's one of the things I love about this, that I think a lot of people run by.

They forget that every, all the money, time, energy, effort that is spent in developing that app. You get to leverage this becomes part of you all of a sudden you could not afford or nor would you want to, to build that kind of a world class app, but it becomes part of your customer experience when you leverage that.

And I think that's something that, that many accounting firms run past how important that is and what it does for your, your brand. 

Darren Root: Yeah, I think it's a fantastic point, John. The, the client experience, uh, and, and how a firm needs to think about that, this whole idea that you could have. And so, you know, I think of it as an end to end [00:11:00] tracking time to getting paid and the end to end, uh, fantastic experience, uh, is, is, is really where it's at today.

You know, I think John's, it's probably time for, uh, us to let Armen just, yeah. Hop in, show our listeners what we're talking about, and then you and I can come back and wrap up. 

John Mitchell: Great idea. Armin, take it away. 

Armin Kadic: As you're working through your tasking canopy, you have timers built in throughout the job. You can start a timer on the overall task or for many of the sub tasks that you're actively working on.

The timer will automatically attach the clients. The task and the step that you've started the timer from, and as you go to save that time entry, you're able to attach your service code as well as any notes that you need to add. For those that don't like being on timers, you can manually punch in time into our system.

If you click your plus button on the dashboard on the left, you have a time entry card that pulls [00:12:00] up that allows you to edit and add any time throughout the day. As your time is being added, if you shuffle over to the WIP report, you can jump in and see all of the active time that's being accumulated throughout your firm.

In this report, you can filter down specific team members or partners, you can filter down specific time frames, as well as be able to print or export a copy of your statement. Jumping into the WIP that I have on build, I can go in and grab all of that time and I'm quickly able to add this to a new invoice.

to capture all of the payments that are needed for the services that have been rendered. And I'm quickly able to add it to an invoice so I can get paid for my work. Once I've got everything set up, you have the ability to do your write ups and write downs directly on the [00:13:00] invoice here. And as I'm ready to go, I can go ahead and I can send this off to the client.

To be able to collect payment for the work that's been performed. These invoices do go directly through our portal and your client will have the option to now make the payment on this invoice. So as we navigate over to the client facing and log into the portal, we'll see an invoice here for Tom Cruise for the 1850 that was just sent over.

Right? So there's that invoice from today that just came in right at the bottom there.

Additionally, with our invoices, you have the ability to create recurrences. So for your monthly recurring clients, you can turn the one time invoice into a recurring invoice. For your monthly clients, you can set up recurring [00:14:00] invoices. I can go in here and select the client. Set up the invoice and set the length of the engagement.

Set the frequency of the invoice if that needs to be changed or edited. And once I've got my service codes pulled in,

I can quickly go in and set up recurring payments. This is very easy to do. You have the ability to set up recurring payments from credit card or directly from a bank account. This is a set it and forget it process. Once you set this up, the client doesn't have to log in to make the payments. You don't have to send the invoices or the receipts.

Everything is automated by Canopy. The last thing I want to touch on with the billing is we are completely integrated with QBO. And so as you set up your Billing in Canopy. You can also sync this back to your QuickBooks account and be able to sync all of your [00:15:00] clients, all the way through all of your service items all the way through, and then all of your invoices will push all the way through.

What I mean by that is as you're creating invoices in Canopy, those are getting synced to QuickBooks automatically, as you're capturing payments on those invoices, those will also be synced to your QuickBooks accounts. One thing to call out here is the client sync with QuickBooks and Canopy is a two way sync.

So clients or addresses can be updated in either system to make that change. 

John Mitchell: All right. Thanks again, Armin. Man, you can see, Darren, how just smooth this is, how easy it is from sort of an end to end process with time and billing to be able. Um, to, to create an experience for your customer, but also internally, just this, this word that keeps coming to my mind is frictionless.

Darren Root: It just feels like I was thinking the same thing, removing friction, removing friction in this process and getting more information. 

John Mitchell: I'll tell [00:16:00] you, we, um, have seen a lot of tools. That do time and billing. And I tell you, whatever you're using right now, now is the time to take a look at Canopy. They are doing this with accounting firms in mind, specifically with this end to end workflow, um, when it comes to time and billing, you've got to check out.

Darren Root: Now is the time to check this out.