vendors take note: finance and accounting professionals want real solutions.
by rick telberg
if financial managers and accountants could have their wishes come true, technology vendors would take a breather for a while. are vendors, resellers and systems integrators listening” definitely, yes. still, many professionals feel as though they are already dealing with as much change and innovation as they can handle. instead, they’d really like help in getting the most out of their current systems and integrating one system with another.
when it comes to integration, ralph mooney of mooney & thomas in aurora, ill., says his firm suffers “a real productivity drain from working with multiple databases. whether the issue is porting client data between applications or making a change of address only once, we could really gain with effective integration,” he says.
but professionals still must remain alert and up-to-date on the changes even (or especially) if it’s exactly what they’ve been asking for. so there’s no rest for the weary, for either vendor or buyer.
joe eckelkamp, head of a st. louis firm, longs for technology that will let him share information between quickbooks, microsoft outlook and his tax prep software, among several other applications. joseph a. bongiovanni, chief technology officer of super regional j.h. cohn in roseland, n.j., wants the same capability for his firm’s many more applications in order to get real time information to all management levels.
the field of vendors developing software for accountants has dwindled to a handful from almost 100 in the past 20 years, but cpas in public practice and business and industry are still clamoring for the same thing they asked for in the 1980s, integration between the many products and of all the data that they handle.
fast forward, now, to the 21st century, and a different breed of vendor is rolling out new paperless office technologies. practitioners are panting for paperless, but many feel they lack the internal resources to begin moving to electronic everything.
for anthony m. moschella, a business and industry cpa in maitland, fla., his technology wish list features “combining multiple products with multiple code into one cohesive graphical user interface.” another business and industry cpa, who asked not to be named, longs for “seamless technology without the extra time it takes to maintain it.”
not surprisingly, when i asked a cross-section of cpas about the technology solution they were most interested in, the paperless office led all responses. paperless was cited by 69 percent of cpas from all fields combined, including 80 percent of those in public practice. integration ranked second, cited by 52 percent overall.
judy lynn scott, a small firm practitioner in houston notes that combining data integration with a paperless office adds up to “increased efficiency and productivity.” indeed, going paperless is creating just as big an accounting buzz as integration.
beyond just eliminating clutter and the need for filing cabinets, many practitioners feel that paperless operations will be the best way to ensure quality client service. but some fret they don’t have the resources needed.
“i am interested in learning how to do a paperless audit without having the focus shift from the actual audit procedures to the scanning in and linking of documents,” says tim van cleve, a senior member of a firm in knoxville, tenn.
among the many other cpas longing for technology and the technical assistance to speed their access to client files, steven scribner of olean, n.y., says he’s tired of “the time wasted trying to find information stored in a paper file somewhere.”
adds andrew pfau, head of a small firm in jericho, n.y., “while i would love the benefits of being mostly digital, i don’t have the staff available to spend most of their time scanning, storing and returning client records.”
but, pfau sees paperless as “an absolute must” for larger firms with the resources available for conversion. “the real benefit is not the savings in paper and storage, but in the ability to service customers faster and more effectively and the ability to be extremely mobile while having total access to all files,” he says.
serving customers. isn’t that what it’s all about?
one response to “keeping up with technology”
paul hamilton
perhaps my biggest pet peeve are software companies that are always changing and “improving” their product. case in point. mas 90. we have used for many years and been happy with the way it performs. have used it for payroll applications and client writeup. recently they have “improved”. now our small office had to have outside consultants load the upgraded software in order that all of our data files were properly converted. the former ease of use has somewhat disappeared. report generation is more difficult. i could go on. these are improvements? bs. these people need to get a life. i’m probably going overboard, but maybe not since other people who use this program everyday feel the same way. just my random thoughts.
paul hamilton, cpa
council bluffs, ia
.