up-to-date it systems become a competitive necessity
“the majority of cpa firms are not even close to taking full advantage of technology,” according to william c. fleenor (left) and randolph p. johnston (right) in the aicpa’s management of an accounting practice handbook, now available online. “your firm, however, may be the exception.”
how many of the following questions can you answer “yes†for your firm?
- do partners and managers have immediate and always up-to-date access to what your people are doing and how productive they are?
- do you know the current status of all jobs underway in your firm?
- can you handle simple requests from clients instantly and immediately without disrupting your current work? for example, a client calls and requests a copy of a prior year’s return and financial statements.
- is technology being used consistently and to an equal extent by all the members of your firm from staff accountants up to and including partners?
- can you find any document you want at any time in a matter of seconds?
- do you have software and systems to continuously monitor workflow processes?
- are your control procedures for monitoring due dates, job progress, and other mission critical processes set up so that partners are automatically notified (without human intervention) any time any serious problem exists?
- have you assessed all the risks associated with technology failures and designed procedures to effectively manage these risks? for example, what will you do if your servers crash on april 11th and you cannot get them back up?
- are you continuing, year after year, to experience measurable increases in productivity from your staff directly as a result of taking better advantage of technology?
equipping staff with high-quality desktops, laptops, and handhelds not only improves productivity far beyond the cost, it also has other tangible benefits. well-equipped staffers are more likely to be satisfied with their job, and employee retention is improved.
william c. fleenor, cpa/citp, ph.d., is partner and randolph p. johnston is executive vice president at k2 enterprises. this is adapted from e-map: management of an accounting practice handbook. available at www.cpa2biz.com or 1-888-777-7077. read the full article in the april 2008 journal of accountancy.
