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AIA

Tax & accounting software performance matters

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25th Dec 2005
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CDs

Simon Turner, Group Development Director at IRIS, explains what it means to take an integrated approach towards managing client data.

In the same way that accountancy terminology is often like an alien language to many of your clients, software terminology may well be confusing to you and worse still, this could result in you making a poor investment for your practice.

We are often asked: "What's the difference between 'true integration' and 'connectivity'? How much difference does it really make?"

A useful analogy is the impact that a car's engine can have on its performance, so your first choice is to decide whether performance matters to you. True integration can make a considerable difference to your staff and overall practice productivity but this will be best achieved where your applications sit on one single central database. The fact is that your software will never be truly integrated if in reality this has been achieved by only the "connectivity" of various applications, linked together, but residing on multiple databases or manually linked by yourselves via file transfer.

Taking this a step further, it may help to understand that there are three fundamental tiers on which interaction can occur: (i) at the presentation level where applications are brought together by portals, (ii) at the process level where applications can be made to communicate and interact and (iii) at the data level. It is only at the data level that true integration will be achieved because this eliminates the need to duplicate data entry and removes the risk of the integrity of the data being damaged. This data integrity is obviously essential when you are dealing with your client's financials or you run a far greater risk of having conflicting data in different parts of your system.

It may help to imagine a 'sliding scale of interaction' with true integration ' the close co-operation of one or more systems ' at the far end of the scale and with numerous unconnected systems at the other extreme. 'Connectivity', or 'best of breed', achieved through two or more systems exchanging information in a loosely coupled way, will sit somewhere between these two extremes.

A fully integrated solution will have literally been built from the ground up: a suite of software applications that incorporates an integrated data model that supports and streamlines critical business applications effectively reducing the manual effort required to achieve them. Every piece of work undertaken by the practice is marshalled and managed by the integrated system at the heart of the practice.

So what are the practical advantages? For those that use an integrated system, the advantages quickly become obvious as central core data, such as client details, only need to be updated once. A change in a client's details (e.g. a change of director) in one application is immediately reflected in all others that are affected by it (Statutory Accounts/CT600/s.288).

Productivity gains can come from unexpected areas, with an integrated view of the practice's activities and partners/managers/staff no longer having to call for files before taking client phone calls. They can be confident that the screens at their disposal will provide all the information they require, including the stage the job is at, WIP balances and explanations of what tax the client will have to pay and why.

Conversely, the 'connectivity' scenario may result in a delay to changes being made which can result in two entirely different views of the same client being presented to the user. This can be temporary or in some cases, but permanent if a link becomes severed. The only way of knowing if this has occurred is when errors start to creep in.

Integration will continue to evolve still further in the years to come. Many new technologies are being introduced that will further streamline business processes. These integration technologies will not only reduce the effort required to achieve efficiency gains but will also automate many of the manual procedures allowing a practice to be "managed by exception". This will reduce errors and further increase efficiency. Given the increasing emergence of the Internet, it is possible to see how this level of integration can start to be applied to two co-operating but disparate systems interacting in what is becoming known as a "seamless computing" environment. This will allow a practice to start to offer productivity gains to their clients as well.

Benefits can be divided into two key categories:

  • Productivity benefits ' reduced costs and improved service
  • Strategic benefits ' improved marketing to clients and prospects

Having decided what your individual business priorities are and what you want to achieve, find out whether your short-list of suppliers all share your vision of how your practice works, both now and in the future. Don't be afraid to ask about the company background and their future strategies and vision.

The best advice we can offer is to look for a supplier who adopts a simple approach at every layer and by doing so, the risks of the system failing are minimised.

Ultimately, practices that adopt true integration are those who benefit from an invisible 'backbone' that enables them to manage their business more effectively.

Simon Turner
Group Development Director - IRIS
IRIS

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