About the Business

Terri has been running a small bookkeeping business for five years, growing from a solo operation to servicing 60 small and medium-sized businesses with the help of two staff bookkeepers. As the business expanded, Terri began thinking about offering accounting services but worried about managing that growth while keeping quality high.

The Challenge

Terri was heavily involved in every part of the business, especially quality control. Terri was spending 2-3 hours every day reviewing work and checking for mistakes. Without structured documentation or a clear system to manage tasks, errors and confusion often led to missed deadlines and frustrated clients. The business relied on a large spreadsheet to track client work, which wasn’t efficient and often caused mistakes. This lack of proper processes made it hard for Terri to step back and focus on growing the business.

Solution: OpsAdvisor’s Tailored Recommendations

Curious about OpsAdvisor’s AI-powered approach and free trial, Terri decided to give it a try. Terri started by completing an assessment focused on customer service operations, answering 10 targeted questions about the team’s workflow, tools, and processes.

OpsAdvisor’s questionnaire took a holistic view of the business. By asking both specific and open-ended questions, it gathered detailed insights into how the operations were running. It identified gaps in task management, workflow documentation, and internal communication. Through the answers, OpsAdvisor recognized that relying on a single spreadsheet to track progress for 60 clients was a major bottleneck, and the lack of standardized procedures was causing many of the problems.

With this information, OpsAdvisor made two key recommendations tailored to Terri’s business:

1. Create structured documentation: OpsAdvisor saw that the lack of clear guidelines was causing confusion and mistakes. It recommended creating simple guides to standardise tasks, making it easier to keep things consistent across the team.

2. Adopt a project management tool: After analysing the spreadsheet system, OpsAdvisor suggested switching to a more robust project management tool. Terri explored several options recommended by OpsAdvisor and decided to go with Trello, a tool that would help track progress, delegate tasks, and improve team communication.

These recommendations weren’t just generic tips—they were designed to address the specific challenges Terri’s business was facing. OpsAdvisor pinpointed the root causes of errors, missed deadlines, and Terri’s over-involvement in the day-to-day.

Results

Since adopting Trello, the business has seen noticeable improvements:

• Task tracking is now more detailed and organized, leading to fewer errors and delays.

• Terri has better visibility into the team’s workload and progress, meaning they doesn’t have to be involved in every task.

• The changes have freed up Terri’s time, allowing Terri to focus on managing the business and planning for future growth.

Although it’s still early days, Terri feels much more confident about expanding services and scaling the business in a sustainable way.

By following OpsAdvisor’s recommendations, Terri’s bookkeeping business is laying the groundwork for sustainable growth. With better tools and clearer processes in place, Terri can confidently pursue her vision of expanding services and scaling the business. The next step? Updating the OpsAdvisor assessment to reflect the new ways of working and identify the next area for improvement.