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Data backup and recovery are critical responsibilities that every CPA should take seriously. While smaller firms have traditionally backed up to tape or external USB drives, they may be subject to human error or fire, flood or theft. The proliferation of Internet connectivity, less expensive bandwidth and online backup and cloud services has created reliable and cost-effective solutions for backing up firm data securely offsite. The lull after busy season is a good time to evaluate these options and compare them to the firm’s current system.

Inherent Weaknesses

Despite their popularity, backup tapes require manual intervention because someone must remember to physically swap the tapes out and ensure they are regularly moved offsite. Restoring files is often laborious as they can be on multiple tapes that have to be brought back to the firm to be accessed. In addition, many states’ cyber security laws mandate that any files with personally identifiable information be encrypted, which can double the backup time and impede network performance during that time. Finally, the cost of purchasing multiple tapes and the related ongoing labor make other

Did you know you can save on CPE courses through Xcentric?

Xcentric partners with Western CPE, a registered continuing professional education provider, to offer a 20% discount on their entire inventory of CPE products to our clients and friends. Just make sure to click the grey ‘Enter Promotion Code’ button at the bottom of the screen during checkout. Type ‘R88J‘ in the box + click ‘Apply‘ and a 20% discount will be applied to your purchase. Please note, shipping is not eligible for this discount.

Who is Western CPE?

Western CPE is a leader in continuing professional education and strives to deliver quality CPE by providing a unique variety of options, including resort and theme conferences, seminars, webcasts, self-study courses, and in-house training. They offer a broad range of subject areas, including Accounting & Auditing, Computer Applications & Technology, Corporate Finance, Management & HR, Ethics, Government & Nonprofit, Personal Development, Taxation & Financial Planning. Western CPE is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as both a Quality Assurance Service (QAS) sponsor and Registry sponsor of CPE.

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By now, most of us have read about “lean” processes increasing efficiency while reducing waste and six sigma setting the highest standards for quality production, but these terms have mostly been applied towards large scale manufacturing environments. With the advent of paperless technologies being adopted throughout the accounting profession, and in particular, today’s digital workflow tools that move tax documents like production inventory, the opportunity to utilize the best of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) tools and processes within an accounting firm is a reality that will have a significant impact on improving a firm’s bottom line.

The focus of Lean Six Sigma is to improve processes while reducing variation, with an emphasis on those steps that add value from our clients’ perspective. Lean Six Sigma provides a highly disciplined approach and toolset that can quantify and monitor virtually any process in numerical terms, which is a concept that accountants can really relate to. Since the April 15 deadline has just passed, firms have a fresh memory of their current tax production processes and should consider looking at them through a

Any time there is a change/shift in technology people get tense. This is totally justified; IT is an essential aspect in today’s CPA firm and how it meets the need of their clients. Thus, moving to the cloud can seem daunting since it touches both technology and people.

The reality of the situation is this: a CPA firm has on average 70 or so unique applications, likely hundreds of GBs of data, and nuances galore. There is no way to move a firm to the cloud without an ever-evolving, ever-improving process managed by outside experts.

Xcentric performs a cutover on an almost weekly basis throughout the (non-tax season) year. It’s what we do and can be compared to a decent-big size audit done by one of our clients. We take our firms’ transition to the cloud very seriously.  So much so that we have a whole team dedicated to managing the process.

We have several upcoming webinars that we would like to draw to your attention.  Follow the “Register here” links below to sign up for the webinars.  We hope you can join us!

A Sit-down with the CEO: The Cloud and Its Relevance to the Profession- June 19 @ 2pm ET

Join us for a sit-down with Xcentric’s CEO Trey James who will share insights into key trends within the accounting profession and highlight the state of technology within the profession as it relates to the plans of CPA-specific software vendors, adoption of cloud computing, and the roadmap for Xcentric Cloud.

Register here.  This webinar is open to everyone and is specifically designed for those wanting to get to know Xcentric better!

Intro to IT Governance for Accounting Firms- July 12 @ 2pm ET

So many of us, myself included, make the mistake of talking more about the WHAT versus the WHY of technology (and life for that matter).

The ‘what’ inherently deals with the new, shiny fads of the day.

The ‘why’ is forced to deal with the deeper, relevant, timeless questions.  It’s just what ‘why’ does; it gets to the value behind the ‘what’.

When talking about technology, conversation almost always steers towards the latest device or application – or what I am referring to here as the ‘what’. While this is fun, hyper-relevant, and feel good, it does very little by way of answering the questions leaders have with regards to the impact technology can make on a business. We can talk about the ‘what’ until we are blue in the face and make no positive impact on the bottom line, actually it will likely have the reverse effect. The ‘what’ de’jour is what riddles our IT committee meetings.

Technology, supply of labor and a shift in traditional attitudes have dramatically impacted accounting firms and, importantly, the roles people play at all levels.

Accounting firms do more with less, meaning at all levels accountants do varied things from varied locations. People do their work from home, the office, client sites and the coffee shop.

The new world of a flat accounting firm, along with a rapidly changing business climate, punishes fixed skills and rewards flexible ones. What those in accounting firms do stretches across functional boundaries including client service, sales, project management and workflow, driven almost exclusively with technology.

With all the talk of the cloud it seems that the workstations no longer get any attention. While I can understand why the cloud gets the weight of the attention, I can’t understand how businesses ignore the workstations. You have heard the ‘weakest link in the chain’ adage and this holds true in cloud environments too. The workstation is still the chief tool in using your cloud applications (with the internet being the life blood), and the whole solution is either complemented or compromised by the strategy behind workstation management.

So what are ‘Managed Workstations’?

It’s an approach to managing multiple workstations from a single platform capable to keeping patches, anti-virus, anti-malware, and more up to date in a way that is neither dependent on the end user  nor obtrusive.

The Computer is the Target – Not the Cloud

Hackers are smart. They have realized that by and large cloud computing has increased the level of network security available to businesses so they have turned to the workstation for the path of least resistance. It is much easier to target the workstation, compromise it,

Many practitioners and partners experience a seminal moment as they move towards 50, or shortly thereafter, where the following 4 major shifts occur:

1) You realize your time on earth is finite! That is, you have had many successes, made many mistakes and for someone who ‘feels’ their time is finite you know there are some things that have to change! The sense of urgency you have been waiting for (or avoiding) has finally arrived, don’t let it go to waste! Take a step back and make sure your priorities are in line with the things you value most.  If they’re not, now is the time to do something about it.

2) You have not made enough money. For the hours, stress and risk you have endured, you think you would be making more money. You have held onto that underperforming team member too long, held on to too many small clients, a good client went bankrupt or it always seemed like this year was going to be your breakthrough year. Did not happen.  Don’t let that stop you this year;