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Smart suggestions for Client Requests and KPI work status workbook

Related products: Work Practice Intelligence

Use smart suggestions to complete work faster and easier when sending Client Requests, and truly understand your firm's process flow with the updated KPI work status workbook.

Smart suggestions for Client Requests

Smart suggestion functionality has been added to Client Requests. This is the same experience you will have seen when sending emails from work timelines. 

From the Client Request sending modal, Karbon now suggests a list of 6 contacts to send to, based on contacts that are associated with the work item. 

Sending Client Request emails is now faster and easier because you no longer need to search for the appropriate contact.  Plus, it gives you full confidence that you are selecting the right contact. If you have multiple contacts and emails, the ones associated with the work will be displayed.

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Updated KPI Work Status Workbook (coming soon Dec 19)

The newly revised Work Status workbook improves on the initial workbook released in June 2022. While the original version showed the time, status, and number of completed work items, this version provides more detail and allows you to truly understand your firm's process flow by breaking down your work by client, client owner, employee, and work type. 

The workbook is designed to help you identify how the status of your work has progressed over time, and gives insights into how your firm has performed to date. This historical view will help answer critical questions such as:

  • Where are the bottlenecks in my process?

  • What is my lead time for delivery?

  • Which customers’ work takes the longest to complete? And

  • What is the time it takes for my employees to complete their work?

Combined with the Work Outstanding workbook, you can see all the work due and apply lessons learned from the Work Status workbook.

Thanks. I more expect functionality updates in Karbon.


Thanks. I more expect functionality updates in Karbon.

@MikeLiang What’re your top 3 requests? 🙂


I would like to see Karbon spent more time on improving feature for growing firm, rather than spending more time on data analytics. Without feature of controlling the accuracy and completeness and adding dimensions of the data, the data analytics is misleading and no use.

  • Fundamental improvement on client contacts module
  • Fundamental improvement on communication privacy protection
  • Fundamental improvement on work template - using a guided flow-through forms, with ability to reinforce compulsory settings so that no any set ups will be forgotten, and there are consistency in work setup
  • Fundamental improvement on user access control. Karbon user access control. e.g, standard user should not be able to setup work, setup new contact etc. etc. 

Nothing improved above key modules of Karbon since I joined Karbon 1.5 years ago.


I would like to see Karbon spent more time on improving feature for growing firm, rather than spending more time on data analytics. Without feature of controlling the accuracy and completeness and adding dimensions of the data, the data analytics is misleading and no use.

  • Fundamental improvement on client contacts module
  • Fundamental improvement on communication privacy protection
  • Fundamental improvement on work template - using a guided flow-through forms, with ability to reinforce compulsory settings so that no any set ups will be forgotten, and there are consistency in work setup
  • Fundamental improvement on user access control. Karbon user access control. e.g, standard user should not be able to setup work, setup new contact etc. etc. 

I meant more specifically (like your bottom two, good suggestions). Rather than fundamental improvement on client contacts module, what is one, specific thing you would change about it? 🙂


Nothing improved above key modules of Karbon since I joined Karbon 1.5 years ago.

I’ve been using Karbon 2.5 years and disagree, but that’s okay 🙂 Have you registered for tomorrow’s webinar to tune in for a reminder of what improvements have been made in 2022?
 

 


Thanks. I more expect functionality updates in Karbon.

@MikeLiang What’re your top 3 requests? 🙂

If I could add my requests too, lol, I am frustrated with all the emphasis on KPI’s and metrics I’m not even interested in right now, I’m not sure how the metrics are even useful.  And that’s all I ever hear about… Karbon KPI’s to help you be more efficient, but there really aren’t a lot of practical helpful KPI”s i’m seeing yet. Would love to hear the top 3 KPI”s people find useful. 

Anyhow, the top three I would like to see (maybe someone should compile the top 30 request and have a poll on everyone’s top features): 

  • Shared Triage
     
  • Ability to send a client request list to multiple people/emails addresses 
     
  • Ability to start/stop the timer on the work item, change the status of a work item (most importantly) and also the assignee and due dates in My Week on the overlay that pops up. We are clicking way too many times to go into work items, change those items, and then back into my week.  Wasting a lot of time here.

@SamG what Karbon has done in improving client contact management?


What has been done in any areas I mentioned above? Name it.


Anyhow, the top three I would like to see (maybe someone should compile the top 30 request and have a poll on everyone’s top features): 

  • Shared Triage
     
  • Ability to send a client request list to multiple people/emails addresses 
     
  • Ability to start/stop the timer on the work item, change the status of a work item (most importantly) and also the assignee and due dates in My Week on the overlay that pops up. We are clicking way too many times to go into work items, change those items, and then back into my week.  Wasting a lot of time here.

I believe both Shared Triage and sending client requests to multiple contacts was coming and nearly here, but shelved for focus on billing and other things 😢


@SamG what Karbon has done in improving client contact management?

What is your top request for a change to client contact management?


What has been done in any areas I mentioned above? Name it.

Put me on your payroll 😉


Anyhow, the top three I would like to see (maybe someone should compile the top 30 request and have a poll on everyone’s top features): 

  • Shared Triage
     
  • Ability to send a client request list to multiple people/emails addresses 
     
  • Ability to start/stop the timer on the work item, change the status of a work item (most importantly) and also the assignee and due dates in My Week on the overlay that pops up. We are clicking way too many times to go into work items, change those items, and then back into my week.  Wasting a lot of time here.

I believe both Shared Triage and sending client requests to multiple contacts was coming and nearly here, but shelved for focus on billing and other things 😢

 
Yick, they need to refocus.  Shared Triage and multiple contact client request seem more helpful to the majority of us. 


Thanks. I more expect functionality updates in Karbon.

Hi Mike. Thank you for the feedback. I hope you can join us for the webinar tomorrow. We’ve also got lots of exciting things planned for next year, so stay tuned! 


Thanks. I more expect functionality updates in Karbon.

@MikeLiang What’re your top 3 requests? 🙂

If I could add my requests too, lol, I am frustrated with all the emphasis on KPI’s and metrics I’m not even interested in right now, I’m not sure how the metrics are even useful.  And that’s all I ever hear about… Karbon KPI’s to help you be more efficient, but there really aren’t a lot of practical helpful KPI”s i’m seeing yet. Would love to hear the top 3 KPI”s people find useful. 

Anyhow, the top three I would like to see (maybe someone should compile the top 30 request and have a poll on everyone’s top features): 

  • Shared Triage
     
  • Ability to send a client request list to multiple people/emails addresses 
     
  • Ability to start/stop the timer on the work item, change the status of a work item (most importantly) and also the assignee and due dates in My Week on the overlay that pops up. We are clicking way too many times to go into work items, change those items, and then back into my week.  Wasting a lot of time here.

Great feature ideas @David Perry! Make sure you vote for these in the feature ideas section (if you haven’t already). 


Nothing improved above key modules of Karbon since I joined Karbon 1.5 years ago.

I’ve been using Karbon 2.5 years and disagree, but that’s okay 🙂 Have you registered for tomorrow’s webinar to tune in for a reminder of what improvements have been made in 2022?
 

 

Thanks for the webinar shout out @SamG.  We’re excited to reflect on a great year!


 Great feature ideas @David Perry! Make sure you vote for these in the feature ideas section (if you haven’t already). 


I believe I have!  


A few long running wish list items.

Add functionality for date control and date defaults to work item templates.

Add a new date field for internal due date or statutory due date. Only one due date field is insufficient.

Add functionality for US tax dates, original filing date, extended due date, extended yes/no. 

Add user permission to restrict who can change dates.

Save time on setup of new work items, include default recurrence name and frequency on work template. 


Would love to hear the top 3 KPI”s people find useful. 

I would like to see these KPIs represented as run charts so I can see improvements:

  • Time from work start to work finish (we want this to be less than one day)
  • Time from work ready to work start (we want this to be less than one day)
  • Average days past due for uncompleted past due work (we want this to be 0)

I would like to see these KPIs represented as run charts so I can see improvements:

  • Time from work start to work finish (we want this to be less than one day)
  • Time from work ready to work start (we want this to be less than one day)
  • Average days past due for uncompleted past due work (we want this to be 0)

@max Is that for specific Work types? What work is your firm doing where it’s started and finished same day? Most of our work will have either preparation hours > 7.5h (one days work) or a queries/review process that is < 0.1% of the time completed within a day or preparation being finished.


@max, thanks for sharing! 

How would you factor in work with client requests?  The work may be started one day, but if clients do not complete their requests, days or a week could go by with an item started but not finished. Would that throw your metric off?


I would like to see these KPIs represented as run charts so I can see improvements:

  • Time from work start to work finish (we want this to be less than one day)
  • Time from work ready to work start (we want this to be less than one day)
  • Average days past due for uncompleted past due work (we want this to be 0)

@max Is that for specific Work types? What work is your firm doing where it’s started and finished same day? Most of our work will have either preparation hours > 7.5h (one days work) or a queries/review process that is < 0.1% of the time completed within a day or preparation being finished.

There are some work types, or some work within certain work types where it is currently not possible to accomplish one-day completion, but we want to tackle that problem down the road. It seems impossible for some larger work items now, but I think it may be possible in the future. We will keep experimenting.

For most of our work, the cycle time (the sum of all staff time on a work item) is less than 8 hours, but it takes days or weeks to complete for various reasons (bottlenecks in prep, review, rework, client requests, etc.), but it’s theoretically possible to complete the work in one day with proper organization. We have been experimenting with “One-piece flow cells” for the last year. We are not perfect, but they are getting better.

The goal is to get an idea of how long it takes for each person to do their work for a specific work type, on average, and then do the math to figure out how to make it work. Here’s an example:

A 1040 takes us, on average, 185 minutes to complete:

  1. Admin collect and file documents (25 min)
  2. Preparer prepares tax return (100 min)
  3. Reviewer reviews tax return (50 min)
  4. Admin processes tax return (10 min)

If I have 30 returns to complete in a specific day, and we set aside 6 hours to complete the returns, I know I can get that done with two admins, eight preparers, four reviewers, and one processer.

A one-piece flow cell puts everyone in a room together and they pass work to each other straight away. We do this over a Teams call since our staff are remote. We have been working towards excellence, which we have not done yet, but we are getting closer than ever to this ideal state.

Everyone in the cell starts with Admin work until the first tax return is ready for prep at which point a preparer will peel off to prepare it. Everyone does Admin or Prep until a return is ready for review at which point a reviewer peels off and reviews the return. The processers keep working at Admin until a return is ready for processing at which point, they peel off to processes. The staff in the cell continually float back and forth between roles as demand dictates since all work items take different amounts of time at each stage. Most of the time reviewers float back to prep when needed and processers float back to Admin when needed, but prep can float back to Admin or up to Process as well.

One of the biggest advantages we’ve seen in this system is that problems found in review and processing are immediately communicated back to where the issue arose, and the problem is addressed in real time in a way that everyone in the cell learns. The possibility of preparer making a mistake 30 times and the reviewer catching it two weeks later doesn’t exist here. At most, three or four returns will ever have repeated mistakes.

@max, thanks for sharing! 

How would you factor in work with client requests?  The work may be started one day, but if clients do not complete their requests, days or a week could go by with an item started but not finished. Would that throw your metric off?

This was our biggest issue, so we have been working on it relentlessly for three years. Here’s what we are trying this year for 1040 returns:

  1. Segment clients into cohorts based on the week we expect to complete their return (a combination of firm strategic need, historical document submission timeframe, and related business return completion). The target is to complete all individual returns between Feb 1 and March 31, a little over 8 weeks for a total of 9 cohorts.
  2. Send emails to each client telling them when we expect to complete their return and asking them to schedule a phone call to go over some questions we have for them.
  3. Client schedules a meeting in their cohort’s week (we use Calendly to limit the number of calls scheduled per day to match how many returns we want to complete that day)
  4. Calls are scheduled in the morning and on the call, we complete the questionnaire, review the organizer, and thereby identify with a high degree of certainty which documents we need to complete the tax return. This was last year’s big experiment that virtually eliminated mid-work client requests.
  5. Admin staff send the client request email while on the phone with the client and wait on the phone to confirm successful upload of necessary documentation. This is the big experiment this year, so we’ll see how it goes.
  6. All successful calls result in “ready” work for that afternoon’s one-piece flow cell
  7. Admin will still be conducting calls when the cell starts.
  8. We’ll strategically front-load the calls to build a small buffer of ready work to smooth things out throughout the week.
  9. Client receives completed tax return FIFO as the cell completes them.

Since we are working in defined one-week cohorts, we are also experimenting this year with adding the work items week-by-week, updating the Karbon template at the end of each week to address issues we found in each successive cohort (yay for quick API-driven work creation).

We use 1040s as a testbed for the system and had outstanding success last year. We are fine-tuning 1040s this year and expanding the philosophy to other tax returns and financial statements. I’m not sure how it will go, but we’ll find out and make adjustments as necessary.

Apologies for the long post. 😕


I would like to see phone call integration that would give statistics similar to the email BI information, i.e. how many hours it takes us to respond to an email (phone call) vs how long it takes clients to respond to our email (phone call). I noticed that when I click on a phone number it takes me straight to a teams call. I would like to see phone calls tracked in Karbon. 

thanks!


I would also love it if I could mark an email in triage as “low priority” without having to do the dropdown. (Similar to how you can “clear” an email - should be able to mark it as low priority)


@Phil Lyman make sure you add these great ideas as ‘feature ideas’ or vote for them if they exist!