accounting practice growth – Page 9 – Cooper Mann Consulting

October 18, 2012November 15, 2019

Accountants and Small Manufacturers

Getting in Front of the Ball

There’s a lot more to accountability in a manufacturing or inventory-based business than simply keeping track of money in and money out. Particularly in an economy when nobody can afford to build or stock products too far ahead of demand, it is essential that these businesses have a means to not only track and manage purchasing, manufacturing, distribution and stocking activities, but to understand conditions or trends which impact the flow of materials and cash through the business. Further, this understanding must come in a timely manner in order for the business owner to make decisions and take action when it matters most. Unfortunately, many business owners find themselves “behind the ball”, constantly pushing to make forward strides, and often due to not having the information they need to make business decisions that matter now, today.

Why is it so critical for these businesses to have more and better information to help them make strategic decisions and answer daily operational questions? In a word: connectedness. The Internet has truly made the world smaller when it comes to participation with even the smallest of local businesses. Globalization of markets has impacted manufacturers in significant ways, and these businesses (like so many others) must now be prepared to address the realities of global supply chains, outsourcing, and a remote or mobile workforce and market. While many of the software solutions addressing the functional business requirements of manufacturing and inventory or warehouse management are “locally implemented” solutions, extending and integrating these solutions to address the new global and mobile paradigm may represent a significant expenditure in time and resources for the small enterprise.

Application hosting and web-based solutions have emerged to help businesses address the need to “modernize” legacy applications and enable greater levels of system management and access. Introducing the applications into a centralized and remotely accessible environment allows the business to immediately deliver the necessary support for remote work and mobile access, and positions the system to facilitate collaboration within the business and with outside participants, such as outsourced bookkeepers, accounting and finance professionals.

These professionals can be instrumental in assisting their clients manage the change to new collaborative computing paradigms. Where accounting was previously viewed as an after-the-fact process, accountability through detailed activity tracking and reporting is now a focus which begins at the front end of the business, and accounting professionals are finding far greater value in helping structure and manage this daily activity in order to deliver greater operational information and insight. Rather than being the last people to know what is happening in the business, accounting professionals are recognizing that their ability to positively impact business performance requires getting “in front of the ball”, initiating process structure, data control and collection which ultimately results in better and more informed decision-making through better and more timely access to more meaningful information.

Businesses at all levels are realizing that new computing paradigms can ease the burdens of collecting and sharing information, yet most small companies need help in determining exactly how to approach this “enabling” of the business and systems. While accountants are also experiencing dramatic change in how they do business, it makes sense for them to embrace the opportunity and recognize that enabling client systems will ultimately allow the accounting professional to work more closely and to deliver more tangible value to their client on an ongoing basis. Online accounting approaches are no longer a fad but are the new reality supporting how many bookkeepers and accountants work with their business clients. Extending access beyond accounting and bookkeeping systems, and incorporating support for operational and line-of-business solutions, is the next step which will bring the accountant closer to the client business, and position both to benefit from deeper collaboration and useful insight.

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October 11, 2012March 28, 2018

Knowing Your Options: Hosting QuickBooks for Shared and Remote Access

Intuit’s QuickBooks financial applications, the desktop editions in particular, are the most popular small business accounting solutions on the market. The QuickBooks Online Edition, Intuit’s cloud-based contender, is not quite as accepted among accountants and advisors for a variety of reasons. Being in the cloud isn’t necessarily one of those reasons, if you consider the growing demand for access to multi-user cloud-hosted QuickBooks desktop editions. Mostly it comes down to functionality and how the application operates. QBO just isn’t like good old desktop QuickBooks and isn’t the preferred solution for many financial professionals or their clients. Yet these users still want and need remote access and mobility. This is where hosting comes in.

QuickBooks hosting and creating the ability to access QuickBooks applications and data remotely is something that a lot of businesses can benefit from. Whether it’s to outsource the management and maintenance of servers and systems to a 3^rd party, or to create the ability for remote workers or contractors to collaborate with real-time applications and data, there may be a need for a hosted application approach. Business owners and IT managers need to give consideration to the level of service and support they and their users will need before selecting their provider. Knowing what the provider will handle and what the subscribers are responsible for might make all the difference in determining the right approach.

In-House DIY Hosting

Local networks and PCs allow users in the same location to share resources, like printers and data storage locations. Typically, desktop computers have application software installed on them, and use the network to access shared data. When users work outside of the network, getting access to applications and data might not be so easy. Even extending the network via VPN access doesn’t solve the problem when the desktop applications are not designed to access data over remote connections (desktop applications like QuickBooks). It used to be that the only reasonable way to allow remote users to access and run QuickBooks as if they were inside the LAN was to set up remote desktop or application servers (terminal servers). MyQuickCloud is a product that addresses this need very gracefully, providing in-house personnel with the tools necessary to establish a secure cloud for QuickBooks access directly from existing on-premises systems.

Co-location and Outsourced Infrastructure (IaaS)

Instead of setting up remote access solutions in the office, many IT departments find that co-location with a 3^rd party addresses a number of issues. Leasing equipment, operating system and virtualization tools may be more cost-efficient than purchasing them directly, and the security and redundancy in most hosting facilities far exceeds what most businesses are able to afford to implement by themselves. Co-location provides managed service for infrastructure elements, but doesn’t necessarily address business needs in terms of user security or application and data management. These elements are traditionally left up to the subscriber; installing and configuring software applications, establishing user and application permissions, and managing updates and software upgrades. For this reason, co-location may be a good option for a business with internal IT staff, but not necessarily for businesses seeking “full service” application hosting.

Application Service Providers (ASP) and Managed Application Hosting

Application hosting service providers handle software installation and management, user and security administration, and ongoing technical support as part of the subscription service. Customers need only to provide their software licenses, name users and upload data in order to use the service. The service provider does the software installation and configuration, sets up the users and establishes permissions, and connects users and applications to managed data storage. This model allows businesses to enjoy many of the benefits of a cloud-based or SaaS solution model while also allowing them to continue to use software solutions they are already invested in, in terms of both software licensing and process development. On the other hand, these models can be extremely restrictive in terms of the applications or integrations they will support, and can be quite costly as the number of users or applications hosted increase.

Whether you roll your own (DIY hosting) or work with a full service QuickBooks host, accessing business applications and data from anywhere is an option every business can take advantage of.

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Read about the race to find the secret sauce of hosted application services for small businesses

October 10, 2012

Changing the Way You Work With Clients | Intuit News Central

What makes one tax return better than another, if they are both accurate?

Many accountants and tax preparers simply don’t recognize the additional value they could deliver to their small business clients, if only they would become more involved at the beginning of the accounting process where the information is generated and collected rather than taking a purely after-the-fact position and reporting only at the end of the cycle. Providing information after it is too late to do anything about it has little value in today’s fast-paced and competitive landscape. Small business owners tend to rely on those who help them; if your professional practice isn’t helping your clients in tangible ways, they will find someone else who does.

via Changing the Way You Work With Clients | Intuit News Central.

October 8, 2012March 26, 2019

Cloud Hold-Out No More: QuickBooks Desktop Editions in the Cloud

When most people hear the words “QuickBooks” and “online” together, they think of the web-based solution from Intuit called QuickBooks Online Edition. And why wouldn’t they? With the media, industry talking heads, and everyone in information technology discussing cloud this and cloud that, all the attention is going to web-based applications, Software-as-a-Service models, and cloud platforms. While these approaches to business software distribution and delivery are working for a lot of software vendors and their customers, there are a few hold-outs that may be keeping a lot of folks from considering that move to running their businesses “in the cloud”. Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions used to be among this list of applications securely anchored to your local PC, but not anymore.

The desire to have remote and mobile access to business applications and data goes beyond simply getting email or syncing contacts to a mobile phone these days. Business people in all industries are seeing the benefits of using wireless and mobile laptops, tablet computers and smartphones to handle tasks in real-time rather than accumulating paperwork, spending a bunch of time organizing and keying in data, and then submitting the information for batch-processing after the fact. And, with services being seamlessly connected and information being shared and integrated for a variety of reasons, internet connectivity has become almost as essential to most businesses as telephone service. (Actually, in many cases, telephone service IS delivered via the IP network, so maybe that statement doesn’t make as much sense as it used to.) Payroll isn’t calculated in the software, it’s calculated by a service online and delivered through your software. Same with banking, accepting payments, and paying bills – many are processes handled through the software but perhaps not actually happening WITHIN the software on your PC.

As users have begun to realize that, whether they mean to or not, they are essentially “on line” with their business applications and data at some level, the consideration for outsourcing more of their IT operations and working more fully in an online model might not be so bad as long as they don’t have to give up the functionality, usability, and cost-efficiency they have come to expect with their beloved business applications – like QuickBooks.

Service providers recognized this opportunity and developed business models which would give users their desired desktop applications (like QuickBooks!), but in way that seems more like a cloud service. As platform and virtualization technologies have evolved, businesses are finding that there are numerous options, and numerous providers, for getting their desktop and network applications installed in the “cloud”, and delivered back to them as a managed subscription service. It is a model which is growing in popularity and demand, and it makes sense.

Small businesses in particular are moving to the cloud not because they are generally dissatisfied with the products they currently have (there’s a reason Intuit has market share with QuickBooks; there are a LOT of QuickBooks desktop lovers out there). Small businesses are making the move to online and “cloud” models because of the business benefits of getting information when and where they need it. Mobility is driving the cloud, and the cloud is driving software makers to change how they do things.

It will be a while before all the investments are made and man-hours are spent to rewrite or redevelop applications to run on these new platforms and in this new cloud-based service model. In the meantime, ISVs will look to hosting providers of various sorts to help breathe longevity into their solutions while securely embracing their customers and market in preparation for a cloud-based service delivery, and customers will engage with service providers who can supply them with the legacy application hosting and management they require to achieve the level of freedom, access, and mobility they demand.

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October 4, 2012

Cash flow troubles can get you in more than just debt: CFOs can be liable for Payroll Tax liability, potentially criminal

Cash flow troubles can get you in more than just debt:

CFOs can be liable for Payroll Tax liability, potentially criminal

With the economy being sluggish and, in some regions, stalled and even worse, a lot of businesses both large and small are feeling the crunch. Cash isn’t coming easily for anyone, and the cost of running the business and employing workers just keeps going up even if revenues don’t. Managing cash flow is important when there is cash to manage, but keeping it all going when there isn’t much coming in takes real skill and planning. Knowing where to cut or limit expenses is essential, but knowing what NOT to forgo when paying the bills can be just as critical if not more so. You don’t pay the light bill, maybe the lights to out. You don’t pay payroll taxes, maybe you go to jail.

A recent article on CFO.com discusses the findings where, in cases where payroll taxes were unpaid by the business, specific individuals were held directly and personally responsible for the liability. And the liability is not contained solely within the walls of the C-level; it may extend to any and all individuals considered to be responsible. Those who control the purse strings, making the daily decisions on what to and what not to pay, are the folks being identified as responsible for the failure to pay whether they were able to come up with the funds or not.

Responsible individuals, according to the penalty, may include corporate officers, directors, shareholders, bookkeepers and even third parties, such as CPAs, or corporate counsel. In exceptional cases, responsible individuals can have criminal tax liability for failure to pay payroll taxes.
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1p9wf)

To be fair, insufficient funds may seem like a logical reason for not paying payroll taxes. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in another case, United States v. Easterday, 564 F.3d 1004 (9^th Cir. 2009), determined that Easterday could be convicted of a crime even though he may have been able to prove that his company didn’t have enough funds to pay the payroll taxes.
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1p9wf)

Accounting professionals working with businesses and acting as the Trusted Advisor can help their clients avoid facing this type of decision and risk by helping them to monitor and actively manage their businesses more closely – at an operational as well as financial level. Rather than relying upon a current bank account balance or after-the-fact financial reporting to provide the information for making decisions each day, business owners need continuous, real time, actionable data to help them keep the business going forward, and to help keep them out of trouble.

With better information, trend analysis and a little forecasting, accounting services and consultative advice from a trusted accounting professional does not simply help the business stay in business, it could help prevent the business owner, CFO or controller from having to wear an unfashionable orange jumpsuit and shackles.

Make Sense?

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

October 3, 2012

Road Trip! Guidance You Can Count On

Road Trip!

Guidance You Can Count On

Keeping up on where you’re going is vital to any business, small or large. Watching trends, tracking expenses and monitoring cash flow are all basics of good business. You wouldn’t keep driving straight if the road veers to the left, would you? You might, if you don’t notice the curve. That’s the type of problem any business can run into, if you just don’t watch where you’re going.

Metrics are the lifeblood of any industry; from Information technology to accounting, manufacturing, and retail. Acting like a guidance system, or GPS, your company’s metrics will tell you where and when you need to make a change to keep up with your industry and the needs of your clients. Look at your business the way you look at a road trip across the country. Would you leave home without a map or directions to your destination? Probably not. You could, but getting where you want to be would become an almost insurmountable task. Without directions you end up taking wrong turns, getting lost, and just have a difficult time making forward progress.

The possibility of breaking down in the middle of nowhere grows as well. Like on a road trip, it’s probable that anything that goes wrong will do so at the worst time imaginable. Unlike your car, however, your business doesn’t have AAA. No one to call to bring you gas or give you a tow, so knowing you have what you need to get where you’re going is the best bet. The only way to do that is with metrics; gathered, compiled, and triple checked. Your business needs maintenance just like your car does. Oil changes, alignments, tune-ups, new tires when the weather changes or the old ones have worn out. It’s all part of being prepared; which is a good thing to be, in business or on a road trip.

Watching how your business is performing in the market should be a simple thing, but it’s not. Not usually anyway. It requires poring over spreadsheets, running the numbers a dozen times, and re-evaluating the information you gather again and again. It takes hours of your time. It takes hours of your clients’ time. Just pulling up all of the information you need is time-consuming, and often daunting, but compiling it into a usable form is a hefty task in and of itself.

In any business, using your time efficiently is a priority and usually easier said than done. More often than not the process of seeing where you’re heading takes hours. Literally, hours. Of course your financial software has reports and statistical data monitors built into it, but the information is usually presented in a way that is less than helpful when it comes to seeing trends or where you’re heading in any given aspect. One would think that in today’s society, where easier is always better, someone somewhere would come up with a solution to this problem.

Well, someone did. The Corelytics Financial Dashboard, from Corelytics.com, integrates directly with your accounting software of choice and pulls all of the data you need into one place. What used to take hours only takes minutes. The dashboard even gives you the ability to compare your business with industry standards and set customizable goals. You’ve got the green light, so check your dashboard, get direction, and get your business moving forward.

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