QuickBooks in the Cloud – Page 13 – Cooper Mann Consulting

September 5, 2013June 24, 2020

Hosted QuickBooks and Office 365 a Complicated Technical and Licensing Model (until now)

When Intuit acknowledged the ability for companies to host QuickBooks desktop editions, service providers were presented with the opportunity to offer hosting for the QuickBooks desktop editions from their host servers and infrastructure. The benefits of using QuickBooks desktop products in a hosted environment are many, including the introduction of mobility, disaster recovery, remote access and other things now associated with cloud computing models. But the evolution of application delivery technologies and software as subscription service models is challenging the “traditional” approaches used to deliver hosted QuickBooks services. One of the greatest challenges facing these QuickBooks hosts is the changing landscape of Microsoft Office licensing, because QuickBooks is just no fun without Microsoft Office.

While the QuickBooks application handles a variety of essential business functions, it relies upon other software to accomplish certain important tasks, such as reporting. Most of the QuickBooks reports can be exported to Excel worksheets, allowing users to refine and manipulate the document outside of QB; QuickBooks Enterprise Edition uses Excel to handle consolidated reporting. QuickBooks uses Word for writing customer letters, and Outlook as a tool to email invoices. There is a lot of functionality in QuickBooks that relies on the MS Office products, so it is pretty typical for a QuickBooks user to also be an Office apps user. In order for the applications to work together properly, they need to be installed on the same computer. If QuickBooks is hosted “in the cloud” with a hosting provider, and Office 365 applications are installed on the local PC, the two applications don’t “talk”, and the integration isn’t seamless or even functional.

image credit: Microsoft Corp | Microsoft.com

When a small business subscribes to Office 365 (or Microsoft 365 now), they are provided with rights to install their Office applications on their devices (depending on the subscription level). While this enables users to have Office apps on multiple computers they use at different times, it does not provide authorization for the application to be installed on a hosted server where it is accessed by those users.

What this means is that customers who purchase Office 365/Microsoft 365 subscriptions to get their MS Office productivity applications can’t generally use those licenses in a hosted environment.

But there is an answer for small businesses who want remote and mobile access to their QuickBooks desktop editions and who also have Office 365 application licenses. The answer is to deploy QuickBooks desktop on a Microsoft Azure cloud server. This solution allows users to run their QuickBooks software as well as their qualifying Microsoft Office (M365 Apps for Enterprise) licenses on the Azure cloud server. The cloud platform enables the anytime/anywhere access desired and keeps all the applications and data secure and available for those who need access.

There is almost never just one way to solve a problem, and the cloud is introducing new options – and challenges – at all levels. As application licensing and delivery models continue to change, solution providers will come to recognize the value they provide in bringing the right selection of services and technology models together to benefit not just their customers, but their own revenue streams and profit potential.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

September 3, 2013September 3, 2013

The Cloud for Your Firm: 3 Initial Considerations for Cloud Enabling Accounting and Bookkeeping Firms Working With Small Businesses

The Cloud for Your Firm

3 Initial Considerations for Cloud Enabling Accounting and Bookkeeping Firms Working With Small Businesses

The potential benefits of a real-time, lean collaborative working model are too great to argue with. Accounting professionals, bookkeepers and their small business clients are all hearing about the value of working together in the cloud, and how cloud technologies and solutions can reduce cost and improve efficiency. There is a great deal of truth in these statements, just as there was a truth in the value of implementing computers, networks and other technologies in business. What is not clear is exactly what businesses need “in the cloud”, and how they should approach this shift from local IT to outsourced managed service. Initially, there are 3 issues which warrant consideration, if not deep discussion, prior to making any significant move to relocate internal IT and shift business applications to the cloud: internal use systems, client interaction, and operational support for both.

With all the discussion about cloud computing and remote access, it would seem that all the applications and solutions businesses need are now available online and paid for in low monthly subscription fees. Anyone working with small businesses, however, comes to understand that the vast majority of these businesses are still using more traditional modes of information management and computing. For the most part, these businesses are using PCs and local networks, possibly with a little hosted email thrown in. Almost certainly they have a website and maybe even a fairly sophisticated e-commerce system that allows them to sell products online. But when it comes to general office functions, and particularly back-office functions like bookkeeping and accounting, the software and the data generally reside on the office PC and server.

Accounting and bookkeeping professionals who work with small businesses are often in the same position as their business clients when it comes to information technology. Since so much of the work involved requires the same programs and data formats as those used by the client, service providers find that they spend as much in management of software licensing and systems to support working with client data as they do on systems intended for internal use only – sometimes more. Many of these service providers are also small businesses, and it becomes challenging to find a way to handle internal IT needs while at the same time trying to address those of the client. Where e-commerce solutions are readily available to handle operational aspects of product based businesses, the best tool set for a professional accounting firm or bookkeeping business working with small business clients may not be so easily defined.

The solution for many providers has been revealed through cloud computing and hosted application models. With Cloud Servers, Remote Desktops, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure now widely available as affordable alternatives to capital-intensive implementations of locally installed products, businesses are finding new abilities to manage applications and data, provide mobility and enhance collaboration. The additional benefit is in how accounting service providers may engage with their clients in more efficient and effective ways, without the burdens of replicating data or trying to share access to a single machine or application resource.

There are a number of elements to consider before taking the file server to the parking lot and running it over with a truck. Moving to the cloud is not a one-step process, and it is important to do a little research and collect some important information before making the final decision on how to proceed.

Internal Use Systems

Among the first of the questions to ask when considering a change in IT management approaches is “which software do we need”? Implementing an outsourced IT arrangement, which is really what “cloud” is about”, does not necessarily mean throwing away all the existing software and starting with new. The software in use within the firm may be exactly what it needs right now and adding full IT management, fault tolerance, and remote or mobile access could be the main scope of the requirement. Moving from locally installed solutions to hosted solutions provides quite a number of benefits while removing many of the direct costs and frustrations of IT management and administration. The greatest benefit of this type of approach is the ability to preserve the “body of knowledge” existing in the business, knowledge invested in the people and processes already developed.

On the other hand, there may be new tools or services only available as “cloud” service, and it makes sense to explore how they may benefit the business more than the in-use applications. The important element is to remember that the solution must address real business problems, and whether it runs in the cloud or not isn’t the first or most important thing to ask. For example, a discussion about whether QuickBooks Online might be a better choice than QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise should be focused on the functionality provided by the applications and not which servers they are running on. With application hosting for QuickBooks now being an available option, there is a managed IT and remote access capability for both solutions, rendering the fact that QBO is a SaaS solution almost irrelevant in terms of being a differentiator.

Client Interaction

An important aspect of adopting new technologies or working models is the consideration of how the firm and the client businesses will work together, and whether or not there is (or could be) a standardized approach that might work for most clients. Certainly, it makes sense to standardize as much as possible. Treating every issue or engagement as a singular event – a one-off – is the least efficient way to do business. The key to profitability is in the firm’s ability to produce high quality work consistently and in a timely fashion. This requires that the business be well-structured in terms of the standard processes and methods which will be used to work with client information. When the firm and the client can work seamlessly together as and when required, and when each is responsible for their own systems and data, it is a best-case scenario. The questions relating to client interactions focus on how the firm works with clients and which tools or solutions are required to improve that situation.

It is likely that the firm will need to be able to address working relationships with various client and engagement types – where clients do some of the work, where the bookkeeper does the work, or where the participants work collaboratively together in the same systems. While it may seem that the best way to create a dependency on your services with the client is to keep them out of the systems, empowering the client is really the key to a close and long-standing engagement. This means that the client needs to have their own solutions and approach to cloud-enabled IT, and the accounting or bookkeeping service provider should be able to access and work within that environment.

It is rare that a small business can effectively operate without computers and software to manage information and support operations, so it makes sense that the business should have its own accounting and financial systems, too. For the accounting service provider, it is essential that a level of understanding be gained around the use of today’s available remote and mobile access technologies, as it is with these solutions and tools that participation in client systems will be enabled. When the client accounting solution sits on their office PC, there are limited options for working together in any real collaborative form. Connecting to their PC via remote control is a widely recognized means of gaining access to client systems, but if the bookkeeper is on the system when there is a problem of some sort, all eyes go directly to that remote user as the likely cause of the problem.

The considerations relating to remote access to client systems focus not just on enabling a collaborative working environment, but also on mitigating risk and improving client perception. The risk issue comes in when the accounting service provider is exposed to systems and information not relevant to their task, and the perception issue becomes material when the accounting professional becomes the software or IT service provider. It makes sense for the accounting professional to make recommendations or suggestions about software and IT service which might benefit the business, but not to necessarily be the reseller or direct provider of the product or service. The moment the accounting professional attempts to sell the client a software product or IT service, the relationship is changed and the client is more likely to view their accounting pro as another vendor rather than a trusted advisor. It’s also not necessarily a great move to start a new client engagement by telling the client they have to switch accounting products to allow the accountant to work closer. Rather, professionals need to help their clients position those products for more efficient use, which may include enabling remote or mobile access granted via deployment in the cloud.

Operational Support

When businesses outsource their IT management and administration, there is often an initial belief that all responsibilities in these areas will be handled by the IT service provider. What is often overlooked is the reality that the firm still needs to have people attending to IT related tasks, just doing different levels of work with the technology. It is important to recognize that someone in the firm will end up dealing with various IT and process support issues, and it still makes sense to have personnel dedicated to these tasks (*Note: here’s where I suggest that the cloud changes the focus of internal IT personnel, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for them). The service provider and solution evaluation and selection process, as well as the actual deployment and administration of services, will take valuable time away from actually performing client accounting or bookkeeping work, and there should be people attending to these issues while the business continues operating.

Where an internal IT department or contract technicians may once have supported internal systems, an operational role within the business is still required to manage outsourced IT activities, including and particularly those where clients are involved with the firm systems. Delivering new benefits with a minimum of business disruption is the goal, and can be achieved through proper planning and coordination with team members and clients alike.

Closing Thoughts

“The Cloud” is just another way to run software and implement computing resources. It still takes servers and software, it uses processors and storage and networking, just like more “traditional” computing models. The difference is in how these resources are purchased and provisioned, and the impact is a change in how businesses of all types can benefit from technologies which enable collaboration, lean process, and mobility. The Cloud for Your Firm addresses your internal business requirements, lends itself to client collaboration, and has internal operational support to ensure the firm is fully leveraging the available benefits to improve business performance and profitability.

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August 29, 2013August 30, 2013

Focus on the Finance Department: QuickBooks in the Cloud

Vendors and IT solution providers are all buzzing about their cloud services and solutions available via the Web. This buzz often includes statements about lower cost of IT acquisition and service management and how mobility and remote access benefits the business. These statements are proving true for many businesses, yet there are still vast numbers of small business operating on local computers and unmanaged service. The reasons which hold back these business from adopting cloud computing models are as many and varied as the businesses themselves, but there is a consistent thread to be found in these reasons, and it has to do with a lack of understanding of what certain applications really mean to the business. In this case, the discussion is about the focus on strictly operational or administrative areas of the business and not on the finance department which, in so many small businesses, uses QuickBooks.

Cloud solution providers are in business to make money, and hosting companies in particular are looking for the right applications which will drive usage and revenues on their platforms. When these providers look at the small business market, they’re trying to identify the applications and services that small business owners will adopt in volume. Identification of these opportunities to serve a large customer base is essential to the provider’s economy of scale and profit model. It makes sense that hosts would want to offer the applications which drive the highest degree of usage in their environments, so they tend to focus on the applications used by the greatest number of users within the customer organization. In the small business market, these applications are email and productivity tools – solutions which are used broadly throughout the business and which serve a horizontal rather than vertical industry orientation. Those are the two easy picks; finding the next most valuable solution represents a bigger challenge for the provider.

With Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions boasting the lion’s share of the small business accounting market, it seems that hosting QuickBooks products would be the next natural selection by hosting providers already serving their small business clients with email and productivity solutions. However, because these service providers do not fully understand the essential functions QuickBooks serves in the small business, the assumption is that the usage of the solution is so nominal that it doesn’t make sense to develop the capability to offer it. It is a misunderstanding that many providers have, and is the result of a lack of historic participation in the product. QuickBooks, you see, is a direct to consumer product rather than a channel product, and most IT service providers and hosting companies recognize the product name but not really what it does or how it operates. And these hosts are often large companies and therefore have no direct experience using the product, so there is no frame of reference for them to work from. These service providers are simply overlooking the important role that QuickBooks solutions play in many small businesses, where it is used to handle various operational aspects of the business as well as being the product of choice for bookkeeping and accounting. Particularly with the QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise editions offering additional functionality and industry-specific features, the products are used widely by small businesses and not just for accounting and finance.

The point of the discussion is that hosting companies and “cloud server” providers should look at the mixture of applications used by their small business customers, and they are likely to find that QuickBooks products are pretty high on the list. Even if there are only a few people in the accounting department, and the usage by these individuals is not representative of the entire hosting opportunity, hosts should recognize that those few individuals and the software they use are not only essential, but are probably processing payroll for all those other users on the system and are paying the bills for products and services purchased. After all, if you’re going to make anybody in the company happy, make sure to focus on the finance department and help them get their QuickBooks in the Cloud, as they’re the ones that will be paying the bill for the service.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet

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August 26, 2013October 9, 2017

Cloud Computing for Small Business: It’s All About 3 Apps

Every business uses technology at some level, and every business has certain fundamental needs which are most frequently met through the use of computing technology. Regardless of business type or size and independent of industry orientation, there are 3 fundamental things which every business does which means that there are 3 fundamental application types or solutions which every business will buy at some point. These 3 application types, which could be distilled down to just “applications”, have become so broadly used in business and so widely recognized as the standards that their names are often used instead of the term representing the functionality they provide. When it comes to cloud computing for small business, it’s all about these 3 applications.

In what are now referred to as “legacy” or “traditional” models, these products would generally be purchased as software and associated hardware to run it, and would be installed and managed on the local premises. With cloud computing models, the solutions may be purchased or subscribed as managed infrastructure and application licenses, or as a full service subscription (SaaS). Regardless of the service model, the applications are the key to the customer win. While cloud computing may be challenging how IT products and services are sold and delivered to customers, it is not fully impacting which solutions customers are actually looking for. Over the past 16 years this has been the reality, and it may take another decade before these products are unseated from their top positions simply due to the inertia of the installed bases they’ve already developed. Service providers have found (or will find) a way to deliver these applications in cloud computing style, or small businesses will simply not move everything to the cloud very quickly. It is really just that simple, and I’ll explain why.

The three things that each and every business does, and which they generally purchase computers and software to facilitate, are communicating, producing information, and keeping score.

1. Communicating is an essential need for every business. Whether it is communication via phone, fax, email or otherwise, businesses will communicate and they will purchase products which help them do it better. The standard for business email communications has become Microsoft Exchange, which is now available as a highly affordable subscription service from Microsoft or from a wide variety of commercial MS Exchange hosting providers. Certainly the popularity and growth of hosted Exchange supports the argument that not only is MS Exchange mail very widely used in businesses of all sizes, but that it is also highly acceptable as a hosted solution because users retain desired functionality and are able to benefit from a variety of add-ons and additional services from their hosted Exchange email provider. The other thing about hosted Exchange is that the user can still use MS Outlook on their desktop to get their mail. Now we’re back to the desktop application again. Regardless of what mail server and service the user has, they are often more attached to using Outlook than they are to the mail service. In fact, when you ask a fairly non-technical user what they use for email, they’ll often say they use Outlook (the desktop client, not Outlook.com).

2. Producing Information is another essential need for every business. Whether the information is produced for internal or external use, there is a lot of information created to inform various people about the business. Documents, spreadsheets and presentations are used in every business, and productivity applications help people create them. The standard in this area is Microsoft’s Office suite of products which includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It isn’t unusual to have someone suggest “making a powerpoint to get the message across”, rather than using the word “presentation”, and does anyone expect to get a document not in .doc format? When users ask for productivity products, they usually ask for Office software and they usually mean Microsoft Office suite products.

The broad use and proven suitability of these products has well established them as the standards for use in business. While these applications are now available as limited-functionality web-based applications, most businesses continue to rely on the desktop products which resulted in myriad file sharing and “collaboration” tools which work with the Office products. Microsoft recognized the value of having the feature-rich productivity applications available in hosted and managed service models (as hosted applications rather than true web-based apps), and made the products available for licensing and distribution via their Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA). Microsoft (direct and via partners) also offers Office 365, which provides licensing for Office desktop applications and/or hosted Exchange email services.

Hosts with cloud servers and managed infrastructure and VDI solutions are all facing this truth: their services are useful when there are applications running on them, and among the most frequently requested applications are the Office apps. This is why so many providers offer not only cloud servers and virtual desktop solutions, they add value to their service by also offering the Microsoft Office products. At least in the case of MS Office, service providers have recognized that certain fundamental applications must be present in order for the server or desktop to have value for the SMB customer. After all, “moving the server to the cloud” doesn’t solve the problem if all the apps remain on the local PCs.

And then we come to the final application – the last fundamental small business application for service providers to focus on. It is with this application that hosting companies will make real impact in moving their small business customers from local to hosted applications, virtual desktops, and the world of cloud servers and managed hosting.

3. Keeping score, or accounting, is the final absolute and fundamental business function which exists in every business regardless of size, type or industry. This is another area where service providers are focusing, realizing that within the realm of small business accounting there is a single standard product line which serves the exact profile of the target SMB/SME customer: Intuit QuickBooks desktop products.

When challenged to find a single application solution which addresses a fundamental business need, is not oriented towards a particular industry segment, and which is likely to drive increased usage simply due to existing market penetration and sales – there is only one name that answers, and it is QuickBooks, most specifically the Pro, Premier and Enterprise desktop editions.

Looking further into the problem reveals that there may be more options for small business accounting emerging in the SaaS market, but this doesn’t help the hosting companies looking to increase usage on their own platforms. Additionally, while new and emerging solutions may be introducing options for very small business, the activity actually serves to increase awareness of and usage of computerized accounting solutions, resulting in increased share of the market looking for and purchasing these solutions – increasing the overall market for SMB accounting products and providing an opportunity to sell QuickBooks solutions to those new users. Further, Intuit QuickBooks remains the dominant choice once the business has needs beyond simple invoicing and bill payment, and continues to see growth in product sales and distribution for this reason.

It’s also true that, once a business has itself “invested” in an accounting product, change is not something considered easily. In many (most?) cases, the business is more closely tied to their financial systems than they are to their service provider. If the provider can’t work with the software, the business is likely to seek services from another provider.

Moving everything but finance to the cloud is not an option for most businesses, either. Particularly with small business/small enterprise, there are generally systems which serve a broad business need and not a single function. QuickBooks is not just a back-office accounting product. It also provides some front-office functionality, such as storing general customer information, handling invoicing, inventory management, job costing and other functions. It is essential that service providers not minimize the importance of this solution in their target client operation.

The financial system is not an island and is often integrated with or connected to other applications and data. Even though the QuickBooks desktop products are designed to suit businesses up to 250 employees, it is unlikely that a business will have all 250 people running QuickBooks. Rather, the product may be used by 2 or 3 people in the accounting department, or possibly by up to 30+ users in an Enterprise deployment where the product serves more operationally oriented functions. The rest of the company is likely using MS Office and email as suggested earlier, and perhaps some other operational or business specific product which may integrate with QuickBooks. The point is that it’s unwise for service providers to minimize the importance of the financial software and systems, even if those solutions are used by only a very few of the total number of users within the organization.

More evidence suggesting that the name QuickBooks has become almost synonymous with small business bookkeeping is visible within the accounting and bookkeeping industry, where bookkeeper training programs focus as much on the QuickBooks product (if not more so) than on actual accounting fundamentals. Businesses hiring bookkeepers don’t ask for bookkeeping experience, they ask for QuickBooks experience. If a small business owner asks his accountant what product to use, it’s a good bet that the accountant will recommend, and possibly even set up, QuickBooks for the client. There is momentum there which cannot be argued with, and it represents significant opportunity for those who have platforms to run the stuff. Weirdly, QuickBooks desktop editions and other desktop-based financial products available in a cloud hosted model represent a last and final element which is driving broad adoption of cloud servers and hosted desktops within the SMB markets.

It is all about the apps, but not just any apps. It’s about the apps small businesses need, want, know, and currently use. Service providers who can offer their customers these applications as cloud service – as managed applications on a cloud server or VDI platform – are in a position to serve the broadest base of SMB/SME customers. Talk about addressable market… at that point, it becomes a simple function of exposure as the value proposition is undeniable (and barrier-free).

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

July 15, 2013April 20, 2017

Criteria for Evaluating QuickBooks Hosting Providers: Going Beyond Pricing

When a small business elects to run their QuickBooks desktop edition software in the “cloud”, it makes sense to work with an experienced provider – a company with the people and the experience to keep the QuickBooks desktop software working properly and securely. The keys to selecting the best provider for the business are often hidden in the experiences of others; experiences which reveal issues that may significantly impact vendor selection and which have nothing to do with the price of the service. Criteria such as system performance, responsiveness to technical issues, resources for self-help, and knowledge of support personnel – these are the things that more frequently and directly impact the customer experience and, ultimately, the customer’s loyalty.

While Intuit supports QuickBooks Enterprise in terminal server and Remote Desktop environments, they only support the license when it is deployed for the single business organization the license was issued to. If a business has lots of different users on the platform and those users don’t belong to the one company who “owns” the infrastructure and the license, then the implementation is non-compliant and won’t be supported. Intuit also doesn’t offer direct support for QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier editions in remote desktop implementations, yet the software will work perfectly well in that environment. There are a few quirks and tricks to using the software in this manner, however, so provider technical experience specifically with QuickBooks is essential.

When working with a company providing managed application hosting services and not just managed server platforms, it generally means that the provider is taking responsibility not only for the server/network/infrastructure, but also for the setup, configuration and maintenance of system users and security, and the installation/management/maintenance of the applications running on the server. When a business elects to outsource this level of service to any 3^rd party, there are a variety of areas in addition to pricing which should be thoroughly explored prior to signing the service agreement.

When evaluating potential service providers, research the provider’s offerings and performance directly as well as evaluating the public’s perception of them, considering these 4 areas:

Technology
Innovation
Business Practices
Customer Satisfaction

The technology evaluation relates not only to the systems and tools applied to the service delivery, but also to the systems or tools applied to assist the customer with dealing with the service. Too often, providers pay more attention to their ordering systems than their service delivery, believing that a quality customer experience rests more with simple purchasing processes than with a functional and well-performing application service. Others may focus on delivering the best and highest quality application service, yet relegate their clients to sending emails or making phone calls to place service orders or request service information. The providers who score the highest points in this category are those who recognize that both elements – service delivery and service administration – are critically important to providing a quality overall customer experience.

The innovation evaluation looks at the actual service infrastructure and delivery. This includes features as well as limitations. One of the pitfalls of being an application service provider is the inertia created with existing systems and customers. Once the platform is in place and there are a bunch of users on the systems, upgrading and updating the underlying technologies can be a tremendous challenge. I have often related this as being like trying to change tires on a moving truck. Unfortunately, systems age and lose functionality, compatibility, support, etc.

Keeping the platform updated isn’t the only element involved with scoring provider innovation. Even more important than simple change management supporting status quo, true innovation speaks to efforts directed towards crafting a better, more functional and more useful solution delivery. Many skilled technicians can set up a terminal server for remote access to QuickBooks using the “standard” tools available, but it takes more skill and understanding to create a service which offers more and better capability than everyone else. The point isn’t that the provider is changing QuickBooks software in any way – that’s not really an option. Rather, it is in how the provider elects to architect their systems and solution, and whether they are attempting to improve the experience and deliver with a unique approach rather than a generic one.

With increased competition and as some provider platforms experience challenges either due to age or capacity, certain “interesting” practices have emerged. I now look at these business practices as part of the process of evaluating providers. In the early days of hosting and application delivery, the business practices of various providers had some similarities, but not any more. The practices which frustrate me most and which always cause me to score the provider with low marks in this category relate almost exclusively to transparency – or lack thereof. Here are two scenarios which I’ve seen come up with some frequency, and which (in my opinion) are indications that the provider may not necessarily be one you want to work with.

A business has signed a one-year service agreement with a hosting provider, and has been required to prepay that annual contract. The business was not provided with a demonstration or evaluation system prior to executing the service agreement; they simply trusted the information provided by sales. After a few months on the service, the performance and support are so poor that the business wants out of the annual agreement, even though high service levels and support responses were part of the contract. In order to be allowed to end the service agreement and stop paying for the service, the business was told they would have to not only buy out a portion of the remaining contract, but also sign an agreement not to communicate the service problems they experienced or the exit agreement terms with anyone. (*please note that I am essentially in agreement about having to buy out a committed term agreement, at least in part, but applying a gag order? Not so much).
A business is using the services of a hosting provider, and has a need to know details of their delivery (like server operating system version) in order to verify compatibility with a new software product they wish to purchase. Before the business customer is allowed to obtain the information, the provider requires that they sign an agreement promising not to disclose the information they may receive to any other party. (*note: While I recognize that this type of agreement is desirable to protect proprietary information, it is more often used to prevent the prospective customer from disclosing something potentially negative, and it certainly doesn’t do much in terms of building trust.)

The final evaluation is on customer satisfaction, where anecdotes and information is collected from both current and past customers of the provider. Admittedly, much of this information I scour from various forums and discussion groups and interviews but it is truly amazing what you can learn about a business simply by listening to customer stories in various social venues. The picture these stories paint is often (frequently!) very different from the “happy sunshine and rainbows” testimonials you find on websites and in marketing brochures. Of course, who would buy from a provider who says their “support is great until you’ve been with us for a month, and then we pretty much don’t care about you any more”. Also, people tend to be more vocal when they’re mad about something, so there is often more negative than positive out there in the social realm, so weight that carefully. But the fact that certain provider names come up more often than others is the clue; when you don’t see the provider name come up in these discussions, it usually means they’re simply not making people mad.

There is a lot to consider in selecting the right service provider for the business, and the items listed above are just part of it. While there are some (few) standards among application service providers, it is still what some might refer to as an “emerging” model and will continue to evolve with the market demand and technology.

For now, businesses just need to know that their solution provider is trustworthy and willing to communicate honestly and completely. Selecting the right provider – a provider who supports their business and model with full transparency to the client – will help the business move forward just as the wrong provider is more likely to hold it back. While pricing is an important and unavoidable aspect of the discussion, businesses should also put some focus on these other elements which help to reveal how the provider works with their customers, and to determine whether or not they can (or will even try to) meet your requirements now and in the future.

Make Sense?

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet J

June 6, 2012July 19, 2017

The Holistic Approach to Cloud-Enabling Your Firm

The Holistic Approach to Cloud-Enabling Your Firm

Today’s professional accounting or law practice has a number of issues to contend with, not the least of which is technology. While IT has been serving the firm for years, shifting paradigms in computing are leading professionals to wonder exactly which direction they should turn for advice. It’s easy, at a high level, to see the value and benefit of outsourced IT services and being able to focus on your core offerings, but it’s a little harder to find exactly which path your firm should follow. One thing has proven true over the past few years: taking a holistic approach to cloud-enabling your firm is far better than any uncoordinated exchange of applications and services.

There are four areas the firm should explore when looking to more fully leverage technology to its benefit, which is what “cloud-enabling” the practice really means:

Transitioning to a paperless (or less paper) office
Exploring alternative billing methods (value versus time?)
Outsourcing non-core and non-strategic tasks and processes
Streamlining procedures to create consistency in service levels

The challenge is that firms have numerous options and approaches being thrown about, none of which represent obvious solutions to the entire problem. In pieces, cloud services and online applications can deliver new capability and functionality, but a professional practice has the requirement for systems to work together to be effective. Re-entry or redundant storage of data is inefficient, so it is difficult to streamline procedures when the systems run on different platforms or don’t integrate well.

One approach is the “hybrid” approach, where you take the best of the tried and true, and deploy it in new ways to create new capabilities. Also introducing cloud-based and SaaS solutions where they can truly help the firm innovate makes sense, as long as those solutions can connect back to the core systems. The key is to not lose what efficiency and business intelligence the firm already has while attempting to transform and improve upon those models (digital transformation).

The new thinking by some firms is to adopt web-based practice management solutions that make it easier to collaborate with team members and clients. Many of these solutions get great reviews and indeed do make it easier for users to access information from anywhere and on mobile devices. Lots of neat features for the forward-thinking practice are available, yet the problem is that these solutions usually don’t have general accounting functionality required by the business, nor do they address some of the fundamental capabilities that apps on the desktop can.

For the online applications serving line-of-business functionality, the easy answer to finance department questions is to connect to an online accounting solution, like QuickBooks Online. While this may serve the needs of the developer, the needs of the business finance department often outpace the functionality available in the smb online accounting products. To address this reality, many developers have created the means to export data to the QuickBooks software running on the local desktop.

The desktop editions of QuickBooks remain extremely popular with professional service firms and the businesses they serve. In a cloud and mobile world, the firm and their client doesn’t have to be tied to the local desktop in order to keep their desktop software or collaboratively work in the data. When the QuickBooks desktop software is setup within a secure remote access environment (whether on-premises or with a hosting provider), users benefit from the same mobility and realtime collaboration advantages as with a SaaS solution, like anytime/anywhere access.

Virtual desktops and remote application models allow users to access what seems like a workstation in the cloud, with business applications such as QuickBooks and Microsoft Office and whatever else the firm uses. The desktop is a true Windows platform, so the features and functionality are just as they are when working directly on a local PC.

Most remote or virtual desktop setups also let the user access the Internet and use a browser on the remote desktop, allowing users to run the SaaS solutions they’ve subscribed to alongside their desktop applications yet still remain in a totally virtual and mobile working environment. This approach allows the firm to centralize management and administration of internal servers and networking resources, or eliminate much of the maintenance and management by outsourcing to a hosting provider. Outsourcing the hosting and management of systems further establishes predictability in cost and increases IT agility.

The thing to remember is that one size does not fit all, and every firm will need to work within their own requirements and motivations to come up with the proper approach. What works for a solo practitioner or small firm won’t necessarily work for a larger firm… or maybe it will, depending on the company culture and structure. There are a lot of options with the cloud when it comes to outsourced information technology models, online practice management and other business solutions, and mobile services which reduce the impacts of time and distance. It’s time to start implementing on-demand access and mobile-friendly service options before the competition leaves you behind. Interestingly enough… the competition that looks like a huge and successful firm could be just one person using some really smart IT.

Make sense?