Remote working, initially viewed as a marginal option in accounting firms, has become the norm since the health crisis. The rapid transition to this way of working highlighted new issues, particularly in relation to team supervision, engagement management and time control.
Firms now need to rethink their organisational methods to guarantee service continuity and quality while maintaining profitability. In this context, implementing appropriate solutions is a powerful way to ensure rigorous monitoring of working time, optimise resources and safeguard firm productivity.
Remote working: a major challenge for accounting firms
Although remote working has been widely adopted in recent years, its implementation raises issues specific to accounting firms. Unlike other sectors, accounting engagements require precise time management, rigorous task monitoring and close coordination between teams. Geographical separation can make this collaboration difficult while creating a risk that information will be lost or client deadlines missed.
A sector-wide agreement on remote working in French accounting and statutory audit firms was signed on 4 March 2022 by the CFDT trade union and the IFEC and ECF employers’ organisations. Its preamble states that “remote working is a major means of improving quality of working life and wellbeing in the workplace”: it illustrates a notable shift in the profession’s perception of this issue.
Tempolia addresses this need with a centralised cloud solution that lets staff enter their working time in real time using graphical calendars or Excel-style tables, allowing managers to supervise engagements quickly and flexibly. This visibility strengthens firms’ ability to anticipate delays, adjust resources and meet client deadlines.
With its wide range of reports and summaries, Tempolia enables effective management even when teams work remotely, thereby reducing the risk of errors or misunderstandings caused by distance.
Tempolia: a SaaS solution for optimised remote team management
Tempolia is software designed specifically to meet accounting firms’ time management and billing needs, particularly in a remote-working environment. Its user-friendly interface and extensive features enable staff to enter their hours in real time from any connected device, whether they are in the office or working remotely.
Managers gain a complete overview of the time allocated to each engagement, enabling them to identify overloaded or underused resources quickly. This immediate visibility supports rapid decisions to adjust workload distribution and optimise team efficiency.
In addition, the ability to monitor engagement progress in real time gives managers greater flexibility, allowing them to adapt resource allocation to client priorities and unexpected events.
Optimising profitability through real-time recovery analysis
One of the most complex aspects of managing accounting engagements is optimising profitability, particularly through over- and under-recovery analysis. Traditionally, this analysis is performed retrospectively when an engagement is closed, leaving little scope to adjust forecasts and costs while work is under way.
With Tempolia, accounting firms can perform this analysis in real time by comparing the time and expenses incurred with invoices issued. They can identify financial variances immediately and take corrective action, such as renegotiating fees or reallocating internal resources. Rather than absorbing a loss at the end of an engagement, firms can act in advance to maximise profitability and control costs.
This feature is particularly useful for recurring or long-term engagements, where budgets can be adjusted in line with actual performance. The ability to propose adjustments based on objective, up-to-date data strengthens the firm’s credibility and client relationships.
Renegotiating engagements on a sound basis
Precise, real-time recovery analysis also supports more effective renegotiation of client engagements at the year end. Tempolia centralises accurate data on budget variances, actual time used and associated costs, providing tangible evidence for adjusting contracts to reflect the resources actually deployed.
Why deploy Tempolia before the end of the year?
The year end is an important period for accounting firms, marked by unavoidable tax and accounting deadlines. It is also a strategic time to optimise your internal processes and prepare effectively for the year ahead. You gain a solution that provides greater control over time monitoring, improves resource allocation and supports better engagement management, particularly during the busy tax season.