My wife is pushing her boss to try and go paperless. She asked me if I knew anything about them. I do not but offered to ask the board. She said that was a good idea.
Which client portal would you recommend for a CPA?
(I have no idea what a client portal is)
I won't be able to answer your question, because I don't know crap about CPA's, and very little about client portals.
I am curious, however, what is driving the decision? What is the reason she would like him to go paperless?
The only thing I can share is that I have found in my (very small) transport business, paperless is no where as easy as it sounds. Security, integrity of data, access, ease of use, requirements of various agencies (both uploading data to, and later reporting on), long term data storage and integrity, etc. etc. etc.
It sounded great until I started pursuing it, and have now found it to be significantly harder than with paper.
It's essentially mandatory with a large business, and virtually impossible (or at least completely cost prohibitive) for a very small business. Medium sized businesses, not so sure.
What I have learned is that paperless is often a good way to employ tech people (who cost more than clerks) and spend a lot of money, while simultaneously creating a system that no one inside of the business is capable of fixing or managing.
In reply to SVreX:
As far as I know it's a monkey see monkey do situation. Her boss asked her to come up with some ideas on how to grow the business. She did some recon work on other local company's and all of them are doing this.
Hmm... OK.
Did she ask the other local companies what they are using and what the pros and cons are?
I suggested she poll her existing clients to see if it's something they would even want. I mean it wouldn't make much since if only 15% would even use it.
Yeah, that's worth knowing.
I use my current accountant because he DOESN'T use any modern new-fangled gadgets or fancy software.
where she might run into push back, would be with the clients …
how many would be happy with flash drives for their records, or electronic transfer of info (only) … most are going to want a "paper trail" for their records
nicksta43 wrote: In reply to SVreX: As far as I know it's a monkey see monkey do situation. Her boss asked her to come up with some ideas on how to grow the business. She did some recon work on other local company's and all of them are doing this.
couldn't she just make a case for leveraging some existing and potential paradigms for a positive outlook in a going forward fashion or something realistic like that?
This is completely opposite to what you asked, but the most effective accounting firm marketing I ever saw was a sign that said "Shoeboxes Welcome!"
The legal requirement side of things is what makes paperless difficult. Then you have to use digital notary services (if that meets legal requirements where you are) and the cost goes way up. For a small business I agree it doesn't make sense.
And then on top of that a lot of people get confused by these newfangled computer thingies 
and would rather fill out paper forms like savages
If you have a company with IT staff and software in the company that nobody can fix or manage, you done berkeleyed up.
novaderrik wrote:nicksta43 wrote: In reply to SVreX: As far as I know it's a monkey see monkey do situation. Her boss asked her to come up with some ideas on how to grow the business. She did some recon work on other local company's and all of them are doing this.couldn't she just make a case for leveraging some existing and potential paradigms for a positive outlook in a going forward fashion or something realistic like that?
Oh please there is nowhere near enough synergy in that!
You'll need to log in to post.
