The Tech Gap

"the accountant" --- Academy Award Winner!

I am probably among the top 10 "worst people to buy gifts for" --- or so I'm told by my family. Basically, if I want something I buy it --- and my tastes run to specific technologies which scares off  most gift buyers. So, it's usually books and socks with an occasional tie thrown in for color. This year however I was especially pleased with a DVD I received as part of Santa's blizzard of gifts. "the accountant" is an independent short film that rocked Sundance and snagged an Academy Award® for Best Action Live Short. While it runs only 35 minutes you're guaranteed solid entertainment and a completely different view of tax and financial planning for your clients. Ray McKinnon not only stars but is also the writer and producer.

This is a fun diversion. I plan to screen it at a staff get together later this tax season. It'll go really well with some pizza and long-necks. (The bottled beer will make more sense AFTER you've seen the movie.)

I'm WAY out on my league reviewing movies, but I liked it and, as accountants, I'd guess that you will, too.

It sells to less than $20 --- and it's definitely worth it. Buy it here: http://ginnymulepictures.stores.yahoo.net/theaccountant.html

gll

2006 Year-in-Review Digital Edition

The CPA Technology Advisor’s 2006 YEAR-IN-REVIEW DIGITAL EDITION features exclusive content and insight into what made 2006 a year to remember, including the “Top 10 Business Events of 2006” and the “Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2006.” Both of these special features are available only through this special Digital Edition.

The 2006 YEAR-IN-REVIEW DIGITAL EDITION uses an interactive format that lets you read it just like the print edition of the magazine, flipping through pages with a click of your mouse. It also includes  exclusive podcast interviews that allow you to hear from industry thought leaders as they discuss trends and technologies that are shaping the tax and accounting professions.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, or even more so a regular listener to Intersection Live, you'll particularly enjoy this edition. Please give it a try --- and also, please let me know your opinion of this type of delivery method for content. I want to know your thoughts, positive and negative. Your feedback is essential to our planning process. As readers (and listeners) you represent the leading (bleeding?) edge of technology adaptation in the profession of public accounting. We'll go where you direct us, and the rest of the profession will follow!

Thanks .... and a really wonderful holiday and a prosperous and peaceful New Year.

gll

The New "Big Three" --- this ain't your father's Oldsmobile!

My friend Brian Tankersley, occasional contibutor to The CPA Technology Advisor and seemingly full-time lecturer for the K2 organization, was kind enough to allow me to share his analysis of the current state of entry level client accounting packages. Brian's a CPA.CITP practitioner from Tennessee and, more importantly, a darn smart technology analyst. I'm guessing you'll find this piece as valuable as I did ---- and then go check out Brian's blog. Meanwhile ---- enjoy the read.

gll

As most readers of this blog know, the "Big Three" publishers of entry level financial management software are fighting in the small business space for the hearts and minds of small business owners.  The battle has been joined by Microsoft (Office Accounting 2007, the new name for the product formerly known as Small Business Accounting 2006) and Sage (Peachtree Quantum 2007) against incumbent Intuit (QuickBooks 2007 Premier Accountant Edition), and all three have made wholesale changes to their offerings since the beginning of the conflict to help us get more completed in less time.  A partial listing of some of the major changes in the last two years includes:

New database (QuickBooks), database version (Peachtree), or entirely new product (Microsoft)Significant increase in integration with Microsoft Office (all)
Feature sets targeted at Accountants have been created or extended, including:
Methods for an accountant to obtain a copy of the Client's information, make entries, and send just the changes back to the client
Fixed Asset Management System integrated into Accountant version of the products(QuickBooks and Peachtree have this feature, and Office Accounting 2007 reports that it has this feature as well, however, I have not personally verified that it contains the ability to run 4 different books of depreciation - Book, MACRS, Ace/AMT, and State, so I am unable to personally confirm that the scope of the new Microsoft offering is consistent with the offerings from Sage and Intuit at this time)
Enhanced Payroll offerings (all)
Role-based security model (all, although some offerings are stronger at this than others.)
New partnerships with third party service providers to allow the software publisher to sell services to customers beyond custom forms and checks, including, but not limited to:
Credit Card Processing
Outsourced Payroll Processing
Ability to have your client pay your invoice online
Work with online services such as Google (Desktop Search and Adwords) links to QuickBooks) and Microsoft’s eBay integration.
Many of the vendors are also giving away copies of their products to CPAs who participate in certain CPE training programs, including those offered by K2 Enterprises (Full disclosure: K2 Enterprises is a significant client of mine, and many of their classes include one or more versions (full licensed version or trial version) of the three major entry level packages.  K2 also consults for all three of the “big three” applications, so don’t say we didn’t mention it.)

An Accounting Firm Centric Alternative to WebEx & LiveMeeting --- BizConference.com

Long-time practitioner now turned software solution entrepenuer Barry Friedman has his hopes set high. He's hoping he can convince WebEx users and even Microsoft's LiveMeeting users that his upstart company, BizConference, can do what they do --- but better, faster, and cheaper. The better comes from no fuss with downloading desktop clients, the faster from using Flash, and the cheaper from ..... well, the cheaper comes from the fact that Friedman is a CPA who practiced for 30 years and he KNOWS his customers --- because he's one of us!!

Listen in as Barry and his partner Andrew Murdock discuss their new service with me. I was quite impressed. I'm betting you will be, too. Most interesting is understanding Friedman's vision of practice in the near future. Will web-based conferenceing be as big as he describes? Perhaps. If so, you'll want to know about this service. If not, well, you'll STILL want to know about this service. It has a 14 day free trial so I suggest you give it a whirl.

gll

MP3 File

Cieslak & Gaby grab Xcelerate -- Extend Reach to Midwest

California based partners Dave Cieslak and Bob Gaby, of ITG fame, have acquired Chicago-based Xcelerate and renamed the new company Arxis. [I've repeated the name 50 times to see if I could get it to "roll of the tongue". All I accomplished was a great edge for the next "talk like a pirate day".]

Cieslak, and to somewhat lesser extent, Gaby, are almost omni-present at AICPA and State Society technology conferences. They attend virtually all and speak at most. Cieslak chairs the AICPA's IT Executive Committee and is in his third year of driving the Tech Conference. He's runs the Top Techs Task Force. The guy is everywhere! [See http://www.thetechgap.com/2006/06/a_man_with_many.html]

It's always good to see nice guys doing successful things --- and these ARE nice guys and this IS a [very] successful milestone.

Congratulations, Dave and Bob.

gll

PS: The full press release appears after the jump.

Finally, a REALLY "Smart" Trial balance Retriever

A few weeks ago I spent a full day with the Intuit Professional Tax executive team in Plano. We had great discussions about all sorts of tax and technology practice issues and, late in the afternoon --- with the car service waiting to make sure I didn't miss my flight from DFW --- I got a peek at the soon-to-roll-out "SmartMap" feature. Now I know that the concept of tax line groupings for automatic import from accounting to tax complaince isn't exactly new. But the Intuit engineers have made it seem so. What used to be hard enough that many practitioners [erroneously, I believe] claimed they could actually KEY a full trial balance into their tax product faster than setting up the "automatic" data import has been rendered so easy and so "intuitive" [sorry, but the pun was just SO easy!] that an entry level intern could handle it with aplomb.

Thanks to the miricles of modern programming languages and the familiarity of the Windows "drag and drop" metaphore practitioners can see a trial balance, by account title, on the left and watch (I did so in amazement) as those account NAMES were dragged across to the waiting TAX FORM on the right hand side of the screen. My amazement was complete when the dragged TITLE turned into a NUMBER when dropped. The "trial balance" on the left is so worked until all it's components have been properly "dropped" onto the tax form. Simple. Direct. Foolproof (well, almost ---- but fools are ever so clever!). Ingenious.

Lacertre users are in for a treat this year. Those pesky QuickBooks trial balances will be a joy to import with the SmartMap feature. It works so nice that I was ALMOST disappointed when I learned the "links" are persistent and the "fun" I described would therefore be a single year event.

Oh well, there're always new clients!

gll

Reader's Choice Balloting Opens Today

Have you found the perfect professional tax preparation system? Do you wish you could tell every professional about the write-up program your firm uses? Has your time and billing application made your practice more efficient and productive? Perhaps you've found the absolute best small or midsize accounting application for your clients? Now you have a way to tell the world.

Voting for the inaugural Accountants and Tax Professionals Readers' Choice Awards starts today, allowing any tax or accounting professional to vote for the programs, services, online systems, hardware and gadgets they have come to rely on in their practices. (CLICK HERE to cast your vote.)

Categories include tax compliance, payroll, practice management/time & billing, document management, online applications, small and midsize business accounting programs, construction/contractor accounting systems, write-up and trial balance, estate and financial planning, fixed asset management, tax research, laptops, PDAs, scanners, printers, CPE providers, and even your favorite late night food during tax season.

We promise the process is easier than the November elections — no hanging chads or long lines. Plus, the voting period for the Readers' Choice Awards is open until Friday, November 15, 2006 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time. There are no major rules about who is eligible to vote — anyone can vote, but only one vote can be cast per computer.

So express your devotion to the various technologies that help you and your clients succeed. Vote today - CLICK HERE to begin. We will share the results with you in our January/March 2007 issue and on our website, www.CPATechAdvisor.com.

Here We Go Again

UPDATED -- PODCAST ATTACHED BELOW

CCH announced today that they have acquired TaxWise.

Here's the press release: Download cch_acquires_taxwise.pdf

Read that again --- it's NOT the news from last month when we reported here that CCH had acquired ATX. This is NEW news!!!

When Kevin Robert, CEO of Wolters Kluwer's CCH,  makes a move, he makes a MOVE --- 45 days ago CCH had almost no footprint in the small and very small firm market. With their ProSystem Fx line firmly entrenched in the Top 100 firms (minus the Big 4, most of whom are GoSystem Tax RS customers) Robert obviously sees the other end of the market as a ripe spot for growth. While arch-nemesis Thomson embraces a "we can build it internally better and cheaper" philosophy, the Wolters Kluwer folks are decidedly in the other camp. Nancy McKinstry, Robert's boss and CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board, commented to me last year that she does NOT subscribe to the "if it's a good idea then we'd have thought of it" philosophy and that they (CCH) would acquire best of breed products wherever and whenever possible. And the guilders started flowing .....

First it was the old CPA Software unit from Sage. The Pensacola group, founded by Mark Fenimore and sold to Best, er Sage, in 2003, was acquired in early 2006. A few months later it was the miserably-named, but incredibly well-designed BOCDIP product which ultimately won them a 2006 Innovation in Tax & Accounting Technology Award from The CPA Technology Advisor. Then, on August 1st they announced the ATX deal. Finally, (dare I say "finally" in a sentence about Robert? After all, when I asked him if he slept he quipped "only occasionally and I'm learning to do it fast!") today (and it's a holiday --- a point of irony certainly not missed here!) they announce the TaxWise deal. All told they've tripled their user base from under 25,000 users to well over 75,000 in about six weeks! That puts them solidly in # 2 position behind Intuit's 100,000+ ProSeries and Lacerte users. Their new base is larger than the remaining competition IN TOTAL! (Thomson at ~22,000 between UltraTax and Go System Tax RS; Drake at just over 20,000; OrrTax at ~12,000; and TaxWorks and a few other regionals each with well under 5,000 users.

I spent the day with Robert and his executive team two weeks ago (to the day) and was again impressed with their depth of knowledge regarding the practice of public accounting. I was also (again) impressed with their commitment and reported hard work and expanding and refining that knowledge. I'm sure Robert was more than a little bit uncomfortable when I asked him directly "Are you going to buy TaxWise, too?". I didn't expect an answer as I know full well he couldn't, but I did want him to know we were watching and studying the strategy.

At the conclusion of that meeting I was asked for my opinion --- I shared that I was thrilled to see CCH entering the 'real-world" of public accounting. The world of 10 or fewer people in an office --- the world where write-up, payroll, and tax bank products make up the bulk of fees. The world where SQL based servers, deployed in a Citrix farm and offering audit and review products are absolutely foreign. The world where 90% of the practices are!

Welcome to my world, Kevin Robert ---  we're NOT just small versions of big firms! Keep listening, learn, and implement fast. And remember, 85% of us have revenues less than $500K so keep our prices LOW!!

gll

Here is an interview with Kevin Robert, CEO of Wolters Kluwer's CCH and Bill Anderson, CEO of TaxWise about their announcement.


MP3 File

Picture Your Laptop as Checked Baggage

Our friend Rich Oppenheim has been pondering the idea of CHECKING his laptop! As far as I'm concerned that will happen when the TSA workers pry my cold, dead fingers off my tablet ..... er, ah .... well, maybe Rich is right and we should start at least considering the possibility.

Until now, when your laptop traveled with you, it was safely stored in the same location as you - under your seat, in the overhead bin or on your lap. With the threats impacting every aspect of air travel, your laptop may soon not be allowed to travel with you.

Checking your laptop as luggage presents a few problems. First, the loss of work time while at the airport and in the air. Second is the possibility of the laptop being stolen. Third is the potential for damage while the luggage handlers play Frisbee with the bags.

A few ideas to overcome the risks:
Lost work time – plan your work time well
Stolen laptop – backup your data, use passwords, remove sensitive data before travel
Damage – use a better protective case. Consider the Otter Box.

Of course, one can use all sorts of technology to reduce both the need to travel and travel time itself and therefore reduce all sorts of risks.

Richard Oppenheim

Finally, Civilization at a Trade Show

You're probably aware that I attend a LOT of conferences, conventions, seminars, and trade shows. The two most common complaints from attendees at these events seem to be "I can't hear" and "it's too loud". It seems that trade show floors have become audio battlegrounds, decibels the ammunition, and attendee ears the casualties of war. At the Illinois CPA Foundation's 2006 Business & Technology Solutions Show last week in Chicago I was [again] asked to lead "Walking Tours" on the show floor. Once each day I led a group of ~50 brave accountants across the trade show in search of new and exciting technologies to add productivity and profitability to their practices. This year I was prepared and had asked the show organizers to equip each stop with a portable public address system to ensure that their presenters would be heard. From my perspective it was a huge improvement --- unfortunately, for those in neighboring booths my "solution" was their "problem". I had simply exacerbated the problem and while my walking tour attendees were happy, others clearly were not. Fortunately for those offended by our volume, we moved quickly, thereby spreading the pain. Others have adopted this electronic solution, too --- I noticed no fewer that a dozen powered microphones on the floor, each trying mightily to drown out the others.

Then, right in the center of the cacophony, I noticed an auditory oasis. The Microsoft booth designers had wisely (and mercifully!) designed their training center to include headphones for each learner! Surrounded by 200 booths and several thousand attendees, all being barked at electronically by vendors trying to get some level of attention, was an open classroom with 20 or so accountants seated classroom style. The instructor stood at a podium and was flanked by twin 42" monitors. Each attendee station included a laptop computer and, much to my ear's delight, a set of headphones. The instructor spoke softly, or at least normally, into a headset and the entire group heard and followed ---- seemingly oblivious to the relentless droning surrounding them. Amazing!

A tip of the hat to Bob Lewis, Microsoft's Senior Marketing Manager for Accounting Professionals, and his people for thinking of their neighbors and implementing some basic technology along with some not-so-common sense. My conversations with those who had participated in these headphone-enabled on-floor CPE sessions revealed that, to a person, they were highly impressed with the variety and quality of Microsoft's offerings.

Reminds me of what Teddy said .... "Walk softly and carry a big stick." ..... er, "Talk softly and carry a supply of headphones!"

gll