KGM Accounting is an accounting practice based in Bendigo and owned by Kristian Mallia. KGM provides accounting, taxation and consulting services predominantly to business clients.
For Kristian and his team, client relationships aren’t just about tallying figures at the end of the financial year. Thanks to their online business model backed by Xero, AccountKit and Hubdoc, they have the freedom to work with clients on-site and offer ongoing guidance on growing their businesses.
Kristian first heard about AccountKit at the Xero Roadshow in Bendigo last year, and today his team of five staff – including two accountants, a bookkeeper and two admin staff – use it on a daily basis.
One of the most beneficial tools for Kristian is the Correspondence Register, which has helped him eliminate paper notes and streamline communication across his whole team.
“I had just had too much paper floating around the office,” says Kristian. “It’s very hard to track sticky notes all over the place and it was causing a breakdown in communication. Now we use the Correspondence Register to record everything – it’s like a doctor’s setup where you can make notes during a meeting and it’s all automatically filed in one place.”
When it comes to managing clients’ loans, Kristian says AccountKit’s Equipment Finance Tool has been invaluable.
“The Equipment Finance Tool has been a big help because we can now easily monitor repayments on loans, automatically calculate all the interest and do tax planning knowing the interest is accounted for. Over the long term, that’s a really big time saver for us. And if the client misses a payment, we can pick it up straight away.”
Likewise, the team uses the Franking Account Register to ensure that every time a dividend or tax payment is made, all the information is captured and stored alongside client data for future reference.
“We’ve always just used a spreadsheet for franking accounts,” says Kristian. “But having a more formal online record with the Franking Account Register is really useful for us.”
Kristian also says that he’s recently started using the Inter-Entity Loan Tool, and it’s already paying dividends in time saved.
“I used the Inter-Entity Loan Tool for the first time last week and it’s been great. For the price per month, using it for just one client is enough to justify the cost. I only really need it to save me time with one client for it to be cost-effective.”
Greater efficiency, better communication and better client relationships
Ultimately, using AccountKit enables the KGM Accounting team to be more efficient and organised – which Kristian says is pivotal to maintaining strong client relationships.
“There’s a lot of time saved because I don’t have to spend ages organising paper at the end of the day. There’s no paper lying around in my office!”
“If I’m visiting a client on-site, I can record my notes while I’m there and send the actions straight through to my Executive Assistant Nemesha, and she jumps on and gets them done before I even get back to the office. It helps us maintain a professional image from a client perspective.”
Kristian says he wouldn’t hesitate in recommending AccountKit to other accounting practices, thanks to its time-saving potential and innovative functionality.
“The main reason I’d recommend AccountKit is it has lots of features that improve efficiency,” he says. “It’s the first time I’ve seen something like this within our industry that’s close to a doctor’s setup, where all critical information is linked and recorded at a client level. That’s the major reason why we joined in the first place.”
Want to see if AccountKit is the right fit for your practice? Sign up for a free trial, or join a webinar for a live demonstration of AccountKit’s key features.
