How Haga Kommer Saved ~15 Minutes Per Meeting Across 30-40 Weekly Calls

Haga Kommer | Accounting and legal advisory firm, now operating within a larger acquired group

Before, meeting notes depended on who took them, where they saved them, and whether they remembered to follow up.

After, the office has one branded note-taking workflow, faster post-meeting follow-up, and far less guesswork when someone else needs client context.

At-a-glance stats

• Time spent on post-meeting write-up: ~20 minutes → ~5 minutes

• Time saved: ~15 minutes per meeting

• Meeting volume: ~30-40 meetings per week

• Daily savings for Mike alone: ~1 hour per day based on ~4 meetings

• Adoption: ~15 staff in the office using Vinyl

• Before → After: Multiple note-takers and inconsistent storage → One branded, shared workflow

BEFORE: WHAT LIFE LOOKED LIKE PRE-CHANGE

Context

Mike Payne started Boss Advisors about eight years ago after leaving Big Four. He wanted a firm more focused on client care and one that could combine accounting with the legal services he provides.

The firm grew to about $2 million in revenue with 15 staff before being acquired by Haga Kommer with roughly $40 million in revenue and 250 staff. In Mike’s office, meetings are constant, with an estimated 30-40 being captured each week.

That made meeting documentation more than an admin task. It was how client context, sales handoffs, and follow-up work moved through the firm.

Old workflow + tools

Before Vinyl, the process changed a few times, but it stayed manual:

• Mike originally took notes by hand on a notepad

• He handed those notes to his assistant to type up

• Assignments were created manually

• Follow-up emails were sent manually

• Later, Mike typed notes himself in Word during meetings

• Other team members used their own methods, or saved notes on their own computers

• The firm experimented with several AI note-takers at once

• On some calls, multiple bots from different tools joined the same meeting

The process worked for Mike personally, but not as a firm-wide system.

Where Things Broke

• Notes were inconsistent across the team

• Historically, Mike’s notes were often the only meeting notes reliably saved in firm files

• Other staff might save notes locally, or not save them at all

• If Mike joined a client after the discovery call, he could be walking in blind

• Clients sometimes had to repeat information or resend documents they had already provided

• Typing during emotional or presentation-heavy meetings was not always realistic

• Manual notes captured facts, but often missed tone and sentiment

“Without having those meeting notes, because I was no longer involved in that process and they weren’t being recorded, I’m kind of flying in blind and having to ask the client questions again that they’ve already been asked. It’s just a really bad look.” — Mike Payne

The Trigger

The biggest issue was not speed. It was inconsistency.

As the firm added a salesperson and Mike stepped out of some early-stage client conversations, the old workflow broke. The intake form and discovery notes Mike used to rely on were no longer consistently in the file. That meant weaker handoffs, repeated questions, and less confidence heading into meetings.

At the same time, the team had drifted into using multiple note-taking tools, which created a messy client experience. Seeing several different bots on the same call made the need for one standard system obvious.

During: How The Firm Made The Change

What They Looked For

Haga Kommer wasn’t just looking for transcription. They needed a workflow the whole office could actually use.

Mike’s criteria were practical:

Non-negotiables

• Built for accounting firms

• Integration potential with accounting-specific tools

• One note-taker for the whole firm, not multiple bots

• A more professional, branded client experience

• Easier access to meeting notes after the call

They had tried other note-takers, including Fireflies and Otter, and Mike said they “all worked okay.” The difference was that Vinyl felt closer to how an accounting firm actually operates and where Mike wanted the workflow to go.

Implementation

Mike rolled Vinyl out to the whole office early.

At first, the team made it playful. Staff named their note-takers after fictional characters. That did not last. Clients kept asking who the extra attendee was, and the experience felt messy. So the team standardized everything under firm branding instead.

That turned out to be the better rollout lesson: make it uniform, make it obvious, and make it professional. Once the workflow shifted from multiple personalities and bots to one consistent branded note-taker, adoption got simpler.

The office now has about 15 people using Vinyl, with Mike also trying to build the case for broader rollout across the larger acquired group.

The New Playbook

Today, the workflow is much tighter:

• The same branded note-taker joins meetings

• Meetings are captured automatically instead of relying on manual notes

• Mike reviews the notes immediately after the call

• He cleans up the summary in his own style

• He sends a client follow-up email or posts reminders to the team

• Staff can review summaries rather than relying on memory

• Meeting records can be shared across the team instead of living with one person

The biggest shift is that the bulk of the work is already done before anyone starts the follow-up.

Vinyl’s Role

Vinyl didn’t replace the firm’s systems. It gave the office one consistent way to capture meetings and share context.

That let Mike move from a personal note-taking habit to a more standard firm workflow, with cleaner branding, less manual effort, and fewer blind handoffs.

AFTER: RESULTS + PROOF

What Changed (Before → After)

Timing based on Mike Payne’s internal estimates.

Day-to-Day Impact

The operational win shows up right after the meeting ends.

Mike no longer starts from a blank page. He opens the Vinyl notes, cleans them up, and sends the follow-up. Instead of spending around 20 minutes reconstructing the conversation, he spends about 5 minutes organizing what is already there.

That change matters because his average day includes about four meetings. By his estimate, that is roughly an hour a day back.

The other visible change is client-facing. The office no longer looks like a patchwork of tools with several bots joining the same call. There is one branded note-taker, one cleaner experience, and less confusion.

“I just clean them up and send an email to the client with a follow-up or a reminder to the team. But the bulk of the work is done.” — Mike Payne, Haga Kommer

Business Impact

• Mike estimates Vinyl saves him ~15 minutes per meeting

• At roughly 4 meetings a day, that is about 1 hour saved per day for him alone

• Client follow-up is faster because the summary already exists

• Meeting context is easier to recover when someone else needs to step in

• The office presents a more professional image with one branded note-taker

• The team now has a foundation Mike wants to expand into the broader 200+ person group

The firm is still early in fully standardizing team collaboration around the notes, and Mike was clear about that. But the core operational gain is already there: less rework, less guesswork, and a cleaner process after every call.

Bottom Line

Haga Kommer didn’t just speed up note-taking. They reduced the inconsistency that was making handoffs harder and client conversations messier.

Vinyl helped turn meeting capture from an individual habit into shared infrastructure. Notes are faster, follow-up is easier, and the office looks more polished in front of clients.

For firms running dozens of calls a week, that matters more than the transcript itself. The real value is removing the scramble after the meeting and making sure the next person is not walking in blind.