AccountantsWorld — Practice Relief

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From the October 2009 Review of Time & Billing Programs

Practice Relief is the time and billing system in the web-based product suite offered by AccountantsWorld. This system was developed specifically for accountants, not other professional service industries.

EASE OF USE -
Practice Relief is very intuitive and easy to use. You can tell that the developers of this product had accountants in mind because you feel like you are using the old paper time and expense entry forms, but now the process is entirely automated. The data entry forms are very familiar to most users. Once you log into the product, users can navigate their way throughout the program with relative ease and without spending a lot of time learning. The learning curve for this system is very small because its simple, yet effective design makes it very easy to use.

Users can enter time manually or track their time via the Time Tracking Wizard. The wizard provides a stopwatch for tracking time. Once a task is completed, the user simply transfers the time from the wizard to the time entry field.

Practice Relief is a web-based application, but users can also enter time and expenses in a desktop installed widget. This widget can be downloaded to your desktop to allow users to enter time when they are not connected to the Internet. Once the user is connected again, the desktop widget will automatically synchronize with the web-based application.

MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS & REPORTING -
Since the Practice Relief system was built specifically for accountants, the program focuses on specific management areas of accounting firms. The standard reporting allows users to analyze data specific to accounting firms, such as clients, services and staff. These reports allow you to determine which clients, services and staff are the most profitable and the least profitable. This then lets firms determine where their best margins are coming from and to identify areas of the practice that need to be addressed (low margins). Firms can also analyze the profitability of service lines to determine if they need to expand or discontinue a certain service offering. Employees and staff can be analyzed in the same manner as clients and services.