Sageworks has released a new ebook entitled Tech Roadmap: Selecting the Ideal Solutions to Thrive in Business Advising. The book brings together Sageworks and 11 of the accounting and business advising industry’s top thought leaders to provide practical strategies to help firms make technology decisions that will propel their growth in today’s environment.

In the book, leading experts in technology, practice management, marketing and firm strategy share their real-world advice for preparing firms to navigate technology choices, determining which technologies are best suited for the challenges facing firms and ensuring the solutions work for a firm. The book also covers strategies to help firms increase their value through the reliance on technology.

“Firms viewing technology as a strategy or asset rather than an expense are working to provide more value to clients, and are, therefore, among the most successful firms and valuable firms,” noted author Mary Ellen Biery of Sageworks. “However, for many accountants and business advisors, technology change can be overwhelming. In this book, we sought to boil down the process of evaluating and choosing new technology to help make it easier.”

The list of sources in this guide reads like a “Who’s Who” in accounting and business advising. Thought leaders such as Greg Lafollette, strategic advisor to CPA.com, caution firms about the tendency to continue to do things the way they’ve always done them. James C. Bourke, WithumSmith+Brown’s technology niche practice leader and director of firm technology, explains that the most successful and profitable firms in the future will be those enhancing areas of their practices related to advisory services. Charles Hylan, a marketing and practice management consultant, coaches readers on how to avoid getting on the “ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim” track when it comes to pulling the trigger on technology investments. Other experts featured include Erik Asgeirsson, L. Gary Boomer, J. Carlton Collins, Rita Keller, Dana “Rick” Richardson, Donny Shimamoto, Doug Sleeter and Brian F. Tankersley.

Tech Roadmap’s three key chapters explain:

• The Groundwork – What needs to happen at a firm before it begins vetting specific technology?
• Addressing Challenges With Technology – What types of technologies should be considered?
• Making Tech Work – How can firms ensure technology is adopted successfully?

Expensify, a developer of expense reporting software, and Bill.com, a business payments company, announced a new strategic partnership at AICPA ENGAGE.

To launch the partnership, the two companies released a major redesign of their integration with features that make life easier for accounting firms and small businesses alike, including document sync between Bill.com, Expensify, and ERP solutions. Both preferred solutions of CPA.com – the technology subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs and a key driver in this partnership – Expensify and Bill.com will bring mutual customers more time savings by augmenting the revamped integration with a focus on advancing industry best practices.

"Our product has evolved a lot since we launched an initial integration with Bill.com way back in 2013, and it was time for a remodel,” says David Barrett, CEO and founder of Expensify. "The partnership is not only an opportunity to improve our integration for accounting firms and SMBs, but it’s also a chance for us to partner with both CPA.com and Bill.com to push the accounting profession in new directions by combining advanced technology with educational resources around best practices. This investment gives accountants a big advantage as they deepen their advisory role with clients.”

The revamped Expensify and Bill.com integration incorporates fellow CPA.com partner solution Intacct into its first iteration, allowing information to flow smoothly between all three systems. The seamless connection keeps clicks to a minimum by automating the proper path to payment for reimbursable expenses, and ensuring that all documentation and receipts populate in the right places along the way.  

“With Bill.com, accounting firms and businesses spend 50% less time approving and paying bills – time that can be invested into more profitable and meaningful activities. The Expensify integration with Bill.com offers an elevated level of efficiency through automatic and accurate syncing. It complements our mission to drastically reduce the time spent on back office processes,” says René Lacerte, CEO and founder of Bill.com.

“CPAs and their clients want to leverage leading accounting technologies that work well together,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA.com. “Whenever possible, we look to influence our partners to prioritize improved integration. This is a great example of how we can work together with our strategic partners to drive value for the profession.”

To learn more about Expensify and Bill.com, check out use.expensify.com/bill-com.

Expensify, which makes expense reporting software, has partnered with Bill.com, which makes payments solutions, to redesign their software integration and add new features.

Among the new features are document sync between Bill.com, Expensify and the various ERP (enterprise resource planning) platform Intacct. In practice, this design is meant to reduce clicks and automatically populate documents in all three software platforms without added manual processes.

The announcement was made at the American Institute of CPAs annual conference being held in Las Vegas from June 11-15. Expensify, Bill.com and Intacct are all preferred solutions of CPA.com, the technology subsidiary of the AICPA.

"Our product has evolved a lot since we launched an initial integration with Bill.com way back in 2013, and it was time for a remodel,” said David Barrett, CEO and founder of Expensify, in a statement. "The partnership is not only an opportunity to improve our integration for accounting firms and SMBs, but it’s also a chance for us to partner with both CPA.com and Bill.com to push the accounting profession in new directions by combining advanced technology with educational resources around best practices. This investment gives accountants a big advantage as they deepen their advisory role with clients.”

Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA.com, added that the association is always seeking to leverage accounting technology companies that work well together. “This is a great example of how we can work together with our strategic partners to drive value for the profession,” he said.

Well folks, it’s that time of year again, though this year the fine people of the American Institute of CPAs and CPA.com have thrown together their very first “Megacon,” and despite focusing on everything from marketing and administration to financial planning, at the core of this 4,000+ attendee event are still the products and services that allow CPAs to run their practices better and work with clients.

What was once simply known among longtime attendees as “PracTech” or the AICPA Practitioners Symposium and Tech + Conference has expanded to Engage: much more than before, with a week full of content and learning for firm marketers, administrators, wealth managers, and financial planners. While we’ll have other content focused on the week’s events, there is a veritable cavalcade of relevant product and services announcements this week that I’d like to get to in App Watch form.

Once again for those unfamiliar, App Watch is our always informative, never paid-for or promotional column focused on the latest, relevant news coming from the application and service provider market. So, outside of the usual array of booth demonstrations and basic “we are here” announcements, we managed to sort through several bits of relevant product and service news to share with you that we hope you find some value in knowing.

We have quite a few to get to, as one would imagine in such a conference, so let’s get to it:

News: Expensify and Bill.com Form Enhanced Integration

Expense reporting software maker Expensify and cloud-based business payments service provider Bill.com have partnered, resulting in a major redesign of their integration with new features, including document sync between Bill.com, Expensify, and ERP solutions. The revamped Expensify and Bill.com integration incorporates fellow CPA.com partner solution Intacct into its first iteration, allowing information to flow between all three systems. The seamless connection keeps clicks to a minimum by automating the proper path to payment for reimbursable expenses, and ensuring that all documentation and receipts populate in the right places along the way.

Views: OK, so this is definitely good to know if your firm is serving more enterprise-level clients, or at least those that would benefit from a more robust cloud accounting package like Intacct. Not that there probably aren’t benefits for users of Bill.com and Expensify, or those that wish to would fall into my category of leading through real-life integration partnerships. Meaning, you did your homework and figured out how to actually work seamlessly in every sense of the word within one application and have the information from the other(s) via your partnership flow together without the need for an API or any extra work on your part. In short, this is how to really win in the cloud, as I’ve mentioned before, by seeing what other cloud apps and services can work well with you and locking in a deal like this.

News: Scalus and TSheets Integration Delivers Time Tracking Within Workflow App

Scalus, a team management and workflow software maker, announced an integration with TSheets to deliver the time-tracking solution embedded directly into the Scalus workflow dashboard for seamless team management. The integration offers customers the ability to track time in TSheets from within the Scalus application and consolidate time spent by team members on specific clients, as well as capture notes as it relates to the billable hour.

Key features of the Scalus integration with TSheets include Scalus workflow automatically pushes time-tracking data to TSheets time tracking; consolidate team, client, and timesheet data with the click of a button; the ability to take breaks within your workflow and instantly sync them to TSheets; and the ability to track time within a single pane in Scalus.

Views: So, Scalus has been around in one form or another for several years but really hit the market as we know it back in 2015. These two had inked a basic integration deal back then (November 2015, to be exact), but apparently it took some time to work out the real integration between their products that they are revealing this week. Hey, you can’t blame them for taking the time to get it right, sp hopefully they did.

Look, workflow and team management issues run deep even in the smallest of firms. If you don’t have a hold on it, you know you’re asking for serious trouble down the road, especially if you want to try to expand your service offerings. Is Scalus necessarily better than what’s out there? Not for me to say, but I’m certain it beats managing your team and workflow in spreadsheets. And again the time-tracking element here could help. Remember, even if you’re looking to go toward a more fixed or value priced model, you still need to have some sense of WIP and the time you and your staff spend on it in order to place a value on that time. These guys are also demoing how it all works together during the conference, so catch ’em if you’re there and see what it’s all about.

News: Doc.It Releases Doc.It Go Mobile App

Doc.It, a provider of document management, workflow, and document storage products for accounting and tax firms, announces the new Doc.It Go, the mobile app engineered to work in conjunction with Doc.It Suite.

Doc.It Go puts the power of Doc.It Suite at your fingertips, allowing workflow to continue while working anywhere at any time using any mobile device. The Doc.It Go app is designed to allow the user instant access to all information stored in Doc.It; track documents; know the status of workflows; collaborate on multiple devices; pass work to a teammate; take and upload pictures into the system; post and retrieve documents from web portal; and send documents via email. The Doc.It Go mobile app is available at Google Play and the Apple AppStore.

Views: First off, it’s good to see these guys are still around and adding to their offerings. Several years back (during PracTech if I recall), they had an official unveiling to the media, analysts, and thought leaders in the space in an attempt to establish some relevance among the myriad of document management solutions at the time. While there isn’t as much fanfare with this announcement, adding some collaborative mobility is always a good thing. Time was when having a mobile app was seen as advanced, and while it’s become more commonplace and expected in today’s business world, there are some very useful features here if you’re sharing documents with a team.

News: AuditFile Introduces Add-In Tool for Microsoft Excel

Cloud-based audit automation solutions provider AuditFile has released AuditFile Report Builder, a free add-in for Excel available in the Microsoft Office Store. The new add-in gives audit professionals greater flexibility in building dynamic financial statements, reports, schedules, and other workpapers by linking directly to relevant data in the AuditFile trial balance tool.

This add-in extends AuditFile’s integration with Microsoft Office and works in Excel 2016 for Mac, Excel 2016 or later, and Excel Online. AuditFile users can add the AuditFile Report Builder from the Add-Ins tab within Excel. In April, AuditFile announced that it joined the Microsoft Cloud Storage Partner Program and released integration with Microsoft Office Online for creating, editing, and managing workpapers within AuditFile’s cloud environment.

The AuditFile Report Builder allows users to connect data from trial balances and leadsheets to Excel to dynamically create custom financial statements and reports, and automatically refresh that data when updates are made in AuditFile. For example, an AuditFile user can easily link a cell in an Excel financial statement or report template to a leadsheet balance, and all journal entries are automatically reflected when real-time updates are made to AuditFile’s trial balance tool.

Views: These guys are working fast to get noticed in the audit space, adding new features every few months in order to benefit CPAs who specifically engage in A&A work. As you know, it’s a very paper-heavy, or rather document-heavy, job and anything that is going to streamline the work you do, particularly with productivity tools you already use (i.e., Microsoft Office, etc.), has to be a good thing.

Thanks for tuning in to this special edition and, as ever, your thoughts and viewpoints are not only welcome, they are encouraged.

As the field of accounting continues to evolve, developing a learning program and fostering a culture of growth will be one of the most important undertakings for future-ready firms, according to a new Checkpoint report from Thomson Reuters.

In Creating a Learning Vision for Your Firm, Thomson Reuters drives home the point that accounting is shifting from a focus on compliance to one that is competitive and more reliant on nontechnical skills.

“Firms are ramping up efforts to attract and retain talented staff, including developing firm-wide curriculum plans to ensure their professionals not only remain CPE compliant but also possess the skills necessary to succeed today – and well into the future,” the report states.

Yet, when it comes to learning and professional development, interestingly enough, it’s not one size fits all.

Many firms are opting for a blended learning approach by using such methods as in-house training, conferences, webinars, and online self-study. Others, looking farther ahead, are placing even more emphasis on soft skills in order to develop well-rounded professionals who are proficient in business development, negotiation, management, supervision leadership, and verbal and written communications.

“You can be brilliant technically, but if you are unable to listen to and understand the client, communicate effectively, and see things from their viewpoint, you are probably going to have a difficult time showing what you know technically and using that ability and knowledge to solve clients’ problems,” Jex Varner, CPA, a consultant with the AuditWatch training and consulting business of Thomson Reuters Checkpoint Learning, said in the report.

And as some practitioners continue to struggle with how to differentiate themselves in today’s competitive environment, the answer, for many firms, is specialization – linking the “learning blueprint,” as Thomson Reuters calls it, with the firm’s business strategy.

“Being proactive in the curriculum offered to professionals can prove successful for those firms that see specialization as a growth opportunity,” the report states.

Firms that overlook the importance of a learning program risk not only losing talented staffers who seek professional growth but also risk losing clients to competitors.

“It is impossible to compete for talent today without having a learning strategy, without having a learning vision,” Varner said. “I think it’s probably one of the more critical things today for a firm to consider.”

Finding and retaining qualified staff continues to be a major challenge for many firms. According to the 2016 American Institute of CPAs Private Companies Practice Section/CPA.com National Management of an Accounting Practice Survey, turnover rates among staffers – particularly at larger firms – grow as the economy improves. The largest firms (annual revenues of $10 million or more) reported seeing median turnover rates of 13.4 percent, up from 12.9 percent in 2014.

Smaller firms in the $750,000 to $10 million range report an average of 8 percent to 9 percent turnover rate. And the smallest firms with no staffers or small numbers of them cite almost no turnover.

So, let’s get back to this culture of growth. It’s pushing firms to create something that will be especially appealing to millennial associates, who want to feel that their work is not only valued but also recognized.

“All generations in the workplace need to learn, develop, share, and teach, but millennials, especially, expect it, and I think that firms are making progress to be responsive to that,” Varner said.

The impact of this tech-savvy generation on a firm’s future and work culture can’t be underestimated. Today, more than one out of every three American workers is a millennial. What’s more, as of the first quarter of 2015, millennials surged past Generation X to take the largest share of the American workforce, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

There’s more fueling this, too.

Millennials thrive on professional growth and feedback – career progression, professional development, and frequent feedback are big. Managerial feedback helps, with 44 percent of millennials reporting that their managers who meet regularly with them are emotionally and behaviorally connected, according to a Gallup report. On the flip side, only 20 percent of millennials who don’t meet regularly with their managers are engaged.

“Potential candidates are increasingly viewing an organization’s professional development offerings, or employee training, as a required element or critical benefit,” said Justin Hummel, senior director of learning solutions with the Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting business. “If firms do not demonstrate the value of investing in employees, it sends a strong signal to any prospect and may push them to a firm that does invest in their employees’ futures.”