As an owner or partner are you still teachable? If you aren't, then you better get out of the way because technology is pushing our firms forward, with us or without us. Younger partners and team members are ready to usher in new technology. Are we getting in the way? Things are not going back to the "way they use to be" so you might as well get moving forward. Just look around at the technology opportunities like Skype, the iPhone, Scan & Populate programs and the new client portals we see popping up everywhere. Someday we will receive all data electronically from employers, the IRS and banks. We will have to be paperless and will have to build a digital office. Is that time today? Maybe not it is inevitable. Technologies are changing the way we live, work and play. It may seem overwhelming. It is overwhelming, especially for the technology impaired of which class I am a part of. So, it is imperative that I jump into the deep end of the pool of technology, if I want to thrive in today's firm. Now, this doesn't mean jump in blind or in every pool. Pick what makes sense.

I have heard the voices of the accounting industry profess that if you are not in the cloud you are not "in". Spend time investigating cloud, workflow, paperless and portals. What makes sense for you and for the season your firm is in is not the same as every firm. Technology is not a "one size fits all" decision. You don't need to follow the crowd. Creative Solutions is not the golden child and Intuit doesn't rule the world. The options are many....so review and investigate. This is a big part of best practices.

When it comes to transforming my firm with technology and implementing best practices I want to engage and explore things that can change my firm. However, learning new things is not easy, certainly not for me and my age group. I remind myself of how I got here. It took schooling and hard work. I tell myself I am a chameleon. I am intelligent, I am pliable, I can still learn. I am not the "old dog" that can't learn new tricks. I am being pushed by younger forward thinking professionals. With each new application and mobile device I find myself getting more acclimated. With practice and invested time I am improving my skills. I try to empower the younger team members to take ownership of the changes in my offices reducing my invested time and improving the success of new implementations. I don't have to do it all. Remind yourself!

I am surrounded by twenty and thirty something team members that can't fathom a work place with paper. The other day I heard that someone who worked at Apple that there wasn't one piece of paper in their offices. It's almost eerie. Can you imagine an office without paper? I can. Now I know that this is not entirely possible in an accounting firm yet, but we are getting closer every day.

With the advent of better applications becoming available, comes new opportunities for improving our firms. With it are new horizons to explore and consider. After 25 years of consulting I am still learning, still inventing, still growing. That's the fun in it! Every firm I visit I learn something new. I try to implement the things my clients have shown me and add features to our software that's suits them. I regularly get asked about best practices with regards to practice management. I share what other firms are doing and their successes. Every one of them has embraced new methods of tracking phone calls, documenting client and staff interactions through documents and email. They have reviewed value billing and the related time we spend performing services. They have reviewed paperless methods, workflow changes and new client portal options. If a firm is willing to embrace best practices then Office Tools Professional's Practice Management Software can transform and renew their firms allowing them to make more money and find better work/life balance.

The most important advice I can give is to embrace technology, don't ignore it. Hirer and empower your staff to implement new technologies. You don't have to be 100% cloud or use strictly web software. You don't have to change your whole firm in one year. Decide what digestible chunks you can implement each year. Investigate and make a plan. Is it using an integrated app or purchasing a few one trick ponies? Is it one application or feature this year and another one next year? If you are willing and invest some time each year you can jump into the deep end and not drown. These efforts can help you implore best practices and turn your firm into one of the best practices around.

The need to use a document management system (DMS) and go paperless has never been more prevalent. I was at a client's office last week and found myself trapped behind a desk that had 3 foot high stacks of paper. I found it difficult to see the person on the other side who I was training. Needless to say I really affirmed the owner on his purchase of our Practice Management software.  I know there are more of you out there swimming in a pool of paper... shame on you! This blog is for you.

As your firm grows and  add staff members, you add more and more data to the daily process of running your firm and automating your workflow is a must! Why spend thirty minutes looking for an email from six months ago in Outlook? Why send a tax return to the DMS within your tax software? That makes no sense, and here's why!

When utilizing the Document Management in our software, you can file all documents by client, by year, by project, by category, and by file name. This subfolder path empowers the user to locate the document within seconds because all subfolders integrate with each other as you use them to filter within the search.  Ex: Choose the "Year" 2010 and "Project" 1040 tax return and the system will locate only the documents that are associated to these two filters; whether it is a PDF of the tax return or an email associated to this filter  Practice Management will navigate the user to the desired documents.

Any file that can be stored to your computer, whether it is a word document, a PDF document, a JPEG, or an email...ANY TYPE OF FILE that can be stored on your computer can be navigated to by  our software. See, the documents are not literally stored within our software; they are stored on your server! We are the link to the document. The Practice Management software is non-proprietary and the document is stored in its original format. These are your documents not ours, retain control over them by utilizing this non-proprietary resource!

Placing a document within the document manager is extremely easy. You may drag and drop or print to PDF and send to Practice Management through our free Adobe add-in. We also offer a free Microsoft Office add-in that allows you send over all pertinent emails or word documents to be stored. The beauty to the system is once the document is placed, you can do a number of administration functions with it. Ex: From the document manager area you can directly email documents to clients, or send documents through our web portal which is password protected and HIPAA, SAS 70, and FINRA compliant, or send them over to review by another staff member or partner: a myriad of possibilities.

Stop jumping around from software applications to accomplish the workflow management task at hand. Centrally locate all steps of your workflow, relieving the wasted time you spend trying to locate the information as well as the compromising of data within multiple databases.

Project tracking really means due date and status tracking.  A project is any particular service that your firm offers inclusive of multiple steps and potentially multiple staff members who will work on it. For example individual or corporate tax returns, payroll, as well as bookkeeping or audits. Not to be confused with a "To-Do" which is a single step/single staff member task, (i.e. order lunch for today's meeting).

Questions that need to be addressed when looking at tracking projects are, "What are my budgeted hours and dollars? How long did it take last period?, How much did it cost? When did we receive the work? And, when did we promise it?" Let's get started answering these extremely important questions.

When we developed Practice Management software it was our goal to create the single screen interface, which allows you to view budgets, received and promise dates, any missing information as well as the current status of who is working on it and what step they are working on without even clicking your mouse. Making the software intuitive as possible gives you the ability to track at a glance your budgeted hours and dollars vs. actuals as well as a view of your last period's performance for the projects that reoccur. 

When you access the toolbar for the Project you have the ability to view the "Work List", that is associated to the project, showing you who has completed what and when they completed it. The ability to view all  documents related to the project is simple with one click. Once the project is complete, you can click "Invoice Now" and bill out all time cards associated to the project. Finally with the ease of assigning projects globally for all clients based on entity type you can implement these tools in an organized, manageable, time effective way.

To prosper in the ever changing market place accountants need to find ways to implement and succeed at new workflow management methods. Integrating a single tool to run your firm's workflow is just that. Many owners use multiple software applications to complete the workflow task in their firm, in turn elongating the process and compromising the results. Our software brings all areas together; time and billing, paperless document management, company-wide scheduling, call tracking and customer relationship management (CRM).  

That is why we consider Practice Management software the accountants workflow solution!

Tracking tasks is the most pertinent step in an effective time and billing process. When we begin as new business owners it's hard to see the need to track everything. "I value bill everything, I only flat rate invoice!" Why would we want to include another process and possibly use one more software application in the already daunting task at hand as a CPA firm?

Let's face it; we operate in a world that demands the need to multitask. To survive and even get ahead you must be able to accomplish five things at once. Thus making it harder and harder to track our time, resulting in huge discrepancies in our utilization reports, (if we can even get our hands on them), as well as not observing the staff members who are really affecting our business positively and even worse avoiding the task altogether. This should stimulate the idea: "How many billing opportunities have I missed?"

Office Tools Professionals Practice Management software provides a time and billing solution that empowers you to capture billable opportunities to help your business grow. Within the customization features of Practice Management, we will determine the work codes we will use to track our billable and non-billable time. Our software has a standard billable rate per staff member as well work code, including three alternate tiers of billable rates. As we complete activities off of our work list whether it is a client telephone call, accounting, or bookkeeping we are prompted to track our time. When completing tasks throughout the day we capture more accurate records quickly  resulting in a streamlined method that takes seconds to complete.

The bottom-line is so many firms are using sometimes up to five different software applications to complete the administration chore within their firm. This is frustrating, inaccurate and wasting up to one hour a day per staff member. You do not get paid for administration work but you must do it! Our Practice Management software cuts down how long you spend in administration work by managing the time, billing, paperless document storage, call tracking and CRM functions to name a few. Our system is completely integrated; by completing a call or assignment you automatically fill out a time card, which fill's in the work in progress for the client and then that time can be invoiced...all in one step.

That is why we consider Practice Management software the accountants workflow solution!