Chapter Two
IRIS Practice Management IRIS Accountancy Solutions
Contents 1
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 4 1.1
A review of the last chapter ...................................................................................................... 4
1.2
This week’s contents ................................................................................................................ 4
1.3
IRIS Practice Management Overview ....................................................................................... 4
1.4
Course Content – what have we done?..................................................................................... 5
1.5
Course Content – what is left to do? .......................................................................................... 5
2
Quiz ........................................................................................................................................... 6
3
Client List ................................................................................................................................... 7
4
Setting up a New Job ................................................................................................................ 10
5
Services ................................................................................................................................... 11
6
7
8
9
5.1
What is a Service? .................................................................................................................. 11
5.2
How to Setup a Service for Standard Jobs ............................................................................. 12
5.3
How to Setup a Service for a New Job ................................................................................... 13
Planning ................................................................................................................................... 17 6.1
Aim of Planning ....................................................................................................................... 17
6.2
Finding the Jobs You Want to Plan For .................................................................................. 17
Using the Staff Control Panel .................................................................................................... 20 7.1
My to-do List (Job Stages) ...................................................................................................... 21
7.2
Working Through Your Jobs ................................................................................................... 22
On-screen Monitoring ............................................................................................................... 24 8.1
Posting a Task ........................................................................................................................ 26
8.2
Reviewing the Client ............................................................................................................... 27
8.3
Dealing with Problems ............................................................................................................ 28
Reporting monitoring ................................................................................................................ 30 9.1
Options ................................................................................................................................... 30
9.2
Order ....................................................................................................................................... 31
9.3
Selection ................................................................................................................................. 32
9.4
Columns .................................................................................................................................. 33
9.5
Report Output ......................................................................................................................... 34
10
Communication Tracking – Introduction.................................................................................. 35
11
Homework ............................................................................................................................ 37 11.1
AutoMail users................................................................................................................... 37
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 2
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
12
11.2
Set up the Services ........................................................................................................... 37
11.3
Start Planning .................................................................................................................... 37
11.4
Post Tasks ......................................................................................................................... 37
11.5
Communications Tab ........................................................................................................ 37
Quiz ...................................................................................................................................... 38
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 3
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
1 Introduction This document is to be used in conjunction with the IRIS Practice Management webinar programme and includes the contents for chapter 2 out of 4. It is recommended that you have worked through chapter 1 first. In this second chapter we will cover:
1.1 A review of the last chapter F1 – on-screen help Quick client look up (documented in chapter 1) Data Mining Search (documented in chapter 1) Workflow getting started (documented in chapter 1) Homework (reviewed in the webinar) Setting up the jobs (documented in chapter 1), setting up a non-system standard job, such as VAT is covered below. Having a go with Job Planning (documented in chapter 1) Posting timesheets (with Time & Fees) (reviewed in the webinar) Quiz answers
1.2 This week’s contents Services – the services that you provide for your clients and how to set them up Planning – now the jobs are set up, we will look at how these are practically used and how they will filter through to the staff members to-do list Monitoring – use the on-screen enquiries to monitor progress, spot any problems and how you can query staff using the tasks Reporting – use the reporting capability to track progress and see what percentage of jobs are complete Communication Tracking – a quick look at what documents are tracked within IRIS Homework & Quiz
1.3 IRIS Practice Management Overview In the first chapter we said “on average a recent survey shows that an IRIS Practice Management user saves an extra 5 hours per staff member per month (Survey, May 2012).” As you are setting up Practice Management it is early days to see this fully, but hopefully you are beginning to see some gain. We also reviewed the key functions and benefits of using IRIS Practice Management to: Know what jobs are coming up – don’t miss anything Plan your jobs – make sure you have the right staff to do the work in the time frame Monitor your jobs – make sure no deadlines are missed Deal with unexpected problems – if staff are off sick know you can manage their workload Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 4
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Use communication tracking – file away all the documents and phone calls automatically Use data mining – know your clients for marketing purposes and enhanced services Use staff planning – graphical view of what your staff are doing and when So in the sessions so far, where have we got to? In the last chapter we laid the groundwork for the first four marked in bold. In this chapter we will put this into action and at the end of this session you should be able to plan your jobs, all staff should have their to-do list, and the managers shall have the tools to monitor their work and act when there are any problems.
1.4 Course Content – what have we done? 1.) Chapter 1 - Done Course Goals What is Practice Management – an overview Course content Starting point – quick client lookup and data mining search Workflow – getting started Homework and quiz before next chapter
1.5 Course Content – what is left to do? 2.) Chapter 2 – this session Review of Workflow getting started, homework, quiz Workflow – planning, monitoring and reporting (Personal Tax MASTER list and using this for the other products) Communication tracking – getting started Homework and quiz before next chapter 3.) Week 4 - Chapter 3 Communication Tracking – logging and filing documents Data Mining – saving searches, profiling your clients, categories, attributes and marketing Homework and quiz 4.) Chapter 4 Review of Communication Tracking, Data Mining, saving searches, profiling your clients, categories, attributes, marketing, homework, quiz and any feedback received since the last session Staff Planning Summary of Practice Management – bringing it altogether Homework and quiz
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 5
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
2 Quiz Have a look at the following and determine if they are true or false: 1.) VAT is a standard IRIS Job This is false, VAT is not a standard job it has to be set up manually within the IRIS Software. A standard job within IRIS is one that exists in Set Up | Standard Job Types and communicates with an IRIS product directly. For example; Personal Tax and printing a Tax Return updates the Personal Tax job type. 2.) It is possible to link a letter to a job stage This is true. With an IRIS AutoMail licence you can attach a letter to a job stage within a job profile. A good example of this is the Year End Reminder letter within the Accounts job profile. 3.) The system will automatically calculate the due dates for VAT returns This is true. If you set the job up to have a recurring period of quarterly, then the next period ends are automatically calculated. If you select the due date to be X days after the period end, then this will automatically be calculated for you. 4.) If you have a right handed mouse left click on the PM icon to bring up the client browser This is true. If you do this it gives you quick access to the client browser enabling you to access the client information quickly. 5.) The year-end reminder letters can automatically have the client’s year end populated This is true. With an IRIS AutoMail licence you can use the Accounting period end within the letter and have this automatically populated when the letter is generated. 6.) It is possible to assign a client partner in bulk to a selected group of clients This is true. You can automatically assign a partner or manager to a group of clients in bulk. 7.) You need to set up every single job against each client within IRIS as a manual task This is false. For the standard jobs within IRIS including Accounts, Corporation Tax, Personal Tax, Trust Tax, New client take on, these are automatically created within IRIS for you. 8.) On the Job Planning screen it is possible to group the jobs together by the statutory year end This is true. This is one of the columns on the Job Planning screen so you can right click on the column heading and group together all the period ends that are the same. This can be useful and make it easier to view the data on the screen. 9.) If I change a job profile, it will only change the new jobs that are created This is false.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 6
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
A change to the job profile will be made to all the jobs that exist in the system as well as the new ones created. This ensures all the reporting is consistent and in line.
3 Client List Everyone who uses any part of the IRIS Accountancy Solutions Software has the generic client report, so if you want a list of your clients this is a good report. To get this: Left click on your PM icon in the bottom right hand corner of your screen and get the client browser Select Print | Client List to display:
If you are already a Time & Fees user then this report layout is familiar to you. The Options tab will give you some details specific to the report. In this case there is a tick to show the details of the current jobs, and add the firm name at the beginning of the address The Order tab will determine the order in which you want the report to appear:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 7
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
In this example there is a tick in Partner first and then Client id On the right hand side enter a tick in Client Partner this will give a total showing the number of clients each partner has Click on the Selection tab to determine what you want to report on:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 8
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
For example; if you wanted to report on only certain partners you could select the partner identifiers. Select the Columns tab to choose the columns you would like to see on the report:
Entering a tick on the columns listed on the left will insert the column on the right Once you have the selection you want select OK and print the report to the screen, PDF, out to a Word Processor file or a combination of the above In this example it has been printed to screen and the output shown below
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 9
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
You can modify the selection over and over again to get the information, order and display the way that you want. We will look at other reporting options later, and how to save reports with the settings you want.
4 Setting up a New Job If you need to set up jobs that are not already in the default job list then use the following steps:
Log into Practice Management as MASTER From within the Staff Control Panel select Setup | Job Types From the Job Type list click New to display the screen below
In this example we are going to set up the VAT job: Enter the Job type code, in this case VAT Enter a Job Description in the field to the right, in this case VAT If you have Time & Fees you need to make a decision about how you want to log the time. For example do you want to post to VAT or VAT/Feb2013 relating to the quarter end? In this example we are going to post time to the code VAT so have taken the tick out of Record WIP at individual job level (otherwise is by job type)
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 10
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Next decide how often does this job repeat? In this instance we have selected quarterly so that the job repeats quarterly intervals. If it was the Accounts it would repeat Once per accounting period If it was the Payroll, you might have different jobs for Weekly intervals and Monthly intervals Once you have set the job up select OK If you want this job to have a profile, then set up the profile for the job as described in Chapter 1 of this course.
5 Services Once all the jobs are set up within the system, the next step is to look at the services you provide for your client and you will see how services and jobs connect.
5.1 What is a Service? A service is exactly what you would expect, it is the work that you do for your client. For example; you may provide the following services to a client: Accounts Corporation Tax VAT Payroll You need to ensure the services are set up for each client so the system knows what jobs to create automatically for you. So for example the Accounts services will have a job for each year you do the accounts such as Accounts 31/3/2012, Accounts 31/3/2011, Accounts 31/3/2010 and so on.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 11
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
This is a once only operation for the system as a whole, and any new clients you create you will add the services as part of the client set up procedure. Setting up the services is not only for an effective workflow process, but you can use this information to help profile your clients within Data Mining. For example; show me all the clients I do the Accounts for, with over 50 staff and I am not currently providing their payroll.
Once you have the service set up, for example Accounts, then each year the system will set up a job for you. The software knows what you need to do, so you can have peace of mind that you will not miss anything.
5.2 How to Setup a Service for Standard Jobs For those services that relate to the standard jobs, then these will be set up automatically by the system. To do this: Select Launch | Job Planning Click on the magnifying glass next to Services and this will give you a list of job types Highlight say the Accounts job and click Select to populate the Accounts job in the services field Select Bridge Services button:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 12
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
This will display the following message saying that it will automatically create an Accounts service for every client that is currently registered within IRIS Accounts Production. Select Yes followed by Ok
If you select Find in the top left hand corner you will now see all the jobs that are coming up in the next 3 months. Note – newly set up services will require you to go through and add a Next Job Period end date.
5.3 How to Setup a Service for a New Job For those jobs that are not in the standard system list such as Payroll and VAT you will need to set these up manually. This is a once only process. The best way to do this is to use Data Mining to identify your clients and then go through and set them up manually one each client. You may wish to get the workflow working for the IRIS Standard System jobs and come back to this later, in which case go on to section 6, and come back to this later.
To do this: Select Launch | Data Mining Only you will know how to find the clients you want to change, but one method might be to use the client partner or manager. You can use the fields within Data Mining to filter the list down. For example; to show only those clients for a particular partner select Forms | Partner
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 13
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Select the magnifying glass, highlight the partner and click Select | OK | Add to List and Find to display the list of clients Add any other filter that may help identify your clients you wish to apply services to Add any other columns that help identify the clients you wish to apply services to Highlight the clients, right click and select Client Maintenance and then the Services tab You will find the standard jobs are already set up
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 14
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
To set up a new Service click New to display:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 15
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
On this screen: Drill down to the job list by selecting the magnifying glass and select the Job so in the example above we have selected Payroll Enter the Date Started for the date the service started This is really useful as later you will be using this in Data Mining to identify how many clients you have taken on, how your services are growing and / or declining. In the latter case this comes from entering the Date Terminated when the client leaves, or terminates a particular service. Enter the Next job p/e this is the period end date on the next job you are going to do for this client. Check you are happy with the Recurrence, depending on the type of job it may have been automatically populated, or you may need to select the down arrow. In the above example this is set to Monthly intervals The Notes are free form text if you wish to add in anything specific for this service that may help at a later stage To save the details select Add to take you back to the client browser To move onto the next client select Next Client or Previous Client as appropriate.
Once all your services are set up you are now in a position to start planning the work and allocating it to the staff within the business. Hint: set up only one manual service type intially to make sure you are happy with the process. You can come back and add the others later.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 16
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
6 Planning You are now ready to start planning the work. It might be a good idea to start with a team for example the Accounts team or the tax team and see how they get on. This way you can refine the process before you roll it out to all the staff. Staff buy in is so important, and will make the process run smoothly with maximum benefit to you all if they are on board.
6.1 Aim of Planning The aim of this section is to plan the work so that:
The staff members have a clear to do list
The partners and managers can review the work
6.2 Finding the Jobs You Want to Plan For To plan the jobs go through the following steps: To open the Planning Screen select Launch | Job Planning
Use the magnifying glass next to service in the top left hand corner and drill down to the job list
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 17
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Select the job you wish to plan for, in this example we have selected the Accounts and choose Select The p/e on or before will default to 3 whole months in advance, but you can change this depending how far in advance you wish to plan Select the Find button to bring up all the jobs that are ready for planning If you only want to look at your jobs as a partner or manager then at the top of the screen where it says Include clients use the drop down box and select By Partner or By Manager. If you do select this then use the box to the right to select the partner or managers identifier. You do this by drilling down, highlighting the identifier and clicking Select Select the Find button again to refresh the screen
To order the clients on the screen into the order you would like them to appear, right click on the column heading. So in the above example the screen is ordered by the Job p/e showing the oldest periods first.
The Planning Status column shows us where we are with the job so it shows one of the following: Not yet created Pending In planning stage Scheduled Completed
We want to plan the jobs and schedule them so they disappear off the list, so for now let’s focus on getting the jobs In planning stage and Scheduled
Take the first job you want to plan and right click and select Job followed by Assignments to take you to the following screen (if it asks you to Create the job say Yes):
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 18
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
This is the engine of where is all happens, so take a few moments to make sure you are happy with the infromation on this screen: Enter the Manager for the job Enter the Job Assignee for the job This is optional but if you know the scheduled start date, put this in. It depends how your job profile is set up as to how important this is. For example; do your job stages due date flow from this date?
Each stage should now automatically have a staff member assigned to it and a due date. Where a due date is reliant on something else happening you will see this clearly in the due date basis column.
If you want to tweak the staff member or the due date double click on a job stage:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 19
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Here you can change the staff member assigned and the due date and select OK to go back to the Job Assignments screen
The last step is to change the job to Scheduled Where it says Planning Status select the drop down and choose Scheduled If however, you are not quite sure who will be working on the job and you need to clarify a few things, leave the job in the In Planning. This will show you that you have started working on planning the job but may have some outstanding queries. To save the job select Save, Close and Close to return to the planning screen
That’s it congratulations; the job is now planned and will appear on the staff members Staff Control Panel. You can now go onto the next job and plan the rest of them. It may take a bit of time on the first few, but you will soon speed up and get the jobs planned in no time.
7 Using the Staff Control Panel Having planned the jobs, let’s now move on to how the staff member see’s the to-do list, and how they will work their way through the list in their day. The key thing here is that the priorities are all worked out by how you have set up the profile for your jobs, so there are no arguments as to what is important.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 20
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
7.1 My to-do List (Job Stages) As a staff member when they log into Practice Management, the first screen they will see is their Staff Control Panel:
This screen is set so that it opens onto the Job Stages tab by default at login, yours may default to the Tasks tab if no changes have already been made. The Job Stages tab is a sensible option as this is the key focus of the work that needs to be done. Note: Another way of looking at job stages is these are the work items that will cost you rmoney if they have not been done. For example; filing a set of Accounts at Companies House.
If you want to do the same thing and set yours to open up on the Job Stages tab then select Setup | Options and where it says Open use the drop down menu to select the tab and choose Save followed by Close
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 21
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Once again the Job stages screen can be configured to show the data in the way that each staff member wants to see it. On the screen above it is grouped by Job Type. To group by a column right click on the column header and select Group To ungroup, do the same and select Ungroup To order the screen by say the due date, left click on the column header To move the columns around left click and drag the columns to where you want them to appear
Note: each staff member can have their screen as they like. It is important for each staff member to be comfortable with their layout.
7.2 Working Through Your Jobs The next step is to work your way through the jobs stages on the screen, your to-do list:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 22
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
If the job is connected to an automatic job stage, that is one that is connected to a function within the IRIS compliance module, then you can highlight the job and select the Workflow link button. In the above example it is the Final CT600 so selecting the Workflow link button will go as close as it can into the correct application and function. Once the job stage has been done, it needs to be marked as complete either automatically or manually: If it is an automatic stage it will complete ths job automatically moving the staff onto the next stage If it is not, then you will need to right click and select Mark as Completed If you have Time & Fees, move to the Timesheet tab and post the time entry You are now ready to move onto the next job stage and repeat the process
This will make sure when you are reporting on jobs, and reviewing a job you know exactly where the job is at.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 23
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
8 On-screen Monitoring Each staff member within the business will be working their way through their to-do lists on the staff control panel. At the same time the partners and managers need a way to keep track on how things are progressing. There are several ways in which this can be done. This section looks at the on-screen enquiries for a summary of the jobs, and then shows how to drill down into the client and job detail. To monitor and review the jobs: From the Staff Control Panel select the Jobs tab to display:
Once again the screen can be configured to show the data in the way that each staff member wants to see it. On the screen above it is grouped by Job Type. To group by a column right click on the column header and select Group To ungroup, do the same and select Ungroup To order the screen by say the status, left click on the column header To move the columns around left click and drag the columns to where you want them to appear
Note: each staff member can have their screen as they like, it is important for each staff member to be comfortable with their layout.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 24
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Change the filter at the top of the screen to see the jobs you are interested in, For example; select the drop down and show:
So to see the jobs that you manage, select show jobs managed by and then in the field to the right enter the staff identifier. If you do not know the identifier use the magnifying glass and drill down to the staff list, highlight the staff member and click Select This shows all the jobs the manager is responsible for. You can review each job at the high level to ensure it is on track. For example; you can look at the Status column vs the Statutory Deadline If you need to drill down into the job you can right click and select Profile to see the details of how the job is progressing:
In this example you can see that the job is with the staff member RP querying the accounts. At this point you can make a decision about what to do:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 25
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Is it just finding out information? Or do you need to query with the staff member what is going on?
If it is the latter you can send the staff member a task to find out more information. To so this right click on the job stage and select Post Task
8.1 Posting a Task
If you do want to post a task this will apear on the staff members task list. Tasks are a good way of communicating with the staff about ad-hoc query’s and / or to-do’s. Note: a task does not have to relate to a client, it can be as simple as, “Could you make me a cup of tea? Thank you.” In this example we have sent the task to the staff member asking, “Why are the queries on this account still outstanding?” To do this the key fields to enter information into are: The Assigned to this is who the task going to. The Due date you would like the task completed by The Subject saying what information you want or describing what the task is Any further information can go into the Notes section at the bottom of the screen Note: the client and jobs screen will automatically be populated from the job profile Select OK to send the task
Once the task has been completed, you can select the task off the tasks tab within the Staff Control Panel and click on the Complete task tick box. The task will disappear off the list. (Note you can see it again if you look got completed tasks).
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 26
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
8.2 Reviewing the Client Whilst you are on the Jobs tab, you may also like to look at further information about the client. To do this highlight the job, right click and select Client
Once you are on the client file you can look all the client information including: The A/P Figures button on the Basic tab will show you the figures for the last three years sets of Accounts The Jobs tab will show you the progress on all the jobs for the client The WIP tab will show you the detailed WIP for the client, plus you can drill down into the Fees information, and raise a bill The Communications tab will show you all the recent correspondence you have had with the client
This is all important information to help you to make plans and judgements about where the job is at and any action you may need to take.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 27
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
8.3 Dealing with Problems There are all sorts of problems that can arise as jobs are progressing. For example; In recent years we have had bad weather so we need to make sure our staff can work remotely. Staff sickness is a typical problem. If this arises, we need to identify what work they were doing, how urgent it is and does it need to be re-allocated. This section shows how this can be done quickly and easily.
Looking at the staff sickness issue it is possible to identify very quickly what that staff member is working on. To do this: Go to the Job Stages tab on the Staff Control Panel, choose to Show stages assigned to If you are not sure of the staff member’s identifier, select the magnifying glass to see the staff list, highlight the staff member and choose Select Click Find to display all the job stages that staff member is responsible for At this point you could order the screen by due date by clicking on the column, or group them by due date.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 28
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Anything that is urgent and needs to be assigned to another staff member, highlight the job stage and double click to show the detail of it:
Change the staff member in the Assigned field (it is possible to drill down to see a list of staff at this point if needed and select the staff member) You can also modify the Date the job is to be completed
Repeat this process for each job stage you want to move to someone else whilst the staff member is off sick. This will ensure nothing will be missed.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 29
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
9 Reporting monitoring As well as the on-screen enquiries there are the reports that can be used for reporting on the workflow. This can help for example; if you want to see what percentage of jobs are complete.
To use these select Reports | Management Reports | Workflow report to see:
If you are a Time & Fees user, or use the client list that exists in all the IRIS products then you will be familiar with this report layout0.It also follows the same Options, Order, Selection and Columns standard that the client list did that we looked at on page 7 above.
9.1 Options The Options tab has specific information to the report. Initially keep it simple, once you are comfortable you can start building it up and putting more information in and changing the shape of the information coming out. One thing to note is the reporting is very flexible. For now try: Select the job to be reported on
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 30
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Enter a tick in the key stages you want to show on the report, remember the more stages you tick the text will shrink to accommodate the information If you want to see what the turnaround time that it took to do the job then enter the key stages that you want to monitor Move onto the Orders tab
9.2 Order The Order tab determines the order in which the information will be reported on. In this case select the Job recurrence P/E date to group the years together, and enter a tick on the right hand side to total these Then select the Progress Status along with a tick on the right hand side to see what percentage of clients have reached this stage (see the report output) Next select the Client id to show the information in client order
Move onto the Selection tab
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 31
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
9.3 Selection The Selection tab gives you the opportunity to only show those clients who are interested in. For example, it might be you only want to see particular partner’s clients in which case you could enter the partner identifier in the Partner field In this example, ensure that the only client type selected is Personal clients and enter a tick in all the fields under Include jobs It is possible to come back and refine this at a later stage. For example; you may wish to only shown certain Period Ends, or jobs that are not Completed
Next move onto the Columns tab
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 32
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
9.4 Columns Use the Columns tab to determine the columns you would like to appear on the report. You can pick as many as you want. The more information you want on the report, the font size will automatically adjust to accommodate it. You can choose Landscape or Portrait to accommodate the number of columns.
Entering a tick on the left will populate the columns displayed on the right Select OK when you have chosen all the columns you want to appear Note: if the report does not look quite how you want it to run it again and change the chosen settings on any of the tabs, fewer columns are usually better. We will look how to save the reports at a later stage. (If you want to have a go now select the Memorise button, give it a name and make it public, then use Reports | Memorised Reports to access the report later.)
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 33
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
9.5 Report Output The report output screen looks like;’
At this stage you can select to run the report to Printer, PDF, Word Processor or Screen. In this case the Screen has been selected and this is the format of the output:
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 34
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
As you can see it shows a percentage of how many jobs have reached each stage. This can be useful for monitoring the on-going jobs and also help me plan for next year. If it is possible to identifiy the strengths and weaknesses in the job turnaround, then improvements can be made on this for the next year.
10 Communication Tracking – Introduction The majority of documents that are generated in IRIS are tracked and logged in the Communications tab within the client maintenance screen, The list of reports can be seen from within the Staff Control Panel by selecting Setup | Report logging
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 35
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
Have a look at this list, but we will look at how this works in detail in Chapter 3. Close to exit this screen To review the documents once they have been saved to the client files, left click on the PM icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen; highlight a client and select View, then select the Communications Tab. If you have run any reports recently you may see them listed here.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 36
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
11 Homework 11.1 AutoMail users Set up an AutoMail letter and link it to a jobs stage
11.2 Set up the Services Use the instructions above and set up all the services for your clients. Remember this is only a once only operation and will ensure that no jobs get missed in your business.
11.3 Start Planning For a group of clients, staff, department or a service plan a series of jobs. Watch this flow through to your Staff Control Panel, and see how the staff get on. From this process: Is your profile working for you? Is it too long or short? Do the staff see the benefits? If not what are their concerns. It is really important they see this as a benefit so during the trial any concerns need to be taken into consideration and used to refine the job profiles.
11.4 Post Tasks Post a task that relates to a client and see it filter through to the staff members to do list. Post a task that does not relate to a client and it filter through to the staff members to do list. In both cases complete the task
11.5 Communications Tab Have a look at the Communications tab on the staff control panel and see how the documents are being stored. Take a look at the Communications tab within client maintenance and see how the documents are being stored. Try right clicking on a document and sending an email. Try the Send Email button on the bottom of the Communications screen.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 37
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
12 Quiz Go through the following and mark whether they are true or false? 1.) It is not possible to create a job that will automatically recur and have the period end date calculated by the system unless it is a system standard job. 2.) The generic client list off client maintenance is only available to Practice Management users. 3.) As a partner or manager it is possible to look at work that is assigned to someone else. 4.) If I wanted to post a task that does not relate to a client you need to set up a dummy client in IRIS and use this. 5.) I can enter a due date on a task. 6.) I cannot enter a priority on a task. 7.) Automatic job stages within IRIS such as generating the Personal Tax return will automatically complete the job stage within IRIS. 8.) As I have completed a job stage I can post the time into my timesheet if I have a Time & Fees licence from within the Staff Control Panel. 9.) As a partner or manager I can see those jobs that I am responsible for from within the Staff Control Panel. 10.) It is possible to see all the jobs I am working on for a client within the client maintenance file. 11.) I cannot save the report once I have configured it within IRIS; I have to set it up from scratch each time. 12.) Each staff member has to manually complete job stages for every single job.
The answers are in chapter 3’s notes.
Copyright © 2013 IRIS Software Ltd. All rights reserved.
Page 38
www.iris.co.uk/accountants
