Accounting professionals are increasingly asked to provide more meaning behind the numbers they report on. Small business owners care about the bank balance and their tax bill, but they care far more about how profitable and productive the business is operating. And small business owners care about how they can improve performance – earn more profits and keep more of it. Accounting professionals can help their small business clients do this more efficiently using cloud and hosting technologies.
Small businesses need their accounting professionals to take a more direct level of involvement in support of daily processes than larger companies do.
For small and mid-size businesses, the accounting office may be asked to handle bookkeeping, payroll processing, bank account reconciliations, paying bills and invoicing customers and more. In order to have close access to the information and applications supporting these processes, it becomes necessary for accounting pros to be able to connect remotely to client systems. This isn’t a new requirement, but the technology available today to make it work allows for closer and more immediate interaction between the client and the accounting professional.
When a small and growing business runs their applications on a cloud platform, the variety of users that need to work with the information are able to access it regardless of where they are located because the Internet becomes the network. This model doesn’t in any way require that businesses adopt web-based applications instead of the desktop applications they have come to rely on. Desktop applications like QuickBooks, Sage50, Microsoft Office and more can be hosted on cloud platforms, allowing business users to login and use the software they are familiar with and that supports their various processes.
With a cloud hosting model for running business applications and storing business data companies can take advantage of fully-managed deployments of their software and systems without having to employ the IT staff to implement and manage it all. This allows small businesses to have the advantage of high performance IT without the typically high-cost budgets required to support it. The other advantage is that the accounting professionals working with the business are able to access the systems in real time from their offices or other locations, enabling the close working relationship the business needs.
The key value proposition for the accounting professional is the improved profitability to be found in existing client engagements.
Whether it is through an increase in the number and type of services offered to the client or through an improved level of efficiency found with operating on the hosted system, professionals can increase revenues and reduce costs of supporting existing clients. That’s the secret to success in working with the small clients: earn enough working for them while at the same time keeping their costs down so they can grow into larger more profitable business clients.
They said back in 1999 that the desktop was dead, but desktop software is far from gone. In fact, application hosting services for products like QuickBooks desktop editions just keeps growing in popularity because it delivers the access, mobility and managed services businesses need.
Service providers have been hosting QuickBooks for years, and I’ve been right there all the way, ever since the model was originally developed. In fact, the company I worked with is still selling that original service model today while many other providers have come along to follow it and take advantage of the opportunity.
Using the cloud to support accounting and other business processes makes a lot of sense, and the best part is that it doesn’t require businesses adopt the online versions of the software that just doesn’t work as well. I have a background in accounting so I understand the issues of working remotely with clients, when the business is done in one place but the accounting is done in another. And I love the technology and finding ways to make it easier and more efficient to get small business accounting done.
The benefits of using hosted QuickBooks services are many.
Anytime/anywhere access and fully-managed service are among the most obvious benefits for QuickBooks desktop users, but the advantages of centralized information and applications, secure support for mobile and remote workers, and real-time integrations and analytics capabilities can be transformational for the entire business. Having the means to affordably extend applications to the entire workforce and keep everyone working with the same data in real time can become the foundation for improved processes, greater efficiency and better business performance.
Among the key benefits of the application hosting model is the fact that businesses are not forced to adopt software subscription services or invest their data in web applications that do not provide the functionality or features required. Even more, the business can elect to move their hosted system back to in-house computers, because the hosting is simply an alternative platform for running the software the business owns. You can take your ball and go home if you don’t want to stay.
With all the benefits of hosting QuickBooks, there are also risks involved, especially when working with shared hosting platforms.
Shared hosting platforms are architectures where the service provider spreads the cost of their infrastructure across many customers to help keep the costs down. Using conventional technologies to create divisions between customers on servers, networks and so on, services providers can deliver at a lower cost when they are able to generate revenue from lots of customers for the same pieces of equipment. As more customers are added, more servers are joined into the network. After a while, there are many servers handling the customer load.
Unfortunately, the greater the number of servers, the more complicated and costly it becomes to update the platform. This is among the reasons why many service providers have aged platforms, with server operating systems that are going out of support and offering only legacy desktop views. In addition to compatibility and modernization, a big problem with allowing the platform to age is that it becomes less secure and more difficult to keep protected.
Protecting against disaster is not the same as doing backups.
Many hosted QuickBooks customers have been faced with the ugly reality that their service provider backups are not enough to recover from disaster. This is largely the fault of the providers and is somewhat by design. Businesses hosting their financial and other business applications and data want to know that their information is safe and secure. Performing data backups is part of the promise of protecting customer data, so most customers believe that their service provider is backing up in a way that ensures the data can be recovered.
What most hosting customers don’t understand is that the provider backups are there to help the provider recover from disaster and not necessarily to get the customer back where they were.
Hosting companies know that they need to do backups so they can support customers when files get deleted or become corrupted. Hosting companies typically do regular backups of customer data, but they do not necessarily retain individual backup data sets and they often backup all customer data together. This means that the backup data is constantly being updated, and that fully restoring the data of just one customer may be problematic. Service provider backups are there to support the continued operations of the service provider and may not provide the level of archive or retention needed by the customer. Just to make sure their data is safe and recoverable, I strongly recommend that clients keep any hosted data archived in at least one other location off the host’s platform.
In just the past year, outages caused by malware have been experienced by service providers Cetrom, Skyline, Cloud9 and Insynq, demonstrating just how devastating an outage can be when the service provider doesn’t have adequate protections in place.
In many cases customers lost data because the service provider wasn’t able to recover it from compromised or nonexistent backups. Suggesting that customers should have their data backed up locally is never part of the marketing or onboarding with the QuickBooks host, but it is often the fallback position in times of trouble.
Perhaps the most troubling aspects of these provider failures are that many of the problems stem from the shared nature of the platform.
When we first started building QuickBooks hosting services the hardware and software to make it work was terribly expensive. To approach some level of affordability, a shared platform approach was developed. This allowed the service to scale while offering a lower cost of service to customers. When the services were initially developed, there was concern about protecting from viruses and Trojans, but the nature of malware in the wild was not nearly as troublesome as it has become. Things were manageable.
But technology has evolved and so have the threats and bad actors.
The smarter bad guys should be forcing platform providers to reconsider their shared management and delivery models.
Affordable computing resources are available from platforms like Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS, offering small businesses the opportunity to have not only powerful and scalable platforms for their business IT, but also offering a means of operating privately. Not being forced to operate in the same network or on the same VMs as other companies means not having to worry about the behavior of other people or applications in your business network. It also means that the focus is on recovering your system if disaster strikes, not on recovering the systems of hundreds or thousands of other businesses at the same time.
Considering the move to a more private cloud hosting solution is an important way to reduce risk and improve IT performance for the business.
When they were in-house, the networks were private and no other businesses were sharing the servers. Moving to the cloud should not radically change that profile, and should offer customers the same privacy from outsiders and the same flexibility to implement whatever applications the business needs.
The Microsoft Azure platform provides this capability and businesses can benefit without compromising the budget. With private accounts on the Microsoft Azure platform, our customers are able to take advantage of the current and emerging technologies while safely and affordably supporting their business requirements, which is something the shared platforms fail to offer.
Over the past few weeks, I have received calls from clients that have current versions of QuickBooks (2017, for example), but the software isn’t able to update because the customer doesn’t have a maintenance plan for the software. QuickBooks displays the message saying updates are available, but the user isn’t able to download the updates and receives a message indicating that they do not have a current or in-force subscription.
Intuit is making it clear that maintenance and support is not longer an option with QuickBooks. Not having maintenance means not getting updates, and not having updates means parts of the software and its connected services stops working. Now, even your desktop QuickBooks is exclusively subscription-based.
Understanding the value and application of information technology is the cornerstone of building a successful “next generation” accounting or consulting practice. Professionals are finding that new opportunities to engage with new and existing clients comes from closer involvement with client financial and operational systems. Collecting and analyzing data, integrating applications and automating data exchanges, and leveraging cloud platforms and services is rapidly becoming the next level of “standardized” service offered by many professionals.
The pace of change is increasing, which makes it increasingly important for business owners to wisely select their technology partners and solutions. While many accounting professionals consider themselves to be the business owner’s trusted advisor, their clients often seek advice on increasing efficiency and reducing costs from software and IT consultants instead.
Yet conditions will change and could force the client business to make adjustments that impact the applications and services supporting the operation. Do the solutions in place have the agility necessary to meet changing business needs, being adaptable enough to meet new conditions or orientations? This is where accounting professionals can help their business clients make the right choices to address current and potential future needs.
Even as information management paradigms continue to shift, accounting professionals can help their business clients achieve better business performance and profitability through innovating workflows and increasing process efficiency. Whether or not the existing systems lend themselves to these efforts remains the question, and represents an area where the professional could provide great value.
Accounting professionals should look at services they can provide to clients that have direct and meaningful impact on operational efficiency and resultant profitability. These areas represent not simply cost and efficiency improvements, but speak to quality of service and sustainability as well, creating better and repeatable outcomes that can support the operation even as operating conditions may change.
Improving data collection and analysis provides the foundation for understanding more about the operation, and delivers the insight required to identify areas where performance might be improved and then to prove the outcome.
Automating data exchanges and imports, eliminating redundant entry and the potential for manual errors, establishes structure in processes which can then be streamlined to deliver consistent and predictable results.
Utilizing cloud platforms and services allows the business to utilize the infrastructure required to support operations while providing a level of affordable scalability that doesn’t push the business beyond its reasonable boundaries.
What this discussion touches on is the subject of digital transformation and what that really means for small businesses and the accounting professionals who support them.
Rather than performing the accounting and financial work as after-the-fact participants, accounting professionals should help their business clients take a new view of processes and activities performed throughout the business, identifying areas where new approaches can be applied to increase efficiency as well as agility, developing a stronger foundation for growth and profitability.
From the adoption of paperless and electronic workflows to merging social media with marketing and support activities, digital transformation represents an ongoing effort within a business to fundamentally shift from manual processes to electronic exchange, and expanding considerations beyond physical boundaries to include the virtual, as well.
All of this represents new opportunity and enhanced value for the accounting professionals ready to help their clients become “next generation” businesses.
Jurassic Park: “Are those heavy? Then they’re expensive, put them back..”
Process modeling, process improvement, workflow design and quality management all sound like big, complicated things that larger companies do. Analyzing and re-engineering processes and developing highly structured workflows is often work performed within an enterprise; heavy and complicated and expensive work that’s required to keep large or distributed organizations operating as a single unit. But structure isn’t just for big business operations; it’s a big deal for small business, too.
The truth is that modeling business processes and workflows isn’t necessarily difficult or expensive, and the benefits to be gained apply as directly to small businesses as they do to large enterprises – perhaps even more because smaller businesses can change their trajectory early on, before things are too fully entrenched. Ongoing, the development of workflows to guide process activities and the regular evaluation and testing of the outcomes may reveal wondrous opportunities to increase performance and profits. It’s all about drawing that picture of what you want the business to be, and then finding the best way to make it be like that.
While business owners and managers may be familiar with projecting financial performance under different scenarios, how often do they look at the actual processes supporting business operations and “project” performance based on changes to processes, worker activities or operational workflows? It just isn’t something you hear much about in the small business world. When I reached out to Ben Boomer of ParkPro to have a discussion about this type of stuff, I had no idea that the conversation would turn into a real example of how one single software solution could be the foundation for incredibly beneficial change in the organization, the business performance, and the satisfaction of workers and customers alike. The software is from the Dutch company Exact, and the product is Synergy Enterprise.
ParkPro has been operating for just about 40 years, providing an array of services and solutions ranging from auto gates and access controls to parking revenue management and camera solutions, and even anti-terrorism solutions. Their deliverables are mostly project-based and there is a very large installation and maintenance services aspect to the business. What all this means is that there are a lot of moving parts, lots of scheduling, projects and recurring activities, and lots of possible product and service combinations. There’s also a lot of inertia behind the processes and methods that have been standard business practice for a long time.
“Making any change to how the business operates is akin to changing tires on a moving vehicle” says Boomer. “You still have to get the work done and move forward”. With Synergy Enterprise, ParkPro’s system is agile enough to allow them to use the software and at the same time configure and tweak it to meet the needs of the business and not the other way around. He suggests that this is the problem with systems that lack of the flexibility of Synergy Enterprise; businesses must adjust to the way the software works rather than making the software really work for the business. Ben discussed an example and the good advice he received from Jeff Sachs when the company wanted to implement barcodes and thought they could use whatever came in a “canned” solution. Jeff’s suggestion was that “if the process doesn’t work, then this will simply make it not work… faster”.
Greater efficiency and performance are always important, but what it also comes down to is configuring accountability into the system. The very act of formalizing the processes and the workflow forces ParkPro to think about and define the processes as they really are. The system that helps them set up work requests and structure activities also helps establish accountability along the way. This has allowed the company to benefit in ways they couldn’t even imagine.
Synergy allows them to make copies of their system where they can pose questions and model the answers and outcomes. “Do we really need to do this step, or is it just because it’s written down?” he asks. “We can pose questions and then find efficiencies in answering those questions”. Just as with financial modeling and forecasting, workflow modeling informs on the potential result of the adjustment, allowing businesses to make better decisions and avoid missteps.
The ability to adapt Synergy Enterprise to the requirements of the business has been central to the company’s success in creating new efficiencies and improving overall performance, and the effects are felt throughout the company. Boomer says that the changes they’ve made in their processes and the workflows which connect them has even resulted in restructuring the organization and management hierarchy to be more reflective of how things are in Synergy because its more efficient.
Reliant upon the “open” nature of Synergy Enterprise and its ability to flex with the needs of the company, Ben knows the solution will continue to support beneficial change in the operation. In Ben’s own words, “Synergy allows us to project our future dreams and know the software can keep up”.
Make Sense?
J
Series Introduction: Fringe to Foundation: Aligning Business Goals and Lifting Business Performance through Digital Workflows
Article 1: Every Business Deserves a Chance to be Better
When discussing how a business operates – how folks in the company go about the business of getting work done – the conversation almost always boils down to a discussion of the problems, conditions and challenges to consistently getting the work right and on time.
No mud. No flow. We got to go. (Deepwater Horizon, 2016)
Sometimes the focus is on people and other times it is on resources or processes, but the underlying context is that there are kinks in the line which interrupt the flow. When the flow is interrupted, bad things can happen.
The flow in business is the workflow: those strung-together processes which make up the work and form the operation.
The workflow guides workers in the performance of their jobs, informing them about who is supposed to do what when, and sometimes even why.
Structured and managed workflow drives the 3 E’s in business: Efficiency, Effectiveness and Evolution.
In almost every discussion about structuring work and documenting processes and procedures, the terms “efficient” and “effective” come up. In fact, it is hard to have a conversation on these subjects without running into those terms. Most organizations recognize that worker efficiency and process effectiveness are guided and informed by structured workflows, so desk reference guides and operations manuals become the norm. What may be somewhat less obvious is the evolutionary aspect of modeling business workflows, where improvements small and large may be uncovered or identified at any level of work while it is being described and modeled. A solid workflow management system serves to remove any memory impairment in a business, memorializing not just the process but its result as part of the historic record of the business. This data assists in supporting ongoing process evolution, ensuring continued alignment with changing business conditions and goals.
Modeling the operation and applying conditional elements like timing and resource availability can make the difference between useful guidance and a semi-useful handbook of procedures.
As business conditions change so does the workflow. Unlike with printed manuals, the software system that is used to structure workflows and provide worker guidance can also supply data necessary to support change. Using a software solution to manage workflow creates an agility in the business that is necessary to make meaningful adjustments when it matters –prior to or with change, rather than far after.
This article is the 3rd in series, and focuses on how business workflows are supported and informed by the right software solution. Even more, that activity tracking and process controls should be part of the structure and foundation for worker activities, where workers perform their job functions while the systems that guide them capture meaningful information regarding those activities and transactions.
The thesis is that creating structured workflows not only informs workers what is expected of them and when, but the act of creating and updating the workflows helps identify disconnected processes, finds missing process data, smooths cross-functional transitions, and identifies missing or ineffectual policies. There are numerous conversations and interactions that wrap around or influence every activity and transaction. The goal is modeling the business and workflows in a way that not only defines worker activities but also connects those activities (transactions) to the related documents, contacts, policies and other data involved or impacted.
Whether there are a few or many individuals involved in the business, there are tasks and activities which must be performed in particular order and manner.
For a few people to efficiently and effectively manage the work, it is essential that there be clarity in what should happen and when and by whom it is to be done. It may seem that crafting workflow systems to guide these activities could be overkill, where a few people could communicate directly and let each other know what and when. Really, it only seems that way and typically only when things are going just right. Change a factor or condition or make an individual unavailable to perform the work and things can change dramatically. What was once a seemingly straightforward operation becomes mysteriously ineffective when critical players or information are no longer available.
Without structure to guide and support the entire organization, any part may fail to perform when the essential elements holding the process together are removed. The result is dis-satisfaction with the work as well as the result. In the end, it means reduced performance reflected as lower productivity, lower work quality, lower customer satisfaction levels, and lower profits. As with any legend or lore, details in the “tribal knowledge” are lost over time and what was once trusted and workable ultimately fails in the face of progress.
These truths became the focus of a conversation with Jerie Harrell of Small Business Solutions LLC (SBS) based in Huntsville, Alabama. Jerie works with Bob Crook, also known as “QB Bob,” and his team of certified consultants offering on-site and remote setup, training, instruction, and ongoing maintenance of QuickBooks financial solutions for small to mid-sized businesses. SBS prides themselves on forming long-term relationships with their clients. According to Jerie, the team “is always there after the sale; we don’t walk away after a customer buys from us”.
“I often tell clients we are like an Oreo cookie, with the accountant on one side and the client business on the other” Jerie says. ”We’re the creamy center that holds everybody together and makes things work together. The client’s business is more efficient and gets things done faster with our support, and the accountant gets better data”.
Keeping things coordinated with the consultants, supporting clients and managing ordering and other activities keeps Jerie very busy most days. Layer into those responsibilities the added requirement to plan for expansion and train new personnel and the workload gets even bigger. There is a lot of information to manage, lots of procedures to work through, and the regular work needs to be done completely, accurately and in a timely manner or the machine breaks down and customers don’t get the products or services they need when they need them. Just thinking about taking a vacation or maybe even retiring causes chills to run up and down her spine because Jerie knows she has more work to do before that could really happen. This is where the discussion about workflow and process support really started.
Jerie knows that you have to “keep things simple and keep the flow simple” in order to get everyone to participate. Her background in process analysis and improvement is really helpful to the business, because it enforces the understanding that things need to be fully documented and communicated clearly. “If you get things written down.. the processes and procedures, then the staff can be more efficient and effective. They get more work done, production goes up, sales go up, and then you can hire more people. “
Speaking of hiring new people, this is another area that Jerie knows she needs to address and is among the reasons for looking at a structured workflow system. Also, while the idea of retirement sounds increasingly attractive on some days, the challenge is that Jerie’s job has been developed over many years and there isn’t a comprehensive guide to how she does it all. She has created a way of working and a flow that meets the needs of the business, and transitioning all that knowledge is no small endeavor. “Having things structured and documented is the key. I always have procedure manuals on every desk, but that doesn’t cover everything. The workflow, time management, and the underlying processes should be visible to others because even if a key person isn’t available, business still has to go on”.
Synergy Enterprise is a business management solution from the Dutch software company Exact (www.exact.com).
Looking at CRM and workflow solutions, and specifically at the Synergy Enterprise system from Exact Software, is the next big step in solving the workflow problem and setting up the business to learn more from its activities.
“Transparency in the workflows and processes allows you to analyze them, identify bottlenecks and where improvements can be made” says Jerie.
“It’s like TQM (Total Quality Management) embedded in the CRM: you manage from the bottom up. When I look at CRM, I really see workflow. It’s everything in the business: everyone is a customer… even your boss is a customer, and the goal is to provide great customer support throughout the organization. I try to help inform management about work performance, but there are a lot of issues that are intertwined. How do you measure that without a good system?”
Summing things up, Jerie suggests that implementing Synergy in a business might be similar to using something like Google Analytics to analyze and understand website activity. She asks “why not track the activities performed in everyday business? Why did the customer not buy from you and what needs to happen to change that outcome? You need to know more!”
All three E’s are there, and I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Make Sense?
J
Series Introduction: Fringe to Foundation: Aligning Business Goals and Lifting Business Performance through Digital Workflows
Article 1: Every Business Deserves a Chance to be Better
Working Closer with Business Clients
Make Sense?
Make Sense?
Cooper Mann Consulting 