accounting technology – Page 25 – Cooper Mann Consulting

May 8, 2013August 5, 2019

What Small Businesses Need To Know about QuickBooks and the Cloud

With all the talk of cloud computing and having remote access to business applications and data, many small business owners are finding themselves searching for the answer to cloud-ifying their tried-and-true QuickBooks desktop software. At first view, most business owners get the impression that their only viable choices are to either move up or down the product line – downgrading to QuickBooks Online Edition, which lacks the features and functionality they’ve come to expect from QuickBooks, or upgrading to QuickBooks Enterprise Edition, the only version Intuit visibly supports on terminal servers and which is far more expensive than the Pro or Premier editions.

It is surprising how many accounting or even IT professionals don’t understand the real options available to their small business customers wanting to move entirely to a cloud-based IT strategy, particularly when it comes to QuickBooks. This is no fault of the IT guy or accountant – unless they’re specializing with QuickBooks, there are some options they are simply not being made aware of because it isn’t where Intuit is focusing its marketing efforts. Intuit wants businesses to buy QuickBooks Online. The market, on the other hand, likes the QuickBooks desktop products and wants them in the cloud. The well-kept secret is that businesses can have their QuickBooks desktop editions in the cloud and it works the same way as it does on the desktop.

Hosted QuickBooks isn’t rocket science; it’s simply a method of installing QuickBooks desktop software on servers and making the solution available to users via the Internet. Many business offices are already doing this type of thing without really recognizing it – accessing the office PC via a Remote Desktop connection so they can work on their QuickBooks or other applications from home.

A QuickBooks hosting solution is essentially the same thing: QuickBooks software and the company data exist on a computer in a data center, and the user connects to that computing environment, application and data via a remote connection. Most providers use the same underlying technology (Remote Desktop) to deliver their hosting services that users deploy in their own offices – they just use “bigger” versions of it and sometimes a little extra technology with it to help out. The point is that Remote Desktops and hosted applications are not new or bleeding edge technologies; they are a proven means to effectively and efficiently deliver seamless remote access to computing resources (environment, apps, data, etc.).

Perhaps the weirdness surrounding the QuickBooks licensing is part of the problem; I’ve seen this confusion prevent businesses from running their QuickBooks on remote systems simply because they could not figure out the right way to do it and still conform to licensing rules. Consider that QuickBooks is essentially a single-user application, and it’s the database manager that really allows concurrent multi-user access to a data file. The program was not designed to have multiple users of the PROGRAM all running from one computer concurrently (which wasn’t a problem when only one person at a time used a computer).

But these days, with terminal servers and remote desktop capabilities, a single computer is essentially turned into a box containing a bunch of user environments (call them desktops, sessions… whatever). Each of these user environments (desktops/sessions) are running at the same time and on the same computer. So, when a user goes to launch QuickBooks and then open a QuickBooks company file, the database manager looks at the computer running the QuickBooks license and says “ok, you have a license to allow QB to access a data file with one user”. When the next user launches QuickBooks from that machine it will allow them to open the program, but if they try to connect to the same data file as the first user, guess what? QuickBooks database manager looks at the computer and license and sees the same single-user license number coming from the same computer.

A single-user license means only 1 user can access the company file concurrently (at the same time). So, if two or more people are on the same terminal server (remote desktop server), and are trying to access the same company data file concurrently, the QuickBooks license on their terminal server must be at a level that allows all of them to access the company file at the same time, e.g., a 2- or 3-user license. This is not intuitive.

Another issue relating to QuickBooks licensing on a terminal server or remote desktop setup is the fact that it’s a really awesome method of giving more users access to QuickBooks than you legally should. This is an unfortunate technical reality of the product, and is possibly an issue which influences Intuit’s lack of support of the product in this type of environment. While the licensing language and the operation of the database manager indicate that each user running QuickBooks should have a license, the technical reality is a bit different.

The technical reality is that a single QuickBooks license installed on a terminal server could possibly be actively used by any number of people on that server – all at the same time – as long as those users don’t try to open the same company file at the same time. Of course, this is in direct violation of the license agreement and is essentially a situation where a single QuickBooks license is being unlawfully accessed by more users than it is licensed for. Intuit does not approve of this model as it falls into the category of software piracy, but I sure see a lot of accounting firms applying it for client QuickBooks access. (It’s often a statement about how, as a ProAdvisor, the accountant gets their license each year, installs it on the terminal server, and magically all clients now have access to the new edition!). **Note to self: if your service provider or accountant gives you “free and automatic” upgrades to QuickBooks each year, you may want to look a bit further into whether or not the licensing is actually legitimate; the risk to your business books isn’t worth avoiding a $249 investment**

Another thing that often prevents businesses and their IT people from moving QuickBooks to a hosted solution is the lack of available support. While Intuit says that they support QuickBooks Enterprise in a terminal server environment, there is no such offering for the Pro and Premier editions. In reality, this doesn’t mean that the solutions won’t work, because they will. It simply means that Intuit won’t support the installation directly. Perhaps this is the best and most evident reason to work with an authorized QuickBooks hosting provider. Particularly when it comes to your business accounting and financial data, it makes sense to make sure it is running in a supported environment. There are few things as frustrating and potentially damaging to business than losing customer, vendor and accounting information. Let us still be realistic about this, though. QuickBooks was not designed to run on a terminal server, and its behavior and performance may not be flawless. In most cases, however, any tradeoffs are easily weighted towards the benefits of mobility, security and IT management. You get glitches with QuickBooks even on a local PC, so occasionally experiencing them with QuickBooks in the cloud should be expected.

Small businesses need help with their information technology, particularly as even simple to use solutions like QuickBooks continue to get more technically complex (simple to use often means there’s a lot going on behind the scenes). And small businesses want worry-free IT, so they can focus on running the business and not on running computers. For these reasons and more, the small business owner and the IT person serving small business should take a close look at hosting their QuickBooks desktop software – along with their other business applications – with a trusted cloud hosting provider. Yes, you can have your QuickBooks in the cloud. Today.

Make sense?

May 6, 2013March 26, 2019

The Collaborative Online Model for Small Business Accounting Professionals

Accountants and bookkeepers serving small business clients are facing a growing problem – how to provide services that are valuable to the client in a way that makes it profitable for the provider. Part of the problem is that small business, while they need quality accounting and bookkeeping services, have a hard time paying for it unless the person doing the work is sitting in the office producing tangible reports and paperwork all day long (and maybe answering the phone while they’re at it). Accountants and bookkeepers working with a variety of small business clients can’t be profitable when they have to travel to client offices to do the work or pick up and deliver files and paperwork, and they certainly aren’t expecting to be the office receptionist while they’re there.

The solution for both is an online working model, where the outsourced professional and their client can both login together. Each accesses the applications and data to get their work done, and is able to access when and where they need to. Online accounting approaches help service providers increase their profitability at the same time they increase their level or range of service provided to clients. With a collaborative online accounting model, professionals and their clients can work from anywhere at any time, giving both the freedom to focus on what needs to get done.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the bookkeeping or accounting solution has to be an “online” service, per se. Looking at the accounting product alone isn’t often the best way to solve the mobility and managed service problem for the client, which is really what “online” for the client is about. The fact that their service providers (accountants, bookkeepers, etc.) can also work in the system is of secondary benefit to the client. The worst thing an accounting pro can do is tell their client they have to switch accounting solutions just to make it easier for the accountant or bookkeeper. It makes sense to improve that situation, but accounting/bookkeeping isn’t generally the entire IT requirement for the business client.

An online working model enables collaboration with team members and providers alike. Reducing or eliminating the requirement for sophisticated technology solutions is the key element, providing everyone the ease-of-use and security of server-based computing. The real benefits include centralization of business application management, protection data resources, and the ability to more fully streamline business processes. For many businesses, the earned benefit is increasing the capacity to do business profitably simply by making the current working model much more efficient and effective. The benefits are there for both the client is collaborators to experience, and this is where the focus should be – on the benefit to the small business.

Accounting professionals can also seamlessly increase their own opportunity and value by embracing a collaborative online working model. Through the use of outsourced bookkeeping, payroll services and other providers, accountants can increase or expand the services they offer to clients by seamlessly incorporating them into the overall offering. An online approach makes this possible, and can position these valuable services as the key to client business success. Working online together, professional service forms and their contractors or outsourcers can work closer than ever before, and the accounting professional is positioned to deliver far more value to the business client.

An online working model improves the profitability of the professional practice, too. The movement of information from one place to another, the restructuring of information from one form to another… these are processes that represent the cost and inefficiency in the professional accounting office. By working online in client accounting solutions along with the client, firms can reduce or eliminate redundant and time-consuming work that is the bane of the practice. Bookkeeping, property tax compliance work, payroll, HR and benefits administration – these are areas where outsourcing may make the most sense for the practice while enabling accountants to increase the overall value of service provided.

Does your professional practice offer valuable business services like these for your clients? Profitably?

A collaborative online working model can enable your firm to deliver the range of services business clients need most while improving the bottom line for both.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

May 2, 2013June 13, 2017

Moving to the Cloud While Retaining Your Investment in People, Process and Business Knowledge

cloud-business When businesses consider moving their information technology to the “cloud”, the problem is often approached with a thought that things will have to change dramatically in order to achieve a fully online working model. In many cases, business owners are left believing that any business use of cloud technologies is the equivalent of changing software and systems over to SaaS solutions, enabling the much-desired anytime/anywhere working model. What too many businesses aren’t being told is that there are a variety of ways to move to the cloud, and changing software and systems isn’t necessarily a prerequisite.

The benefits of a cloud computing model are many, with mobility and managed service being the most obvious. Less evident are the potential cost savings, because the subscription approach to paying for IT services may, on the surface, look like an equivalent or even higher cost over time. What isn’t being factored in to the cost (savings?) is the potential to improve processes and increase productivity. These benefits are often achieved simply due to a centralized management and access approach, and are not necessarily attributable to the adoption of new software tools.

For many businesses, the cloud is the right answer for deploying and managing IT and should be considered first, before changing out the software and tools in use throughout the organization. This approach has been widely adopted by businesses using Microsoft Exchange messaging solutions, where in-house Exchange servers are being replaced by outsourced Exchange providers and users experience the same functionality but with far better uptime and protection. The same approach is working for businesses electing to move their in-house business software and systems to the cloud, engaging with application hosting providers to install and manage existing desktop and network applications and to secure business data on the host. Users are able to access their native desktop applications via the cloud, allowing businesses to retain their investments in people, processes, and business knowledge.

Purists may contend that hosting of desktop applications is not truly “cloud”, but the terminology is far less important than the benefits businesses can achieve with a hosted application approach. For most folks, the “cloud” refers to Internet-based solutions and software delivered as a subscription service. When desktop applications are deployed on remote servers and the environment is managed and protected by the service provider, it is pretty much a cloud solution.

Particularly as Microsoft and others continue to move away from packaged all-inclusive solutions for local installation, small businesses are finding that the cloud, hosted applications and remote access provide the answers to a variety of business IT problems. Even more, those answers are being provided affordably, with a simplicity of setup not previously available, and with higher levels of service than was reasonably available with localized IT.

Information technology professionals at all levels are now recognizing that their small business and enterprise clients can experience many benefits with a cloud hosted and managed IT approach. It doesn’t take a comprehensive application or process overhaul to begin improving internal IT operations for the business. It makes no sense for a business to give up investments in training, process development, and people knowledge in exchange for a centrally managed and remotely accessible system. Rather, the smart business takes the steps to solve the real issues of IT management and mobility while allowing users to continue performing their tasks and doing business as usual – only better because the IT is now working for them.

Make sense?

April 16, 2013November 2, 2017

Workflow is Essential in Document Driven Business

The popularity and proliferation of online applications and cloud computing solutions for business has transformed how organizations manage activities, people and resources. The Internet-connected marketplace has introduced both opportunity and challenge for businesses of all sizes, and much of this focus has been placed on the management and control of digital documents and data.

Electronic document management has been commonly used in professional services business for many years, yet has not always been viewed as an essential technology to apply in the context of organizing and structuring the processing of the document. As clients of these professional firms continue to generate and utilize a great deal of paper documentation and written information, firms continue their reliance upon paper files, shared drives, and other more traditional methods of organizing the work, and storing or controlling access to documents. However, key trends in the industry are causing these approaches to be increasingly burdensome for professional service firms, including:

Need to support multiple offices, geographically disbursed team members, and mobile workers and devices
Increasing use of email as a primary tool for collaboration
Introduction of new risk elements accompanying new technologies
Increasing numbers of forms and document types coming from clients
Rising expectations of clients and increased market competition
Growing need for businesses to increase earnings and profitability with fewer resources
Increasing requirement for knowledge management supporting sustainability, creating the ability to retain and reuse best practices and work produced

Advances in the design and underlying technology supporting many document management solutions today have delivered great capability to firms adopting electronic document management approaches.

Benefits of implementation include the ability to create a centralized, searchable documents base which includes all client-related content, including email communications as well as documents and data files. Easy search, access, collaboration, and re-use of information are enabled, and complete audit trails may be retained. Electronic document solutions also reduce physical document storage needs, reducing costs associated with managing and storing paper files, and can better serve business disaster recovery and continuity initiatives.

While today’s electronic document management solutions may address many of the challenges involved in working with large volumes and varieties of documents and data, there are few solutions on the market which address fundamental issues relating to document processing workflows and how they are impacted by various business or data-driven events, or by the availability of people or resources to facilitate the process.

The growing problem facing businesses today is the volume and variety of information which must be organized, processed and archived. The market is sold on the idea that electronic communications and record keeping will simplify things, but the reality is proving otherwise. Businesses are hoarding information at unprecedented rates and with the ability to collect and generate increasing volumes of digital data, businesses have not simplified their information processing, they have only created a greater need.

Generating and collecting data is not the issue created, nor is ultimately the archival and storage of the information. Rather, the problem created is in organizing the work related to processing this ever-increasing volume of documents and data.

Businesses dealing with documents and transaction-based activities should not only attempt to structure workflows necessary to support the various processes, but must also seek to normalize as much as possible, developing a consistent and methodical approach to the work which results in predictable and consistently high quality service delivery.

The efficiency gained through this structuring and standardization of the work allows the professional services firm to achieve a greater level of profitability for outsourced processing engagements, which are often viewed as low-margin and low-profit activities.

Make Sense?

Read about Using Structured Workflow to Manage Offline Clients | Intuit Accountants News Central

March 26, 2013November 2, 2017

Small Businesses and Performance Data – Analytics are more important than ever

Creating and keeping a competitive edge is critical to building a successful business. Developing a plan, monitoring the plan to make sure the business remains on target, and setting goals for growth and profitability are foundations of business success. But great strategy and detailed planning cannot ensure success because the economy and business environments are unpredictable; no amount of planning is a guarantee that bad things won’t happen and the business won’t experience challenges. On the other hand, regularly monitoring small business performance data can reveal trends and indications that things are not going as expected, and provide a basis for making the decisions necessary to get the business back on track and regain the competitive edge.

Business owners must be prepared to make adjustments as conditions change, acting on decisions made based on business performance data. While business analytics are more important than ever, with businesses facing volatility in financial markets and increasingly globalized competition, finding a way to approach the matter is often the biggest barrier. The growing difficulty – the increasingly expanding problem facing business owners and their advisors – can be distilled down to three particularly noticeable trends.

An Aberdeen Group report from Nov 2011 titled “The Analytical SMB” identifies these trends as More Data, More Users and Less Time.

More Data

The volume of data flowing into organizations is already high and is increasing.
1. The data is complex
2. The data lacks similarity (data is disparate)

The volume of information flowing in to businesses is already high, and is increasing steadily. With all the data collection applications and tools available, and as the business seeks to gain more information and intelligence from more sources, the volume of information gathered by businesses has increased at astounding rates. Technology has adapted to this need, allowing businesses to gather than store vast amounts of data. To be of value, however, the data must be analyzed to find the answers to questions posed. What technology is only now beginning to address is the complex and disparate nature of the collected data. Coming from varying sources and in equally varying formats, data must be “normalized” and related for it to make much sense.

More Users

More business decision makers in more job roles and functions are getting involved
1. More people approaching the problem with their own “brand” of analysis

In a very small business, decisions are generally made by the owner. This is most often due to the fact that the owner is the person who not only knows what’s going on in the business, but is generally the one doing a lot of the work. As businesses grow and bring in personnel to manage various functions, these managers become decision-makers. Decisions are made in businesses at all levels, and as management layers are compressed, those “closer to the action” are being handed more responsibility for the decisions impacting their areas. Without a comprehensive and company-wide framework for data analysis and reporting, these individuals and workgroups find ways to capture and analyze the data they feel is pertinent to their requirement and within their own realm.

Less Time

Timeframe for making decisions is shrinking, and is shrinking at an “alarming” rate
1. The “velocity” (rapidity of motion) of business is increasing

It may be that, in some businesses and markets, certain decisions don’t have to be made with any great speed. Businesses or markets of this type are tough to find these days because the Internet, information technology and connected systems have all but eliminated the effects of time and distance. Just about everything in business today moves at a rapid pace, and that means that business decisions are often demanded on-the-spot, providing little time for detailed consideration and working through the problem. Without the tools and data providing meaningful real-time visibility into business performance, decision-makers may be able to act fast but not wisely, and are most frequently guided by their “gut feel” as to what the right move is.

Driving Small Business Analytics

Business decision makers are now recognizing the need to know more about the business and how it is operating and competing in order to effectively address the choices and decisions faced each day. The cause for this recognition may be due to variable elements, but the conclusion reached was the same: good business decisions require business analytics to support them.

Not surprising was the report finding – that the majority of small business owners felt pressured to adopt a business analytics solution primarily due to the fact that “critical business decisions rely too much on “gut feel”. Surprise! Other drivers listed were lack of visibility into operational metrics, the growing number of people in the business who want analytical capability, the business’s inability to identify and act upon business opportunities, and having less time to make decisions.

Steps to Get There

As with any business project, there are “degrees of success”, and the ultimate success of a business initiative requires that all parties be on board with it. Businesses who recognize a need to improve their analytical capability, but who do not then empower their systems, processes and people, will not achieve the same result as those who do.

Focusing on the business data, it is important to address both the volume and disparity by creating formal data management practices and policies, and implementing systems and processes which assist with the intelligent capture and storage of business information. Simply retaining the data is not useful; it must be presented and applied in a meaningful manner for it to become useful as decision-supporting information. The value of the information increases dramatically when it becomes truly useful to the business. Additionally, by empowering a broader framework for data collection and analysis, businesses extend the “intelligence” to others in the organization, supporting individual and workgroup efforts to make better decisions for their respective areas of responsibility. Of course, if the information is not provided in a timely manner, its value is reduced if not eliminated (hindsight may be 20/20, but that doesn’t help you see where you going to step next). Any approach to building business intelligence should leverage connectivity and integration to provide a timely delivery of complete information how and when it is needed.

What’s the Proven Benefit?

The obvious benefit of business analysis is that business owners are provided with data to help them understand more about the business operational and financial performance. The real and proven benefit is that the information provides a basis for gaining insight into trends and conditions which impact performance, and which support making the necessary decisions which facilitate improvement in various business areas.

The highest level of proven benefit, according to the Aberdeen Group report, was achieved by those businesses who embraced the requirement to know more about the organization and operation, and who implemented a focused effort at building business intelligence.

Fast Facts: Best-in-Class SMBs Achieved 24% year over year increase in new customer accounts sold compared to 12% for the industry average, and 11% for the laggards.

These organizations which achieved the greatest improvement operated from real data rather than being guided by gut and emotion, enabled the entire organization to participate in the development of organizational and business intelligence, positioned themselves to identify and act on new business and market opportunities, and ensured that those who must make decisions have the information and insightful data to support making the right ones.

Make Sense?

Philosophy of Process Improvement: Today’s CFO Focusing on Operations

There are a great many methodologies and approaches to “making businesses better” through process improvement. From SixSigma to Continuous Process Improvement to Total Quality Management – all describe methods of measuring performance and outcomes to return intelligence oriented towards improvement. Many of these approaches are generally applied in manufacturing businesses, because in manufacturing it’s easier to see where processes may be flawed because the process works with tangible elements. Making corrections in a process can improve the performance of that process by reducing errors or increasing efficiency. The truth of the matter is that every business is like a manufacturing business, and applying measurements to the various processes the business performs can reveal the secrets to improving not only process performance and product quality, but resultant profitability.

A recent article on CFO.com titled Operations Take Center Stage, author David McCann discusses how some CFOs are improving business profitability and performance by delving deeper into operational areas of the business, and not remaining focused squarely on accounting and finance issues.

“Operations is the key to everything,” says Larry Litowitz, finance chief at SECNAP Network Security, a secure Internet-services provider. “That orientation is found most at manufacturers, but it should be at every company.”

Fiscal and financial matters are important to every business, but focusing on accounting for the end-result of business activities assumes that the work leading to the result is useful and effective. As more attention is paid to conservation of cash, reduction of expenses, and overall profit improvement, CFOs are necessarily moving deeper into the operational aspects of the business to uncover potential not previously addressed. In some cases, the move is more a function of self-defense and necessity than desire, as businesses increasingly compress spending on management, merging the functional roles of CIO, COO and CFO.

Increasingly, CFOs may find themselves taking on operational tasks whether they want to or not. At larger companies, the steady waning of the chief operating officer position has resulted in more operational responsibility for CFOs, recruiters say. In 2000, 47% of the 669 companies included in either the Fortune 500 or S&P 500 had COOs; in 2012, only 35% did, according to executive-recruiting firm Crist Kolder’s 2012 “Volatility Report of America’s Leading Companies.”

Some accounting professionals may believe that they don’t have the skills and experience to suggest changes in operational areas of their client businesses. I would suggest that logic and reason are generally the prevailing factors supporting process improvement – reasoning that is often developed through simple observation. Taking the time to understand what the business is doing at each level, and then actually observing those activities and accounting for their effectiveness and error rate, is how professionals can spend quality time in the business and uncover hidden profit potential.

Litowitz says CFOs can influence operations at a range of companies, including service-oriented businesses. “It’s really no different. The work is a set of activities,” he insists… “All these activities can be analyzed, controlled, and measured against a predetermined standard,” says Litowitz. And just as on a manufacturing floor, efficiency generates profit, justifying the CFO’s involvement.

Make Sense?

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet J