Anytime, Anywhere

I’ve seen a lot of articles lately (and written a few myself) directed towards accounting professionals “taking your practice online” or “taking your practice to the cloud”.  At this point, when a professional asks me the question “should I take my practice to the cloud”, my response generally comes in the form of two return questions:

The first is “what leads you to believe you have a choice?”  The second is “what makes you think you haven’t already?”

You may question the glib response, but there are a few realities about doing business today that can’t (or shouldn’t) be ignored.  Professionals can recognize these realities and work with them, or fight the changing tide and lose out to more relevant providers.

To address the question of choice, let’s consider the fact that many of today’s entrepreneurs and small business owners have been exposed to Internet services and online technologies for quite a long time, and use of these services has become an ingrained element in daily life.  Not using online technologies seems “old school” to these folks, and is often perceived to be due to some deficiency in the ability to understand or use new tools.  If professional service providers aren’t able to leverage these tools to provide the access, collaboration, and higher level of service which business owners demand, they won’t work with those business owners for very long.

In addressing the “what makes you think you aren’t already?” question, let’s consider the fact that almost all of the accounting software offered today has incorporated cloud-service or Internet-based functionality in some manner.  Even the tried and true desktop editions of QuickBooks financial software  have quite a lot of web service functionality designed in to the product.  Where credit card processing was once an offline (or telephonic) process, it’s now an instantaneous service delivered via the net.  Payroll?  Tax tables aren’t just downloaded to the software where you perform the processing and calculations.  Payroll is a service, delivered via Internet connectivity to Intuit’s payroll service bureaus (or ADP, Paychex, etc.).  Even banking is less traveling to the establishment and more Internet access and data exchange.   We don’t think twice about downloading transactions from the bank computers instead of working from the paper bank statement. Internet/web/cloud service and functionality has become a pervasive element to almost every aspect of software and computerized business support systems, and it’s a pretty good bet that your firm is already using it.

So, let’s not spend our time asking a silly question about whether or not it makes sense to “take the practice to the cloud”.  The obvious answer is “yes”, and the time is now.

Make sense?

J

Anytime, Anywhere

You’ve seen the IBM advertisements lately, about how IBM wants to build a smarter planet by “infusing intelligence into the systems and processes that make the world work”.  It makes sense, what they’re saying.  By analyzing systems and recognizing patterns, it’s easier to predict behavior.  It’s done every day, from Amazon letting you know that “others who purchased this item also purchased xxx”, to the merchandising systems at large store chains who know when and where to stock the umbrellas or presto logs.

Technology has reached a point where huge amounts of business intelligence is being gathered every day – even from the smallest of businesses – simply through the technology-supported enabling of business processes.  Where systems were initially focused on automation of processes to reduce labor and streamline workflows, the goal now is to turn the data captured by the system into actionable information.  Data is just data, but information is power.

I spent a lot of time over the past few weeks, deciding what path I would take with the Bookkeeping in Bunny Slippers Blog and other publications this year.  It seems that that past few years have been a consistent mantra of “using technology to work smarter, not harder” and “using the Internet to work closer with clients” – rehashing the same value propositions about how technology can make you more efficient.  But I think we’re moving beyond that now, and it’s time to talk about what comes next.  It’s really quite simple: the paradigm is shifting now, and we either shift our thinking along with it and use it to our advantage, or lose relevance.

In the coming months, I’ll be talking more about this paradigm shift – this sea change in how we think about business automation and information – and how it is impacting each and every player in the business value chain.  Accounting professionals in particular need to pay attention to what’s happening with technology.  You thought you had competition before?  Say hello to zero data entry, smarter OCR, intelligent dashboards and interconnected systems that know what’s going on before you do.  Now more than ever before, it’s up the accounting and finance professional to bridge the gap between operational performance and financial reporting – to move from reconciliation to forecasting and predictive analysis.

Is the CPA losing out to the MBA in today’s business world?  Perhaps in some circles.  But if you remember that each and every action in a business means money, you ultimately conclude that accounting and finance is where the action is and always has been.  Follow along with our newsletter, the Practice Development News, and the blogs Bookkeeping in Bunny Slippers, Running QuickBooks in the Cloud, and Cloud Accounting 4 Canada to keep on top of the issues, technologies, and solutions impacting today’s rapidly-changing business environments.  We’ll continue to deliver the information and intelligence you need to help make your business, and your client businesses, smarter.  Maybe we’ll even beat IBM at making the world smarter… one small business at a time.

Make Sense?

J

As we reach the end of this year and begin looking towards the new one ahead, it’s important to remember why we do what we do… why we work.

Because, you see, it doesn’t really matter where we work…

And it doesn’t really matter how we work…

What matters is WHY we work.

Happy Holidays and To All The Best from Bookkeeping in Bunny Slippers

Special thanks to:

The incredibly hard working and innovative team at SmartVault (“Hey” to Claire, Allie, Dania, Lisa, Maureen, Eric and crew),

Claire – this is just for you… J

The great and powerful Oz, er, I mean, Doug Sleeter, and the wonderful members of the SGCN,

The entire crew at Bill.com, a real game-changer solution and a great bunch of people,

The fabulous Joe Woodard and the NAN (hey Nanu!),

My new friend Linda Hunt and The Bookkeeper’s Club,

The lovely social butterfly that is Michelle Long,

Rob Chandler of Cloud9, Phil & John from Right Networks, and Bob Babcock of Uni-Data, for helping to fight the good fight and move the mountain that is Intuit,

Fearless leader, John Gorst, and the entire InsynQ crew – my family of this past 14 years (special shout-out to Errol Allahverdi, the Appgen magician),

And, last but certainly not least, my family – Sean, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary – for being the reasons I get up each morning.

Happy Holidays to All.

Much Love, J

Anytime, Anywhere

The online working model addresses quite a number of problems faced when remote and mobile team members need real time access to business applications and data.  Further, collaboration with outside professionals, like accountants and lawyers, is easier when the information is centrally stored and managed online.  However, this “subscription-based” working model can introduce other challenges that neither the business owner nor the outsourced professionals might have considered.  One of these challenges is the division of information assets when the professional engagement is dissolved.  Somewhat like a divorce, this dissolution can take on an unfriendly tone if there isn’t a clear plan for distribution of relevant data to all parties involved.  The problem often stems from the orientation of online subscriptions and services, and the question of who actually controls the service.

The general rule of thumb for subscription services is “he who pays the bill owns the data”.  This may seem like a simple approach, but it’s the most logical one.  Whoever subscribes the service and is financially obligated for it is the controlling authority.  It’s kind of like having the authorization to use a credit card… you can use yours, but you don’t have the right to use someone else’s.  In a subscription service, like an application hosting service, the rule is similarly applied.

When this becomes a problem or issue is when two or more businesses utilize the service, yet only one pays for it.  This is a scenario quite common in the online accounting models, where accountants may be purchasing subscription services to facilitate their processing for the client. But accountants don’t just subscribe to process-support systems, they also subscribe to hosting and data management solutions.  This is where things get a little dicey.

Consider an accounting firm utilizing Bill.com, for example, to assist with vendor bill processing and approvals for the client.  While the Bill.com system may store certain copies of documents or files, the transaction information is integrated to the financial system (QuickBooks perhaps).  Source documents or images may be stored in the Bill.com portal, but the actual transaction information ends up in the financial system.  If the accountant and the client wish to part ways, the client can generally get all their accounting system data, such as QB data files, from the accountant.  Whether or not they can get the documents stored in the Bill.com system is another issue, and that would be up to the accountant, because they were the holders of the subscription.  Now, this issue becomes a non-issue when the client is subscribed to the Bill.com solution, and the accounting firm is invited to participate.  In this case, the client actually owns the data, even though the accountants are allowed to work with it online.

Taking the discussion a bit further, let’s consider document management solutions, such as SmartVault or eFileCabinet.  These solutions do not store just source data for financial transactions, they are designed to be complete document and content management solutions.  In the past few years, we have seen a number of these online document systems introduce themselves to the professional accounting and bookkeeping communities as a means to facilitate a better workflow, and to help accounting professionals and their clients work closer together.  Truly, these solutions are critical to the enabling model, but concerns relating to data ownership and control appear more frequently as neither the business owners nor their outsourced professionals considered what would happen when the engagement is over.  It can be very frustrating for a business owner to have to go through a lot of gyrations in order to obtain their data, and accountants need to protect and preserve their value and the value of the work performed on behalf of the client.  Both parties have data possession and retention requirements, which may be many and varied depending on the type of business and regulatory issues involved.

Where this gets really muddy is when the accounting professional or outsourcer uses a tool to facilitate their own processes and business, but also use the same tool (and subscription) to service client needs… and maybe even allows the client to interact directly with the solution.  In the event of an end to the relationship, it may or may not be easy or even possible to extract just the client data from the system.  And what happens to it after that can be variable.  If you provide your client with document management services, for example, you could maybe give your client their documents when they leave you, but you wouldn’t generally allow them to continue to use your subscription service.  At this point, the client would have to make their own arrangements for document management, and would have to find a way to bring the data from you into that system.  This can be a very complicated process, particularly if there are a lot of data types and the organization of the data is complex.  Simply getting the copy of the data could be a challenge, depending on the system in use.  And, once you receive your data, does the professional retain copies of that information?

In the spirit of making things a little easier, I’d like to propose that we all think of it this way:

If you subscribe to a service which is integral to your delivery of service to your client, then it is part of YOUR process and you should own/control the solution.  This would apply, possibly, to payroll services, application hosting services, Bill.com-type solutions, and other services which assist you in the performance of your work.  The work product is for the client, but you’re doing the back office work and using tools to make that more efficient.

If the client leaves you, then it’s up to them to “tool up” to handle their processes.

You may find that, with clients having more complicated requirements, it makes sense for the client to subscribe to the solution and simply invite you to participate.  In these situations, it becomes extremely clear where the lines are drawn in terms of data access and ownership.  It’s theirs to control.  If the professional needs to retain copies of data or perform other work, it’s done on their own subscribed systems, and not on the clients.

Make sense?

J

From a LinkedIn Group Discussion: Help in comparing hosting companies.

When I saw the above comment, naturally I was very happy to see the plug for InsynQ.  But what really caught my attention was the actual message… Kim living the “bunny slipper” dream and having the ability to get her work done from just about anywhere – securely – including from the local computer shop.  So I called Kim (Kimberly Noh of Noh Hassle Bookkeeping – what a great business name!) and got the whole story:

While on the phone with (of all people!) her InsynQ account representative, Kim Noh bumped her coffee cup and spilled coffee all over her laptop computer.  The timing for something like this is never good, but this time it was really bad, as there were several client payrolls needing to be processed right away.  Without the laptop, it could be a challenge.  There is also a lot of work to be done this time of year for all clients, so being without the laptop for any period of time just wasn’t an option.   So, Kim bundled up her dead laptop, her iPad and accessories, and trotted off to the computer store.

At the store, while the technicians were working on repairing the coffee-infused portable computer, Kim sat at a counter with her trusty iPad, her keyboard and stylus combo connected to it, and ran the client payrolls.  She was able to do this simply by connecting to her InsynQ virtual desktop, where she accessed the programs and the data necessary to get the job done quickly and efficiently.  By the time the tech was done fixing the laptop, Kim was done working, client payrolls completed and all

**side note: While at the counter in the computer store, Kim apparently ended up helping to sell numerous packages of the keyboard/stylus bundles for the iPad.  The store manager asked her if she would mind working at their store everyday – it was apparently great for sales.

Anytime, anwhere, baby.  You just gotta love the bunnies!

J

Anytime, Anywhere

Hosted Applications: Public, Private and Shared Services

When managers and owners begin to look at managed services, application hosting, and cloud solutions for the business, how do they know which “flavor” will best suit their needs?  If they don’t really understand what the terms mean, they may not end up with the delivery they intended.  Because there are so many and varied definitions of what “cloud” is, even the terms like public, private, and shared may take on various meanings.  So, in order to try to be as clear as possible, I’ll focus on the application hosting model, and the approaches taken by the community of providers recognized by Sage and Intuit as Commercial Hosts for those respective solutions.

Read the rest of the article on Running QuickBooks in the Cloud

Good information from The Bookkeeper’s Club

On Thursday of next week, my friend Linda Hunt is hosting a special Money Conversation Call where she will share “Why Trading Dollars for Hours Deflates Your Self-Worth”. (Normally this call is only for members of The Bookkeeper’s Club but this month she’s opening the call up for EVERYONE.)

She will be sharing some of the lessons she learned the hard way like…

• How to get paid based on the value and results you provide
• How to create different levels of service without creating tons of work for yourself
• How to get paid to take time off
• And much, much, more!

Mark your calendar and join Linda live:

DATE: Thursday, December 1st

TIME: 12 pm Eastern/ 11 am Central/ 10 am Mountain/ 9 am Pacific

>>>>If you’re not a member, you can still join the call. Just register for this FREE call here!

This is your chance to get a “taste” of the learning you’ll get every single month as a member of The Bookkeepers Club provide – with no obligation or strings attached.

Happy Thanksgiving

to all our friends and compatriots out there!

Keep your feet warm!

Anytime, Anywhere

There’s a lot of current discussion about the “consumerization of IT”, and most of those conversations make it sound like this is a new thing.  Remember when Novell Netware lost out to Microsoft Lan Manager?  How about when our beloved WordPerfect lost to Microsoft Word?  It’s not always about which solution is technically superior – it’s about usability and user acceptance.  Colorful screens, proportional fonts and mouse clicks won out over green screens, fixed-width characters, and alt+ctrl+shift+  keyboarding.  When “Flight Simulator” was the application driving PC architecture and Windows presentation, how could we not believe that information technology was being “consumerized” back then?  I’ll be the enterprise that had to upgrade all their PC’s from DOS to Windows recognized it right then.

Take a look at Intuit QuickBooks as another great example.  When an accounting solution markets itself with the slogan “if you can write a check, you can do your own books”, we should acknowledge the pure “consumerization” of the solution, and the focus Intuit gave on making bookkeeping easier for the average Joe.

Since people are ultimately the consumers of information technology, doesn’t it make sense for the technology to work for human beings?  Certainly, IT in business exists for the enterprise, not the individual.  But software developers now readily recognize that if the solution isn’t intuitive and usable by the human being, then it won’t deliver the business benefits hoped for.

Mobility and the new breed of mobile devices are impacting this reality more than ever before.  Where we could once draw a line between a phone and a computer, we can no longer differentiate.  Smartphones, tablets, even music players and game sets are now simply Internet-connected devices, and users are demanding application and data access from them in the same way they demand access via portable computers.

The problem isn’t going to go away.  As a matter of fact, it will likely become somewhat of a standard, if it hasn’t already.  People want what they want, and the IT department will be forced to deliver.  Rather than bucking the trend, it may make more sense to embrace it, and establish standards for the business on how and on what terms personal technology will play a part.  And, if you can leverage equipment and carrier contracts your employees pay for, why not?  It may actually improve productivity by allowing users to work how they want and with the tools they prefer.

Make sense?

J