Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/643338
4 February 2016 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com By Gail Perry, CPA, Editor-In-Chief FROM THE EDITOR Published by SouthComm Business Media, Inc. PO Box 803 | 1233 Janesville Ave. Fort Atkinson, WI 53538 920-563-6388 | 800-547-7377 VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1 Publisher: Barry Strobel Editor-in-Chief: Gail Perry, CPA Managing Editor: Isaac M. O'Bannon Assistant Editor: Taija Sparkman National Sales Manager: Jim Colford Columnists: David McClure Doug Sleeter Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP Kristy Short Randy Johnston Rene Lacerte Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP Art Director: Rhonda Cousin Site Manager: Lester Craft Production Manager: Barb Evenson Audience Development Manager: Terri Petitt Editorial Advisory Board: Bob Cedergren, CPA.CITP, CISA, CISM, CISSP, CGEIT Chris Fraser, CPA.CITP, CISA, MCP Jason Lawhorn, CPA.CITP Gary A. Masino, CPA Ryan McCowan, CPA.CITP Linda O'Neal Troy Patton, CPA David Primes, CPA.CITP Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP Doug Sleeter SOUTHCOMM, INC. 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All trademarks used are the property of their respective owner. 4 F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 • w w w . C P A P r a c t i c Gail is the Editor-in-Chief of CPA Practice Advisor and a CPA. She is the author of over 30 books (including "Mint.com for Dummies" and "QuickBooks 2014 on Demand") and she maintains a small tax practice. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism fom Indiana University and studied accounting at Illinois State University before starting her professional career at Deloite. Gail is the former publisher and editor-in-chief at AccountingWEB and is a former columnist for the Indianapolis Star newspaper. A Tech Message to the Accounting Profession: We'll Be Here For You T he n t he me s s a ge c h a n ge d to CLOUD and it got more forceful and we needed more advanced programs, smar t phones, ema i l addresses that don't end in aol.com, a website for your company (seriously? You don't have t h at Y ET?), a nd apps t h at c ou ld operate in the cloud, and the sofware companies and technology developers a nd a c c ou nt i n g t hou g ht le a de r s seemed to be almost physically drag- ging the accountants along, trying to make sure they were aware of all of the wonderful solutions that were being ofered if only people would open their eyes and minds to these treasures. Tere was a momentum; you had to get on board and adopt new technology or you would be lef behind, lef out. Tere was a race among the developers of solutions to see who could be most efective in turning the heads of the members of the accounting profession, those stuck-in-their-old-ways number nerds who didn't think they needed to update to this year's new breed of fancy tech tools. You could sense the urgency. Just talk to anyone who was using any sort of new latest-edition technolog y and you would immediately feel like you d id n't k now enou g h , were be i n g excluded from the conversation, were bei ng scor ned because su rely you couldn't be providing the best service to your clients. A nd watch out, because that other accountant with the newer technolog y and the fancier web site and the Twiter handle was going to take your clients away. A nd then we got to the present day. Te tone has changed, as has the message. I hear it whenever I talk with people who are tuned into technology and the accounting profession. Unlike for the past several years, it's now okay to be wherever you are on the tech- nolog y timeline. Sof ware producers are going to continue to make changes and improvements in their products, but you don't have to change if you don't want to, and you don't have to apologize or defend yourself if you don't w a nt t he latest version, t he newest app, the fastest phone. Do what is best for you, your business, your clients – and you get to defne what you mean by " best." Technology will continue to evolve, as will you, but you can take a deep breath and move at your own pace, and new solutions w ill be there for you whenever you a re ready for t hem . Stephen Kelly, CEO of Sage, explained it so well. "We are here for our cus- tomers. W hen they are ready to move, we will give them the technology and the training they will need. It must be done on their schedule, not ours." — Gail Perry, Editor-in-Chief Follow me on Twiter at @gaperry GPerry@CPAPracticeAdvisor.com T here was a time when the message going out to accounting frms was, You need to embrace new tech- nology – there are computer pro- grams that can make your life easier. For years we heard, "You need tech- nology." New and faster hardware, smaller disks, backup systems (translate: tape drives and zip drives and copies of your disks stored somewhere ofsite). Maybe you had been using the same sofware program for a decade and were reasonably happy with it, but now it was Time For A Change and you had beter get on board so that you can show your clients how savvy you are and be cuting edge and, most importantly, get the job done faster and more efciently and with fewer errors.