REDW Advsiors and CPAs understands that it opens the door to successful careers enabled by reliable data and smart processes. This then drives better client delivery and profitable growth.
When the firm’s technology team led by Shawn Fisher, began searching for a resource management solution, their goals were clear: strive for consistency to balance utilization, improve visibility, and uplift profitability across all departments.
“We were stuck in our ways of scheduling differently per partner, per group; utilizing the wonderful world of Excel spreadsheets or just Outlook calendar or, you know, some obsolete software,” Shawn shared during PrimeGlobal’s Demo Day session earlier this year. “What we really are trying to see at REDW is overall true resource management, not just our staffing capability.”
“We sought to broaden that intellectual understanding of ‘yes, we can staff people’ - but we want to truly understand the resource side and truly dive into project management,” Shawn reflected.
“Opening that mindset of what true resource management and project management is - that was one of the biggest reasons why we chose to move to a solution.”
Centralizing Fragmented Scheduling
Before adopting Beeye, scheduling at REDW looked different in every department. Staff relied on their own tools from Excel to Outlook, making it difficult for leadership to achieve a full-firm view of capacity and performance.
Beeye offers this by providing multiple scheduling modes and views to support the firm’s diverse service lines. This means the entire firm can use the same planning solution, which then enables resource sharing across service lines and locations to optimize capacity as needed:
- Block Scheduling for larger engagements like audit and consulting.
- Task-Based Scheduling for detailed, high-volume work like Tax.
- Automated Scheduling that assigns work, such as 1040s and bookkeeping, based on skill sets and availability.
“We have pushed out an initiative to make sure that projects benefit from utilizing people from different geographical locations,” Shawn explained.
“Having an algorithm to help match a skill of what a team member is proficient at or is learning gives us the ability to put the right people in the right spots, with the ability to scale and develop those individuals.”
Integrations that Drive True Resource Management
Resource management is more than scheduling. But moving to this mindset means connecting firm operations and data across clients, projects, HR, time and billing. Therefore, for REDW, integration capability was one of the biggest deciding factors in their software selection.
"We want everything to be able to talk. We want a centralized location where we can pull data,” Shawn said. “But I don't want our team members to have to go to 17 different spots to really figure out what's going on. So the integrations were a big piece.”
Beeye’s open integration framework connected REDW’s core systems, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM, XCM, and CCH Practice Management. Future integrations include Aiwyn and LC Vista.
Shawn notes Beeye’s proactive custom API solutions to working with ecosystem vendor limitations, “The integration capacity that your team had at Beeye was very eye-opening.”
While REDW is in a transition period of legacy systems to a more modern ecosystem, these custom integrations allow the firm to use Beeye resource management without losing control and connectivity of critical practice management data.
Real-Time Financial Visibility
This connectivity means real-time engagement financial data is visible alongside resource planning. Instead of waiting for post-month-end Power BI reports, the firm can now evaluate progress as it happens and forecast profitability projections on live engagements.
“We all want to know what's happening,” Shawn explained. “ The feedback from our leaders has been around having it [data] in one place – being able to run a quick report or look at a dashboard to see where projects are at."
"I don't have to go to another website. I don't have to have another tab open. It's all one location.”
Beeye enables partners and managers to track fees, budgets, time, and completion status in real time, while also fostering accountability among team members and upskilling their business acumen faster.
“It gives them a better understanding of the business side of it...The accountability rises greatly in the scenario where a staff member can see, ‘Oh crud, I've overdone it.’ Now, what can I do as a team member to be proactive?”
Summary of Outcomes
With Beeye, REDW has unified resource and financial visibility across Audit, Tax, and Advisory, creating a firm-wide approach for planning and performance management.
With Beeye, REDW :
- Moved beyond spreadsheets and disparate systems to a unified scheduling platform
- Matches the right people to the right projects through automated, skills-based allocation.
- Connected systems like Dynamics, XCM, and CCH for real-time data flow and true resource management.
- Forecasts profitability in real-time, no more lagging month-end reports.
- Improves accountability team-wide, from trainees through to partners.
Curious how other PrimeGlobal member firms are transforming their approach to planning and performance with Beeye?
Visit mybeeye.com to discover how firms like REDW are modernizing resource management and achieving firm-wide visibility with Beeye.
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