CPA Practice Advisor

NOV 2011

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.

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VOLUME 21, NUMBER 7 MY PERSPECTIVE 800-456-0864 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com Publisher: Jim Baker Executive Editor: M. Darren Root, CPA.CITP Associate Publisher/Managing Editor: Melody Steelman Technical Editor: Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP Technology Editor: Isaac M. O'Bannon Editorial & Events Coordinator: Jill Burnett Columnists: David McClure Doug Sleeter Kristy Short Jason Blumer, CPA.CITP Randy Johnston Rene Lacerte Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP Scott Cytron Art Director: Rhonda Cousin National Sales Manager: Robert Akert Site Manager: Rhonda Dennis Media Production Representative: Barb Evenson Audience Development Manager: Angela Kelty 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 Sandra L. Wiley CYGNUS BUSINESS MEDIA CEO: John French CFO: Paul Bonaiuto EVP, Digital: Tom Kohn VP, Human Resources: Ed Wood VP, Audience Development: Julie Nachtigal VP, Technology: Eric Kammerzelt CYGNUS PUBLISHING Executive Vice President: Gloria Cosby Vice President of Production Operations: Curt Pordes I Reprints - To purchase article reprints, please contact Foster Printing, Attn: Rhonda Brown, 4295 Ohio Street, Michigan City, IN 46360, 1-800-875-3251 or email sales@fosterprinting.com The opinions given by contributing authors are their own and are not the opinions of our staff. All trademarks used are the property of their respective owner. —————————————————— —————————————————— ———————— Practice Advisor, (ISSN #2160-8725; USPS #017-576) is published eight times a year (April/May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December) by Cygnus Business Media, Inc., incorporating two editions known as CPA Practice Advisor and NSA Practice Advisor, 1233 Janesville Avenue, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin 53538. Periodicals postage paid at Fort Atkinson, WI 53538 and at additional mailing offi ces. Printed in the U.S.A. Send all subscription inquiries or change of address to: Practice Advisor, PO Box 3258, Northbrook, IL 60065-3258. Phone: (877) 382-9187 (toll free); 847-559-7598 (local) Fax: (847) 564-9453 Email: Circ.CPA@omeda.com Subscription Rates: The basic annual rate is $3, based on qualifying associations of 10,000 or more public accountants that may also subscribe for all their public accountant members (certain restrictive covenants apply) for a basic subscription rate of $9 per member for a three-year subscription. One year subscription for all others: USA - $48; CAN $70 GST; INT'L $99 GST #131910168. POSTMASTER, please send address changes to: Practice Advisor, P.O. Box 3258, Northbrook, IL 60065-3258. Canadian address changes to: Canada Post PM40612608. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Practice Advisor, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. New Skills Required for Taking Your Firm Digital It never ceases to amaze me how quickly things change in my offi ce. And as you know, it requires a steady vigilance to stay in front of change. I spend a great deal of time evaluating the effi ciency of my staff and the consistency of strategies implemented across my fi rm. Both of these areas must be con- tinually analyzed in order to apply necessary improvements to keep a firm and staff operating at peak productivity and eff ective- ness. I want to stress that it takes more than technology or process implementation to accomplish this. It requires a diff erent type of skill — the ability to develop and implement sound strategies. To provide you with a sound example, this article focuses on my fi rm's paperless strategy, as well as our strategy for portal implementation and adoption — both required to truly go digital. Allow me to take a moment to diff erentiate strategy from process. A strategy is very diff erent than the processes employed to support the strategy. T ey are closely connected, yet very diff erent. Strategy, in my mind, is defi ned at a higher level — it is the overall plan required to eff ectively implement individual processes. I want to emphasize the critical need for strategy — a skill worth its weight in gold! To do that, let's look closely at the strategies for going paperless and portal adoption. As a profession, we have been hearing about a paperless strategy for the last decade or more, and it has continued to evolve. Initially, I viewed my paperless strategy in very simple terms — we'll stop using paper. My fi rm's strategy has since matured and includes the following: • Reducing or eliminating paper fi les altogether. • Collecting documents digitally from the source, instead of receiving paper and then "digitizing" documents later. • Implementing smart technology that enables paper entering the fi rm to be transformed to digital immediately and eff ortlessly. • Adopting a standardized fi le structure and naming convention for docu- ments. • Implementing a system to route electronic documents through the offi ce. • Implementing powerful tools to annotate and collate digital fi les. • Adopting a system to purge docu- ments quickly based on the firm's document retention policy. • Adopting an online system (portals) that supports a convenient and highly secure client document delivery platform. You can see the evolution of my fi rm's paperless strategy, moving from simply eliminating paper to sophisticated systems to create a true digital environment. T is leads me to the next strategy — portals. Realistically, you can't talk about a paperless strategy without, almost in the same breath, talking about a strategy for presenting and collaborating with clients online. With that said, let's take a look at what a sound portal strategy requires: • Off ering a secure, personalized portal for each existing and newly added client. • Implementing a method for educating clients about the functionality and capabilities of the fi rm's portal solu- tion. • Adopting a portal solution that makes it easy for the fi rm to manage multiple users, and allows users to self-manage (to a degree) their portals. • Implementing a system that allows the fi rm to present information in a way that makes sense to clients, and allows the firm to easily manage the way documents are delivered to portals. I could add tremendous detail to both strategies, but you get the point. These examples are meant to help you understand the necessity of a sound strategy, and give you a starting point for developing your own. I hope this also helps you realize that without a proper strategy in place, you may be simply creating more chaos and upset ing staff . You must think through all the needed pieces and parts and build a strategy to ensure M. Darren Root, CPA.CITP Executive Editor Darren is the Executive Editor of CPA Practice Advisor. He remains in public practice as the principal of Root & Associates, LLC, in Blooming- ton, Indiana, and is president of his consulting practice, RootWorks. He formerly served on the Board of the AICPA's CITP Credentials Committee and is a former member of the Board of Directors for the Indiana CPA Society. He speaks at dozens of professional organizations each year and frequently serves as a guest lecturer at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. November 2011 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor .CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 3 success. Now I come back to the title of this column — New Skills Required for Taking Your Firm Digital — to hit home the idea of the critical need for a new set of skills when going digital. I believe that fi rms should consider identifying a Digital Manager. You can't expect every staff member to agree on how documents should be named and fi led, how to manage portals, or maintain the integrity of digital documents entering your system. Firms should consider training a staff person to oversee all of these areas. One of the most important roles of the Digital Manager would be to continually train staff on best practices and procedures while maintaining the overall system. T is person is likely someone on your staff who really "gets" this stuff , can make sense of it and enjoys doing it. My goal here is to make you aware of what I see as a need in my fi rm. I'm guessing that aſt er some thought, you'll probably discover you have this same need.

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