Every CPA firm, no matter its size, can benefit from a document management system. As the industry increases its overall use of technology, firms that choose not to embrace electronic document management technologies risk falling behind nearby competitors in terms of productivity, operating costs and client service. The challenge is to find the system that will best meet the firm’s current needs, implement the right processes around that system and accommodate for future growth.

With more and more software being delivered over the web, firms now have two options to consider: do it and maintain it yourself or turn the job over to an outside provider. The primary goal is to have the best document management technology that meets the firm’s requirements at a reasonable cost. For many years, cost has been the problem. For a large firm, costs can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The true total cost of ownership for an internal system typically includes effort and costs that are apparent upfront, such as PC upgrades, additional IT staffing, recurring upgrading of both hardware and software, downtime and additional security and firewall infrastructures.

Most CPA firms excel at providing outstanding client service and growing revenue, not deploying new technologies. So, what are accounting firms to do? One alternative to creating and managing your own system is to partner with a document management service provider.

Here, the challenge is to pick a service provider that’s best for your firm. Once you have implemented a particular provider’s document management service, it can be time consuming and costly to make another change. So, it’s important to do it right the first time.

Ideally, you should seek a company with an in-depth understanding of how accounting firms operate. Going with a provider that already understands your business flattens the learning curve and reduces the likelihood of serious procedural errors. So, a logical first step is to talk with other accounting firms that are using web-hosted services and get their feedback. Then, you can copy their successes and avoid their mistakes.

By going with an outside service, your firm can avoid the high costs of recruiting, training and maintaining a technical staff and continually upgrading hardware and software. So, it’s important to make sure the provider has reliable technical and user support in place.

Your firm has probably also invested in various accounting applications, so be sure the document management service will integrate smoothly with your firm’s existing systems, and keep in mind that you may change some of those systems in the future. Lack of integration can lead to the re-keying of information and other drags on productivity. From a technology perspective, reliable and redundant Internet connectivity (i.e., T1, Cable) is critical.

Do your homework. Ask for references and make sure the provider can deliver on all promises. Check the service provider’s business credentials and ensure that it is a stable company with several years of experience under its belt.

Once your firm has made the commitment to upgrade its document management technology via an Internet-hosted service and has selected a reliable provider, it’s important to invest considerable thought into planning the move. A web-hosted service can be up and running in as little as a week or two, without a major disruption; but to accomplish this kind of smooth transition, you need to first examine your current processes to understand the source of documents, how they are being created, routed and ultimately stored and to determine what changes can improve workflow.

File folders can contain documents from a variety of
sources – hard-copy documents, spreadsheets, internally generated correspondence and emails, as well as documents generated by accounting packages. The document management service must be able to capture all of these documents regardless of their source. After capture, the documents should also be organized or indexed and filed to the appropriate folder. Above all, to achieve maximum productivity gains, each of the stored files should be available via a single user interface.

Security is an obvious concern and key issue. Complete security means security at both the user and provider ends. To ensure business continuity, the provider should store your electronic documents in a secure, off-site location, with multiple layers of physical and electronic security. At the user end, access should require user name and password authentication as well as encryption, typically 128-bit SSL encryption.

Finally, if your staff cannot master the system quickly and easily, they won’t use it. The best systems are intuitive, with easy-to-use browser interfaces that require minimal training. Some mirror the way people actually work, enabling users to access files from a virtual file room, with virtual file cabinets and file folders. Such graphics simplify the transition from paper to paperless. Besides being simple to operate, the system should also be easily accessible from remote locations – home offices, branch offices, even customer and supplier locations.

Document management is not cheap or easy, but the gains in productivity can be enormous, and that’s the real goal: to be better, faster, more efficient and more productive than your competition. That means taking the time to plan workflow strategy, develop an appropriate indexing system, ask all the right questions and select a qualified service provider. Your reward is an office that works more cost effectively because all of the documentation is readily accessible via electronic files – and not piled up on desktops or packed in file cabinets.

About the Author
Joe Harpaz is vice president of business development at Immediatech Corporation/GoFileRoom, part of Thomson RIA.

Top