After struggling to gather client documents quickly and efficiently, the Day One team discovered a solution that streamlined the entire process.
As every accounting firm knows, gathering information and documents from clients is a critical business process. It can also be one of the biggest bottlenecks to getting stuff done. But with the right tech, this needn’t be the case.
In this article, we’ll highlight how Day One Advisory ditched email for Content Snare, allowing it to streamline document collection and save time.
Melbourne-based accounting firm Day One Advisory helps businesses achieve better accounting outcomes through bespoke advice, guidance, and support.
Until recently, the team had been using a mishmash of tools to request and gather client information, mainly relying on email. But as they found out, using a legacy communications tool to manage a niche process is fraught with problems.
First of all, email offers virtually zero functionality when it comes to enhancing the process of requesting and submitting information. You can ask a question, but the client can easily skip it or misinterpret it, submitting the wrong information altogether. This can be time-consuming and messy to sort out — for both the business and the client.
“When sending a laundry list of questions to a client in an email, a lot of the time, you’ll get 60% of the stuff back. Or you’ll ask for an attachment, and instead, you’ll get an answer. So we were half getting the information we needed, which required a bunch of follow-ups, and it just wasn’t as clear for the client.”
When sending out requests, not all questions or fields are relevant to every client. In some cases, whether a question is relevant or not depends on their answer to previous questions. But because email offers no way to hide certain fields and display others, the Day One team had only two options: display everything or send several follow-up emails. Both options ended up being needlessly complicated and time-consuming.
Tired of the constant back-and-forth emails and wasted time, the Day One team started searching for a better way to gather client information. They experimented with one solution, but they had concerns about security. It didn’t have two-factor authentication (2FA) or pin-code protection, for example. So the search continued.
While they didn’t have a specific idea of the tool they needed, they did have some must-haves. They needed a tool that offered an excellent UX, allowing them to build forms that show clients only information that is relevant to them.
They also wanted a tool that allowed them to be more specific in their requests. If they needed a certain file type from a client, for example, they wanted to make sure that the client could only upload that file in order to progress.
Custom branding was also important. They wanted to be able to create forms and requests that looked and felt like they came from One Day Advisory, not a third-party app.
Around this time, a tool was recommended to them through a popular Facebook accounting group. That tool was Content Snare, and they’ve been using it ever since.
Content Snare is a dedicated platform for requesting and gathering information, documents, and content. The Day One team uses it any time they need to send an information request, whether that’s for client onboarding, tax returns,or anything else.
Unlike email, Content Snare comes packed with powerful features designed to make this process easier. For example, Content Snare allows the Day One team to create custom web forms complete with specific requests — whether that’s for a text or number-only answer or a certain file type. They can even set boundaries for responses, including word limits, image sizes, and other formatting criteria.
“One of the main benefits we get from Content Snare is that we get the right information back from our clients. If we need a document, the only thing they can do is attach a file. This significantly limits the back-and-forth we have to do and saves us a huge amount of time.”
With Content Snare’s conditional logic, the team can now send dynamic web forms that reveal follow-up requests based on a client’s previous responses. So, for example, if they need to ask a client how many beneficiaries they want to set up and the answer is three, the form automatically adapts to request the relevant details for those three people.
Content Snare also allows Day One Advisory to create custom-branded web forms complete with the firm’s logo and a welcome message. So requests look and feel consistent with their other client communications.
Content Snare has also helped alleviate Day One’s concerns about data security. With 2FA preventing unauthorised access and all data encrypted in transit and at rest, the team can rest assured that their clients’ information is safe at all times.
From the client’s side, Content Snare provides a far superior UX. Each request can be clarified with detailed text or video instructions, ensuring that the client always knows what information they need to provide. If they need further assistance, they can ask a question directly in Content Snare, without having to resort to email.
And with Content Snare’s autosave feature, they can complete forms in more than one sitting without having to repeatedly press ‘save and continue.’
“Our clients love it because they know exactly what they need to provide. They can track what they’ve done and what they haven’t done. They can come to it and revisit it rather than having a draft email sitting there.”
In fact, one of Day One’s clients was so impressed by Content Snare that they started spreading the word to their own clients.
“I sent a questionnaire to a client for the setup of a new structure. She wrote back to me asking what software I had used for it, and then said that she loved it and that she'd recommended it to a handful of her clients.”
Is gathering information still a major bottleneck for your accounting firm? Are you fed up with constantly chasing clients for missing information, or struggling to find key attachments in long email threads? If the answer is yes, Content Snare can help.
Content Snare has everything you need to streamline, enhance, and automate the information-gathering process. The result is a tool that saves you time while providing an incredible client experience.
To see for yourself how Content Snare could transform the way you gather client info and documents, sign up for a free trial.
Ready to start saving time and turn content collection chaos into organized bliss?
Give Content Snare a try today with your free trial.
