Tag: business clients

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Managing Client Relationships in a Down Economy | Accounting and Business Technologies

Managing Client Relationships in a Down Economy

There is no question that the current economy is putting the squeeze on many professional practices. While most accountants aren’t in danger of going bankrupt, there is heightened anxiety throughout the industry as professionals grapple with flat or falling revenues and rising costs. You, too, are probably feeling the effects of the economic downturn, as your clients also look for ways to cut costs.

During tough economic times, a familiar pattern occurs in small business. As production drops, profits drop even faster. Even a slight drop in income sets off alarm bells in the minds of many owners. To stave off a serious decline in revenues, the small business owner will often feel compelled to offer services to customers that might previously have been referred out to “specialists”, or to substantially discount products or services in order to obtain business. Additionally, the business owner will certainly seek to cut business overhead.

This last point has a direct impact on the livelihood of the professional accountant, bookkeeper or business consultant. When businesses tighten their belts, they may not necessarily do it in a logical manner. They may procrastinate by stalling on purchases or putting projects on hold indefinitely. They may buy smaller quantities of supplies, even if this means ordering much more frequently. And they may cut back on their reliance on accounting or consulting professionals.

read more at Accounting and Business Technologies | Joanie Mann: Managing Client Relationships in a Down Economy.

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The True Cost of the Cloud

The True Cost of the Cloud

Excerpt from article on Intuit Accountants News Central: The True Cost of the Cloud

“Accounting professionals are strongly encouraged to adopt cloud computing models in their practices, and there can be little argument that mobility and access are driving the need. In concert with the messages supporting mobile access to business information – and the value of anytime, anywhere access – cloud service providers are strongly suggesting that the overall cost of purchasing and maintaining information technology (IT) in the business is much lower when a cloud computing approach is used.

Arguments over the total cost of IT and related services become somewhat subjective. Many business owners and managers fail to consider the value of their own time spent dealing with business technology issues, much less the time spent by in-house employees and remote workers. To further complicate the issue, dramatic changes in process support and delivery, connected service and cloud computing approaches are impacting business productivity and profitability in new and dramatic ways. As a result, every business should consider the costs and the benefits of this new connected and collaborative working model.

At the core, cloud computing is really just an outsourced IT service that addresses the various levels of application and computing infrastructure. From IaaS (infrastructure as a service) to SaaS (software as a service) and all things in between, a viable cloud computing approach for a business may encompass little more than co-location of physical server and network resources with a third-infrastructure provider to something much larger scale, such as offloading virtually every aspect of application management and delivery to a SaaS solution.

Because there is no single, correct definition of what makes up a “cloud” service model, attempting to compare costs directly to a more traditional IT approach is quite complicated.”

Read the entire article at Intuit Accountants News Central

http://blog.accountants.intuit.com/ways-to-grow-your-business/the-true-cost-of-the-cloud/