Transforming Client Accounting Blog

New enhancements to Intacct will help your firm expand and target new clients

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.

Is this the year your firm hopes to go paperless?

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.

Cloud Accounting Enables Firm to Continue Operations Despite Devastating Hurricanes in Florida

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.

Welcome to the Transforming Client Accounting Blog

A Special Message from Erik Asgeirsson, President and Chief Executive Officer, CPA2Biz, Inc.

The world of client accounting is changing. New cloud-based technologies are transforming the way CPAs will work and interact with their clients for years to come. These new technologies are increasing the productivity and profitability for many firms. The AICPA Trusted Business Advisor^SM Solutions featured on this web site, including Bill.com, Intacct, and Paychex, are designed to help the CPA community harness the power of these new technologies.

We are excited to announce the launch of CPA2Biz's all-new web site and blog dedicated to new advances in client accounting for the CPA community. Now, on a single web site, you will have access to the latest information on cloud-based technologies, tools, and business programs that will transform the way you do business with clients.

We'll be posting timely articles to this blog that you'll find useful in your day-to-day and long-range business operations. Of course, we want to hear what you think. Please don't hesitate to comment on our posts, ask questions, and share your thoughts and experiences using the new technologies featured on this site, including:

• Intacct: On-demand financial management and accounting tools
• Bill.com: Paperless bill management solutions
• Paychex: Payroll processing, HR, and 401(k) retirement services
• Trusted Business Advisor training and workshops
• Marketing solutions for CPA firms to help you attract and win new business
• And much more.

Over the last year, we have noticed a dramatic change in the rate that accounting firms are adopting these web- or cloud-based technologies. We believe it is extremely important for all firms to understand the positive impact of these changes. In particular, these new web-based tools will improve the standard and quality of services you can provide to your clients, while helping your firm increase productivity and profitability. One result of these new advances in client accounting is that firms, like yours, are in a better position to provide higher level (and more profitable) services to your clients, from budget planning and cash flow analysis to virtual CFO and business advisory services. We want to know what you think. So please share your thoughts here.

From time to time, we also hope to have thought leaders and other experts as guest bloggers. This will be your opportunity to read what these experts are thinking first-hand, as well as to comment on their posts and ask them questions.

Once again, welcome to our new web site and blog dedicated to your client accounting practice. We look forward to seeing you online.

Sincerely,
Erik Asgeirsson
President and Chief Executive Officer, CPA2Biz, Inc.

Are you offering outsourced CFO services to your clients? Maybe you should…

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal entitled "For Rent: Chief Financial Officer. Firms Outsource a Top Job as Cheaper Than Hiring Their Own Executive" reports how more and more small businesses are leveraging outsourced CFO services – especially during this difficult economic period. One of the key benefits of a cloud-based solution like Intacct Accountant Edition is that it makes it possible for accounting firms and their staff to provide higher value services to clients, such as outsourced or virtual CFO services.

According to the article, "Some small-business owners in need of accounting help to balance their books and guide them out of a financial black hole are renting CFOs rather than hiring them. The strategy comes at a time when the deep recession has forced small companies to look for money-saving alternatives that can yield good returns yet avoid substantial overhead costs."

These CFOs often have a bigger role than simply keeping track of the company's books. The article goes on to state, "They work with business owners to manage their accounting and finance departments, connect them with business sources that can help them grow and provide financial data to help make strategic long-term or day-to-day decisions."

The WSJ article serves as a good introduction to the changing landscape of client accounting services and how you can shift your firm's focus to more profitable services, while increasing the overall efficiency and profitability of the services you already offer. Read the full article for some quick insights into the benefits and advantages of outsourced or virtual CFO services. You can find the SaaS solutions you need, such as Bill.com and Intacct, right on this web site that can help you get started down this lucrative new path to increased revenue and profits.

Is your accounting firm currently offering outsourced CFO services to your clients? Have SaaS or cloud-based solutions played a part in your ability to offer these enhanced business and financial services to your clients? Please share your thoughts and experiences here.