New research conducted by Canopy, the leading cloud-based practice management platform for accounting professionals, has found that accountants suffer significantly lower productivity, as well as decreased client retention, revenue, and overall satisfaction when they do not have a single, cloud-based document management platform for use. 

The study of 150 accountants based in the U.S. uncovered that 69% of accountants say they spend too much time gathering documents from their clients, while 79% say they spend too much time tracking down files inside their firm. To underscore this point, 47% of accountants report their current document management strategy is a broken process and 79% want a better solution.  

“As you can see, many of the results of this survey reveal pains firms are experiencing surrounding their current system—or lack thereof—as well as disparate, lackluster technology that only partially addresses their document management needs, ” said Davis Bell, CEO, Canopy. “On top of these concerns, the state of the accounting industry—with many seasoned professionals retiring and others struggling to find new qualified talent—has made it even more crucial for firms to lean on effective technology to increase efficiency, improve the client experience, and manage documents securely.”