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Replies posted by Victoria Peters

222 Replies

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LD7ESuperstar

asked in Ask a Peer

Best Practice for Seasonal Employees

This makes sense to me. We don’t have seasonal staff but we do use temporary accounts to park work to be assigned, and it works well. Our team goes to the work assigned to the temp account and assigns it to themselves as they start the work.I have not seen an unaccepted invite expire, we have one that is at least 3 years old.

David SadowskyRising Star

asked in Ask a Peer

Bank Routing and Account numbers

Another vote for Practice Protect here for managing APPs, @Ashley Rhoden I just checked out the Secured Items section - that looks very promising, I’m not sure how we missed it!

Sara GoepelKarbon Team

published in Share Tips & Best Practices

Karbon product roadmap preview: Features and updates coming in Q2 2023 🎉

This looks great!. My team is chomping at the bit for Karbon AI, Email Templates and the ability to send client requests to multiple recipients - Bring It On!

Megan RobertsRising Star

posted in Ask a Peer

Ranking Clients

Hi Megan,We use Client Groups to identify our Gold, Silver, and Bronze for the service package purchased by the client, the main difference is due dates so the team knows which clients to prioritize, that is probably the closest we have to processfying the rankings.The idea is that ALL of these clients are ‘ideal’ based on a ranking we ran through a couple of years ago. We identified the A and B clients - our ideal to measure all future clients against, C clients that we were generally happy to keep working with and D clients that we parted ways with. It was a tough exercise but allowed us to focus on the clients who value our services and helped the team know that we had their backs.We have now merged two firms and will be revisiting this - I will follow this thread for ideas to apply to the new organization. Thank you!

Lee TurnerBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Archive a Task Type?

Hi @Lee TurnerI completely understand not wanting to delete. A work around that I do is to add ZZZ at the front of the name and if there is room (do not use) at the end for work templates that I do not want to delete just yet. I assume it would work the same for Tasks. The advantage of this is that the archived but not archived items are at the bottom of the list so out of sight - out of mind and if they do get seen the ZZZ is a reminder to not use it.Hope that helps,V

Megan RobertsRising Star

asked in Ask a Peer

Did you set SMART goals for Karbon utilization before you went live?

This is a great idea @Megan Roberts, we did not do this specifically but they are there. Aiming for a Zero Triage and using My Week helps manage the noise of emails while prioritizing them is Relevant, in my opinion. If you have measurable goals for on time deliverables Insights is a great tool based on setting due dates and work statuses. I have some of our newly expanded management team who are not using Karbon as effectively as they could, you have got me thinking.I will be following this for ideas to encourage them!

CBC-OfficeRising Star

asked in Ask a Peer

Move colleagues planned week from personal My Week?

@CBC-Office I would use this and I am sure my team would. There are a few feature requests to make My Week even better - if you add this one I will be sure to vote for it!

David SadowskyRising Star

asked in Ask a Peer

How much are you spending on your tech stack?

Great question, @David Sadowsky I feel like ours has grown as we have grown and we may have the odd case of shiny object syndrome. I think we would categorize our approach as cost vs. benefit and if we have invested in a tool, an app, a system we continuously work toward optimal use. If we cannot see a benefit or a way for tech to grow with us we will look for alternatives. More often we find that we need to get more involved with the functionality. Having someone champion an APP at the team use level is a key part.With subscription costs rising I can see this as a metric to measure.

Rachel_SmithBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Capacity Planning, time budgets - how best to set up work items

Yes @Rachel_Smith we would like to get more granular with this as well. We are focusing on time budgets by person/role and we do not use time tracking so the budget is always remaining - until the work order is completed. We pull the information into a spreadsheet, not ideal.@kylenecarse calendar blocking is so key for time management, I have never thought of the use case for capacity planning. Nice.

Melissa BallettaBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Need tips on how you handle assigning staff to certain Organizations and Work Items

Interesting question @Melissa Balletta We are not great at assigning team members to contacts. When we set up a new contact we will add the client ‘owner’ and client ‘manager’ (most of the time). The team members get assigned through the automators but you are right, the list of associated team members gets unruly. When we switch staff we have to do it by work order, this is cumbersome when there is repeating work that is already set up. I find I it takes a few months to catch all the work that needs to be updated.Adding staff to work orders happens fairly organically.All staff members involved do not seem to show up on the ‘Client Team’ unless they are added. I had not noticed that before.It doesn’t look like it works any differently for Client Groups.We use the teams set up in Karbon, it is great for dashboards and @mentioning a group of people at once but you cannot assign tasks or work to a team or add a team to an organization.I think there may be a feature idea or two in wha

Jarett SBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Productivity Tracking

Hi @Jarett S We struggle with this as well. We do not use time tracking in Karbon but we do use Budgets. We assign budgets by person and role for each work item so we can create Kanban boards that give us snapshots. This helps with forecasting and capacity planning not measuring productivity, I do look at those dashboards at specific times of the month which give insight into how each person is progressing but not at the level you discussed. I thought there was a feature idea along these lines but I couldn’t find it. It is something I would upvote for sure!

Matt BeansBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Schedule Client Video Meetings through Karbon?

Hi @Matt Beans we use Hubspot for initial meetings and connections and face the issue of getting the notes and info from Hubspot to Karbon when we close the deal. It would be amazing to have it all in one space, I will also vote for this feature request!

CBC-OfficeRising Star

asked in Ask a Peer

Email's in To Do when updated to fully using My Week

Hi @CBC-Office If there were a lot of emails coming in that need to be actioned we break the work into weekly work orders, assigning the email to the work order for the week that it came in - this will make the timeline a little more manageable.We comment on the email when it has been actioned in the same way @max noted.The work order where all of these emails are parked does not get marked complete until all emails have been actioned or tagged into the next week if action could not happen.The work shows up in My Week as one item, My Week doesn’t get cluttered with emails unless there is additional assigning/action where it might make sense to do that.Not sure if that would work for you…Also, if emails are being forwarded to accounting platforms have you looked into Hubdoc - especially since you are in Xero.

Curt MastioBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Project Manager Role/Job Description?

Hi @Curt Mastio We have a client services team that looks after the initial assignment to a bookkeeping or accounting team, they will do as much of the set up as they can with the information that they have. From there each team has a Workflow Manager whose responsibilities include the project management - the responsibilities you listed and general team leadership. Typically, our Workflow Managers are responsible for a team of 5-9 accountants and bookkeepers. To ensure projects start on the right foot we have a couple of Onboarding templates that cover the set up and ensure the team understands the engagement. These templates start with onboarding the client into our processes and finishes with the team getting to work.We started this when we were about 30 people, we are at 80ish now, it’s key that the Client Services Team gets the projects into the hands of the Production Team as quickly as possible. We also conduct random ‘audits’ of the process to see what is working and what is

Amanda FrisiusBeginner

asked in Share Tips & Best Practices

@ mention same group

Can I create Teams for all of the works items or I will going to do this for each work items in Karbon? Teams are available across all work items, email comments and note comments, once they are set up through Settings they are good to go.A Client Team will be set up for each contact under the Details tab but I do not think there is a way to @ mention a Client Team.

Amanda FrisiusBeginner

asked in Share Tips & Best Practices

@ mention same group

@Carlo Santos If you go to Setting / Colleagues / Teams you can add a teamTeam members can belong to multiple teams.Hope this helps,

BrooksWSuperstar

asked in Ask a Peer

Capacity Planning

Hi @Ella Pretorius You may want to check out this article there is a whole section on capacity planning, including a video with Ian Vacin that will point you in the right direction.

Megan RobertsRising Star

asked in Ask a Peer

If you could build your Karbon database over again, what would you differently?

Great question @Megan Roberts I would make a plan for contact types, client groups, client owners and client managers - all of these have become unruly in our organization. This plan then needs to be communicated and understood by the whole team. Deviations from the plan reduce the effectiveness of the filters for reporting. I would also spend time on creating the Workflow settings. Statuses and Work/Task Types are so effective but can also get very messy. If you know your main processes these tools keep everything in line. The character count is limited, so clarity is key and beware of similar language for sub-statuses - that has caused confusion in my world.Any chance you get to attend a webinar with Ian Vacin on processes is well worth your time! I am a big fan of all of the Karbon content that comes my way but if you have to pick and choose...I agree with @max everything you can do to ensure repeating work survives work resets is worth the effort at the start.And finally, thi

Julie LepperBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

How to find just your @ mentions

@Julie Lepper Once an item has been moved out of Triage - over to My Week for example you lose the ability to search by @mention. This would be a feature request I would vote for. Sometimes you just know something has been @’d to you but you just cannot remember what it was - or maybe that’s just me!

Jacob SatterBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Hourly Rates by Team Member, not Role

Hi @Jacob Satter I like your work around, we just came across this as we merged two firms with different rates so I know there is not option for rate by person. We are value pricing so decided we could go with a rate per role. I think it is a feature request that would get some traction, you can do that through the top menu on this page.

Dalton HaysBeginner

posted in Ask a Peer

Adding Assigned Work to My Week

Hi @Dalton Hays I have found that the thing about My Week is a commitment to stay on top of it and managing some of the nuances in its current state can be time consuming.I personally do not like to leave anything in To Plan so when I see anything there, I will move it to the week I want it to be. I also spend time moving and managing the This Week bucket at least twice a week.We use automators to move work through different team members, I have found that even when there are no tasks currently assigned it will show up in My Week for all team members with future tasks in the week that the Work is planned, not when it’s actually applicable to them.Tasks will be assigned when the automator is triggered. This has been bothering me so I just created a Feature Idea - it may be a little out there but why not dream!I love all of the other insights in this thread, not sure I have anything else to add right now, but I am following.

DianeKSr. Community Champion

posted in Ask a Peer

How has your CSM helped you?

I love this @DianeK and we definitely need to celebrate our CSMs!@Zach Cochran and I meet for a quick 15 minute check in every month. Sometimes I have a list of things that are on my mind, sometimes his insights or questions get my thoughts going. Even if I just mention something he is super quick to respond and look for solutions or share best practice. I love the reports he is able to pull as well as the human connection.We went through the merging of two reasonably sized Karbon clients, the entire Karbon team was amazing through the process but Zach’s role in it was special. I may or may not have been a little cranky at the onset and it was a stretching experience for all of us, I felt like Zach was there as a bridge, a liaison, and a cheerleader through it all.I am grateful for our CSM!

Alison_JanecicBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Timesheet report by client and work

@davideigner good to know! I have not given this the attention it needs yet. Are you finding it to be a tool you go to regularly?

Alison_JanecicBeginner

asked in Ask a Peer

Timesheet report by client and work

Hi @Alison_Janecic Have you had a look at the Time & Budget tab for the Contact? If I am understanding you correctly the information you are looking for is there, but you would have to look at each client individually.You can expand to see who on the team recorded the actual hours and this portion of the tab can be downloaded. Further down the page is a breakdown by colleague.Hope that helps,V

David SadowskyRising Star

asked in Share Tips & Best Practices

Advice on onboard CURRENT clients

Great advice @Rebecca Williams and @DianeK Getting your clients and team familiar with the Client Portal from the beginning would be so valuable! I would vote for Rebecca’s second option and include the video Diane mentioned in that communication - you would be setting everyone on the right path and be all in in Karbon.

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