CPA Practice Advisor

NOV 2013

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.

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Reviews For Your Firm TIME & BILLING REVIEW SECTIONS BASIC SYSTEM FUNCTIONS • General navigation/ease-of-use • Designed for accounting professionals • Scalability • Hosted version/SaaS app TIME MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES • Timesheets, timers, multi-staff views • Multi-staff entry • Time tracking by project/job • Approvals/sign-off process • Support for various hourly rates INVOICING FUNCTIONS • Expense tracking options • WIPs, budget-from-estimate • Accounting interface cash or accrual • AR management • Customization MANAGEMENT FEATURES • Dashboard overviews (aka snapshots) • Managerial reporting analysis • Security features/user roles INTEGRATION & DATA MANAGEMENT • Data output options • Integration w/payroll & professional accounting systems • Report writer or customization tool • Integration w/other apps (tax software, e-marketing, portals) HELP/SUPPORT • Built-in support features • System updates • Support website/documentation • Live support Brian F. Tankersley, CPA, CITP, CGMA Technology Editor Brian is the Technology Editor for CPA Practice Advisor, and is a fequent speaker at national continuing education courses on auditing and technology, as well as a consultant, coach and instructor for K2 Enterprises. He can be reached at brian@k2e.com. 6 Time & Billing Systems: Essential Even for Value Model T ime and billing sofware is an essential management tool for almost any professional accounting and bookkeeping frm. Te discipline of tracking time and comparing eforts to the resulting client billings makes it easier for practitioners to manage their own efforts, as well as those of their employees. A number of consultants to the profession have advocated that professional accounting and bookkeeping frms abolish the time sheet from the daily routine of their professionals. I respectfully disagree. There is still a signifcant value to tracking time to all types of professionals, as it provides historical information for identifying problems with employees and engagements. In my opinion, the real problems occur where hourly rates and time spent are used exclusively to calculate and justify fees to clients, with litle or no consideration given to the value produced by the engagement. (An introduction to some of the principles of value pricing is "Breaking the Time Barrier: How to Unlock Your True Earning Potential", writen by FreshBooks Co-founder and CEO Mike McDerment. This book is free from www.breakingthetimebarrier.freshbooks.com.) Te late management guru Peter F. Drucker is quoted as saying, "what gets measured, gets managed," and without measurement of how time is spent, it is difcult to make a data-based assessment of how effective a team is in organizing itself to provide a service. While I personally dislike the discipline of preparing a time sheet, I fnd that I complete more tasks and have beter focus if I write down what I am doing for each 15 minute period during the work day. The CPA Practice Advisor divides tools for managing professional November 2013 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com accounting and bookkeeping frms into two segments: • Practice Management Applications, which provide a more comprehensive business management tool to firms and their owners. These packages are narrowly focused on meeting the needs of accounting professionals and their firms, and were reviewed in our June 2013 issue. Practice management applications generally focus more on project management, customer relationship management and document management capabilities. • Time and Billing Solutions, which are primarily focused on collecting time, creating client invoices and measuring the time used by staf to complete projects. Because the tools in this category are more generic, they are used in a wide range of professional service businesses, including law firms, consulting engineers, architecture firms and others who provide professional consulting. Our 2013 review of Time and Billing Solutions includes the following applications: • AccountantsWorld Practice Relief • BillQuick 2013 (Enterprise Edition) • Chrometa 4.5 • ImagineTime Practice Management 10.5 • Sage Timeslips 2014 • Timesheet.com by Upland Sofware • TPS Time and Billing 2.9 Our review criteria for these applications are broken down into six basic categories: • Basic system functions, • Time tracking capabilities, • Invoicing functions, • Management features, • Integration and data management, and • Help and Support. We noted that two of the applications, Chrometa and OfficeTime seemed to be particularly good for accumulating time records to be used in another time and billing application. A sidebar article discusses some of the features of these applications. Although it is possible to enter time and create invoices in any accounting package, the value which comes from a good time and billing application comes from how it converts time data into invoicing and information. Like perishables in a refrigerator, unbilled time and expenses (work in process items) begin to stink afer a few weeks, and the stench becomes overwhelming (and sickening) quickly thereafer. In some ways, the efectiveness of a time and billing solution can be measured by comparing the aging of unbilled time and expenses before and afer selecting a solution. A time and billing solution should also work the way you work with clients. If you are providing services in the cloud, you will want to have the option of e-mailing invoices or delivering directly to a client portal. Finally, some systems will process invoices against retainers on hand, and many practitioners are now drafting client bank accounts for recurring monthly payroll and bookkeeping fees or allowing payment using credit cards. Those considering a new system should verify that the application not only supports the feature, but should also confrm that it supports the solution selected by the frm. While time and billing applications are generally less robust than full practice management systems, they fll a key need for frms, and the variety of solutions allows each frm to select a product which best meets its needs. If more functionality is needed, users may want to consider one of the Practice Management applications which were reviewed in the June 2013 issue, and are also available online. ● The full reviews of these Time and Billing systems can be accessed online at www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com/ 11189107.

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