Category: accounting professional

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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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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
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Bringing Order to Inefficient Business Processes: Give people easy to use tools that make sense, and they’ll use them.

Give people easy to use tools that make sense, and they’ll use them.

Most businesses need a little help streamlining those frustrating back-office processes that remain as barriers to better information collection and use.  What sort of processes?  Time keeping, for whatever reason or need, is one of them.  Maybe employee time spent relates specifically to billable project revenue, or possibly time spent is part of an embedded cost in an engagement.  Or, time tracking may simply be a means to capture data on employee productivity.  In a lot of situations, getting time records from contractors or employees is like asking them to move a mountain.  Maybe there is a mountain to move, depending on how many sheets of notes and handwritten records they’ve got stacked up.

Another process to look at is expense management and reporting, where all those random size receipts taped to a piece of letter paper, credit card statements with lines blacked out with a Sharpie, and spreadsheets of purchase requisitions for things you’ve never heard of before get stacked in the in-box where you not-so-secretly hope a fire will start some time during the night.  Someone actually has to go through this information and enter it into the system, and then decide what to do with the requests.  When this “someone” is the owner or manager, it means taking time away from actually running the business.  When it’s the bookkeeper, more focus may be placed on data entry than on verifying spending authorizations or managing the cash flow.

While almost every business has these time and expense management needs in their business, it is an area of automation and “tooling up” that is often overlooked.   One of the reasons for this may be that a lot of the solutions users are asked to implement just aren’t “usable” enough, or don’t really fit the context of what the user needs to accomplish.  In order to get the most value out of any business solution, workers must actually use the solution.  It has been proven time and again that, if you give people easy tools that make sense, they’ll use them.

Your accounting software may have time tracking with it, but does it make sense for your employees to access accounting just to record their time?  How about your contractors?  Employee reimbursable expenses paid by credit card can be accessed directly via transaction downloads from the bank, but does it make sense for you to have access to the employee’s account?  While there may be many ways to accomplish these tasks, there are only a few really effective ways which deliver the access as well as the security, and the relevant functionality that makes it easier for good workers to capture good data.  Selecting a system with the right functionality is key, but finding a system people can and will actually use means you’ve found a real solution, not just a system.

Make Sense?

J

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Discussion on hosted service options at The Sleeter Group ASC 2012

Discussion on hosted service options at The Sleeter Group ASC 2012

Are you having a hard time understanding the best approach to hosting your business applications – wondering why it costs what it costs, and why some applications seem harder to get hosted than others?  While installing applications on your desktop seems pretty straightforward, it may seem like nothing short of rocket science to get an application installed with your hosting provider.  And, to make matters worse, a handy little software widget you just bought for $20 now means you must have your own entire virtual server just to run it in the cloud? What’s up with that?

There is a lot of confusion regarding application hosting services, what customers expect from them, and what service providers are reasonably able to deliver.  Unfortunately, software developers, customers and service providers are not always on the same page when it comes to trying to solve the problem or making it easier for businesses to adopt the service.

To attempt to address the issue, and to (hopefully) provide some clarity and guidance around the application hosting service model and its use in your business, I will be presenting a session on application hosting, including QuickBooks hosting, at the 2012 Accounting Solutions Conference, presented by the Sleeter Group and being held this year in Anaheim, California on October 22-24.  The discussion will include information on typical hosting provider models, as well as application issues and considerations businesses should be aware of when looking to have their software and systems delivered by a 3rd party.

In all fairness, I will not be recommending specific providers, nor will I suggest that any one provider is better than another.  Each hosting company has their own strengths and weaknesses, which is true with all businesses.  The focus of the session is helping attendees learn what they need to know to begin a basic evaluation of whether or not hosting of their applications makes sense, and to recognize those factors which will impact cost, performance, and usability.  Further, I’ll also be talking about how hosting isn’t a standalone solution, and how cloud-based applications and services may be combined with hosted application services to deliver the necessary functionality for the best value (“can you say chunkify!” to use a Doug-ism).

So, I guess you need to come to Anaheim in October to learn some stuff, and then take a day at Disneyland.

Make sense?

J

Get ASC 2012 conference session information here

read more about the confusion over hosted licensing on The Progressive Accountant http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/tech-tips/confusion-over-hosted-licensing.html

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Knowing More: Accountants Delivering More Value with More Information

Knowing More: Accountants Delivering More Value with More Information

An article on CFO.com titled “What Does Sustainability Really Cost?” discusses the need for accounting and finance professionals to collect, analyze, and report on business data which is not always represented in the financial statements.  In many ways, this speaks to operational and other elements of the business, visible only with a closer look and through a deeper understanding of the operations and the many and varied factors which impact them.

Integrated financial reporting, which combines financial reporting with reporting of intangibles and other off-balance-sheet factors, needs CFOs’ support, investors say.
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1lWOa)

The focus of the article is one of sustainability and the ability of a business to maintain operations, profitability, and growth over time – and an integrated reporting approach which more fully describes this information, as well as elements relating to business risk and corporate governance.  In order for investors to fully understand the business health or the risk of investment in the operations, it takes looking beyond the balance sheet into operational metrics and detailed performance and supply chain data which is not often fully available in high level financial reports.

“..added material information will make investors a happier group. A more comprehensive approach to reporting would help investors more easily determine a firm’s ability to generate future cash flows, says Ian Ball, chief executive officer of the International Federation of Accountants and chair of the IIRC working group for integrated reporting. “Financial reporting on its own isn’t any longer telling us enough about a company to really understand its prospects,” he adds.

In recent years, about 80% of a company’s value was on the balance sheet, which contrasts to about 20% today, notes Ball. The reversal stems from the burgeoning presence of intangible assets among corporations. “If you’re trying to figure out whether a company’s worth investing in, you’ve got to understand the other 80% to understand the company,” he adds.
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1lWOa)

Deeper and more informative reporting on the business performance, as well as the data supporting the continued ability to perform at such levels and under what conditions, is what businesses owners need whether they recognize it or not.  Many business owners and managers believe they have the information necessary to make daily decisions, yet find their resources lacking when it comes to obtaining financing or meeting challenges posed by various unforeseen events.

Whether the economic environment is “friendly” or not, small businesses will turn to their banks to secure lines of credit and get funding to smooth out bumps in cash flow and availability.  Getting credit is always a challenge, even in the best of times.  When the economy stalls and times are tough, getting the necessary cash to support the business gets even tougher.

Bankable: Giving Small Businesses Credit http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-c1

Implementing dashboard analytics and other reporting tools is not always the initial answer, because part of the underlying problem may be that the right data is not being collected, or is not accurately accounted.  Developing a complete picture and providing an accurate and informed analysis of the data requires getting the right accurate data.  This is often where the process starts, ensuring that the systems in use benefit not only the work, but the information and reporting needs of the business as well.

When speaking to accounting professionals about the additional valuable services they could be providing to clients by using these KPI reporting tools to identify additional consultation and advisory services clients need, the feedback I generally get from the professional is that “you have to get the numbers right, first”.  It seems that, even with the ready availability of powerful and affordable software solutions to run the business, accounting and finance still tends to be an afterthought for many business owners.  Relegated to the back-office, and being an after-the-fact recipient of transactional data, accounting is still viewed by many as a “necessary evil” of doing business rather than an area of potential strategic advantage.

Working With the Right Numbers: Financial Data Analysis Requires Accurate Financial Data http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-9y

When the information systems in use appropriately support operational requirements of the business, the necessary data may be more easily collected for analysis. This is where accounting professionals should help their clients, to improve the quality of data available for analysis and for integration into financial systems.  It is through this attention to operational process support, getting the right tools in front of the user to support their job function and tasks, which will allow the collection of detailed information about the operations, and which ultimately provides the basis for a great deal of insight into the business.

It is in the interaction – of people, data and systems – where better technology-supported collaboration with the client should be established.  In many cases, this means focusing on improving the client system and the accounting process will benefit as a result.

Accounting Online and Outsourced Accounting – Focus on Enabling Your Client http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-bU

Accounting and finance professionals wondering how to increase their earning potential from the  existing portfolio of clients should look more closely at the operational and managements aspects of the businesses rather than focusing solely on tax return and financial statement preparation.   The value to the client is far greater and has a more direct impact when it helps in the performance of daily activities and provides support in overcoming challenges in cash availability, financing, and other issues business owners regularly face.  Know more about the client business, and the information you both gain provides the foundation to deliver greater service and tangible value.

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
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Bankable: Giving Small Businesses Credit

Bankable: Giving Small Businesses Credit

Whether the economic environment is “friendly” or not, small businesses will turn to their banks to secure lines of credit and get funding to smooth out bumps in cash flow and availability.  Getting credit is always a challenge, even in the best of times.  When the economy stalls and times are tough, getting the necessary cash to support the business gets even tougher.

A recent post on blogs.wsj.com (Wallstreet Journal) discusses the results of a survey (Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Small Business Borrowers Poll), where it was revealed that “small-business owners in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are still struggling to acquire credit for day-to-day expenses and expansion”.  What a surprise.  Times are tough, and the banks need to manage their risk and increase the predictability of repayment for loans and lines of credit.  If accountants are looking for reasons to adopt and implement analytics and forecasting for their clients, there you go.

Accounting professionals can help their clients get the credit they need, by helping demonstrate how “bankable” the business is.  Here are three ways to improve the odds when trying to get financing for the business (and where the accounting professional can be a pivotal player), according to an article on Bloomberg Businessweek: Three Ways to Make Your Small Business “Bankable”

1. Tighten up your books. The value of good financial reporting cannot be understated. By being able to demonstrate profitability and a strong balance sheet, you reduce the ambiguity that is often present in a small business’s financial statements. Banks look to manage their risk and increase their predictability with the loans and lines of credit they give. Owners who can do that for them will stand a better chance of getting approved.

2. Showcase your strategic thinking. Give financial institutions an idea of how your strategy will help your bottom line. Broad brush strokes won’t cut it here. Provide specifics as well as the quantitative and qualitative reasoning behind it.

3. Get some help. Although most small businesses don’t require a full time chief financial officer, many should consider hiring a reputable, outsourced accounting firm. The right one will give you a better understanding of your company finances.

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