Research Center >> July 2009

Journal of Accountancy Publishes ‘The Paperless Age’
Top industry executives speak out on tech trends for accountants.
by Rick Telberg/For the CPA Channel Marketer
AICPA Custom Media Solutions

In this month’s edition of the Journal of Accountancy, seven of the industry’s top executives share their perspectives and predictions on paperless technology trends in the tax and accounting profession.

Each of them makes compelling arguments for CPAs to invest and re-invest in technology as a key factor in growth and profitability. The Journal of Accountancy provided them the forum in a Q&A format to share their views in a special advertising supplement.

The deadline is fast approaching for the next special supplement, this one on payroll and HR solutions, to be published in the September issue. Meanwhile, here are a few excerpts from July’s Special Industry Report, “The Paperless Age.”

Roger Mongeon, VP, Doc.It:
What do CPAs sometimes overlook in going paperless?
In the rush to go paperless, many firms fail to consider the liabilities and ramifications for not addressing how electronic files are published and archived. Some may prematurely stop printing or publishing their final files on paper or in a PDF. At best, some firms do still publish tax returns or financial statements to a PDF, but these don’t make up the entire accountant or client file.
Continued

Michael Alter, CEO, SurePayroll:
When SurePayroll started the first full-service online payroll service in 2000, it was a fairly radical concept, wasn’t it?
To us, making payroll paperless is a natural, first step toward a paper-free office. Our strategy was to buck tradition and create a 100 percent online Software as a Service (SaaS) payroll alternative offering a robust service level and tax management without the need for customer service reps. With online payroll entry, making changes online, paperless reporting, electronic paystubs and online W2s and 1099s, there’s no need for our customers to print, fax or store any paper.
Continued

Mark Albrecht, founder, XCM:
Why now? What are the economic and business drivers causing CPAs to consider “paperless” solutions today?
I’d flip that question around to ask CPAs why not now? Everything points to why CPAs should adopt paperless practices and the current economic climate and business environment simply heighten the need to adapt more quickly. Pressing reasons CPAs should consider paperless solutions, in addition to cost and time-savings, are:

Continued

Scott Francis, VP, Fujitsu:
How much money can going “paperless” make or save for an accounting firm?
To really understand the need and not to mention value, of going paperless organizations should start with quantifying their business operation and production process. Only then will they understand the costly labor of production — the time wasted by organizing and searching for documents, the costs associated with faxing, shipping and storage of paper files. Furthermore, they should determine if there have been customer service issues due to lost or illegible documents, which can undoubtedly incur additional costs and time.
Continued

Mike Braun, CEO, Intacct:
What are the economic and business drivers causing CPAs to consider “paperless” solutions today?
The business drivers for firms adopting cloud computing and Intacct are their desire to improve productivity, increase profitability and provide better, higher value services to their clients. As to why now, it is only in the last few years that cloud accounting has become a viable solution — this required broadband Internet access to become ubiquitous, firms and clients to get used to the idea of transacting on the Internet and the applications themselves to mature to the point they are as good as or better than the old on-premises software alternatives. Both firm and client can now work on the same, shared, up-to-the-minute financial information. And, not only is there no paper, there is also no software or hardware to deploy or maintain and you only pay for what you actually use.
Continued

Rene Lacerte, CEO/Founder, Bill.com:
Why are some many CPAs going “paperless?”
The profession is always evolving and firms are now realizing that they cannot rely on write-up and tax work alone. They need to become a value-added resource during all day-to-day operations. Exchanging bills and contracts in a shoebox and printing and exchanging checks with clients is inefficient, non-scalable and risky. The only solution is to go paperless and do it in such a way that the client can take much of the burden and not just transfer the paper madness to the firm.
Continued

Mike Sabbatis, President, CCH:
How much money can going “paperless” make or save for an accounting firm?
This is an important question and requires firm leadership to take an active role. The technology exists today in the CCH and ProSystem suite of products and many firms are already experiencing levels of productivity unheard of earlier this decade. Savings come from across the firm. There are administrative staff savings, since they no longer have to photocopy client-source files, manually sort them, file the documents or search for them when they’re inevitably misplaced. Files don’t have to be moved from one level of storage to another and then be eventually destroyed.
Continued

More for CPA Channel Marketers by Rick Telberg:

RICK TELBERG is president of Bay Street Group LLC, which provides research and marketing and communications services to CPA firms and the vendors who serve them. He is the founding editor of the Insider newsletters and serves as AICPA Editor at Large and Director of Online Content. In his two decades in media and marketing for the finance, tax and accounting industries, Telberg has played pivotal roles in the development and operation of the leading media and e-commerce outlets in the business, including Accounting Today, The Practical Accountant, Accounting Technology, WebCPA.com, SmartPros.com, and CPA2Biz.com. Contact Rick at rtelberg@baystreetgroup.com or (914) 674-4531. He blogs at cpatrendlines.com.

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