Transforming Client Accounting Blog
Cloud Financials
11/10/2010
Here we are again. It’s November, and you are coming to the realization that another tax season is just around the corner. Doesn’t it feel like the 2009 tax season just ended?
Do you remember thinking in the spring that, “Next tax season, my firm isn’t going to …” or “Before next tax season, we better …” Many of those ideas often revolved around investments, such as technology, that would help you, your staff, and your firm to be more efficient, effective, and forward thinking during the 2010 tax season. Anything! As long as it would make the tax season, well…less taxing.
With less than three months until the full-blown tax season gets underway, what can you do at your firm to increase efficiency while continuing to offer the exceptional service your clients have come to expect? Below are some best practices, as well as reference links to tools and resources you still have time to invest in.
Best Practices
- Process Review and Improvement: Streamlining workflow is an ever-neglected to-do item for many CPA firms, especially as client demands and regulations increase. It may prove valuable to have someone internally or externally document your existing business process and identify tasks that can be eliminated or done more effectively. Preparing a graphical workflow of the steps your team takes to complete the process may enlighten you.
Edward V. Jennings, CEO of Copanion, Inc., a tax document automation software company in Andover, Mass. and an AICPA Trusted Business Advisor partner, commented that firms that have moved to a paperless tax workflow, the efficiency gains have been phenomenal—some report time savings of up to 45 minutes per return. With the time saved, tax professionals are focusing on higher value activities and delivering better customer service to differentiate and grow their practices. Achieving results such as these is possible, and it's easier than many think.
- Create a Single Location for Digital File Storage: Whether you are using a Windows® file folder structure, or a more sophisticated professional document management system, the goal is to keep digital files organized and easy to find for all your staff. Not only does it save time, it increases efficiency among staff members who need to search for client content throughout the tax season and workflow process. It also reduces the loss of a potential “roving” paper file.
- Invest in Technology/Hardware: Investing in a high-speed scanner and dual monitors may seem trivial, but think about how often you wished you had electronic files to work from versus paper files. And, remember the last time you had to keep switching back and forth from Excel™ file to Excel file to get the information you needed?
- Implementing Worflow Tools—Now is the time to add workflow tools, such as a tax document automation tool and/or a workflow management tool, to help you be more efficient during the looming tax season.
Additional Resources
There are many resources to research if you’re considering taking the next step toward automating your tax workflow, including process efficiencies, paperless solutions, and technology investments.
- Cloud-Based Tax Workflow Solutions:
- AICPA Trusted Business Advisor ™ Solutions
- Books:
- Managing your Tax Season—an AICPA publication and new edition—This book will give you fresh insight into tax preparation—and very likely result in significant improvements to your current system. You will learn to analyze your existing tax season system and target problems so that work will be more efficient, errors will decrease, and personnel.
- Articles:
- Free White Papers
- Free CPA Firm Case Studies
As you contemplate the upcoming tax season, consider what you could accomplish if certain tasks were automated, files were structured electronically, client documents were easily accessible by your staff, and so much more. How much would all of that be worth to you?
There is still time to research and evaluate products. Share your thoughts and experiences here.
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- AICPA Trusted Business Advisor™ Solutions
05/21/2010
You are familiar with the traditional tax season workflow model a manual process including file folders spread about your office, rubber bands holding routing sheets to client folders, and
mounds and mounds of paper.
However, a cloud-based workflow solution takes that process, automates it, and allows you to put your finger on your client’s paperwork electronically from anywhere within the
process.
The March 2010, Journal of Accountancy article Toward
a (More) Paperless Tax Practice described the automated workflow as a system that electronically moves work from person to person, including:
- Scanning incoming client documents and filing them digitally.
- Shifting responsibility from receipt of source documents through preparation and shipping or e-filing.
- Viewing scanned source documents to prepare and review the return digitally in your tax software.
- Using remote access to check the status and/or responding to review points from home or in the field.
- Archiving the completed return with the source documents in a secure document management or network filing tree.
In fact, the Business Services Industry blog Why
Use Workflow Automation indicates that workflow automation may reduce business costs, and that re-engineered processes require less execution and
cycle time and fewer steps and employees.
Christopher Colyer, tax manager at Livingston, N.J.-based Wiss & Co. LLP. a firm, which handles about 2,500 individual returns and 3,000 business returns a year, told WebCPA, "It used to be that we'd have meetings to figure out who is doing what; but, you
don't need those meetings. It [workflow] is more efficient."
According to XCM CEO, Mark Albrecht, “XCM [workflow] is accessible from anywhere at any time, enabling a virtual work environment
giving the individual more control, and the firm (or corporate department) more flexibility in its staffing decisions.”
In May 2010, CPA2Biz added XCM™ Solutions to its Trusted Business
AdvisorSM Solutions program, which also includes Bill.com, Copanion, Intacct and Paychex.
02/12/2010
Are you looking for new revenue-generating services without the need for a large IT investment?
Want to offer your clients additional value and grow your firm’s client accounting services practice?
If you answered “yes” to either question above, then web- or cloud-based accounting and financial solutions should be at the top of your list. Why?
For starters,cloud financials can enable higher-margin areas of service for your firm and increase client loyalty by boosting productivity, visibility and collaboration with clients. Which is why we are especially excited about ground-breaking new enhancements recently announced by our strategic business solutions partner, Intacct, a leading innovator in cloud-based financial solutions for CPAs.
Intacct’s new capabilities bring world-class financial management and reporting capabilities to CPA firms that will expand your services into new markets and target a broader range of small to medium-size business clients that would otherwise find these capabilities cost prohibitive or unattainable.
Intacct’s enhanced capabilities include:
Expanded Multi-Dimensional General Ledger and Detailed GAAP Reporting
Intacct’s new enhanced multi-dimensional general ledger allows CPA firms, like yours, to do more robust and granular financial and operational reporting, analysis, and real-time planning for clients. So now you can deliver better reports tailored to the unique needs of individual clients in all industries and markets. With more visibility into your clients’ financials, and an enhanced ability to interpret client data, your firm can provide higher-margin business and financial advisory services to your clients, thus increasing revenue and profits.
Enter or expand into specialized lucrative vertical markets such as not-for-profit, franchise, and property management. You can rename and repurpose dimensions to meet your client’s specific industry or business needs. This enables better planning, reporting, and analysis with the ability to drill down and pivot with deeper detail than ever before. Combine your vertical expertise with a financial management platform that lets you differentiate and highlight your firm’s strengths.
Here’s what Abraham Mathew, a senior consultant at LarsonAllen (an Intacct CPA partner) had to say about Intacct’s new enhanced multi-dimensional reporting capabilities:
"LarsonAllen services clients in a wide range of vertical industries and Intacct's enhanced multidimensional general ledger enables us to better service our clients by providing reports and deep operational analysis that were extremely hard to provide in the past. The added general ledger dimensions are critical for our clients in industries like not-for-profit or healthcare that have very complex and specialized reporting needs. In the past, we would have had to export the data into Excel spreadsheets and rework the information to create these types of advanced reports, which introduces extra layers of complexity and work. Now we can complete the operational reporting and analysis from directly within Intacct."
Web-Based Financial Processes & Employee Participation
Make it easier for any employee, anywhere, at anytime to actively participate in financial workflows. Enable clients to get away from manual process, poor controls, and the lack of data accessibility and visibility. Intacct’s cloud delivery model with enhanced workflows makes it easy for your clients’ employees to actively and collaboratively participate in financial processes, like purchasing and T&E expense reimbursements, while still ensuring proper financial controls and compliance.
With enhancements like the above, Intacct will enable you to better service your clients’ needs, increasing retention and satisfaction, boosting referrals, and expanding into new higher-margin markets. The best part? You can leverage this enhanced new functionality at a fraction of the cost and risk of traditional on-premises systems.
To learn more about the Intacct Accountants Program from CPA2Biz, click here.
If you are already benefiting from Intacct’s enhanced new capabilities, please share your experience with these new features here. Have you been able to expand into new higher-margin services? What are your thoughts and opinions on these new enhancements, especially the multi-dimensional general ledger? Please share your thoughts and opinions here.
11/24/2009
One tip: Invest in a quality scanner!
With new cloud-based services, like Bill.com's paperless bill management solution and Copanion's paperless tax workflow system, accounting firms are finally moving closer and closer to a true paperless office. Cloud solutions like Bill.com and Copanion's GruntWorx let you quickly scan and upload client documents as soon as they land on your desk, where you can then process, manage and act on these documents in a timely manner.
One word of advice, especially for this tax season, invest in a quality scanner. In a recent AICPA CPA Insider article entitled, "Don't Skimp on Scanners" author Alexandra DeFelice provides some excellent advice and tips on choosing the right scanner for your firm's needs.
CPA2Biz and Copanion recently ran a live web seminar on "Best Practices for Scanning Tax Documents." If you missed this complimentary web event, you can view it now in its entirety.
Are you using a scanner to upload, organize, store, process and manage client documents, from invoices to W-2s and 1099s and brokerage statements? Are you happy with the scanner you currently have? Finally, do you scan before processing or after the fact for simple archival purposes? What advice or recommendations would you have for CPAs shopping for a scanner? Please share your experiences here.
11/12/2009
When you look at the advantages of cloud-based accounting solutions over traditional on-premise software, you might not consider Mother Nature as a key factor in the decision-making process. However, the recent experience of Harrod CPA, an accounting firm that was able to continue operations despite devastating hurricanes in Florida serves as confirmation of the unique benefits of adopting cloud-based solutions in your firm.
Not long ago, "…when there were three major hurricanes that devastated the central Florida area, Harrod's staff had to evacuate the state for several days. Fortunately, since Intacct's cloud accounting applications are accessible over the Internet, the firm could continue to operate and serve its clients without major disruption."
"We definitely had a competitive advantage due to the Intacct system," noted Harrod. "We reassured our clients, some of whom are scattered throughout the state of Florida, that their data was safe and secure at the IBM data center in California used by Intacct. Even though they were without power for days and their businesses sustained damage, we could continue to provide our service and the clients' financial systems never went down. Other clients not on Intacct were not so fortunate. Since then, many of these clients have migrated to Intacct due to these concerns and the need to mitigate future risk associated with hurricanes in the state."
You can read the recent press release and access the case study posted by Intacct on how the Move to Cloud Accounting With Intacct Helped Harrod CPA Improve Service and Increase Client Success.
If you have recently begun using cloud-based solutions, like Intacct or Bill.com, or are considering the move to the cloud, please share your experiences here, including the challenges of using traditional on-premise accounting software and the unique benefits your firm experienced with cloud-based solutions.
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