From spreadsheets to a cloud-based fleet

Braathen & Partners, formerly AccountOnline, is an accounting firm based in Lørenskog with eight employees. The firm was an early adopter of online accounting systems, and for almost ten years they have only worked with clients willing to operate in the cloud. For their very smallest clients, however, the books were still kept in Excel.

— It worked fine, but we wanted a more tailored solution, says Lasse Braathen, managing director at Braathen & Partners.

From Excel sheets to a simple system with clear infrastructure

The smallest companies often only have a handful of receipts, and many don’t have any specific routines around invoices and other processes. That means it doesn’t make sense to use a full accounting system for this client group.

Braathen & Partners came in contact with Siffer just before the new year and recently put the system to use — which meant they could finally move their small clients out of Excel.

— It’s much more practical for us to have these clients in a system like Siffer, which has clear infrastructure. That way it’s easier to follow up and to see what you did last year, on top of being more secure, says Braathen.

At the same time, Siffer has made it easier to take over a colleague’s portfolio.

— Taking over a colleague’s Excel sheet is no walk in the park — it requires you to get into their head. With Siffer, everyone uses the same fixed structure, which makes the division of work much simpler.

Easy for accountants, practical for end clients

One of the things Braathen & Partners appreciates most about Siffer is how simple the system is. So far they have hardly needed any help.

— The staff find it easy and straightforward to use. It’s nice that they don’t need many days of training to learn it. I think we’ve asked Siffer about one thing so far, and that’s it. And the user interface is very intuitive and simple.

He goes on to say that Siffer is also more practical for their end clients, who can now gather receipts throughout the year instead of keeping them in a binder or a pile on their desk.

— A lot of people get contracts, insurance papers and receipts by email these days. They can forward them to Siffer and store them there over the course of the year. When they get the documentation out of the way as they go, they don’t have to hunt for it when we start asking the year after. We only look at the books once a year, after all.

Open to input and feedback

For Braathen & Partners it’s important that the companies they work with are open to dialogue. Braathen says Siffer is particularly good at this.

— Siffer wants input and feedback from us, for example on improvements or other ways of doing things. Being heard is really important to us, and Siffer stands out positively here.

Being heard is really important to us, and Siffer stands out positively here

He adds:

— And they’re genuinely nice people, forward-leaning and service-minded — exactly the way we like it. We’re looking forward to working with them going forward!