Handling taxes, bookkeeping, accounting, and other financial responsibilities is complicated enough when you have to do it for yourself — the main reason why most business owners prefer to hire a professional agency to do it for them.
But, how do you handle such delicate work on multiple fronts when you yourself own such an agency?
This is the main question we asked Nikola Glintic — tax advisor and accountant at Fincon accounting and bookkeeping firm. Spoiler alert — his secret weapon is Plaky!
In our interview with him, Nikola talked in more depth about:
- How Fincon came to be and what they do,
- What a regular day at Fincon looks like,
- How they handle their daily tasks and responsibilities with the help of Plaky,
- How they came to use Plaky in their agency,
- Who he’d recommend Plaky to, and
- What some of the major difficulties it has helped them overcome are.
Table of Contents
About Fincon
Fincon is a bookkeeping and accounting agency that has been offering financial services to businesses since 2015.
Nikola Glintic recalls the moment he joined the agency. What started off as a simple accounting firm quickly grew into a business that offers bookkeeping, tax, and business advisory services to dozens of small businesses.
“Our agency was founded in 2015, when my mother made the decision to leave the banking world and use her vast knowledge of finances to start her own business. However, she was quickly met with inadequate balance sheets from both legal entities and individuals she had worked with and poor communication with their bookkeepers. This was the reason she decided to include bookkeeping as one of the services at her firm. Soon after that, I joined the agency as I had just finished my studies at the Faculty of Economics.”
Many years and a global pandemic later, the small family business is maintaining its great track record and looking to expand in response to a high demand for their services.
“At the moment, there are 5 people in our team, but we’re planning to expand as soon as possible due to the increased volume of work and the number of clients who seek out our services on a daily basis.”
A day in the life of a bookkeeping agency
Although many businesses have made a complete or partial switch to remote work, Nikola believes in the importance of communication, and says that working from the office is still the better option for his line of work as it helps maintain better communication with clients.
“Most of the time, we work from the office. This business model simplifies communication, and it’s what clients are used to. We believe that this is still much simpler for our profession, which doesn’t mean things won’t change in the coming years.”
Daily work at Fincon’s offices is usually fairly repetitive. But, bookkeeping requires adhering to strict government-imposed deadlines, which is why some parts of the month are busier than others, says Nikola.
“Activities in the bookkeeping business don’t differ much on a day-to-day basis, except that the beginning and the middle of the month are usually the busiest because that’s when all the deadlines are.”
To meet all those strict project deadlines, employees must meticulously track tasks connected to each individual client without allowing anything to slip through the cracks. The best way to do this is to create project task lists. For Fincon, this is where Plaky comes in.
“Generally speaking, we refer to a daily to-do list, but we also hold meetings where we define our long- and short-term goals. That’s why we use Plaky — it helps us keep up with our responsibilities without missing anything.”
As some of the biggest challenges they encounter in their line of work, Nikola underlines the following:
“Here, I’d highlight some of our clients’ bad habits that we have been working alongside them to correct. Many clients who have had their companies for a while have settled into some bad bookkeeping habits. But, while working with them, we try to explain that it’s much easier for both them and us if we do everything by the books. Aside from this, the large number of responsibilities and deadlines that exist in bookkeeping regularly challenge our performance.”
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
If you ever feel like your project is slipping out of your control and you’re at risk of missing major deadlines, there are ways to save it. Learn more about how to prevent your projects from going off track and how to regain control over them if they do:
How Fincon discovered Plaky
At the start of their business journey, Fincon relied on Excel to keep track of their long list of responsibilities. But Nikola was convinced that there was a better solution.
“Early on we used Excel tables, but I constantly felt that this “wasn’t it” and that I’d prefer a different way to keep track of our work. That’s when I started looking at various options and tried out several different tools before I eventually found your software — Plaky.”
After trying out several different tools, he heard of Plaky by word of mouth and has stuck to it ever since.
“I learned about Plaky from a client who recommended it when we were discussing different options for detailed tracking of tasks and responsibilities. At around the same time, I saw the “Biznis Priče” (Business Stories) podcast where the founder of Plaky was a guest speaker. That’s when I decided to try out the tool.”
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
Disorganization is the biggest enemy of success. Learn how to stay organized at work and boost your productivity by following some of these 33 tips:
How Plaky helps Fincon organize their work
Plaky helps Fincon with their biggest problem — organizing their tasks and responsibilities.
“Plaky helps me keep a detailed record of the responsibilities related to each client and mark them as finished after they’ve been completed. This lets me know which tasks are done and which are still in progress, and helps me get rid of all the stress caused by uncertainty of whether we’ve finished everything we were supposed to.”
When asked about the biggest difference he has noticed since he started using Plaky, Nikola highlighted the peace of mind he gets from knowing all his work will be duly completed.
“[The biggest difference I noticed since I started using Plaky is] the confidence that all the tasks will be completed on time, that everything will be reviewed and recorded in accordance with the deadlines, without any risk that something will slip through the cracks.”
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
Learning how to manage your time is essential to learning how to manage your work. One cannot go without the other. Learn more about time management in your projects in the article below.
Fincon’s favorite Plaky feature
One of Plaky’s features Nikola highlighted as particularly useful was its customizability — the ability to create and organize your workspace in any way you like.
“I like being able to create custom fields and mark them using different colors. This helps me keep the layout of my tasks simple.”
Plaky allows users to create an unlimited number of tasks within a board and add custom fields to each task group, depending on what they want to track. The fields can contain important information such as:
- Assignees,
- Task status,
- Deadline,
- Comments,
- Tags,
- Descriptions, and any other metrics or project KPIs you wish to track.
Each task group contains only the relevant information — no more, and no less. This allows for a clean and uncluttered view of your responsibilities and their progress.
Nikola also likes to organize his tasks using multiple Plaky boards.
“I’ve created different tables. In one of the tables I keep all the clients and the potential tasks related to them. In this table, I mark whether a particular task is related to them or not. The other tables keep all this information separate and show whether the individual tasks have been completed or not.”
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
Each project management tool is different and each business has different needs. What’s important is to find the one that best suits you. However, there are several PM software features that are universally recognized as must-haves for most businesses. Find out what they are in the text below.
Who would Fincon recommend Plaky to?
When asked about who he would recommend Plaky to, Nikola noted that the software is suitable for a wide range of users.
“I’d recommend Plaky to anyone who has a large number of responsibilities and deadlines to keep track of and wants to have maximum control over those tasks and the feeling of security that these tasks will get done.”
Conclusion: Good organization is half the work
Leading any business — let alone one as detail-oriented as a bookkeeping and accounting agency — creates a mountain of work. Allow that work to stay disorganized, and you’re well on your way to failure.
This is the reason why proper work organization is paramount, and why digital task management tools have remained so popular even after the pandemic that popularized them has blown over.
A user-friendly tool that all your employees will be able to learn in a matter of minutes and use to their advantage to track complex tasks and seamlessly collaborate with their colleagues could pave your way to a successful, stress-free work environment.
Free project management software
If you relate to this customer story — try Plaky yourself.
