Secrets for Success AFTER Buying Practice Management Software – PART 1

22
Jun
2012

Tom Busch

A couple of months ago I wrote about the important things to know before you invest in a practice management package. Let’s assume you made the leap and purchased a system. Now what? Aside from the set-up and obvious learning curve I want to let you in on 10 post-purchase secrets to make that investment work for you. Here are the first 5 for you to digest.

1. Some people will not use the software

For various reasons – could be the age, mindset, or job description of the user – some people in the firm may not use the software or may only use it for surface-level tasks. The result is that they will sometimes be “out of the loop” of current institutional knowledge. You will need to find other means to include these folks. This needs to be solved early on since it just doesn’t make sense to keep duplicate records of the firm’s business.

2. Someone in the company must promote the use of the system among the technology leaders in your firm

We all know that people learn at different rates of speed. We also “adopt” new procedures, technologies and processes at different rates, too. As an instructor in the corporate world for 20+ years, I’ve learned from others and my own experience that when teaching, it makes best sense to teach to the upper tier of the students. The equivalent in your firm is the technology leaders or the early adopters. This provides certain advantages, including

• the early adopters’ egos are fed and they stay interested in topics/objectives,
• the objectives are met, even if only by a subset of the whole team. There are successes that can be claimed and the next stage of the plan can be “in the batter’s box”,
• the middle of the pack and the stragglers will be able to learn from the leaders instead of the project leader or the head trainer, thus enabling the leader to continue to lead,
• the stragglers will emulate the leaders in methods and in achievements, just not at the same pace. In other words, they will be on board, just on the caboose. It’s still only 1 train, after all.

3. Done right, you won’t be able to live without it 8 months from now.

A crucial component of practice management software is the billing module. Efficient billing involves the whole firm, though you may not expect it to, at first. At the early stages, there is limited participation from the firm as a group. The implementation team or person, along with the vendor/consultant and possibly a senior management member will be putting in the lion’s share of the work. They make assumptions that the rest of the firm will be doing things a certain way that makes it possible for the software to, in fact, do the billing. Training at this stage is critical, because the time entries coming from the staff should require very little “touching” by another staff or management. The staff will have preconceived ideas about the ease/difficulty of using the software, and only with good training and extra time to use to the system will the firm’s billing goals be met. The assumptions include that the time will be entered by the staff and will require minimal corrective action. The bills will get printed and they will get paid. It’s quite an amazing sight at some firms when they start receiving payments merely because they send out regular bills. The clients, it seems, operate under a set of assumptions too. Now fast forward 6-9 months: you have some accumulated data showing the value of the billable and unbillable time (perhaps), and the value of the flat fees (if applicable) for that time. You have captured demographic information about your clients, so you know what line of business they are in, what type of work you perform for a given type of client and what it costs you to deliver that service. Now you can use the power of the software and run reports that will provide you with the tools to fully analyze your full service line, your clients, their payment schedules, your most and least profitable services and types of clients. Some of the smaller firms will think “I have all that information in my head. I don’t need software for that”. Those are the firms that aren’t growing or don’t know how to grow. The ones that use the reporting and analysis tools of the software are or will become leaders in their field and will yearn for more ways to use the software to help them.  They realize the software and time spent on it are merely investments in their firm’s growth. They can live without it, but find they probably can’t prosper well without it.

4. Your consultant can be your best friend

It is a fair assumption that the consultant you have engaged or are considering engaging is an expert in that software, or, at any rate, knows a lot more than you do about it. If you spend money and time cheaply on him or her, you will get the system installed and configured properly, but you will have just scratched the surface. The real value of your consultant begins to materialize from a management standpoint well after the installation. My experience has shown that those who forge a long term relationship with their consultant are the ones who will derive maximum value from the software; they will learn how to make it do what they want it to, they will be ones who will sing its praises because they invested in it and do not view it as an expense. The ongoing use of your consultant is the shortest route to that level of success, and by comparison, the same can be said for your business relative to the software. Think of the relationship to your consultant as an ROI relationship, and if you track it, you’ll see that your return is usually much greater with a greater investment in the relationship. Your team’s learning will prosper; you will have greater control over the firm’s finances, client information and ongoing firm direction from a financial standpoint. Your clients will probably be more satisfied, too, because you’ll be able to meet their needs.

5. Your training investment will reap 10 times its value in 6 months

From my experience, when I’ve been invited to consult with a firm who has “stumbled along” as I refer to it, meaning they are using the basics and have had no training in the setup or general daily usage of their billing system, I see a firm that does get its bills out, but not always very reliably, and their financial reports are pretty much useless because they either contain the wrong information or no information. They may even report that they “hate the software”.

Firms that have been trained will have procedures in place that take advantage of the software and leverage the skills of the staff to require a minimum amount of time to do the billing. The reports make sense and yield a wealth of good information. The staff loves the software. Management realizes that the more resources they devote to the software, the better the firm’s response to financial issues, the more productivity they can realize from the staff and the higher the firm’s profitability.

This sounds pretty good, right? And, what’s more, it’s true. You can achieve a scenario such as the one above and move your firm toward its profitability goals. Take the time to review these 5 tips. I’m going to give you 5 more next time.