survey results: top tech trends 2009

cpa firms pursue going paperless and gaining efficiencies.

accountants and finance managers are looking for more effective workflows and increased productivity as they consider their technology investments this year.

to be sure, some tech spending may have slowed, but there’s little sign of it in our current soundings. and the changes in plans and priorities are showing up as minor from last year to this.

but the big story is in the data emerging that differentiates “leading” firms from “laggard” firms. those differences will be examined in-depth in an upcoming aug. 11 webinar with jean caragher of capstone marketing and made possible by bizactions.

meanwhile, here’s some preliminary data…

join the survey here; get all the updates.

verbatim comments

question: “if you could change anything about your technology setup, what would it be? and why?”

• happy with the current set-up.
• that competing companies would be truthful in product descriptions and claims.
• smoother automation between applications
• my it consultants would be more reasonably priced.
• more support
• adopt an integrated point of sale/invoicing/inventory/customer mailing list system that was easy for all employees to use
• switch to electronic faxes in order to reduce paper costs and to increase life of faxes and printers.
• better integration of “paperless” office to tax software
• faster speed
• speedy technical support because i hate down-time.
• faster computers
• one stop storage with security and convenience.
• more funds to invest.
• i wish we had periodic refresher hands on training workshops for excel, word, etc…
• as a sole practitioner, i would reduce the amount of time necessary to maintain it.
• teach staff to use the powerful features of ms office software.
• have more web based services. to speed up information flow
• that we can have good, reasonable, dependable it personnel cooridinate with our office.
• we could afford to have a dedicated resource on staff for technology- testing, implementation and training
• train us !
• we could finish developing a disaster recovery plan. would like to sleep better at night.
• more paperless setups
• where to start? i work for a gov’t agency so lack of funding is the root cause of our lack of technology and tech training. when we do receive technology, most people have the “it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality and re loathe to change. this is extremely frustrating coming from consulting where tech was embraced and used to increase to efficiency. i do like my job nd continue to push for tech, bring my own tech to work to help me, show my colleagues how simple changes can bring great benefits, and pray for funding for more tech and training.
• limit software new updates to be bought
• have more bells and whistles to make my life cleaner and easier
• move to a remote server farm for offsite storage/maintance
• way to symplify transfer of several vertical market applications when upgrading machines.
• we probably could go 4+ years before we change over computers instead of 3+.
• offsite server to work from remote locations.
• to intergrate our various sub districts so that easy access is available to hq staff
• better integration with business applications (ie going paperless)
• i wish i could have all of my various softwares centralized into one system – somewhat like an erp system.

posted on july 28, 2009