business process automation – Cooper Mann Consulting

August 14, 2017August 14, 2017

Cloud and Digital are Driving Change in Professional Practice

Accounting and Finance Professionals: Cloud and Digital are Driving Change in Professional Practice

Accountants and financial consultants working in public practice are experiencing a revolutionary change, evolving from documents and paper-based processes with after-the-fact reporting to real-time business management and providing services which support daily decision-making. The underlying cause for this evolution in business accounting is the technology: cloud and collaborative computing models are enabling much closer and regular interaction between accounting professionals and the businesses they serve. Even more, technology is taking its proper place in automating once tedious activities, allowing professionals to focus on causes and results rather than on transactions.

What is the real impact this is having on the accounting profession? It’s forcing a new focus and attention on change management within the practice, and is causing professionals to recognize the requirement for standardization of processes and development of controls which are the foundations for creating sustainability in a business. The goal now is placing reliance on process rather than people, which establishes the basis for intelligent automation. Standardization of processes does not require that the firm lose its personality. Rather, the mission at hand is to imbue the organization with its unique flavor and approach and to use process automation to develop and support consistency in the functions performed.

While cloud computing models allow accounting and finance professionals to work closer with their business clients, it is important that the practice look at those client interactions and develop standards for processes supporting frequently performed functions. These operations generally represent the activities within the firm which generate the highest levels of profitability due to the consistency in approach and repetition of tasks, and are the activities to apply intelligent automation to first. Those activities or engagements which represent the “one-offs” are often the most costly for the firm to perform, and therefore may not be the most profitable of activities and are certainly the most challenging to support with any significant level of automation. It is in this area where AI will find useful value in the practice, where a more informed answer than simple process automation is required.

The surprising finding when looking at many professional practices with more than one partner/professional involved is that these firms often fail to develop even the most basic of standard processes which apply throughout the firm. Rather, each partner or professional has “their way” of handling things, which challenges the supporting personnel as they try to deal with multiple working methods. The result is a lack of consistency in the service delivery to the clientele and reduced productivity and profitability for the firm.

The thing that these firms are failing to recognize – the light bulb over their heads that just isn’t lighting up – is that cloud computing and collaborative working models aren’t designed just to enable and facilitate a closer working relationship with clients. They’re also able to be applied inside the professional practice, enabling a more productive and efficient workflow which addresses the strengths and capabilities of the entire organization. And it doesn’t stop there. Businesses are relying upon their accounting professionals to provide guidance and develop controls and standards to support the client transformation from paper-based to digital operations, and embracing the entire realm of data and interactions associating with the business. Digital transformation in a client business demands transformation in those firms who serve it.

As professionals learn to go deeper in client operations they would do well to look internally, too, exploring how increased attention to process automation and consideration for the firm’s own “digital transformation” might lead to great profitability through market differentiation and improved performance.

Make Sense?

November 22, 2016August 13, 2018

Robots are just automation you didn’t know you needed

tall-tower-vancouver
There is a big trend in software integration these days which involves automation – turning connected systems into free-flowing conduits for data to move intelligently into and out of with ease. Well, maybe not quite that, but the key is the unattended and intelligent movement of data from one system to another. People don’t have to get involved in order for the information to flow from one system to another… it just goes by itself. Like a robot.

Having software and systems connect to one another isn’t new at all, and businesses have for many years recognized the value of being able to have information entered in one system available in another. Entire ERP frameworks have been created based on this concept of entering data once and using it in many ways. The trick is when there is more than one system or software product involved.

A simple example might be someone who owns a web store and does their bookkeeping with QuickBooks Premier. The webstore isn’t running QuickBooks; it is running an e-commerce solution or shopping cart system that allows customers to buy things online. However, the webstore does create sales orders and charge transactions, and may even have to manage an inventory of saleable items.

Getting the information from the webstore to QuickBooks and vice versa is often a task business owners take on, either by entering the information manually themselves or hiring and employee to do it. This manual re-entry of information introduces a large potential for errors in the data entered and is time-consuming and costly.

“It was just awful,” said David Clothier, treasurer of the Knoxville, Tenn., company, which operates more than 500 Pilot Flying J truck stops nationwide. “There were humans everywhere.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-bookkeeper-is-a-robot-1430776272

Rather than having a person re-type the information from one system into another, software-based integration programs may be available to help users map the data and move it from one solution to the other. Using a software program to transfer the information is much faster and reduces the error rate, increasing the overall value and usefulness of the information.

Automation isn’t the only requirement that makes this all robot-like. The additional requirement is the intelligence. If people still have to get directly involved in order for something to happen, then all the happening is still based on human performance. No robots here.

Intelligent integration of information occurs when the systems on both ends are capable of making decisions and acting on them. For example, a business might use a solution that allows vendors to submit their invoices electronically. Through a base of rules that match invoices to requests and approvals, the system is able to issue payment and record the transactions automatically and without human intervention, saving hugely on personnel and processing costs. Robots (the automation solution) wouldn’t make up all the rules, but could follow them repetitively and without question once established.

…software can help businesses operate more effectively. “If you think like a human, there are only certain things you can do. When you think like a robot, many things are possible.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-bookkeeper-is-a-robot-1430776272

It isn’t a new paradigm for building businesses – this doing of things a bit smarter than before and leveraging technology to get more done in less time. The difference is that the pace of change is increasing, giving businesses less time to stand by and rub the chin and consider whether or not this new fangled technology makes sense. Robots, you say? Meet your new part-time bookkeeper.

jmbunnyfeet Make Sense?

June 9, 2015

Marketing in Business: Everyone has something to say

Most business owners recognize the need to market their products in order to support sales of those products. What many business owners don’t recognize, however, is that there is a bit more to successful marketing, and it reaches throughout the business.

One aspect of marketing is the internal marketing – how the company communicates to and through the various functional organizations. Whether it is the announcement of new policies or descriptions of new products launching, internal communication and feedback loops are as essential as those involving customers, yet few businesses employ formal mechanisms to handle it.

Another element essential to making a marketing campaign a success is the follow-up. The feedback loop marketing receives in terms of campaign performance is great, but if sales and service are able to incorporate some of that intelligence into their efforts, sales calls become warmer and service is more enlightened to customer demands and needs.

Sam Saab, the CEO of Results Software, knows these things to be true because he works with clients having these experiences every day. Results CRM is more than simply a customer relationship management solution, but in that specific area the software functionality excels. Over the years, Results has been expanded and extended to handle a wide variety of business and information management requirements. Among the recent developments is the integration with Constant Contact, providing even more capability for small businesses to more intelligently manage their operations and get the most value from every business expenditure.

Following is an article which came from a discussion with Sam on this very subject, and which I am pleased to publish here because it makes sense.

Marketing in Business: Everyone has something to say

When someone talks about marketing it is the radio and TV advertisement, the advertisement in the paper or magazine, or even all those email newsletters that come in to the inbox which come to mind. Small business discussions about marketing generally center on branding, and finding the right message to “engage” with a prospective customer and turn them into a buying customer. What many business owners fail to recognize is that marketing has a presence in every aspect of the business.

Marketing is the message businesses tell their customers, whether it is the future customer (prospect), current customer or past customer (which is really just another kind of prospect). Marketing is also what they tell themselves and others in the business – the internal customers. It is marketing which gives voice to the organization, and provides the venue for the many parts of the company to speak to their respective constituents. Every department makes a contribution, and every department has something to say.

Business owners who recognize the value of giving voice to the various entities within the company understand that cooperation and communication go hand in hand. The development of a finely tuned machine means that everyone must work on the same page and towards the same goals, so centralization of content and managed distribution to relevant readers becomes the key to keeping the message on point.

Developing communications and drawing input from various areas of the business diversifies the message and creates interest where there was none before – all due simply to a change in perspective of the message. It is this understanding of when to change the perspective and voice, or to adjust or expand the message, which fuels ongoing marketing success. And while it is important to target the messaging towards the audience, it is equally important to present multiple facets to the message in order to gain the interest of different prospects as one never knows what subject matter or message will resonate with the reader. Essential is the follow-up on any campaign: follow-up with a sales approach or sending additional information or simply continuing communications.

Yet questions of relevance or interest of the message by the audience need to be answered, and the business needs indicators that reveal whether or not the information is being understood and accepted, or is even of interest to the audience. This is part of the value delivered in marketing and campaign management tools such as Constant Contact. But even if the messaging is on target and there is demonstrated interested, is the sales or customer management system in use designed to help sales follow-up and reach out to those audience members who expressed interest through accessing the material? Results CRM has this ability, and addresses the reality that too many businesses wait for inbound responses where outbound might be more efficient if only the information was there to help target the effort. Where service or support is the subject, does a response to the content suggest any follow-up or action? For a marketing campaign to be effective, it must discuss areas of interest and actionable subjects so that the audience is encouraged to read and to respond. For the business doing the marketing, the overall value of any campaign is reduced if there is no action taken or no intelligence gained from the response.

The integration between Results CRM and Constant Contact delivers the business benefits of connecting marketing communications and campaigns with sales, service and other business processes to support greater business and marketing intelligence. By providing users with the tools necessary to not only create communication campaigns but also to track and take action on the results of the effort provides a basis for gaining greater understanding of the performance of the communication and how it relates closely to sales and customer engagement. Connecting Constant Contact campaign information to Results CRM provides business owners and managers with an additional level of intelligence supporting decision-making and action.

Everybody in the company has something to say, and each “voice” may offer a message or idea that will trigger engagement with the customer, whether internal or external. When the company provides each entity in the organization with the benefit of a communications platform coupled with tools like Integrated CRM that are necessary to support analysis and action based on the performance and reaction to the messages, the company has begun to recognize the power and potential of what marketing may truly be.

S.Saab

May 19, 2015November 15, 2019

Accounting for Custom Manufacturing

Accounting and bookkeeping is a part of every business large and small, yet there are myriad details to work with and a multitude of possible approaches to addressing the requirement. From a summary perspective, there are standards which are fairly easily met, providing the basics of sales and expense tracking and income reporting sufficient for basic tax and compliance work to be performed. Yet accounting may go much deeper into the operational processes of the business, delving into the details of productivity and profitability in order to find and expose areas where the business might improve both.

mfg Manufacturing, particularly custom manufacturing or ETO (engineering to order) is among those industry types that could benefit tremendously from a more intimate and detailed approach to accounting. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to find experienced professionals with not simply a competence in working with manufacturing industry sector clients, but specifically with ETO process. Building to order is one thing, but finding the way to improve efficiency and profitability when every job is a custom encounter takes additional skills and a lot of data. Accounting professionals with these skills are needed to help these custom manufacturers grow, transform their businesses and make the overall operations more efficient and sustainable.

It seems logical that manufacturing and ETO space businesses are ripe for the same bridging of technology and analysis that the accounting industry started broadly approaching some years back. With bookkeeping processes being more frequently outsourced to non-accountants, the accounting professionals saw increased pressure to find more efficient ways of doing things and had to find new value to deliver to clients. Technology, data collection and analysis became the foundations for delivering on that new requirement. With the established model and philosophy, bringing more operational aspects of client systems into the mix and extending the model end-to-end just makes sense.

It takes a combination of systems – from the core accounting solution to the manufacturing control or other operational systems, through to the analytical tools. Leveraging hosting technologies and cloud service, businesses are finally able to bring the multiple work locations – shops, warehouses and business offices – together in a single software and technology platform, and collect the level of detail necessary to provide a comprehensive and true picture of the business. The analytical tools then provide the means to explore the details and identify where improvements might be made or where previously unrecognized risk exists.

QuickBooks desktop editions remain among the most popular financial systems used by manufacturing and job shop applications, largely due to the effectiveness of connecting the operational applications to an accounting solution which proves highly workable and which has strong industry support. Even with the emergence of QuickBooks Online (and the push by Intuit to get customers to adopt this web-based alternative to desktop-based software) the QuickBooks desktop edition products continue to provide more functionality and application support for these working models, as the ability to fully manage the information in the solution exists more in the disk based products than it does in a multitenant web-based application. Accounting “mechanics” are able to see, access and work with all the data rather than simply view reports where only half of the transaction is visible – making detailed accounting and data analysis more readily available.

The key is to leverage the accounting professional, the right software tools, and the platform and delivery environment that allows it all to work in concert for the entire organization. Add the QuickBooks hosting service so the participants can work more closely together. Enabling the accounting professional and bringing them closer to their clients (and client systems) allows the deeper move into operational issues, creating the basis for both to receive new and more value from the relationship.

jmbunnyfeet Make Sense?

January 22, 2015

State of the Union: The Irrelevance of Good Accounting?

finance I’m a little concerned, and any professional in accounting and finance who works with small businesses should be just a little concerned, too. Why? Because there is a belief out there that some nifty software and Internet Of Things (IoT) approach to finance will ultimately eliminate the need for a small business to work with skilled, trained accounting professionals. Remember the marketing slogan introduced by Intuit with QuickBooks – the one that suggested that, “if you can write a check, you can do your own books”? Most accountants will tell you that it is not true, and the ability to operate a product like QuickBooks does not magically turn poor accounting and bookkeeping information into good business data. In fact, it most frequently enables bad information to turn into bad business decisions – quickly.

DIY bookkeeping solutions have been around for a while, so why the distress about it now? Up until this point, it hadn’t been so overtly stated to small business owners that having less-than-great accounting data is very much OK, and that the role accounting professionals play in small business finances is more of a burden than benefit. Consider the statement made by President Obama in his recent State of the Union address:

“Let’s simplify the system and let a small business owner file based on her actual bank statement, instead of the number of accountants she can afford”

If I’m an accounting professional, I am pretty steamed up about that statement because I know how screwy business accounting data gets when the work is done by folks without the proper training. Incorrect or improper accounting treatment can make a big difference when it comes to filing those taxes mentioned…. and not in a good way. That transaction on the bank statement… Is it a cost of goods sold or a regular business expense? Is it an asset or supply item? Is it a reimbursement or revenue? Is the payroll deduction before or after taxes? Is that even a viable payroll deduction item? These questions and more arise frequently in a small business, and the treatment for these items is improper as often as not.

There is a big value in what a trained accounting professional can offer a small business owner, and the value often translates to eliminating unnecessary tax burdens and the delivery of accurate reporting – both of which are really important when it comes to actually trying to grow a healthy and sustainable business.

Small businesses are often considered to be the fuel powering our economy. Doesn’t it make sense for us all to recognize that smarter businesses are likely to be more successful, and that more successful small businesses means growth in the economy? The importance of good fiscal and financial management and reporting – in business and in government – is not something to minimize, and suggesting that it takes no intervention or skill to do the job properly reflects poorly not only on the person saying it, but on the entire establishment.

jmbunnyfeet Make Sense?

January 7, 2015October 9, 2017

Everything Old is New Again: Big Fat Phones and Desktop QuickBooks in the Cloud

Every year that passes leaves some reminder of the time – some person or occurrence which touches us and creates a lasting memory. 2014 delivered its share of memorable people and moments and proved again that social platforms such as Twitter and Instagram have become increasingly significant as people across the world organize, march or call for change. Yet even as change is demanded from us and often forced upon us, it is wise to remember that the pendulum eventually swings both ways. We want to have our cake and eat it, too, which is the ultimate no-win situation and causes us to constantly and consistently seek out the alternative. Like the puppy chasing his tail, we end up going round in circles. Harem pants and jeans torn from knee to thigh have come back in fashion, and even though they didn’t really work the first time, here they are again. It is inevitable.

Information technology trends follow similar patterns, and what was once in high fashion may now be considered as “legacy”. Perhaps the better word is “classic”, as these legacy solutions often represent the standards by which new solutions will be measured. Eventually, the properties of the classic or legacy solution wind up in the new breed, because this is what the market has come to expect and/or demand. Even when entirely new standards are believed to be adopted, the truth is that years of learning and experience will often find the path previously traveled by others to be the right path.

It seems like so long ago when some said “the desktop is dead” and that all applications would be used by every device via the web, but not run on the device. Well, there are quite a number of web-based applications and services delivered in just that manner, but there are also lots and lots of computers out there with software still installed on them, happily working away for their users (there’s an app for that, right?). The desktop isn’t dead at all, it seems, and what’s more – there are trends to extend the capability and reach of the desktop to the web rather than replacing the desktop with the web. Application integration, process integration, interoperability, functionality and modality – all these factors and more have become the underlying drivers for extension of and hosting for desktop applications, and are the areas where SaaS and web-based application service has not delivered as expected.

The idea of having no software on the computing device is kind of silly, when you think about it. Computers continue to get more powerful and have more capability than ever. Heck, even phones are getting fatter and bigger again. The best phones these days are the ones that rival tablets and laptops in size and have lots of apps to run.

Microsoft Office, too, hasn’t gone anywhere, really. It’s still firmly attached to most workstations whether they’re iPads or Macs or Windows systems. Web-based productivity tools are certainly gaining in use, but not nearly as widely as some would believe. Office productivity continues to live on the desktop, and ties many users to desktop computing for that very reason. Use CRM in the cloud? I’ll bet you still export data to Excel or Word on the PC. Use accounting in the cloud? A lot of reporting still goes through Excel, trial balance systems and the like. The universe of web-based and SaaS apps is getting larger, but it hasn’t yet become the center of the universe for most established businesses. Net-new customers and smaller businesses are adopting SaaS due largely to cost and to the success of the marketing message, but use and direct experience with the product applied in the business setting often demonstrates that adoption of a more flexible (malleable) or functionally rich solution is indicated. The business likes the mobility, remote access and managed service, but not the actual SaaS application. So, hosting becomes the better alternative and the business is able to use the software that works for the business, and use it in a manner that allows the business to take advantage of remote and mobile capability, subscription service, and more.

I really have no gripes with web-based and SaaS solutions. In fact, some of my best friends use SaaS 🙂 The message I’m trying to convey is simply that, regardless of what the media and marketing may tell you, things don’t always change as quickly as it seems. Yes, there is a movement towards cloud solutions and online working models. Yes, there is change in how information technology is obtained and used. And equally true is the reality that only a portion of the market has adopted these changes and new philosophies. By the time there is “complete” adoption, there will be a new standard or approach being marketed and we will be in this place once again. Is there wide recognition of the benefit for mobility and remote capability? Sure there is, but it is also accompanied by the understanding that tried and true solutions will continue to deliver the functionality and capability businesses rely upon, even as new models for delivering them come about.

Make Sense?

Here are some of the most popular articles from CooperMann.com in 2014. Surprisingly enough, the most popular were articles about QuickBooks and the Cloud, a subject I’ve been writing about for many years. In fact, some of the most popular of my QuickBooks/cloud articles are from 2013 and they remain among the most frequently viewed even today. Search and view metrics indicate that the topic’s popularity is not likely to diminish soon, so plan to hear more about how businesses are using QuickBooks (and other desktop and network applications) in the cloud, but aren’t using Online editions to make it work really well.

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. CooperMann.com blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Accounting and Finance Professionals: Cloud and Digital are Driving Change in Professional Practice

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Marketing in Business: Everyone has something to say

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Accounting for Custom Manufacturing

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State of the Union: The Irrelevance of Good Accounting?

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