Accounting firms are investing heavily in technology to support transformation and operational efficiency; workflow tools, modernised practice management systems, and exploring AI. But friction persists, with Managing Partners reporting limited productivity improvements.
This disconnect puts IT leaders in a difficult position, as these technologies improve efficiency when adopted well.
So what's the problem? I spoke to several of Beeye's newest customers about this misalignment.
Improving productivity isn't the true goal. It's a means to an end. The outcomes that matter are improved utilisation, higher realisation, and wider profit margins. If software is implemented primarily for efficiency, the metrics partners care about aren’t likely to improve. Our customers have shifted their focus from productivity tooling to strategic resource management, and they’re finally seeing results. Here’s why:
Real-time resource availability
Most of our customers were planning in spreadsheets before Beeye. Even firms with scheduling or project software fell back on Excel. Accountants love a spreadsheet, but they’re woefully inappropriate for resource planning; they’re used inconsistently across teams and clunky to maintain.
The CIO at a large PrimeGlobal member firm told me, "We used spreadsheets to allocate work initially but not for changes along the way. Changes happen every day, sometimes every hour. We weren’t retrospectively tracking what actually happened either.”
The issue here is visibility: who’s doing what, when - who’s overworked, who’s underutilized. Without real-time visibility you can’t optimize utilization - and no amount of productivity tech will solve that.
Workflow automation has limits
Many firms have placed their bets on automation. We partner with leading workflow vendors and integrate with them directly. These tools absolutely help firms standardize and streamline processes. Beeye itself includes automation and templates for this benefit. But they don't solve utilization challenges at the fundamental level.
A practice line leader from one of our mid-tier US customers in the BDO Alliance explained, “Workflow tools helped standardize tasks. But we were still reacting to project and staffing problems after they happened. We had no way of seeing workload or capacity ahead of time.”
Workflow tools can help staff complete jobs faster and with better margins, but that person may already be over-utilized. Meanwhile, someone equally capable in a different office or team is doing nothing. When you turn down work because the schedule incorrectly says no-one’s available, you lose more revenue than workflow gains can recover.
Suitability, not just availability
Availability is only part of the equation when staffing engagements. Where are they based? Do they meet the project’s criteria? What’s their rate? How important are each of these considerations?
For many firms pre-Beeye, finding available resource was hard enough, let alone making sure they had the optimal profile. Calling around to find someone suitable was time-consuming and prone to favoritism or recency bias. Staffing was reactive and allocations were just “good enough”. With Beeye, schedulers can search staff criteria (loaded or integrated with HCM system data) using filters, or trust AI to find the best person for the work.
In addition to time savings for managers and schedulers, our customers report improved client outcomes, better staff retention, and increased utilization across the firm – including by sharing resources between practice areas. Even a 2% realization uplift represents significant revenue increase.
Modern, connected technology
SaaS tools vary in how well they integrate, especially with legacy systems. This can limit the potential of promising new technology investments. Several of our customers are addressing this by modernizing their firm's entire environment with best-of-breed tools that integrate end to end.
In a disconnected tech stack and potentially against a backdrop of unsuccessful projects, making a case for resource management software can be tricky, especially if it’s an addition not a replacement.
But it’s essential. It means you can use client, project, financial and HR data to make better resourcing and capacity planning decisions. As one IT leader put it to me, “We had tools in place, but they weren’t talking to each other. We didn’t have one version of the truth.”
Resource management software doesn’t replace practice management or workflow software; it makes them more impactful. And that’s why it should be deployed firm-wide. When you don’t control how people are allocated, productivity gains in the “doing” are surface-level improvements. But when you improve resource management - and with it realization, utilization, profit - you amplify the return of the rest of your stack too.
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