All posts by : Aleesha

Matthew Patrick runs a small business-focused accounting firm with 43 team members and nearly $10 million in annual revenue, serving hundreds of accounting and payroll clients. While their team was dedicated to improvement, manual processes and disjointed workflows created inefficiencies and limited visibility into their operations.

Challenges

Like many, Patrick was open to productive change.

“We’re always looking for ways to connect our systems better. If it can be automated, improved with people, process, or tech, I’m all for it. I usually know what should be automated, but not necessarily how to make it happen technically.” 

Matt explained.

Previous attempts at automation had limited impact: pre-packaged solutions offered minor tweaks rather than meaningful improvements. An in-house hire also fell short due to a lack of perspective and familiarity with day-to-day operations.

“I’ve tried to build my own automations and even worked with other agencies. But what I got felt like cookie-cutter solutions, four or five generic automations they offered everyone. We also tried in-house, but one person lacks the perspective of a full team that works with accounting firms all day.”

Matt knew that a solution required both technical skill and experience with other firms in the industry. He wanted someone who could see what works, avoid what doesn’t, and guide the team in implementing actionable solutions.

“Your team’s expertise with the tools, combined with your experience across firms, knowing what works and what doesn’t, has been invaluable. That outside perspective has sparked multiple new ideas and shifted how we think about automation.”

Solutions

We focused on two critical areas where the firm was losing efficiency and visibility:

Standardized pricing system: Built a streamlined pricing process, integrating a custom pricing tool, Qount, and HubSpot. This allowed the sales team to price engagements consistently, with minimal input required from the accounting team.

Financial visibility dashboards: Integrated Qount, QuickBooks Online, and time-tracking data through Make.com and Retool, giving the owner real-time gross profit insights per client and per service line.

“Qount has promised us better reporting for 4 years. You gave us visibility into our numbers we never had before,” Matt reflects on the experience.

Results

These improvements delivered measurable impact across both operations and financial management:

• Faster, more accurate sales process: Proposals and pricing are now consistent, saving time for both sales and accounting while reducing errors.
• Gross profit visibility: For the first time, leadership can see profitability by client and service line, helping them spot scope creep, time-tracking gaps, and underperforming services.
• Data-driven decisions: Improved reporting has shifted conversations toward advisory and operational improvements instead of guesswork.

Matt plans to continue leveraging our collaboration to streamline and implement further improvements.

“Your onboarding process was simple and clear. The clarifying questions you asked didn’t just help you understand us better, they helped us build a stronger process. From a firm’s standpoint, that alone is worth the investment.

I’d recommend this to any firm exploring automation. If you want to improve your workflows and efficiency, this is money well spent.”

MOD Ventures, a forward-thinking accounting firm asked us to help them scale without adding more labor. The firm owner knew there was untapped potential in their processes and wanted someone to implement improvements, collaborate with the team, and identify opportunities to increase profitability.

Challenges:

Before working with us, MOD Ventures had little insights into client profitability and their team was hesitant to new processes. The owner explained:

“I needed someone to spot opportunities, help implement, and collaborate with our team on process improvements to move people in that direction. They’re more open to change now than they’ve ever been.

The second piece was profitability: we were missing entire buckets of margin. You showed us, very clearly, how bad our per-client margins were. That ability to create real-time, interactive dashboards was a skill set we desperately needed.”

Previous attempts to automate or streamline processes had failed:

“I had hired people before who I thought could handle automations for us, but there were always roadblocks. They just couldn’t get us to the outcome we needed.”

These frustrations made it clear that the firm needed a partner who could not only understand their processes but also execute reliably.

Solution

We approached the project as a mix of process improvement and practical implementation, focusing on fixing bottlenecks and creating systems the team could actually use:

• Performance dashboards: Built clear, actionable dashboards to track gross profit by client, onshore vs. offshore time allocations, rework percentages, utilization rates, and more.
• Lightweight CRM: Designed a simple lead-tracking system within their project management platform to match their specific needs.
• Automated workflows: Implemented automations for client onboarding, payroll journal entries, and other repetitive tasks.

Technologies used included ClickUp, QuickBooks Online, iSolved, Paperform, and Zapier.

Results

After six months of collaboration, the impact was significant:

• Stronger margins: Gross margins (not excluding software passthrough from revenue) went from the low 40s to the low 50s.
• Cultural shift: Senior controllers embraced process improvement, contributing new ideas for us to automate and enhance.
• Leadership support: The owner gained a trusted partner to bridge gaps between operations and technology, providing value beyond task execution.

“You filled in the technology gaps I needed in a COO. Neither accountants nor operations people knew how to put automated data and workflow solutions in place.”

This partnership also transformed how projects were managed and executed:

“I’m always impressed by how you manage projects. The way you send follow-ups, what happened, what needs to happen next, keeps momentum alive. That skill is so rare, and it’s something I really, really value.”

The owner highlighted the broader lesson for others considering similar partnerships:

“Get on Opzer’s list, seriously, don’t wait. The longer you put it off, the longer you delay the benefits of working with this team. And the farther behind you’ll be. It’s just not worth waiting for.”

Watch the full case study:

Watch MOD Ventures’ story

Calculated Moves, a growing bookkeeping firm, was hitting a ceiling. Client demand was strong, but manual work, staffing challenges, and preventable errors were draining capacity. The owner found herself spending more time fixing books than serving clients or growing the business.

Challenges:

Before working with us, the owner explained:

“Staffing is always an issue. I don’t care whether you’re offshoring, onshoring, whatever. New staff that’s not highly motivated like I am will make a lot more mistakes. Most of my time was being spent undoing their mistakes and fixing problems that could have been avoided.”

Manual work and inconsistent processes meant that routine bookkeeping tasks were draining valuable time, leaving no bandwidth for client advisory or growth activities.

Solution:

We implemented automation and process improvements designed around the firm’s existing tools. 

The focus was not on individual client workflows. Instead, we focused on building standardized systems that applied firm-wide, including:

• Xero reconciliation bots that automatically matched transactions, cutting hours of manual review and reducing errors. 
• Automated depreciation journal entries that ensured accuracy and consistency every month without staff intervention. 
• Fixed asset discrepancy notifications that flagged issues proactively, so staff could resolve them before the year-end crunch.

The automation tools used included Zapier, Make.com, Xero, Airtable, and Axiom.ai.

Together, these automations replaced dozens of hours of repetitive bookkeeping work with streamlined, dependable processes.

Results:

The improvements were measurable and transformative:

• Time savings: A role that took 90 hours per month was reduced to one day a month of the owner’s time.
• Staffing efficiency: The firm no longer needed a full-time bookkeeper to manage 45 client accounts.
• Scalability: Client roster grew from 45 to 60 accounts without adding staff, a 33% increase.
• Repeatable, reliable processes: Automation eliminated most errors, reduced the need for manual fixes, and flagged issues when humans were needed.

The owner emphasized the long-term value:

“Definitely do it. The double benefit? ,To automate a process, you first have to truly understand it. Automation forces you to define and standardize your process, which not only makes it repeatable but also makes it easier for robots or people to execute reliably. Most folks hesitate because they don’t know their process well enough to even explain how to fix it. Solving that unlocks everything.”

Watch the full case study:

Watch Calculated Moves’ story

Atmos Financial, a midsize Canadian tax firm with three partners, was facing a recurring problem: every tax season, they found themselves behind schedule. Critical prep work, checklists, emails, folders, and billing was often pushed to January or February, creating a stressful, fire-fighting environment.

Challenges:

Garett, one of the partners at Atmos Financial, explained the impact:

“We had a disastrous tax season. We needed to make sure that we could be prepared well ahead of time. I wanted confidence that we were ready and things were working the way they should.”

The firm had previously worked with an automation agency, but the promised systems failed. Clients were receiving incorrect reminders, data was lost, and no one knew the status of work.

Before jumping straight into a large-scale implementation, we successfully completed a proof of concept project. For Atmos, it was the first sign that automation could actually be trusted when designed with the right expertise.

Garett reflected on the difference:

“I had worked with a contractor through Upwork. This one project ended up dragging and costing us more and more money ($5,000+). The developer kept wanting more access to our system and it just wasn’t happening. I shared this in my first call with Opzer and they had it built in a week without asking us for more information! That was a big selling feature. The fact that you were willing to invest in us to prove that you could do what you said you could.”

That initial success created the buy-in needed to move forward with an ongoing engagememt.

Solution:

We implemented a fully integrated system to ensure tax questionnaires, client reminders, and tax preparation workflows operated seamlessly. Key actions included:

• Establishing a pre-tax season checklist to ensure every human critical step was executed.
• Designing a tax organizer that even the least tech savvy of clients could complete easily
• Automating client communications and internal reminders that effectively prevented the crunch at tax deadline.

• Built custom dashboards that gave the team real-time visibility into workloads and client profitability.
• Standardized workflows that could be easily scaled across the firm.

From a technical perspective, the tech stack used included Jotform, DocuSign, iFirm Taxprep Web, ActiveCampaign, and Zapier. Data flowed automatically from intake to preparation to review, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring partners and preparers had visibility at every stage.

Results:

Comparing year on year, the results are measurable:

• Effective hourly rate increased 47%: from $226/hr to $333/hr.
• Average time per tax return normalized: previously 51% over budget, now 3% under.
• Distraction-free tax season: partners focused on high-value work, and urgent issues were minimal.

Garett summarizes the benefits numbers can’t capture:

“This year was a distraction-free tax season. When there were issues, you guys showed up and fixed it  immediately. I could just work (and I’m the guy with the highest billing rate).”

Watch the full case study:

Watch Atmos Financial’s story