Efficiency is vital for an accounting firm.
Lakeus Accounting Firm is growing at a rapid pace. Our net sales doubled from last year and the growth rate seems to continue to be strong from now on. When the growth rate is this fast, we have to be careful about how we use our time. Every unnecessary step or inefficient course of action must be identified and an effective solution found.
One of the most employing “small” tasks is the obligation to know your customers. The Anti Money Laundering Act obliges accounting firms to obtain information from their clients, analyze it and, in addition, maintain the information. The requirements are very vague and creating policies based on government guidelines is challenging.
A finished solution was needed
We got a hint from the Financial Management Association that the Clento cloud service has already solved many problems. I ordered the product and things started to move forward on their own. After entering into the agreement, we took a customer listing of the ERP system and exported it as a separate file to Clento. The system enabled mass sending, so on the third day after ordering, more than 300 forms were emailed to the customers. The system had ready-made information request forms for different types of companies, housing companies and smaller business names. Two weeks after the initial purchase, we had about 80% of all the required data collected. We kindly reminded the rest of the customers.
Understanding the risk-based nature of the Anti Money Laundering Act eases the workload
The idea of the Anti Money Laundering Act can only be understood when processing the collected customer knowledge information. In accordance with the spirit of the law, the risk of each customer must be assessed individually. At Clento, each customer is assessed individually and, based on those risk factors, it is assessed whether, for example, enhanced monitoring should be considered. The operating model for conducting a risk assessment is well thought out and based on the fact that the assessor uses separate questions to consider whether there is a potential risk of money laundering or terrorist financing in the customer in question. The majority of customers were processed within minutes.
Information up to date with little effort
Lakeus Tilitoimisto managed to update the customer knowledge in about three weeks with very little effort. In the future, the maintenance of customer knowledge and the continuous monitoring required by law will take place with an operating model built around the Clento system. Our most valuable resource, i.e employees, value a clear documented operating model, which is why we continue on our excellent growth path without any worries!
Suvi Varala – Lakeus tilitoimisto Oy // Accounting firm