Accounting, Technology and Small Business – The Best of 2013 from CooperMann

Accounting, Technology and Small Business – The Best of 2013 from CooperMann

It has been an eventful year, hasn’t it?  With the NSA lurking about collecting data, innovative new approaches to information and identity theft emerging almost daily, and complete turmoil in the IT services industry challenging trusted sales and distribution models, most of us have simply become numb to the noise.  Information technology is evolving at an increasingly rapid pace and the way people and businesses interact with and use technology is being forced to change along with it.  It’s starting to become almost, weirdly, natural.

Much of this change can be attributed to “The Cloud”, which is not a thing or a place.  Cloud has become the term which applies to just about anything having anything to do with the Internet.  For technology “purists”, cloud means something fairly specific, but for normal people (no offense to the nerds and geeks, but you know what I mean), cloud applies to pretty much anything accessible via the Internet.  Photos back up to “the cloud”; music gets stored in “the cloud”, websites are hosted in “the cloud”; businesses run their applications in “the cloud”, and you can do darned near anything you need (or want) to with a phone.  The cloud could be some guy’s server in his basement, or it could be a sophisticated network of systems housed in secure facilities around the globe.  They both qualify, sort of.  The point is that mobility, Internet services, subscription access to technology, and social computing are changing how people view technology – resulting with changes not simply in how IT is purchased, but in how IT is used and applied to daily life.

There are, however, some things that do not change even if the working environment does.  The accounting profession, for example, is undergoing a great deal of change, and much of it fueled by the advancements in technology and social computing.  But accounting fundamentals – the “truth of debits and credits” and the good old accounting equation – remain.  The basics of running a business are also unchanged, even as methods of doing business evolve and globalization of markets continues.  Business fundamentals – fiscal responsibility, cash and growth management, and focus on value and sustainability – are as necessary now as every before.

With all this change and IT “advancement”, there have certainly been impacts to how and where we work.  But the more things change, the more they remain the same.  Good business generates goodwill and more business – that doesn’t change – and bad news still tends to spread faster than good news (much faster, given social platforms that are designed to spread the word far and wide).  And when it comes down to the fundamentals – the basic and essential foundations supporting building, operating, and accounting for business – we generally find that they remain constant even as the environment in which they exist experiences change.

Make Sense?

J

Here are the top 20 ranked posts for 2013 from CooperMann.com