Tech-wise accountants save big bucks for business
War stories from around the nation show the power of updating even the most time-honored office processes.

By Rick Telberg
HP/CPA Tech Advisor
Special for Hewlett-Packard
News and Trends Exclusively for CPAs from Hewlett-Packard

Progressive accountants from all corners of the nation are establishing new beachheads in technology.

From Houston, to New York, to Charleston, S.C., stories and case studies are emerging of huge new efficiencies, newly impressed clients and management teams, and significant savings in time and money.

In Houston, for instance, AD Systems, an electronic systems contractor, needed a reliable, crash-free hardware platform and an integrated front- and back-office solution. Company principal Chad Modad decided on a combined Hewlett-Packard/NetSuite solution, according to a case study supplied by NetSuite.

"Using HP and NetSuite in tandem is a pretty good deal all around," said Modad. "HP provides an excellent IT platform, and running on that platform is a very powerful software package in NetSuite."

With the new hardware and software in place, system down time has been cut by three days per month, plus $5,000 in maintenance costs and replacement parts. The new NetSuite software identified $40,000 in revenue lost due to inoperability of previous accounting and inventory control systems, NetSuite said.


Information Management Challenges and Solutions
With offices through the New York City metro area, J.H. Cohn & Co. is one of the largest CPA firms in the region. And being far-flung, it has its own information management challenges.

Under the watchful eye of David Giannetto, enterprise performance practice leader, Cohn deployed a firm-wide performance management system based on a Balanced Scorecard framework.

Two main criteria were established: (1) make critical financial, client, and staff data instantly available to the firm's management, including partners-in-charge in various practice areas, and (2) create a tool to help each partner make timely, better and more informed decisions about their practice areas and engagements, according to Giannetto.

The solution involved integrating data from the firm's time and billing system, accounting application, and budgeting spreadsheets into a business intelligence application with an underlying data warehouse.

Now performance management metrics — such as billing, collections, accounts receivable management and overall financial performance — are focusing partners-in-charge on processes that impact profits, according to Giannetto.

On the client side, J.H. Cohn's experience came in handy in Jersey City, N.J., where executives at the property management division of Wilshire Enterprises were throwing up their hands in frustration looking for important papers and documents.

J.H. Cohn built a centralized repository or "virtual file room" for storing and retrieving all firm-wide electronic and paper documents.

But don't call it a paperless office. "You often hear about document management as a bridge to a 'paperless' age that will remove paper and printers from the office." said Adam Kupperman, director of document management services at Cohn. "None of this is true."

Systems are customized to the industry and the business, according to Kupperman. They can be managed internally or outsourced. For example, indexing can be done by client name for an accounting firm or project name for an engineering firm. A simple search can be used to find a client or project name even if the spelling is off.


A System That "Wow's" New Clients
In Charleston, S.C., Pratt-Thomas, Gumb & Co., a firm of 63 people and one of the largest in the area, decided it was time to go "paperless," or as close to it as they could get.

The firm was already buckling under the weight of 10 years of accumulated files in 2001 when the litigation service group started to take off.

"Litigation deals with a tremendous amount of documents," according to Barry Gumb, partner in charge of the litigation group. "Access to key documents is critical and our old system was not always able to give us the access we needed."

"With our old paper filing system, we were out of control," stated Harold Pratt-Thomas, a senior partner. "We were not able to access client files on a consistent timely basis. Often, client files were in individual staff offices. If the staff person was out, there was no way that anyone else in the firm could gain access to the client's file. We were spending around 4 to 5 administrative hours per day just looking for files. This was making it difficult to give our clients the kind of service they deserved."

The firm finally settled on a solution pioneered by CPA firm Habif Arogeti & Wynn of Atlanta. The system was ready for the 2002 busy season.

Today the system is helping the firm get to the next level in client service. "Now, when a client calls, I can have any of their documents in front of me almost instantaneously. According to partner Rudy Thomas, "If I need to get it to them or their bankers, or have a discussion regarding a document over the phone, it is a simple matter of e-mailing it and we discuss the document."

The firm is looking for a conservative three-year payback on their investment although the actual payback may come sooner. They are already saving approximately $50,000 per year in rent by eliminating the file room. Add in the opportunity cost since they can now fill that space with seven chargeable people and the bottom line result is even greater. The firm has also reduced their photocopying and paper costs by a third and is saving $3.00 on each client folder it no longer uses.