Overview
I worked with partner Doug Hill (Doug Hill Creative) to redesign the CPAPhilly brand and website. Our client, previously known as John McGovern & Associates, served a wide variety of customers from large companies to individuals and small businesses – providing high quality service as certified public accountants. While they achieved a sustainable business out of their offices in Manayunk, PA, and served over 500 customers, they acknowledged their site was out-dated compared to competitors, and insufficient to represent them as they looked to compete with more feature reach SaaS offerings like H&R Block & TurboTax. Even more importantly, employees shared feedback about how they sent and received tax documents with customers: it was inefficient and frustrating to the team, and became an important emphasis of the project.
Process
The process was kicked off with a full visual exploration of the CPA Philly brand, including color palettes, typography, use of imagery and iconography. Along with thorough sector research to explore trends and best practice within certified public accounting & tax solutions. From this several concepts were designed and a route was subsequently chosen by the CPAPhilly team to further develop.
Working alongside creative director, Doug Hill, I designed numerous page templates and designed to push a consistent visual language across a variety of page templates.
One of the biggest challenges on this project was facilitating the way users share and upload tax files. The team had direct experience with multiple tools to share the files: i.e.: dropbox, google docs, quickbooks, etc. Our goal of creating a distinct user portal was achieved by coming to the best understanding of how it was going to be used by the team. Through multiple in-person discovery sessions we learned the specifics of their interactions with their clients which proved extremely valuable.
Having limited experience with tax document sharing solutions, with the exception of my personal experience using HR Block, I started my research. After comparing pricing, features and functionality thoroughly, and facilitating software demos – the CPAPhilly team confidently chose Citrix Sharefile. Once the decision was made, I helped with testing and configured the solution to their needs.
Outcome
A clean, vibrant and appealing responsive website for the CPAPhilly team complete with client portal powered by Citrix Sharefile. The new website is colourful and visually engaging with a focus on providing a simple way to navigate through the site for all levels of user. We managed to pack the site with more detailed and relevant information, including an Insights section with informative and resourceful information, yet we did it in a much more manageable, accessible and engaging way to the end users. We also help a session with the CPAPhilly team to explain the Webflow CMS and train them how to make edits to the website themselves.
Client feedback:
Rob Miller: "The website attracts a lot of new clients and they all love Citrix Sharefile. Thank you for your work."