Category: accountant value

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Everybody Clicks: Keeping in touch with your business online

Everybody Clicks

Keeping in touch with your business online

In today’s technology focused market, it’s hard to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Making that effort to communicate with clients is more than just sending them a quarterly newsletter or email. It’s about evolving your business to meet their needs. Everyone wants everything online these days. It’s not just convenient anymore, it’s expected.

If your business doesn’t provide your clients with the level of online service they have come to expect, they probably won’t stay your clients for very long. If you want to make sure these new expectations are being met it means building and maintaining a presence on the web. That’s right; your website is the new face of your business. It’s often the first thing new clients see so it has to make a good impression. As the old saying goes, “you only get one first impression.” This adage is just as true for your website as it is for you. Old, outdated websites just aren’t good enough anymore. People want somewhere they can go to get the latest updates on the services your business provides, and they want it to be easy to find that information. Maintaining your website, keeping it up to date and full of useful information is important. It can also be time-consuming or expensive.

As a business professional, probably a bookkeeper or accountant, you probably spend as little time as possible managing your website and composing newsletters. Now, imagine that you just got back to the office after lunch and you want to do some work on the company website, maybe check on the traffic statistics while you’re at it. Normally you’d go and log in to three or four different places, one or two to do the work on the site and the other one or two to look at your statistics. This is a waste of time and energy, but not one you can avoid. Now let’s say you have some time left before you go home for the night and you realize you haven’t sent out this month’s newsletter. That’s another site to go log into. Site after site, a new interface or dashboard each time. Not to mention the hassle of entering your new contacts into your CRM or selecting the right recipients for the newsletter from your contacts lists. Everywhere you go there is another step to the process of staying in touch with your clients, to keeping the website updated and accurate. Login after login and dashboard after dashboard. What if there was something that could streamline everything? Keep your company’s blog in the same place as your site traffic statistics or web-based CRM solution? (Wouldn’t that be neat?) One login to get to everything. Keeping your clients informed, organized, and satisfied. Everything you want at the click of a mouse.

Your time is your money, so saving time is saving money. Having all of your online tools in one place would do just that. No wasted time, no need to repeatedly log in. Just getting everything taken care of, from one place. Not to mention your clients’ needs. Every business has a website nowadays; online payment options, blogs, forms to request information, the list goes on and the need for them is not confined to accounting and bookkeeping firms.

Let’s say you’re a small hobby shop, selling model trains and cars with all the odds and ends needed to build or maintain them. Do you rely solely on word of mouth or paper ads to bring you the business you need? Of course not. You get a website. The problem is you don’t know where to start. So, you hire someone to build it for you and to make changes when needed. That gets expensive. Ok, so you build it yourself using one of the many solutions available on the web today. Now you control everything, from the colors and graphics to the content but how do you track the traffic your site gets? Or what information your customers look at the most? Analytics of course! Unfortunately that means another thing to buy and another page to log into. The same goes for CRM solutions or email domains. Each aspect of your business is locked away in its own little corner. Frustrating, isn’t it?

Wouldn’t it be grand if you could change your homepage, send a newsletter, and track today’s site visits all from one place? Well, that’s where Nakea.net comes in. Nakea.net is a solution that is perfect for any business. It has web design, analytics, email marketing, contact management, and much more all in one place. That’s right.  One login and you have your world at your fingertips.  Just click to log in, and it’s all right there, with easy to use features and templates that allow you to gear your website, and your communications, to your clients and customers.

Make Sense?

Nakea.net, delivering the smartest social website your business can build, is a sponsor of Cloud Summit 2012.

Get Cloud Summit information here.

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Turn Risk into Opportunity: Focusing on Value and Supporting Profitability

Turn Risk into Opportunity:

Focusing on Value and Supporting Profitability

Most businesses accept that they have “customers”, people who pay for the products and/or services that the business provides.  However, the customer many businesses fail to recognize is the “internal” customer – the consumer of services delivered internally to the organization.  These customers, most frequently recognized as co-workers and team members, depend upon the services delivered to them in order to do their jobs for the company.  This dependency represents the value of the service, and every organization has a need to get as much value as possible for the cost they expend for these services.  When the business approaches these internally delivered services as profit centers rather than pure cost centers, the impact to the business could highly beneficial as the application of resources gets focused on building strategic benefit for the company and not simply on supporting status quo.

Calling a part of the business a profit center doesn’t mean it’s going to sell services externally for money.  Rather, it means that the activities of the department can have a direct and meaningful impact to business profitability, and are participants in the development and facilitation of business strategy.  Profit centers can come in many flavors in a business, and may be identified as managers and owners reflect on areas of the business where changing conditions may introduce business risk.  Risk often translates to opportunity at some level.

A fairly obvious example of this is in the placement of IT departments and services within an organization.  If information technology is viewed purely as a cost-center and a “necessary evil” of doing business, it is more likely that IT services will have a perceived higher cost and lower level of value, as the technology is not considered a player in business strategy.  When technology is leveraged more directly to realize the strategic vision of the business, and is applied in ways which assist in delivering higher levels of service at a reduced cost while providing a means for market differentiation, the positive impacts in efficiency and profitability can be great.

A not-so-obvious example of a cost center which could be re-oriented towards increasing strategic positioning while making a positive improvement in internal service delivery (resulting in increases in performance and profitability) is the area of sales tax compliance.  Particularly with the emerging complexities introduced with cloud and Internet services, and with the lack of standards being the only consistency across the country, sales tax compliance is becoming a significant consideration and risk factor for businesses seeking to adopt cloud services and SaaS application solutions.

“Don’t just think of the tax department as a compliance shop,” says Waterfield. “It should also be considered a profit center. If given the proper resources, and access to information, it can provide the company the ability to become competitive in the marketplace either from assistance in calculating the proper price point or reducing overall tax expense on purchases.”
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1n56t)

Unless the tax compliance department is a direct participant in the consideration and adoption of cloud IT and other services, the business could end up with a significant liability and risk exposure that was not expected or allowed for.  Rather than finding this out after the fact, reviewing these types of potential impacts should be part of that same process which considered the adoption of the solution in the first place.

Accounting and tax professionals can find additional value to deliver to their existing and prospective clients by placing focus on these very important aspects of operating and managing a business.  As technology and globalization introduce more, and more complicated, issues relating to sales taxes and reporting compliance (which even the smallest of businesses must address) accounting and tax professionals should help their clients meet these changing requirements by offering proactive consultative guidance and support.

Make sense?

J

Read more about Should you be paying sales tax on your cloud solution?

Read more about Cloud FAQs for CFOs: CFO.com

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Smarter Online Document Vaults: Document Management for QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and more

Smarter Online Document Vaults

Document Management for QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and more

Document management used to be just about storing and retrieving files.  Being able to easily store document images and other files, and then quickly finding them when you need them, is an important aspect of business record keeping.  If you are an accounting or bookkeeping professional offering outsourced services to clients, having a secure way to store and manage client document files from a variety of sources is key to developing workflows and standardizing service delivery.   Invoices, bills, bank statements, and all the other paperwork which is generated by various business processes must be captured, accounted for, and retained for future reference and documentation support.  With all of this going on, having a secure and easy way to handle all that paper and computer-generated reporting is really important.

Using an electronic document management system isn’t really that much different from dealing with paper filing systems, at least in terms of the process.  You obtain the document, you translate it into a journal entry or transaction, and then you file the document away for later use.  The difference is simply that the document becomes digital image data and is stored electronically, instead of keeping the paper file around.   And, the earlier in the process where you can turn paper documents into digital images, the better, because it reduces the need for “paper-based” processes which take more time and resources, and which may introduce risk of information loss or damage.

In an outsourced bookkeeping arrangement, for example, allowing the client to convert paper to image files is highly desirable as it prevents the outsourcer from having to travel to client offices to obtain paperwork, and reduces the time involved either with traveling to and from client locations or time spent waiting for mailed information to arrive.  For the client to handle this process willingly, or with any frequency, tools which are simple to understand and use must be supplied.   Scanning a document, saving it to the hard drive, and then trying to find the file to upload later to an accountant “portal” is not a simple process and it is not efficient.  If the user is somewhat nontechnical (most business owners?), or if there is a lot of paperwork to scan and upload, that multi-step process just won’t work for the client.

SmartVault, a solution for QuickBooks-connected and general purpose document management, has an elegant solution to the problem, and it’s called the “InBox”.   Just like the inbox on your desk, the SmartVault InBox is where new documents arrive to be processed. The ingenious part is that the InBox is a little applet that gets installed on the client workstation, and provides them with a very simple way to scan files directly to SmartVault.  The accountant or bookkeeper then accesses the client files from the inbox and processes and/or attaches them to QuickBooks transactions as required.  The client has only to perform the simple task of telling the SmartVault InBox app to obtain documents fed into the scanner.  No local file saving and retrieval required.  For the accountant or bookkeeper, the inbox is the first stop in the workflow, and is the place they go to obtain whatever information the client has provided.  The SmartVault InBox can also be used to return files easily and securely to clients, bypassing the need to have the client access and log in to a website in order to get the files (but a website portal is also part of the system, just in case the client prefers this method).  If providing seamless service and easy to follow procedures describes how you work with your clients, then SmartVault could become a key element in your service delivery.

Affordability and ease of use are important factors to consider when looking for document management solutions for small businesses.  In addition, having the ability to store documents from popular small business applications allows users to centrally store and manage all their business documents and files, not just those related to accounting.  When users wear many “hats” in the business, and need access to a variety of document types, a centralized filing system is an absolute necessity.  SmartVault addresses this by providing direct integration with Microsoft Outlook, Results CRM, and a variety of other popular small business solutions.

Oriented for use by small businesses and the accountants and bookkeepers who serve them, SmartVault delivers a surprisingly powerful solution which addresses the variety of document storage, attachment and retrieval requirements of most businesses, coupled with the workflow tools and a unique QuickBooks integration capability to specifically address the needs of accounting and finance department users.  You know you need to work smarter and not harder, so your document vault should be smarter, too.

Make Sense?

J

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Be the McDonald’s of Professional Service

Be the McDonald’s of Professional Service

The Progressive Accountant

You run a professional services firm, perhaps an accounting firm. You have a wide variety of clients with a wide variety of needs, but the services you offer are relatively standardized. You provide tax return preparation, bookkeeping and financial statements.

What’s not standardized is how you approach each client need, and how you work with each client. You treat each engagement as a one-off, dealing with the client (and the client information) in a manner that suits the client at that time. While this sounds like a great approach, lending itself to a high level of personalization, the underlying result is inefficiency, lack of standards, and a very limited ability to improve your internal profitability.

What you need is a machine – to be the McDonald’s of professional services – delivering consistent and predictable service to your client community. Your service quality doesn’t have to be in the realm of “fast food”, but the point is that you should be using a standards-based approach and applying the same tools and methods to each engagement in a consistent and repeatable manner. You’ll rapidly find that a great many of your clients will eagerly adapt, and begin to embrace and take advantage of the tools you provide to them. For your firm, the result is more predictable performance and increased profitability.

As an example, let’s say that your firm is “tooled up” to provide services using Internet or cloud services.  You have a client portal where you can store and share files with clients, and you have mechanisms for securely emailing files and documents to clients as well.  Your goal is to get your clients to use the online portal to exchange information with your firm, enabling somewhat of a “self service” model.  But many of your clients won’t log in to the portal, and require you to use email to send/receive files and information.

The right approach here is to use the portal no matter what.  This is a key element to the success of your overall approach –the strength of your standardized processes.  And it’s important to remember that it isn’t a process if you don’t do it the same way every time.  Even if your clients don’t use the portal for data exchange, you should still encourage it and put the documents there.  Now, you’ll still likely do the email thing – it’s always a good idea to have at least two paths of communication.  But if you consistently use the portal as a standard method of making data available for your clients, many of those non-portal users may become users simply because they find that the convenience of any time/anywhere access really works for them.  Sometimes it takes letting folks get used to things, but once they do, it becomes second nature and almost an expectation.   Once these clients have adopted your standard portal approach, what else can you introduce to them to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the engagement?

You need to help make your firm as efficient and profitable as possible, and to have a quality product (or service) produced every time.  Henry Ford’s assembly line is where you start.  Create the machine that is the operational level of your business, and establish the tools and standards that will allow for sustainable growth and success.

Make Sense?

J

Read more about Data Warriors: Accountants in the Cloud

Read more about using the cloud to extend “connectedness” beyond traditional boundaries

Article originally published via The Progressive Accountant

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Big Data and Big Decisions

Structure a process to develop the questions and measure outcomes, and then go get the answers

It seems that everyone these days (including me) is standing on the soapbox of “big data”, and the need to go beyond simple dashboards to help executives and owners make the daily decisions which may ultimately result in great business success or total organizational failure.  What many of us fail to discuss is how to manage the process of getting and using data, and why it is important to know what decisions the business should focus on making before the data is collected and analysis performed.

The whole point of “big data” is to assist in the development of more informed processes and people, which are elemental to supporting successful operations.  Data becomes useful information which helps to bring understanding and insight, and which results with action (information = power).  While this type of analysis was once oriented almost exclusively towards financial risk and fraud identification or detection, it is now being turned to the front lines where it is more focused on customers and supply chains, and where decisions made may be more visible (and volatile).

Decisions, questions posed in the business which are answered with action, are best made when based on complete and accurate information.   To accomplish this, data must be collected from all available aspects of the business, including trapping detailed operational data not often collected for summary financial reporting.   With this level of data, and with a structured and purposeful approach to management of the decision-making process, the business gains agility by being analytical and informed, and is better able to sustain performance by adapting to changing conditions.

The success of any decision-making effort is enabled by management practices which recognize the need to apply structure and standards, and know the value of actionable data over instinct. The application of performance monitoring and similar tools is also essential to measure the effectiveness of not just the decision, but also the processes which supported making it.  Like asking a student to produce their work, this approach helps to identify potential flaws in the decision-making process, even as apparently successful conclusions may be reached.

Today’s big data push is fueled by cloud solutions and interconnected systems delivering more, and more detailed, data than ever before.  Further, analysis tools have evolved beyond summary reports in graphs and charts and now offer advanced data mining and visualization, and introducing a predictive capability based on trends and condition sets.  While the availability and access to business data increases, so does the responsibility of the organization to understand WHAT decisions it is looking to make improvements in, and to create a process to monitor the effectiveness of those decisions made and acted upon.

Make Sense?

J

  • Read more about using the cloud to extend “connectedness” beyond traditional boundaries
  • Read more about how accountants need business intelligence, too
  • Read more about how there’s no fear and loathing in accounting
  • Read more about the pressure on accountants to deliver more value and intelligence to their clients
  • Read more about Data Warriors: accounting in the cloud
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Disruptive Trends = Emerging Opportunity: Adapting to a changing technology and business environment

Every new day brings some new advancement in business technology, and much of this advancement relates to cloud computing, mobility, and new social computing models.  Information technology and solutions applied to business use have rapidly evolved away from paper-based or fixed-location tools, and are now oriented towards enabling mobility and anytime, anywhere access to business applications and digital data.

Trends driving change in business technology today may be reflected in two main areas: enabling solutions which are revealing benefit not previously recognized, and disruptive approaches which represent trans-formative changes to how businesses operate.   Disruption and transformation often generate new business opportunity, yet many professionals in accounting/finance and information technology fail to see the new potential available and resist anything which represents significant change.  These professionals equate change with risk, and are reluctant to entertain either.

An example of a class of solutions which enable the organization to “know more”, providing decision support through deep analysis and reporting of key business data, is the new generation of data visualization tools now available in forms and formats easily accessible by any business professional.  Previously, business owners had to rely on system analysts and accounting professionals to compile and report on various aspects of business activity.  Using spreadsheets and database driven chart-building systems, manipulation of large volumes of data was unwieldy and limited by available computer resources.  Moving beyond previously recognized boundaries in data collection and aggregation, tools now available assist users in combining data from disparate sources, and offer a rich suite of analytics coupled with the simplicity of drag-and-drop selection and exploration.

The opportunity introduced with this new capability does not rest solely in the analysis of the data.  Rather, it is in the control and the structure which must be developed to ensure that all relevant data being collected, and in the structure and control placed on those data collection and integration processes which will ensure that the information is properly associated or correlated, and accurately integrated into the model.   Completeness and accuracy of data is of critical importance, as is an in-depth understanding of the nuances of structured and unstructured data relationships.

In addition to the enabling solutions emerging on the market which are driving deep changes in how businesses see themselves are the advancements in technology which cause fundamental shifts in how business use technology to support operations.  The most evident advancement, often viewed as an approach which is disruptive to more traditional models, is the emergence of “cloud” computing models.  Cloud computing, connected services, and fully-managed outsourced IT solutions address a number of issues which have burdened enterprise IT deployments since IT departments were invented.

The difficulty for IT managers is that they are often overworked and underfunded, as information technology is not often viewed as a strategic differentiator but merely as a necessary cost of supporting operations.  Users view IT as being unresponsive and ineffective, and have little understanding of the balancing act required to meet user demands and at the same time deliver standardized enterprise computing services in a secure manner.

Mobility and the cloud has changed the landscape of business IT, and the concept of “there’s an app for that” is now fully ingrained in the user mentality.  Cloud solutions, sometimes introduced to the business by non-IT personnel and often viewed as “rogue IT” projects, have won adoption by business users due in large part to the simplicity of implementation, and often because they can deploy the solution quickly, outside of the boundaries established by internal IT management.  Information management within the organization must necessarily extend now to mobile computing devices, where an entirely new set of issues is revealed in terms of personal device management and distribution of corporate data and intelligence.  Professionals assisting the business with information management, access, collection and integration processes must now give greater consideration to incorporation of mobile device and application management, as well as the risks introduced with the broad use of personal computing devices within the organization.

The cloud represents a convergence of social and mobile computing, and introduces an entirely new class of business metrics to measure due to the significant increase in available data captured at various levels and through various types of virtual interactions.  With users being able to engage wherever and whenever they choose (“there’s an app for that”, again), businesses must shift IT focus to strategic enablement, creating standards for outsourced deployments, and infusing each effort with the security and control required, which is a mainstay of IT operations.

Big data, visualization and analysis, and mobile and social computing are changing how we do business.  As the trusted advisor to the business, the accounting professional should embrace these changes and the opportunities they present to deliver more value and service in each client engagement.  Accountants can help their clients understand how to do more with less – leveraging technology to improve operational efficiencies, and to structure, capture, integrate and analyze the relevant data which will reveal the risks and potentials of the operation under a variety of circumstances.

Disruption creates your opportunity to bring order to the chaos, helping clients compete and flourish in a difficult economy, and providing the proactive guidance and analytical support necessary to build and sustain profitability.

Make Sense?

J

  • Read more about how accountants need business intelligence, too
  • Read more about how there’s no fear and loathing in accounting
  • Read more about the pressure on accountants to deliver more value and intelligence to their clients
  • Read more about Data Warriors: accounting in the cloud