If you've had a look at the Syft website, you may have noticed an emphasis on interactive and collaborative reporting, but what does this really mean? And why would you want interactive reporting to begin with? Will it generate any more revenue for you than the reports you were creating and sharing before? In this article, I'll unpack 5 key ways that you can use Syft to generate more revenue - from our easy to understand reports to business health consultations and more.

At the end of the day, you don't want to implement a new software unless it's really giving you bang for your buck. So, let me unpack a handful of ways that other Syft users have used Syft to deliver value and generate more revenue, and then you can assess whether you might want to try the same.

Syft can help increase your revenue as an accountant or bookkeeper in a variety of ways. These are just a few examples of ways that accountants and bookkeepers have used our features to their advantage in the past.

You will find a suggested price for additional offerings in brackets underneath each suggestion.

(R350-500 per client per month)

Syft generates beautiful, easy to interpret report packs which can be customised according to your preferences. Our pre-built report packs are a popular feature found under the Templates section of the Report tab.

Under reusable templates, you can choose between:

These report packs include automated commentary, which can save you a lot of time and hassle. You also have the ability to select from a range of beautiful pre-designed themes!

Report packs are beautiful, clear documents which you can sell to your clients at an extra cost. You can charge for individual reports or report packs, depending on how you would like to package them. You can also brand reports for your practice and your client, making them look both professional and personalized.

Live View reports are where the interactive and collaborative nature of Syft's reports come to the fore. They make it easier to talk to your clients about your financials and to highlight top transactions or other areas of particular interest. For more information on live view, ask a member of the Syft team to elaborate.

(R500-750 per month)

You can use Syft's Cash Manager feature to generate daily and weekly cash forecasts for clients. These forecasts are great for helping businesses to keep on top of their cash flow with an accurate and realistic projection of their entity's future cash position.

A good idea when it comes to using Cash Manager is to get your client involved by inviting them to the Syft dashboard. Then they will know what's coming in and will be able to assess this for themselves. Moreover, granting them access to the dashboard would mean that they pay you a recurring fee, rather than a once-off fee for you to generate the forecast for them.

A recurring fee for access is likely a better option than a once-off fee for a forecast, as a business's cash position changes frequently and it's preferable for clients to be kept abreast of changes regularly. However, creating a once-off forecast for them if you do not give them access to the dashboard is also an option.

Using this feature, you can generate a cash flow graph, summary table, and daily transaction summary which you can send to clients - for a small extra fee - on a weekly, or even daily, basis. (Or as a once-off as mentioned previously.) These forecasts can inform your proposed strategies for your clients to better manage cash flow moving forward.‌

(R500-1000 per month, including tracking actual vs. budget)

Another way to monetize Syft is to charge for the generation of a budget or for reports comparing your client's budget to actuals.

You can create a budget for any entity on Syft. This is particularly useful for Excel-based entities or consolidations. The default budgeting period is financial year, but you can also select the next 12 months. Budgeting intervals can be either monthly or quarterly. And you also have the option to budget for the entire entity or for divisions (tracking options in Xero, classes in QuickBooks, or analysis codes in Sage).

Once you have created a budget, you can charge your clients for this budget, or you can compare the budget figures to your client's actuals and charge them for this comparative report.

(R1500-2000 per month)

You can use Syft's KPI feature to run through your clients' key performance indicators or ratios and review whether they are meeting their targets and where they need to improve. This could be a monthly or quarterly consultation.

To make the most of KPIs, they need to be regularly evaluated and re-evaluated. You can play a crucial role in reporting on and monitoring KPIs and providing advice to clients on how to move closer towards achieving their goals. We have blog articles on KPIs, non-financial KPIs, and making the most of KPIs on Syft that you can consult if you would like.

In particular, non-financial KPIs will be very specific to individual businesses. If we take an e-commerce business as an example, you could analyse the number of website views, number of orders, number of returns, and revenue per order as non-financial KPIs. You would upload these under non-financial data on Syft and then they would pull through to KPIs and be tracked over time. You can look at the period vs. the last period, or 12 periods in the multi-period view.

By using non-financial data, you get closer to the business itself, as this involves you in operational numbers. As a result, you could also earn a higher fee.‌

(R500-1000 per month)

One of Syft's most beneficial features is the financial health score. The financial health score provides a high-level view of a business's health. You can then see which clients you might want to talk to about their financial health judging by this overview.

Financial Health shows your client's growth, profitability, liquidity, and solvency, comparing actuals to targets, as well as actuals vs. prior, or actuals vs. prior last year.

Many Syft users make use of this feature in business health consultations with clients, for which they charge an increased fee. Offering regular consultations with your clients to discuss their financial health can be immensely beneficial to them as this provides clients with up-to-date assessments of how their business is doing. In this way, they can respond proactively to emerging problems rather than reacting to them when they're already well established.

This will also generate revenue for you, as their accountant or bookkeeper and advisor, because you can charge extra for financial health consultations. What's more, generating the financial health score is quick, easy, and adjustable.

These are just some of the ways that you can generate revenue with the features that Syft has to offer you as an accountant or a bookkeeper. However, perhaps you don't want to charge clients extra for the use of Syft's features.

An alternative option would be to consider Syft as a marketing expense. You could think of Syft as a tool to help you retain clients, wow clients, and get you some additional word of mouth advertising for the customised, personalised reports you offer, the clear visualisations, and all the other great features at your disposal with Syft. You'd be amazed to know the effect of clarity, a splash of colour, and personalisation can have on clients.‌

After all, it's much easier to keep existing clients happy than it is to acquire new clients - so retention is crucial.

Want to find out more about how you can leverage Syft to attract new clients, retain current clients, save time, or generate additional revenue? Book a call with a member of the team and we'd be happy to give you more information.