Process Improvement: The Unlock for 10–20 FTE Businesses

At Convex Accounting, we see it all the time: businesses with 10–20 staff hit a wall. Everything worked when you were smaller, but now every process — from HR to productivity to profit — eventually shows up in your P&L.

You’ve got more people, more moving parts, more risk. Growth starts to feel harder, not easier.

That’s where process improvement comes in.

Process isn’t just a checklist

A lot of owners think of “process” as a checklist handed to staff, then left to run. But true process improvement is more than that. It’s about:

• Knowing the right steps to get to the outcome.

• Having the right person doing the right steps.

• Designing systems that actually support people — rather than force them to cut corners.

A practical example: workflow management

Take our own business as an example. Workflow management is critical. Jobs need to go out at the right time — not just so we keep clients happy, but so our bills go out the door faster (and cash comes back in faster).

For most accounting firms our size, that efficiency gain would be worth the equivalent of $90,000–$100,000 per annum in extra FTE.

For us, it takes me 20 minutes a week.

That’s the power of well-designed processes.

Process isn’t about doing more, faster

One of the biggest traps is thinking “process improvement” means forcing more through the pipeline. That rarely works.

Instead, real improvement comes from:

• Carefully understanding the outcome you actually want.

• Looking at what automations can take the load off people.

• Deciding who really needs to do what.

• Asking what actually needs to be done — and what doesn’t.

• Testing, adjusting, and learning through trial and error.

Why this matters for 10–20 FTE businesses

This is the stage of business where:

• Directors feel stretched thin.

• Admin staff wear too many hats.

• Client service starts to slip.

• Cashflow feels harder to control.

Improving processes at this size isn’t just about efficiency — it’s about unlocking the next step in business growth. With the right systems in place, you get:

• Happier customers.

• Faster billing and better cashflow.

• Staff who know exactly what’s expected.

• Directors freed up to focus on strategy, not firefighting.

The takeaway

If you’re in the 10–20 FTE zone and growth feels harder than it should, it’s probably not a people problem. It’s a process problem.

Fix the process, and you unlock the next stage of your business.