A recent study from recruitment agency Hays shows that around four out of five accountancy practices in the UK experienced a skills shortage in 2020 due to staff absences and changes to their workforce.
Mainly the result of COVID-19, the study highlights the difficulties that many accountancy practices are facing when it comes to maintaining a skilled team of professionals.
With such a significant skills shortage in the industry at this time, some practices are experiencing a backlog of work, including in areas such as R&D tax credit claims.
While some firms may seek to outsource manual work overseas, there is a much simpler and cost-effective solution that could allow many practices to retain their clients’ work in-house.
Automation in the accountancy profession has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years, with many apps and software packages developed to do a wider variety of tasks, from automating invoicing and payroll to managing credit control.
These innovations are revolutionising the industry by removing much of the manual administrative input from teams and freeing up professionals to offer a higher level of advisory services to clients.
One area where automation can help is the production of accurate and effective R&D tax credit claims. While many smaller accountancy firms may outsource this kind of work to larger partners, automation through software, such as Made.Simplr, allows them to bring this work in-house and increase the volume of claims they handle.
Using existing cloud accounting software like Xero, these programs can collate, analyse and check the information necessary to make a claim, meaning that firm’s need only submit the final documents for their clients.
If you would like to know how the automation available through made.simplr could help your firm deal with skills shortages and increase your practice’s revenue, please arrange a demo with our team today.
