Since the pandemic, many accounting teams have transitioned to a remote way of working. This is something that several employees are in favour of, especially as many benefit from a better work-life balance. According to one Canadian survey, 81% of employees would think about working for a company on a long term basis if they offered remote working. Remote working isn’t something that shows signs of changing any time soon, but it does mean that managers and team leaders need to manage their accounting team in a slightly different way.

Provide Remote Working Tools

It’s important for a remote accounting team to have the right software, tools and apps for remote working. Otherwise, they could struggle to work efficiently and effectively. It would be beneficial to consult with your team and determine everyone’s unique needs. Consider the type of workflow processes they have, and which tools would best help everyone. There’s a wide range of accounting and project management software available, many of which is cloud based and ideal for teams with people working in a variety of locations.

Encourage Your Team to Work Together

It’s not easy to set your expectations for a remote team of accountants, but it needs to be done. It’s important to make collaboration and communication a priority. Not only does this ensure that tasks are managed and completed, but it reduces the chances of employees feeling isolated from working alone. Scheduled regular video meetings, phone calls and encouraged real-time messages.

Trust Your Remote Accounting Team

It can be hard to trust remote employees, as you’re not there to see what they are doing each day. You can’t interact face to face, and you can’t check in on them quite as much. But, this doesn’t need to be a bad thing. Many remote accountants are more productive when they are working from home, so trust them until they give you a reason not to. As long as everyone is completing their tasks on time and their quality of work remains the same, it would be best to trust them to work remotely. Avoid micromanaging them, unless deadlines are missed or work quality drops.

Standardise Steps and Provide Clear Instructions

A remote accounting team can benefit from standardised steps, as everyone will know what steps they ought to be following, and how each task should be handled. It’s an effective way of helping remote employees to stay on top of their workload. Standardisation helps everything to run smoothly, as every step is detailed, and every team member knows what they are responsible for.

Utilise Accounts Receivable

Accounts receivable (AR) automation can simplify a lot of processes for a remote team by removing manual steps, boosting efficiency and reducing the number of mundane tasks that need to be done. There are several benefits to deploying AR, such as reduced errors and giving employees more time to take on other work.

Managing a remote team has some unique challenges, but that’s not to say it’s an impossible task. With the right tools and communication in place, managing a remote accounting team can be just as straightforward as managing employees in person.

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  Author: Will Quinn | Profile | LinkedIn