How ConnectCPA reduced booking delays by 70% with Calendly

ConnectCPA isn’t a traditional accounting firm — and that’s by design. Founded in 2014, the Toronto-based company delivers a full external finance department as a subscription service, supporting growing companies with bookkeeping, payroll, tax, and technology consulting. With a client base spanning North America and a remote team located across Canada and the Philippines, ConnectCPA blends real-time financial strategy with a deep commitment to automation.

At the heart of their business model is one key thing: time. Time to serve clients, time to move fast, and time to make every interaction a frictionless experience. But as their client base grew, their scheduling process was working against them — until Calendly helped them cut booking delays by 70% and bring clarity and speed to every client interaction.

Challenges

Scheduling delays, slow follow-ups, and missed opportunities

Before Calendly, scheduling was slowing everything down. Every sales inquiry or client meeting started with an email — followed by the inevitable back-and-forth: “What times work for you?” “How about next Tuesday?” “Sorry, that time doesn’t work anymore.” The challenge was even greater when multiple stakeholders were involved on either side. Booking a meeting could take days — and that delay was costing the team more than just time.

“It created unnecessary stress for our team and our clients. In a service-based business like ours, speed matters — and so does perception. That back-and-forth made us look less responsive than we are.”

Lior Zehtser

Co-Founder at ConnectCPA

The sales team in particular felt the drag. Hot inbound leads cooled quickly when meetings weren’t booked fast enough. Onboarding stalled, slowing down the handoff to service teams. And for existing clients, the friction showed up in peak periods like tax season, when time-sensitive conversations were hardest to lock in.

Solution

A faster, more flexible scheduling flow

ConnectCPA made the switch to Calendly in 2016 after their previous scheduling tool couldn’t handle the complexity of multi-attendee meetings. Once they discovered how easy it was to set up co-hosted meetings with Collective Events — and how flexible the platform was overall — the team was all in.

From that point forward, Calendly became a central part of how the firm operates. Every client-facing team member gets access during the new hire onboarding process. Sales consultations can now be booked directly from the company’s website, where Calendly is embedded on the contact page. Then, Calendly’s Round Robin functionality automatically distributes new leads between account executives, eliminating the need (and delay) for manual assignment.

Calendly’s native integrations with HubSpot and Zoom have also made a noticeable difference in the team’s workflows. Prospects receive automatic meeting confirmations, Zoom links are automatically added to events, and post-meeting follow-ups are triggered through HubSpot workflows. Automating these time-consuming tasks takes busywork off team members’ plates, so they can focus on client work.

“We used to rely on email threads to schedule meetings. Now everything happens instantly — and that makes a big difference.”

Lior Zehtser

Co-Founder at ConnectCPA

Internally, team members use the Calendly browser extension to quickly copy and paste links in Slack, email, and LinkedIn messages. And because tax season is one of the busiest times, team members can adjust their Calendly availability to block off mornings for deep work while leaving afternoons open for client conversations.

“Calendly gives us control without sacrificing flexibility,” Lior says. “It lets us serve our clients better and protect our time when we need to.”

Results

Quicker bookings, more efficient teams, happier clients 

After embedding Calendly across their workflows, ConnectCPA saw measurable improvements. Once prospects had a way to book a meeting instantly, sales booking delays dropped by 70% — no back-and-forth, no waiting. According to Lior, 90% of prospects now book within 24 hours of visiting ConnectCPA’s website, significantly speeding up deal velocity. And a smoother, faster booking experience helps ConnectCPA make a better first impression on potential clients.

The benefits also extend beyond sales. Client onboarding is faster, kickoff calls are easier to coordinate, and internal teams are more focused. On average, client-facing team members save three to five hours each week, time they now spend preparing client deliverables or focusing on more strategic conversations.

And beyond the numbers, Calendly helps ConnectCPA deliver the tech-forward, client-first experience they’ve been committed to from day one.

“Calendly makes us look tech-forward. It’s one of the first tools we give our new hires — right alongside Zoom and Slack. That’s how essential it’s become to our business.”

Lior Zehtser

Co-Founder at ConnectCPA