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How accountants are taking up the mobile cloud

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10th Sep 2014
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The cloud is all around and most people are already using it for online banking, shopping and media storage – and not thinking twice about it.

Having transformed our lives as consumers, business people are adapting many mobile-based tools for work, without even thinking about it. And where clients lead, accountants inevitably follow.

Mobile cloud adoption within accountancy practice

This article will review the pros and cons of mobile working within accountancy, but since the shift is already under way, it will also look at how mobile tools are being used, and by whom, within the profession.

AccountingWEB mobile traffic 2010-14At the recent ICAEW annual practice conference, I presented a talk on how mobile technology was taking hold within the profession. The starting point for this talk was a chart showing the proportion of user traffic coming to AccountingWEB on mobile phones and tablets during the past four years (see right).

The last time we saw a graph like this was around four years ago when our Software Satisfaction survey data showed cloud accounting applications taking off in a similar fashion.

Cloud pros and cons

  • Security - This always crops up as a concern with cloud services. And the exposure of naked celebrity photos allegedly hacked from iCloud reminded us why last week. But when you dig into the realities, industrial strength service providers are usually better at data storage, back-ups and disaster recovery than most accountancy firms. Professionals need to be aware of their data protection obligations and to take appropriate precautions (such as encrypting personal data) before posting it to consumer services like DropBox.
     
  • The cloud is more than just online bookkeeping - Many accountants still see the cloud as a vehicle for cheaper, simpler online bookkeeping. But it can be much more than that, and provide a collaborative platform to serve and support your clients on mobile devices while you both are out and about. Many of the firms shortlisted for Practice Excellence Awards in recent years have been providing virtual management accounting services alongside cloud accounts. In 2013 the percentage of delegates at our Practice Excellence Conference doing this was around 5%; last week at the ICAEW event, it was closer to 20%. Online portals designed for professional use neutralise many of the security issues around financial and personal data. Most of them will offer some kind of electronic authorisations and, even better, they do away with the need to email documents or data files back and forth.
     
  • Collaborative environments - Google+ Hangouts, WebEx, GoToMeeting are all very useful systems for holding online meetings, or delivering presentations, training or IT support.
     
  • Communication aids - The prospect of 24/7 connectivity with clients may frighten many accountants, but being able to cater for their needs at any time frees your working life from both time and location constraints. Tablet computers are also a convenient and persuasive tool for presenting financial data and reports.
     
  • Social media - LinkedIn, Twitter and AccountingWEB.co.uk are great for collecting professional information, job hunting/recruitment, PR and new business development. One good trick is to set up a permanent Twitter alert for any mentions of “tax return” during self assessment season, and follow up with tweets offering to help distressed taxpayers.
     
  • “There’s an app for that” - A new truism for modern life. If you have thought it might be nice to automate some little task, someone else somewhere has also probably already done so – and turned it into an app. HMRC encouraged this trend with is support for mobile record-keeping apps to support the SME cash accounting regime. Adopting these tools might make it possible to retain such clients and serve them at a lower cost. Mobiles are ideal for tasks like expenses reporting or completing timesheets, where capturing data at the earliest possible time will improve the accuracy of the data collected.
     
  • Some tasks may not be suited to mobile use - It is theoretically possible to prepare a set of statutory accounts, or complete and file a tax return using a mobile device or tablet. You could even construct a spreadsheet forecast, but for speed and efficiency many people still prefer using traditional desktop tools - with good reason.
     
  • Technology turf wars - While mobile platforms offer so many new possibilities, they haven’t taken away the tech industry’s territorial tendencies. Every supplier still wants to take command of your entire life. There’s a three-way fight going on between Microsoft, Google and Apple to become the universal platform for mobile computing, and they will continue to battle it out on every desktop, tablet and smartphone. Unless you make informed choices about the tools you use, you could find that you spend more time synching and transferring data switching between disconnected applications and devices.
     
  • Return on investment (ROI) – Because cloud services are based on open-ended subscriptions, it can be difficult to calculate the returns you are getting back. It’s also cheap to sign up for services, but once you start growing and adding new features the costs can mount. As a simple rule of thumb, take a three-year view and compare your previous three years’ technology costs (not forgetting hardware and training) to suppliers’ quotes for what you would have to pay if you met your growth targets in the next three years.
     
  • Are we there yet? - For the past year or so, we’ve been waiting for the arrival of the cloud-based practice in a box. There are some early contenders such as Capium and Nomisma, who are in a race with industry giants like Sage and Xero. But neither side looks likely to deliver a complete, viable all-in-one package ready in time for January’s tax season. Maybe next year?

Who’s using the mobile cloud and how?

Mobile cloud tools don’t just increase flexibility, they can also reduce the cost of entry to practice. There’s less need for a physical office - or filing space. You don’t even a landline and could be up and and running in a matter of days with existing home PCs and smartphones.

In the past few years, AccountingWEB has identified several sub-groups that are embracing these technologies within the profession. You might recognise some of them.

  • Solo tech pioneers - Since AccountingWEB’s IT Zone first kicked into life at the turn of the millennium, we’ve been accompanied along our journey by a group of Baby Boomer tech enthusiasts. They represent roughly 10% of the AccountingWEB population and probably cut their teeth on BBC, Sinclair and Commodore micros. Taking up accounting on PCs and Windows was a natural move for them. They are still keen to adopt the latest tech, whether or not it delivers any benefits to their business.
     
  • Generation X Efficiency Ninjas - In the past few years we’ve seen a wave of fast growing firms run by people who are adapting all the available tools and using them to streamline processes to support flexible, online teams. Often they are women who have had children and turned their back on the more traditional firms they left behind. At the ICAEW event Alcore Global Solutions told us about a sub-categorgy of this group, who specialise more in business development and advice, but pass on all the compliance work to an organisation like Alcore Global outsourcing. “They may be qualified, but that’s secondary to their business model. We call them entrepreneurial accountants,” said Alcore business development director Rob Jackson.
     
  • The distributed firm - During a presentation at the ICAEW practice conference on the latest offerings from Microsoft Offic365, Martyn White from Techquarters described how a number of larger firms had taken a different tack into the cloud, by bringing in the IT services group to provide all of their tech infrastructure, including Microsoft Windows Mobile phones. This set-up lets firms continue running their normal applications from online servers, and use and edit the Word and Excel documents they’re familiar with.
     
  • Digital Commando - In our recent What kind of accountant are you? quiz with CCH roughly 10% of respondents identified themselves very with mobile technology use. These are the Millennial equivalents of our Baby Boomer tech enthusiasts. Some of them are taking advantage of all the available tools to set up on their own.

The surge in young, independent practitioners has provoked considerable debate and no small backlash on the pages of AccountingWEB. But this surge wouldn’t be happening unless there were businesspeople who wanted to take them on as their accountants. The Apprentice generation wants advisers who are just as tech-savvy and switched on as they are, and will happily turn to their financially minded mates for accountancy advice.

This may be the ultimate digital revolution horror story for older accountants, but the same pattern holds across all the strata of mobile cloud users. As has happened in accountancy through the ages, clients often end up using accountants with similar social profiles and business habits to themselves. 

Replies (12)

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By Sheepy306
11th Sep 2014 09:32

Balance
Interesting article and some balanced comments, thank you.

I've had a few start-up clients recently who've not wanted to fork out the expense for Sage so are tempted by say £10pm for online accounts software, then they realise that's £360 over 3 years.
They then turn to VT !

As with all things, a balanced and overall view is required. I do dind the whole vague 'cloud' tag a bit confusing, especially when articles include social media as part of the cloud.

Thanks (1)
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By Albasas
11th Sep 2014 12:58

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meeting All's Expectations

I built my own Linux practice cloud based NAS system expandable to 16TB. No security worries either. Can download client's files anywhere in the world or file share,with wi-fi access. Obviously I've got mixed feelings about that when on holiday- you can end up working without thinking, but the pros outweigh the cons here. For good measure, with disaster recovery uppermost in my mind etc, I added to the system the very misunderstood Seagate 3TB NAS Go Flex drive product, great for streaming video course material etc. This product is a great entry level for small practices looking to get involved with cloud accounting that they can trust and indeed monitor access too.  It beats, Dropbox, Google Drive etc hands down. Once that is full I'll just copy what I need over to the Linux NAS.  The only problem has been the number of apps out there on the market available to clients and compatibility issues especially with iphones and other Apple products. Android wins every time as far as I'm concerned here. A lot of this is client driven. Most of them look for problems which don't exist with apps it all seems too good to be true doing your books on the hoof, scanning documents etc. As an Accountant all I see is opportunity and better book-keeping compliance. It also works very well with old fashioned email attachments excel spreadsheets etc. A win-win.    

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By johnjenkins
11th Sep 2014 16:50

For me

all the "high tec" stuff gets changed too quick. I don't like cloud nor do I think it will be the future. Most humans are not capable of handling this much tec in such a short space of time. So let's consolidate for a few years, iron out the bugs else we will have a society of high teccies and low teccies with no middle ground - not good.

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Replying to Kakyluc:
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By chatman
11th Sep 2014 18:22

High-tech fashion

johnjenkins wrote:

all the "high tec" stuff gets changed too quick. I don't like cloud nor do I think it will be the future. Most humans are not capable of handling this much tec in such a short space of time. So let's consolidate for a few years, iron out the bugs else we will have a society of high teccies and low teccies with no middle ground - not good.

I feel the same about computers.

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By johnjenkins
12th Sep 2014 10:16

@chatman

How long has it taken most of us to be fairly comfortable with them? HMRC have only just started using e-mails. Suddenly we have this all singing and all dancing technology and what happens, nude photos get nicked. Does put it in a bit of perspective.

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Replying to Payrollgal:
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By chatman
12th Sep 2014 10:30

@johnjenkins

johnjenkins wrote:
nude photos get nicked

You should have been more careful with them.

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By johnjenkins
15th Sep 2014 10:33

I wouldn't have

minded so much if they hadn't sent them back to me with a note saying the photos might have degraded their "cloud cred".

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By chatman
15th Sep 2014 10:35

@johnjenkins - LOL

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By lordlancaster
17th Sep 2014 22:45

Good read!

Great article John, thanks for writing it. I enjoyed reading this!

Paul Lancaster
Sage One UK & Ireland
http://uk.sageone.com/blog/

 

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By Karen Bennett
19th Sep 2014 16:44

Good points

Great article we use google hangouts, webex, gotomeeting, google drive. All very good ways of communicating effecively internally and externally. 

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By [email protected]
26th Sep 2014 16:18

More than just online bookkeeping

Great read and some brilliant titles! Generation X Efficiency Ninjas indeed.. True though, so much emphasis is placed on cloud based book keeping, but the facts are you can now use standard products and apps like office 365, cloud CRM systems and document portals to access all the documents you need wherever you are. The best side benefit is I can magnify the view and not have to scrabble about for a pair of mislaid reading glasses.

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By Rococo
28th Sep 2014 22:46

Shellshock

Albasas - you might want to review that comment about "no security worries" with your Linux-based NAS drive in the light of the revelations about the "shellshock" vulnerability. I suggest anyone using a remotely-accessible NAS device checks with the manufacturer to see if there is a problem or not. If there is any doubt I would turn off remote access at least for now as I gather hackers are actively scanning for this flaw.

In any case you would need to keep the NAS unit's o/s up to date as there are other security vulnerabilities on many of these units (eg Synology) that have come to light in recent months . Anyone using these units , especially when opened up directly for remote access, needs to keep a watch out for relevant security vulnerabilities or they will get hacked.

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