Gamifying Accountability (and Other Ways to Improve Team Culture and Efficiency)

Dillon Business Advisors serves more than 1,100 clients, and at that size, things don’t just “work themselves out.” If anything, the cracks tend to show up faster.

I’ve been in this spot myself more than once. You build something that seems like it should work, and for a bit, it does. Then it starts to break in small ways, and instead of starting over, you work around it because that feels easier in the moment.

Those workarounds stack up. At some point, you realize you’re not really using a system anymore, you’re managing around it. And what we avoid has a way of quietly running the show. Not all at once, but just enough to shape how the work gets done.

Dillon Business Advisors made a different choice. Instead of continuing to work around the friction, they started pulling it apart and rebuilding more intentionally.

Amy McCarty, Director of Operations, and Lezlie Reeves, CPA, sit right in the middle of that effort. Amy focuses on how the work moves, while Lezlie focuses on how the work lands with clients. Between the two of them, they’ve helped shape a system that doesn’t just track work but also influences how the team shows up to it.

Combatting App Fatigue

“We are reversing app fatigue,” Amy said. That idea goes beyond software.

Most firms don’t set out to build a complicated tech stack. It happens gradually. One tool gets added to solve a problem, then another, and eventually, if you're lucky and have technical expertise, you use connector apps to sync everything together.

Before long, it takes logging into several systems just to complete one task. Even the connector systems need continual maintenance.

In my experience, teams often stay in that place longer than they want to. Not because they don’t see the problem, but because fixing it requires slowing down first, and that can feel risky when there’s already so much to get done.

Dillon Business Advisors did something right by not trying to fix everything at once.

In 2024, they stepped away from Thomson Reuters Onvio and Liscio, moving those functions into Canopy. That decision was part of a broader pattern they had already been working toward. Over several years, they had been intentionally simplifying, combining systems where possible, and centralizing key functions.

File storage moved into SharePoint. Workflows, communication, and task management moved into Canopy.

The process took time, and they are still refining it, but each step reduced a little more of the friction.

Moving from Excel Silos to Shared Visibility

Lezlie described something that felt very familiar in accounting firms: Excel sheets.

Before this shift, work lived in spreadsheets. Some were shared, others weren’t, and many were customized to fit individual preferences. That meant a lot of conversations just to understand where things stood.

“We were constantly asking,” she said:

• What is the status?
• Are you close?
• Do you need help?

“And even when someone said they were almost done, you couldn’t really see it.”

That kind of setup doesn’t break anything outright, but it creates friction across the team. You either think the question in your head or stop what you’re doing to get an answer. Most people won’t interrupt. They’ll just deal with it and keep moving.

Over time, frustration builds. Eventually, people stop pushing because it feels like there is no fix.

What they decided to change was visibility. Once that was in place, it opened up options they didn’t have before.

With their new system, the team can see deadlines, workload, and where someone might be getting stuck. Once that information is visible, the team doesn’t have to guess or wait. They can step in and help earlier, which changes day-to-day work collaboration.

Building a Culture of Shared Responsibility

This shift came from small decisions that added up over time.

One of those was a simple yet practical status inside Canopy: “Assistance Needed.”

It gives someone a way to signal that they’re stuck without needing to explain everything in the moment. That matters more than it might seem, because asking for help can feel overwhelming, especially in a profession where people are used to figuring things out on their own.

They still use Microsoft Teams for communication, but the difference now is that the system reflects what’s happening in the work itself. You don’t have to track everything through conversations or memory because the information is now available.

Gamifying Accountability to Build Momentum

This part is my favorite! And yes, accountants can be fun and motivated as a team. If you want to create real change, understanding behavior makes it a lot easier to get there.

They introduced a Financial Statement by the 15th bonus, but it’s structured around the team rather than the individual.

At Dillon Business Advisors, they work in groups. Each group oversees a subset of clients and is responsible for its assigned workload. I see this in many successful firms designed for growth and sustainability.

To earn the bonus:

• The group’s work has to be completed by the 15th
• Each team member in that group completes their portion
• The group’s system must be kept accurate

If the 15th deadline is missed, the entire group misses the bonus. 😭

You better believe this approach shifts behavior. People do their best work when there is recognition. When accountability is shared, people stop working alone and start working together. That’s where momentum shows up. People tend to check in sooner, offer help earlier, and pay closer attention to where others might be falling behind.

If I were part of a group, there is no way my team would fall behind. I’d probably lose a limb first. Just kidding… kind of. Not just for the bonus, but for the pride that comes with finishing strong and knowing the team pulled it off together.

Recognition plays a role here, too. Often, the quietest are the ones performing the best. These team members are often overlooked for bonuses because they aren’t the loudest. But when you’re looking at the data, you can actually see the timeliness, quality, and volume of the work. When you acknowledge these individuals, you create loyalty.

Getting the right behaviors out of a team takes some thought. You need a plan, the right tools, and a setup that actually supports the work. But once in place, do as Dillon Business Advisors did and have fun with it. Encourage your team and best performers to shine.

Increasing Visibility Into What Was Hidden

Visibility brings things to the surface that would normally stay hidden.

If a client is late or disorganized, that shows up in the work tracker. If the workload increases because of growth, new offerings, or broken processes, that shows up too. Instead of those pressures building with one person, the data becomes part of a shared understanding.

Because performance dashboards pull directly from the system, the results are not subjective. If something is off, it’s detected faster.

Over time, the system and the incentives start reinforcing each other.

Gauging The Impact on Morale

This change didn’t happen all at once. There were reminders, repetition, and likely some resistance along the way. Changing how work is tracked also means changing habits built over years, and that doesn’t happen instantly.

What I see most often are people continuing to maintain their own lists alongside the system.

Over time, that became harder to justify. Maintaining multiple systems requires more effort, whereas working in a single place becomes simpler. That shift takes trust and ownership, and it doesn’t happen overnight.

That’s usually when adoption begins to take hold, not because it was forced, but because the new way actually makes the work easier.

For Dillon Business Advisors, the result has been clearer collaboration, smoother handoffs, stronger communication, and less operational friction across the team.

Advice for Firms Ready to Modernize

Amy shared something simple and inspiring: “You don’t have to do all of it. Pick one thing.”

Their approach was layered. They started internally with task management, then expanded outward to client-facing processes, and later added automation.

Lezlie emphasized something just as important. Timing matters, and trying to implement change during the busiest season can make things harder than they need to be.

She also pointed out that firms don’t have to figure this out alone. There is a lot of shared experience in the profession, and asking for help can make a significant difference in how smoothly these transitions go.

Picking a Place to Start

What Dillon Business Advisors built goes beyond a cleaner tech stack. They simplified how work flows through the firm, made accountability more visible, and created a structure in which team members can support each other, making it harder for problems to go unnoticed.

Over time, those changes start to shape behavior.

The system becomes something people can rely on, not just to track work, but to understand it, respond to it, and improve how the team works together.

Most of us have tried to fix things in our firms before. Some of those attempts worked, and some didn’t. Those experiences can stick with you longer than you expect, making the next step feel harder than it should.

Seeing a firm share what they’re building, especially while it’s still evolving, gives us something to learn from. Progress is something you build over time. I tell my children all the time, “You are what you practice, and the five people closest to you rub off on you.” And when a team practices showing up for each other, the results tend to follow.

I’ll leave you with what Amy said: pick one thing and move forward. That’s where it starts.