Contents of CPA Practice Advisor - MAR 2012

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.

Page 37 of 38

THE CHANGE AGENT The Purpose of Mobile Technologies T 38 38
he other day, I had some important things to get into our document management system (DMS). I was on the other side of town and had to route this paperwork to other team members in my fi rm, get some other projects started and deliver
some information to my customers. So I pulled over in an Offi ce Depot parking lot and got in the back seat of my car. I pulled out my leather man bag (it's not a purse!) and set up my offi ce. I turned my hotspot on from my
iPhone, fl ipped open my MacBook Pro 17" and plugged in my Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100. I was set! I began scanning client documents, uploading documents to our DMS,
passed out some To Dos to our team members, and set out to get some work done for an hour and a half before my next appointment... right in the back seat of my car. Apart from having a coff ee maker in the back seat and an electrical outlet, I had everything I needed to get my work done when, where and how I needed to get it done.
Jason Blumer, CPA.CITP
Jason M. Blumer, CPA.CITP, CFE, is manag- ing shareholder of Blumer & Associates, CPAs, PC. He wears fl ip fl ops and jeans, says "dude" a lot, and often works in coffee shops with headphones blaring the latest Bloomberg podcasts (though he doesn't understand most of it). Jason loves new game-changing cloud technology and plays rock and roll too loud. His daily duties include consulting, process design, blogging, marketing and business development, innovative thinking, coaching, practice management, and acting as a change agent. Jason founded the THRIVEal +CPA Network to enhance and change the tax and accounting profession based on the foundational tenets of Community, Collaboration, Technology and Innovation.
APractic
Proper Planning But this setup was by design. It takes some planning to make sure I am mobile in every aspect of my busi- ness. I have commit ed to make sure that if my man bag is with me (it's not a purse!), then I am at the offi ce no mat er where I am. T e value of my mobile offi ce is one of the most important things to me. It may not be for you, so I may not suggest that you lug a heavy bag around with you, through airports and back and forth to client appointments. But I have to have it that way. Due to the design of my mobile offi ce, I can work any- where, anyhow and anyway I want. I can go to my physical offi ce (which
we will soon close), I can go to a coffee shop, I can fly across the country or I can stay home… all the while I am assured that I am never away from my offi ce. But you can't just have it that way
without fi rst planning it to be that way. You can't be mobile unless you fi rst move to the cloud. Mobile is becoming the buzz word of late… but it assumes that you have dealt with the cloud issue fi rst. Is your fi rm 100% cloud-based? You need to be if you ever want to become a mobile fi rm. Cloud products release mobile
APART FROM HAVING A COFFEE MAKER IN THE BACK SEAT AND AN ELECTRICAL OUTLET, I HAD EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO GET MY WORK DONE WHEN, WHERE AND HOW I NEEDED TO GET IT DONE.
March 2012 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com
apps that make smart use of the cloud product. Cloud is fi rst. Mobile comes second. T at is how you must set up your fi rm too: go to the cloud fi rst, then become mobile. How can this proper planning help
you to be a more eff ective and effi - cient fi rm? Let's explore a few sce- narios together… What if I were in the back of my car,
scanning documents and I had nowhere to put them for a few hours, or even days?
Our DMS and client portal system
(SmartVault) are cloud based so I was able to not only scan important documents, but immediately place them in our DMS for our team members to access. Knowledge Take Away (KTA): speed is your friend when designing your internal busi- ness processes. T e cloud, and thus mobile, gives you speed. When knowledge is created by you, your team or your clients, you need the