Transitioning your accounting firm's payroll services to a new platform can feel paralyzing, stretching you in a dozen directions at once. Between training your team, converting clients, and maintaining your profit margins, you might be wondering if it's even worth it.
At Whirks, we’ve helped dozens of firms like yours confidently manage these changes. Our structured 90-day partner program strategy provides a smooth transition for your accounting firm while strengthening your client relationships and setting you up for profitable growth.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the exact three-phase 90-day journey your firm will experience as a new Whirks Network Partner.
First 30 Days as a Whirks Network Partner: Building Your Payroll Foundation
The initial month lays the groundwork for your success. Our priority is making sure your team feels confident using our system. This doesn’t mean just training them; it means getting them truly comfortable managing client payroll.
Our big 30-day goal is for your team to feel genuinely confident in processing payroll within our systems. We can train anyone on the mechanics, but unless you feel secure in your understanding and capabilities, that training simply won’t stick.
During these first weeks, we'll focus on four key areas:
1. Building Team Confidence with the System
Your operations team will complete "freshman-level" training focused on the fundamentals of processing payroll inside our platform. Rather than rushing through features, we take time to make sure your staff understands the practical applications and feels empowered to use the system independently.
Our goal is simple: your team should feel confident managing the day-to-day payroll needs of your clients without hesitation. This is not about mastering every advanced tool yet.
2. Introducing the Transition to Clients
Early on, you will need to communicate with your clients about the move to Whirks-backed payroll.
We'll help you communicate the upcoming changes to your clients. Your clients will be introduced to the new system, the benefits they will experience, and the general timeline of the change. This doesn't mean setting specific conversion dates immediately. Instead, we’ll introduce the concept and benefits to prepare them for a smooth transition.
3. Understanding Pricing Components
Transparency is essential for a successful partnership. We'll conduct detailed training on our pricing structure, explaining every possible billable component to eliminate surprises and help you:
- Understand what you're paying Whirks
- Analyze your current pricing model
- Adjust your fees if necessary to maintain healthy margins
- Plan for sustainable profitability
With some of our early partners, we learned that simply showing the pricing structure wasn’t enough. We realized that we needed to define every term down to the smallest detail.
Is “per employee per month” based on active employees, employees that are paid, or all employees in the system? These definitions matter for your margins, and we’ll make sure you understand every aspect of our pricing so you can structure your own client pricing appropriately.
4. Beginning the Conversion Process
By the end of the first month, you'll understand our client conversion process, and you will have begun sending client information for setup. We'll clearly outline what paperwork is needed, how to submit it, and what timelines to expect.
Days 30-60 as a Whirks Network Partner: Moving Into Full Payroll Conversion Phase
The second month is where momentum builds. Now that your team is familiar with the platform, we'll accelerate client conversions while continuing to deepen your system knowledge.
During this phase, you'll be actively transferring clients from your previous systems to the Whirks platform. While we understand this process can't happen overnight, our goal is to keep pushing forward at a pace that makes sense for your firm.
Living in two systems simultaneously is frustrating and inefficient, which is why we try to shorten this timeline as much as possible. We’ll encourage your team to move at a slightly faster pace than might feel natural because the sooner we can complete the transition, the sooner you can eliminate the complexity limbo of managing multiple platforms.
Our team handles the heavy lifting of client conversions, allowing you to focus on client communication and support. Your role is primarily to:
- Collect necessary client paperwork
- Help clients understand the new system
- Provide first-level support for basic questions
Meanwhile, we'll manage all the technical setup, data migration, and system configuration.
Days 60-90 as a Whirks Network Partner: Reaching Expert Level as a Payroll Provider
By the third month, most of your clients should be successfully moved to the new platform. Our benchmark is to have 80% of clients converted within 90 days, with the remaining 20% typically representing more complex cases that require additional attention.
During this period, your focus should be on:
Mastering All System Capabilities
While basic payroll processing was the initial focus, our ultimate goal is for your firm's clients to use the platform for comprehensive employee management. They will be comfortable managing employee self-service functions like direct deposit updates, W-4 changes, onboarding new hires, and managing time-off requests.
We'll provide deeper training on additional features that can benefit your clients.
Participating in Monthly Partner Whirkshops
One of the most valuable resources in our partner program is our monthly Whirkshops. These sessions help build community and allow you to connect with other accounting firms, share best practices, and learn from collective experiences.
Our Partner Whirkshops are designed to address the things that keep you up at night while running a payroll service bureau. We’ll tackle both high-level, strategic questions and granular implementation details. This is where you can truly deepen your expertise beyond the basics of running payroll. You’ll learn from our 15+ years of experience, as well as from other partners who might approach problems differently than we do.
These Whirkshops help you step back from day-to-day operations to gain perspective on business strategy, efficiency improvements, and growth opportunities.
Looking Ahead in Your Accounting Firm's Payroll Journey: From Transition to Transformation
The journey from switching payroll providers to becoming a confident, profitable payroll service bureau doesn't happen overnight. Now that you understand our structured 90-day onboarding process, you can see how we guide you through each step, helping both your team and clients experience a smooth transition.
When it comes to offering payroll services, many accounting firms struggle with inefficient processes, unclear pricing models, and limited support.
With a Whirks partnership, you gain more than a technology solution. You get an experienced guide and a strategic ally committed to steering your path toward profitable, sustainable payroll services that align with your business goals.
This foundation sets you up to grow your payroll service offering with confidence. In fact, our ultimate goal is to help you outgrow our partnership. Whether that takes three years, five years, or longer depends on how fast you want to scale. But we measure our success by how well we prepare you to eventually stand on your own if you choose to do so.
Curious about how the Whirks Network Partner journey might look for your accounting firm? Schedule a call, and let’s have a conversation about your firm’s specific needs and payroll challenges and explore how our partner approach might align with your vision and business goals.
When is the right time to make your move?
Every transition has its ideal season. For accounting firms considering a payroll switch, timing can make all the difference.
