Workflow everywhere...

The word workflow has permeated every type of software being brought to the market place. Document management has workflow, scanning and auto populate software have workflow, depreciation software has workflow…heck, even our accounting software has "workflow." Overnight, a word that was never used by the accounting profession has become ubiquitous…and very confusing. 

Simply put workflow is the flow or process through which we move work. Our process is fundamentally not too different from a manufacturing production process, through which raw steel may be shaped through an assembly process to produce a car body. It’s just that our raw materials are client source documents and the final product may be a tax return or a financial statement. Manufacturers have introduced technology to make the assembly line much more efficient and productive, while many accounting firms still have not automated their business processes.

Like us, other professions are looking at automating their processes and adopting workflow technology. The medical profession is one example.  My wife is an RN with one of the most distinguished hospitals in the country. She works in the PACU unit, taking care of patients as they leave the operating room. Turns out the operating rooms within hospitals look at their business process much like an assembly line, from Pre-op to the Operation itself to the Post-op areas - all of which is sometimes on three separate floors within the hospital.

Some of the primary issues their processes must address are logistical: determining where the patient is at any given time, making sure the surgeon is not held up waiting for clients or waiting for a bed, and determining who is open out of the 20 nurses that are working in Post-op. The more efficient this process is, the more operations the doctor can safely manage in a day. Sounds like workflow to me.

In fact, my wife’s hospital just implemented a workflow software solution that tracks a patient from the minute they sign in, as well as gives staff a view of all open operation time slots and available nurses when the operation has been completed. In essence, we’re all dealing with the same fundamental work problems – resources and capacity. Granted, our ultimate goal is a quality financial output, whereas hospital surgical units save lives. I won’t try to draw any further comparisons, except to simply point out that ours is not the only professional group automating workflow.