CPA Practice Advisor

MAR 2014

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.

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4 March 2014 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com THE 21ST CENTURY ACCOUNTANT By Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP, Technology Editor Digital Plumbing Tools Work to Sync Data Across Multiple Cloud Apps Just as Nintendo's digital characters (a nd plu m b e r s) M a r io a nd L u i g i changed the way our societ y thinks about enter ta in ment by helping us become heroes in an epic adventure, these emerging "digital plumbing" tools automate the process of synchronizing data bet ween multiple cloud-based business apps so we can be heroes to our clients. Integrations between major applica- tions like SalesForce.com, QuickBooks On l i ne, Fresh Book s, a nd Xero a re plentiful, but many second and third tier solutions are not as likely to be supported with free integrations. His- torically, many companies had to pur- chase expensive custom programming solutions or some data felds had to be entered more than once and reconciled bet ween mu lt iple s y stem s . T hese c u stom development projec t s u se sof t ware development k its (SDK s), which are created by publishers like Intuit, CCH, Sage, Bill.com, CCH, and Xero. Digital plumbing applications like Zapier, OneSaaS, and ItDuzzIt provide managed fee-based simplifed toolsets for use by small business cloud archi- tec t s a nd soph i st ic ated users in designing, confg- u r i ng , a nd ma i nta i n i ng con nec t ion s bet ween a wide range of applications. Li ke t he cloud appl icat ions, t he interfaces are maintained on an ongoing basis, and are adjusted to compensate for changes in the underlying applica- tions. Te products are value priced, and recurring monthly subscriptions for t hese toolsets ca n cost $99 per month or more per company. Security is also a fear mentioned by some users. Since the digital plumbing applica- tion can get data from all connected accounts, a hack on the digital plumbing provider could theoretically give access to most, if not all, of a company's data ac ross a l l con nec ted appl icat ions. Finally, not all data felds in an applica- tion are available for synchronization, and consultants should not make any promises about how ef fec t ively i n f o r m a t i o n c a n b e interfaced between applications until they confrm the representations in the sales materials. The digital plumbing landscape is moving very quickly, and at this point, the ex isting products suppor t data s y nch ron i z at ion bet ween l itera l ly hu nd red s of appl ic at ion s . D ig it a l plumbing providers ofer hope for those who are constantly working to enter data into multiple cloud applications, but they are not a panacea. Just as car- penters are trained to measure twice and cut once, aspiring digital plumbers and small business cloud architects should have a good understanding of what will happen with each interface before they are connected to live pro- duction data. If used effectively, these tools can save hours of entering and reconciling data bet ween multiple applications, however, if not used carefully, data could be easily corrupted and/or duplicated. While we recommend that you evaluate these tools in the near future if you or your clients are using multiple cloud applications, we also advise you to pro- ceed with caution, back up your infor- mat ion, a nd test using sa mple data before going live with any of these new and innovative toolkits. 4 March 2014 t www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com Brian Tankersley is a Knoxville, Tennessee CPA and consultant whose practice is focused on technology consulting and training for accountants. Brian is a nationally recognized speaker with K2 Enterprises ( k2e.com ), and blogs on accounting technology at CPATechBlog.com . Comments, suggestions, and errata are always welcome, and should be e-mailed to brian.tankersley@ CPAPracticeAdvisor.com . A new class of "digital plumbing" applications are helping many frms and small businesses solve another seemingly "impos- sible" task – automated synchronization and universal exchange of data between applications written by different software publishers. Tird party digital plumbing providers like One- SaaS, ITDuzzIT, and Zapier provide preconfgured interfaces to exchange data between multiple solutions. This is the frst installment of a new column, "The 21st Century Accountant", which aspires to highlight signifcant, emerging technologies that affect your practice. This month's installment discusses "digital plumbing" applications, which are third party interfaces used to synchronize data between multiple cloud applications into a small business cloud architecture. Digital Plumbing Applica- tions like ItDuzzIt, Zapier, and OneSaaS provide third party synchronization tools for a wide range of cloud-based applications. Third party digital plumbing providers like OneSaaS.com (pictured above) allow accountants and small business users to synchronize data between many popular cloud applications Some digital plumbing providers interface with hundreds of applications. The graphic above shows some of the over 250 web apps which can be connected using the Zapier service. CPA 0314 1-21.indb 4 3/24/14 9:34 AM

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