When contemplating websites most people think of them as marketing tools. This is OK. Marketing is really the key use of a decent accounting website design. Websites are hugely potent tools, however. By adding just a few straight forward features and knowing the best way to use them you will substantially reduce your operating expenses.

It's a simple matter to add a "Track Your Refund" feature to your website. Financial calculators are also easy. Get some interactive calculators to help your clients with their personal and family finances. If you have an administrative assistant these features can really empower her as a gatekeeper. Make sure she's familiar with these features, too, so he can refer callers to the appropriate web pages on your site. This can save you a lot of unbillable hours on the phone.

Use email! You've already begun the transition. You already rely on email for the vast bulk of your daily communications, but are you still wasting money on stuff like postage and printing? There are two simple website features that can help your firm cut these costs.

The first feature is your newsletter. You can post your newsletter online for free. Instead of mailing out a paper newsletter just send an email to your clients with a few article "teasers" and links back to the stories on your newsletter pages.

Another real killer comes around every year about this time. It's tax season. Instead of mailing out tax organizers every year, use your website to deliver your annual tax organizers! There's two very effective methods to accomplish this.

Let's look at the easy solution first. Post your tax organizer on your accounting website as a downloadable document. This solution is quick, easy, and cheap. Your clients can just download the form, fill it out, and mail it back to you.

The other solution is much cooler, but also a lot trickier. It's possible to set your website up as an online form. Your clients can actually fill it out and submit it to you right on your website. This is my preferred method, but it requires something of an accounting website design expert to make it work. It improves participation and gets you the results instantly on submission. On the other hand this requires some advanced programming. For security reasons you can't use a standard email form. Instead you need to run the password protected form directly off the host server. This requires some advanced programming.

The last thing I want to talk about is your file exchange. Obviously the best solution is one that's entirely contained and branded to your practice, and most accounting website design providers offer this service. If yours doesn't at least get a dropbox account and put some links on your accounting website to help your clients do the same. No more traveling across town to pick up and deliver your clients Quickbooks discs, and no more expensive express deliveries. You can easily transfer this information securely and instantly over your website. You can even run your tax software right off a web server, allowing long term file storage and access to your tax apps any time from any computer with an internet connection!

Accounting website design is actually useful for a lot more than simply marketing. Even a substandard website will entice a couple of new clients into your practice, and a good site will promptly become your preeminent marketing instrument. But there are loads of other ways your site can boost your profitability. Make use of these techniques. Even if your website doesn't bring in a single new client it will still pay for itself. Not only will it decrease your operational costs, you'll find it also increases client satisfaction and retention.