This month we are thrilled to have had the opportunity to have a detailed talk with one of the leading voices in the bilabl community, Rizwan Khan, the Managing Director of Acclime Vietnam.
Many will already know Acclime as a leading professional services firm with a presence in 14 countries. In Vietnam the firm has about 150 staff spread over three locations.
With a commitment to excellence and a passion for facilitating foreign investors in Vietnam, the company strives to deliver top-notch solutions that meet the evolving needs of clients. Here at bilabl we are proud to share this journey of growth and execution with Rizwan’s talented team.
In Part One of this extended interview, and to set the scene, we began by asking Rizwan what problems he was trying to solve when he began looking for a practice management solution:
“In any professional services firm, managing time and billing is crucial. We decided to look for a PMS due to several challenges that were impacting our efficiency and overall performance. Here are the main problems we aimed to address:
- Billing and Invoicing Issues: Our billing process was cumbersome and often resulted in delayed or incorrect invoices, affecting our cash flow.
- Timesheet Management: We faced difficulties in maintaining and accessing timesheets, which impacted the quality of services we could provide and eventually our billing.
By implementing a Practice Management Software, we aimed to streamline our scheduling, improve billing accuracy, enhance timesheet management, ensure compliance, and bridge operational gaps within the company.
For this we needed a robust solution that could provide us with the visibility of time our team is spending on each client and even for any particular client, how much time is spent on each matter. This will then be translated into the billing that we send to the client. Sometimes, client may ask for further details and PMS becomes a necessity in such situation. “
It is always interesting to hear what has been the single biggest change once bilabl is up and running. For Rizwan it was as follows:
“After implementing bilabl, we could manage our clients, timesheets and billing more effectively. In the past, we used other PMS, however, they do not provide the flexibility, scalability and features that are needed for our practice. In simple words, our practice management has become more robust.”
It is not unusual for potential clients to have a certain degree of trepidation regarding any new software, particularly when it comes to the onboarding, training and migration processes. The experience of Acclime Vietnam would, however, suggest that this is less of an issue than is imagined:
“It was great experience, the team at bilabl is very attentive and they address the issues on a timely basis. Whether it is updating the credentials or adding new features.”
New software can be frustrating for unfamiliar users. But Rizwan and his team took to bilabl like the proverbial ducks to water:
“bilabl is intuitive, the UI and UX are one of the best that I have used in any PMS solution. For the entire team, it makes their lives much easier.”
Detailed, real-time analytics is one of the must-have's for any professional service team looking to grow. We asked Rizwan what the dashboard capabilities of bilabl had meant for Acclime Vietnam:
“The biggest change is the visualization of the data. At one glance, you could see the performance of the teams, billing records and other critical information that need to be monitored. Unlike in the past where we have to spend a lot of time in collecting and processing such data.”
In Part One Rizwan walked us through the problems solved (billing and time sheet management), the very positive onboarding and training experience and the benefits of data visualization from the system analytics. So, now let’s move onto cost savings. During a period of revenue growth, it can be easy to overlook the very powerful impact that cost savings can have on profitability. Rizwan gave a very specific breakdown of where these had been encountered using bilabl:
“Our biggest saving comes from the time that was otherwise used in timesheet management, cross checking the billing and other administrative matters. We now have less staff who are managing these activities and even for the service teams, they have more time to spend on the actual billable (not bilabl) hours instead of the non-chargeable admin tasks.”
For any business, cash is king. For a rapidly growing business it can be the difference between long-term sustainability (and success) and a great idea that failed due to illiquidity. Here is what Rizwan had to say about the impact that bilabl had for cash management at Acclime Vietnam:
“We have a significant improvement in our cash cycle, with the visibility of data, we could monitor the performance in real-time, we could see the trends and take appropriate actions where needed.”
But what about tweaks to the core functionality? Not all firms have the same workflows, right? Once again, bilabl was able to adapt to the demands of Rizwan:
“Customization is one of the most important parts of any software solution and bilabl is no exception. Even though it met most of our requirements, we needed some additional features due to our unique business model. The team at bilabl always responded on time and implemented the features that we requested, and all that at a reasonable price tag.”
Cost is a very basic metric for performance. Once bilabl is installed the analytics deliver a clear insight into productivity, and this is where resource allocation becomes very powerful. Let’s see what Rizwan had to say about their experience:
“Overall, we have improved our productivity. In particular, we managed to divert our resources and time that was otherwise used on admin tasks towards more productive tasks and that resulted in more chargeable hours. Also, bilabl helped us to manage the whole practice within one portal and manual processing has been reduce to almost zero.”
From there our conversation moved to the value. We have always strived to deliver the price to functionality of bilabl far above that of the market. But it is more important to hear what Rizwan thinks as a long term of the system:
“I believe bilabl offers a very high value for money, especially for companies where multiple services are provided to hundreds of clients. bilabl not only collects the data at one place but also reduces the admin tasks and provide a visualization of data that enable us to take action, in almost real time, as and when needed.”
After all of this insight, we wrapped up with a simple question about what his favourite feature in the bilabl system was. This tends to generate a very wide set of responses within the community, according to pain points, user roles and so forth. For Rizwan, as a business leader, it is perhaps unsurprising that it is derived from the transparency of the analytics engine that sits in the heart of bilabl:
“Reporting is perhaps my most favourite feature as it gives the visibility of all aspects of my practice including timesheet, billing and other important info. Now, I can track the performance of the whole company down to a single team member. Same goes for the billing to each client, where we could track the billing and collection history.”
How Acclime Vietnam Cut Admin Time and Boosted Profits with bilabl’s Real-Time Insights
Download this article as PDF
