Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/123770
FROM THE TRENCHES members, work load balancing and scheduling as well as diferent processes for tax, audit, bookkeeping and other key functions. • OPTICAL CHARCTER REC OGNITION – the ability to have a paperless document searched for words or text within a document. Documents that have been OCR'd are frequently larger, but much more useful because they can be searched for content. • ACCESS FROM ANY DEVICE, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE – the ability to get to a document through a locally installed piece of sofware, often called a thick client in this context, via a web browser or on a tablet is key to making documents available to more of the right people at the right place and the right time. • SECURITY – the ability to allow and prevent who sees what content. Consider Human Resource records, partner tax returns or frm accounting records. How about high net wealth clients? Should everyone in the frm be able to look at any documents they want? Should everyone see everything? Generally not. • REDACTION – the ability to block out confdential or secure information with a permanent, non-removable block to hide identifying information like a social security number. • INTEGRTION INTO OTHER SYSTEMS – the ability to have your documents used efectively inside your tax or audit sofware, accounting sofware like QuickBooks or other key operational systems. • COLLABORTION – the ability to have documents in a shared or common structure where one or more user can simultaneously update a document. • STORGE OF ALL DOCUMENT T YPES INCLUDING PDF, WORD AND EXCEL – the ability to store any document type allows all documents to be managed in your document management system. Tis management ability means that you can apply records retention policies, and in many cases eliminate the need for fle servers for documents. • VERSION CONTROL – the ability to preserve one or more copy of a document and the ability to ignore, roll back or revert changes. Tis is particularly helpful in Excel modeling that has gone awry. • INTEGRATION INTO EMAIL SYSTEMS SUCH AS MICRO SOFT OUTLOOK – the ability to have fling or sending capability from inside your email system can be convenient. A couple of cautions here is that you may want to train team members and clients to use your portal and/or you may have a need for email encryption. Just because it is easy, doesn't make it right. • SPECIALTY FEATURES –the ability to perform a specific task electronically. For example: • 1040 Workpaper support • Automated bill payment • Expense reporting • Tax notice handling • Tax appeals Tis list is not intended be compre- hensive, but merely refective of features available in products that are in the market today. Publishers like AccountantsWorld with CyberCabinet and Web Site Relief, CCH with Document, Portal, Workstream and Scan, Tomson with GoFileRoom, FirmFlow, FileCabinet CS, and NetClient CS, Doc.It, Ofce Tools Professional, ShareFile, SmartVault and XCM all have oferings that ofer many of the capabilities above. But That's Not All! To implement a document management system correctly, you have to defne your needs, establish a retention policy, acquire a product, create an implementation plan, convert existing documents as needed and provide user training. However, the steps just named are the simplest of the approaches. Products, processes and regulatory requirements change every year. Users learn shortcuts and tricks that need to be taught to other users. We believe it is mandatory to do an annual review of your document management system, just like you might do a tax department postmortem, including a confirmation that your records retention and destruction policy is being followed. You need to review how the document management system is being used, ref ine the processes, and instruct your users on the new processes. Don't be afraid to contract with your sofware publishers, consultants CAPABILITIES AT A GLANCE 1. Automatic Document Naming 2. Records Retention and Disposal 3. Portals 4. Workfow 5. Optical Character Recognition 6. Access from any device, anytime, anywhere 7. Security 8. Redaction 9. Integration into other systems 10. Collaboration 11. Storage of all document types including PDF, Word and Excel 12. Version control 13. Integration into email systems such as Microsoft Outlook 14. Specialty features or visit other users of the product to get new ideas. If you follow this advice, you may get to "Paperless 4.0" frst. CONNECT WITH Facebook: www.facebook.com/cpapracticeadvisor Twitter: www.twitter.com/cpapracadvisor LinkedIn: www.linkedin/in/cpapracticeadvisor May 2013 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 21