After years of deferred spending amid vast technological changes, finance and accounting professionals are revving their IT engines once again.
By Rick Telberg
Special for HP
HP/CPA Tech Advisor
News and Trends Exclusively for CPAs from HP
Finance and accounting professionals appear to be in the forefront of a new surge in technology upgrades and advancements as they reach for increased productivity and profits.
Overall, 3 in 5 professionals surveyed say they will be spending more on new hardware and software over the next 12 to 18 months. That's at least as good, or better, than the rate for small- and medium-sized businesses in general.
Overall, small- and medium-sized businesses will increase their IT spending by 6.6 percent this year over 2003, according to the latest research from Forrester, nearly four times faster than the anticipated 1.7 percent rate forecast for larger companies.
When asked in one study, what's "essential" to business success this year, tax and accounting professionals told the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants:
1. Assuring security and privacy for ourselves and our customers: 77%
2. Getting the most return out of our present systems: 52%
3. Disaster/backup planning and recovery: 52%
4. Upgrading to keep abreast or to go to the next step: 47%
5. Communications and messaging (i.e.: email, spam, IM's, voicemail, online meetings): 47%
6. Streamlining document management (the "paperless" office): 34%
7. Customer relationship management and data mining: 30%
8. Mobility/portability (i.e.: going "wireless," virtual office, working from anywhere): 28%
9. Integrating diverse databases and applications: 25%
10. Business exchange technology (i.e.: online transaction, EDI, XBRL): 10%
So much for the high-level strategy. But what are they REALLY buying? Those answers are slightly different.
Here's the top 10:
1. Software: 88%
2. Desktop computers: 78%
3. Printers and imaging equipment: 71%
4. Notebook and laptop computers: 69%
5. Storage devices (i.e.: CD burners, tape backups, etc.): 61%
6. Servers 57%
7. Networking systems: 57%
8. Peripherals and accessories: 51%
9. Telcom equipment: 33%
10. Handhelds (PCs and PDAs): 28%
Many finance and accounting professionals clearly sense a new urgency in moving forward with technology investments.
While concerned about coming 64-bit technology and its effect on possibly obsolescing older systems, CPA David W. Serfass, owner of his own small firm in Bethlehem, Pa., plans on investing in a new file server this year, adding work stations, upgrading printers and moving toward a more paperless office.
Stu Grant, who also runs his own local firm, this time in Virginia Beach, Va., is looking to build in backup power and memory systems for all his office's PCs and adding faster hard drives to keep pace with software advances.
And some are also feeling the heat of new regulatory requirements.
Richard Connelly, a senior executive at a mid-sized business in Fairview, Texas, said, for example, "Security is the primary reason for our increase in IT spending. Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and Gramm-Leach-Blilely are requiring us to take a more proactive approach to network vulnerabilities."
The reasons are many; but the effects are the same: Finance and accounting professionals are clearly gearing up for a new round of IT spending. No one, it seems, can afford to be left behind.
