Bills 2.0

Ask Lacerte: Affect or Effect?

One thing I have learned about innovation is that it is easier and more successful when you are embracing change. Either you are affected by change or you can effect change. Every day, we have a choice, and my suggestion is to be the person effecting change.

When you are the person effecting change, you set the rules on what will change and how. You don’t wait for the world to tell you what’s next; you find out and lead the way. You get to pick what mountains to climb, what shortcuts to take, and enjoy the vistas before anyone else is there. It is hard work, but you, your team and your customers get the benefits before anyone else. Whether it is efficiency gains, improved accuracy or cost benefits, innovation provides a huge competitive advantage.

I know accountants that use innovation to increase their revenues and profits significantly over national averages. Sometimes, they are leveraging technology innovations from startups; sometimes they are redefining what “accountants” do and sometimes they create new solutions within their firm that take them two steps ahead of the competition.

Unfortunately, innovation is harder than you think. My folks started five businesses over the past 50 years. And several years ago, after starting my second business, my mom said something very interesting: “If you knew how hard it would be, you never would have done it.” When you are in the middle of innovating, I think this statement rings true. But the corollary is that there is “no better high than successfully innovating.” Once you are able to reap the rewards of the innovation, you forget all the pain and challenges and go on to your next one. This is because once you have effected change, you become addicted (if you’re anything like I am). Change is fun, it is where we learn the most and feel the most alive. Embracing change is hard, so here are a few tips that I have picked up along the way.

First, be passionate about the things you want to innovate. Having an internal compass to guide you along the path of innovation is invaluable. Use your passion as your compass. Innovation requires “gut decisions” that are much easier to make when you care deeply about something. While customer input is invaluable, often in the early stages of innovation, customers may not know what they want. It is the innovator’s job to stay passionate and committed to their vision. I am reminded of a quote from Henry Ford where he said, “If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” The other benefit of innovating things that you are passionate about is that you won’t mind the hard work as much.

Why is it harder? It’s simple. Visionaries/innovators see the future clearly with their solution in place. We do not see all the edge cases, problems and challenges in creating the solution. We only see the benefit. Being passionate about your innovation will help you remain focused when it is easy to be distracted. Staying focused is one of the hardest things about innovating. Since it takes longer and is harder than expected, there are many distractions that require a certain “devotion” to your cause in order to make it happen.

Second, there are no stupid questions. The first time I heard this was in kindergarten, but I don’t think I really understood it until I was well into my thirties. In kindergarten, I thought this was about making sure everyone got a chance to talk and ask a question. Later, I realized it was about encouraging kids to ask questions that others might also have. And now I think the benefit is that innovation is often a chain reaction of disparate ideas often first surfaced thru disjointed questions.

The challenge of the person leading the innovation is pulling it all together and encouraging the questions. Recently, I was at a negotiating class where the speaker was recanting a story of how he was the first to negotiate exclusive rights to advertise during the Olympics for his industry. Given the amount of money at stake, he had a board meeting with top executives to discuss before signing.

When he asked the question, “Is there any reason not to do this,” the most junior person in the room said, “What if the Olympics are canceled.” His first reaction was to say, “that’s ridiculous,” but instead he continued to ask and encourage others to ask more questions. In the end, he had the network sign a clause saying they would get their money back if for some reason the United States didn’t attend the Olympics. The contract was for the summer games of 1980, and we all know what happened — we boycotted the games.

Finally, have a great team. Innovation is only as good as the people doing the innovating. As I mentioned earlier, visionaries often gloss over the details and need help from their team doing the innovating to iron out the kinks. The real innovation happens with the details — where the rubber meets the road. So what makes a great team? They need to be passionate, they need to ask questions and they need to be eager to try new things. The last point is really important. Teams that resist change make innovation harder if not impossible. You can’t lead a revolution if you have people coming up with reasons to stay put.

For those who have read this column before, you know that I have a penchant for relating life to the music I have grown up with. As I write this, I am reminded of a song from Blood, Sweat and Tears called “Spinning Wheel.” While the words in the song would be hard pressed to be about innovation, the title and group are all about innovation. There is no more basic and elegant innovation than the wheel, and as we all know there is a lot of blood, sweat and tears involved with any change. Good luck effecting change in your business! 

Rene

(Originally printed in the July 2010 Issue of the CPA Technology Advisor)

Ask Lacerte: Where does data go to die?

Now that I have your attention, let me explain my rhetorical question. One of the topics covered in this issue is about accounting products and how to select the one that works best for you and your clients. While there are many things to consider, I would add the following: Does the accounting package allow your data to stay alive or does it just sit there like a wet noodle, dead on arrival?

Accounting, by nature, is historical and data driven. The recognized “Father of Accounting” was an Italian monk, Luca Pacioli. Pacioli taught accounting to the merchants of Venice, but he was more at home with and interested in math. In fact, one of his students was Leonardo da Vinci. Most of our accounting principles came from one chapter in a treatise on mathematics from 1494. Clearly, our roots in accounting are a bit more scientific than we may have realized and are prone to be numbers focused. Unfortunately, as we have all probably learned by now, “lying with numbers” is a possibility that happens all too often.

When you just look at the numbers, you are missing the bigger picture. As an entrepreneur, I feel that the transaction view is not complete unless you have an “end-to-end” view of what makes up the transaction — the story behind the numbers. For example, knowing that you paid ABC Incorporated last month is interesting, but what about the contract for ABC Incorporated, all the bills/invoices you have ever received from them, all the cleared check images from them and the notes of yellow stickies with comments and directives attached to those bills. All of that information is part of the transaction — the notes, documents, payments and history. Just looking at the numbers is like not seeing the forest for the trees.

Speaking of trees, try this analogy on for size. We have a family tree on my dad’s side that goes back to 1500. When I first looked at the tree, I saw lots of names that didn’t mean that much to me. But when I started to read the story along with the tree, it became far more interesting. And when I got to the last 100 years and had pictures, letters and videos, I got a much better sense of what the tree means. The tree in and of itself is like the data in a typical GL package — interesting but not complete or “alive.” But if you add the stories, the pictures and the videos you get a much more complete picture of the data and the corresponding transaction.

The last 10 years of my career have pointed out to me that the processes behind the accounting transactions are as important as the record of the transaction. To date, accounting software has been focused more on the record and not the process. All of that is changing with the growing adoption of web-based services. As you evaluate your accounting software solutions, you might want to consider the following:

• Does the accounting product seamlessly incorporate the supporting documents? I can’t tell you how many times I have drilled down on a P&L only to be stumped when I got to the original transaction and wasn’t able to see the actual invoice or supporting contract. Ideally, you should get the documents into your solution with an email, fax or scan from you or your vendors/customers.
  
• How connected is the accounting software to your bank? More and more information is getting to the point of being just a click away from your bank. When a vendor calls and asks if you have paid them, it is handy to know the date that the check cleared. Or if a customer says they paid, it’s pretty useful to know the date the deposit hit your account. Given the fast moving pace of online banking, this should be a given in any application considered.
  
• How well does the product allow collaboration between you and your clients? Accounting and the processes surrounding the books are an iterative and collaborative process. All the comments, approvals, denials and questions should be attached to your transaction forever. You never know when you’ll be curious about the details and not have the same folks on the job to ask.
  
• Does the product leverage dashboards that you can customize? We all know that there are basic dashboard items such as cash flow that every business needs, but we also know that every business has its own buttons. The advent of dashboards enables you to customize what your clients and businesses need to run their business. These simple tools give the business owner what they need at a glance and will make them thank you over and over.
  
• Finally, in the age of going mobile, how web-centric is the application? Increasingly, the web is extending the boundaries of work. As many in the valley say, “The noose is looser, but the leash is longer.” I know that today I enjoy more flexibility in where I work than my father or grandfather ever imagined. But I also have the ability to (and do) work all the time from wherever I am. Being able to access my accounting processes from my mobile phone empowers me to chase down that partner or watch the kids perform in a school performance without missing a beat. Combine this flexibility with the power of collaboration for which the web is known, and you have a must-have feature for accounting software.

The last 20 years of accounting software has focused on reporting and easy access to the data. I think the next few years will focus on creating the “end-to-end” transaction view while helping you and your businesses with the processes surrounding the data. In the end, this is where the data lives. In the end, you’ll be surprised that with the right tools your creation will take form and you can claim, “It’s alive!”

Rene

(Originally printed in the April/May 2010 Issue of CPA Technology Advisor)

Ask Lacerte: What the ’70s and SaaS Have in Common

The following article previously appeared in the December 2009 issue of CPA Technology Advisor.

Disco, John Travolta and bearish markets. The 1970s. Lots of trends began in the ’70s that are still going strong. In fact, one of the most fundamental changes in our day-to-day financial lives took hold then — the ATM. The ATM is an indispensible tool for our busy lives today. It’s way more efficient than going to the teller and way more convenient. But how many of us used ATMs in the ’70s?

I didn’t start using them until the late ’80s. My parents preferred visiting a teller until recently and still do most of their banking at the local branch. While it may have taken a while, we can all see the benefits of ATMs today: convenient, fast and always available. It makes me ask the question, “What is the next big technology advancement in the accounting profession?”

I was recently asked a related question by Sequoia Capital, the financial backers of YouTube, Google, Apple, Atari and others. They asked if I thought the time had come for businesses to do their accounting online. My answer was an emphatic yes. I believe that sometime in the next five to 10 years, the default medium for accountants and small businesses will move from desktop accounting to online accounting. Why? Because online accounting applications like ATMs are convenient, fast and always available. As such, the time to invest and learn is now. Solutions exist today, and more and more are being built every day. And as with most technology, there are rewards for the early adopters: customer acquisition opportunities, increased cost efficiencies that increase your margins, and more flexibility to do your work where, when and how you please.

At the core of my belief in the SaaS revolution is the strong benefit for customers and software providers. SaaS is a complete shift in both the development model and the usage model of software. In many ways, it harkens back to the year I was born when processing was centralized using mainframe computers but with a faster and better user experience. The cornerstone of a SaaS application is that all the data is stored and accessed from one location on the web.

Centralized data is the key to better and more efficient collaboration. Having the ability for both you and your customer to look at the same accounting records from any web-enabled device means both of you are free to travel and conduct your business from anywhere. It means that everyone is on the same page when it comes to an issue, whether you are supporting your clients or the software provider is. Something as simple as, “Did the client record the bill as a payable or a payment?” is now a short conversation, if that. The other obvious benefit of centralized data is that you can leave the dirty work of backing up your files to the SaaS provider. No more trying to remember if it’s time to backup and no more driving the backup offsite far enough away from any natural disasters that might occur. Backups just happen automatically in real time.

Centralized data and the web interface in particular enable software providers to respond more quickly to customer needs. Software providers are able to fix bugs and update the user experience without any involvement from the customer. Customers no longer have to wait for the annual update. Instead, applications are often updated every eight to 12 weeks. It’s a win-win for both the customer and the software provider, which translates into faster learning, more frequent upgrades and simplified customer support. The funny thing is that once you make the technology leap, it’s hard to imagine it any differently.

Sometimes when I talk with accountants about the benefits outlined above, the response is “Yeah, but it’s too early.” It’s really not. SaaS has been around for more than a decade. If you equate that to Internet time, given the frequency of new products and/or versions of products, my guess is that the last 10+ years in SaaS development is equal to 20 to 30 years in the old model of software development. Large companies run their entire business using SaaS with applications from SalesForce, Oracle, NetSuite, Intacct and many others. Smaller companies have even more options from Freshbooks (invoicing), PayCycle/Intuit (payroll and accounting), Constant Contact (marketing), and a host of new services.

I run my business entirely online. We have no filing cabinets. I can pay bills, process payroll, review financials, examine contracts, and manage the 401K all from my iPhone. The collaboration with my accountant is great. She can work on things from her office on her schedule. The convenience, ease and flexibility help us both focus on more important things.

If you are still not convinced that the SaaS revolution is upon us, you only have to look at some other applications that you are already using. Many accountants are hosting their QB data file. Clearly there is demand for centralized data from accounts. The most-used web application is email. People really just started using it in the last 15 years, and now it is indispensable. It has become part of the fabric of our everyday life, and I predict that financial applications will do the same. Finally, the recent push by industry players like Intuit (through its recent acquisitions of PayCycle and Mint), CCH, Thomson Reuters and CPA2Biz suggest that the “quickening” is happening.

When you get ready to move all of your applications to the web, what questions should you be asking? Depending on the nature of the application, you should require a SAS 70 audit, make sure the data is backed up and accessible in a different natural disaster zone, and ensure that the application is compatible with any of your existing desktop applications. There are, of course, many more things to ask, but these are specific to SaaS.

In the next 10 years, SaaS applications will surpass desktop applications in usage. You can wait for that to happen or you can help lead the charge. If you are not leading the charge, you will be following the direction of those who are. Which would you rather be doing?

Ask Lacerte: Networking... Who Are You?

The following post previously appeared in The CPA Technology Advisor.

“Who are you?” 

Despite this bringing to mind a favorite song from the Who it is a great question for all of us to ask when it comes to business.  When I answer that question, I have to include all the people that have affected and are affecting my life.  In short, I am me plus my network.  What about you?

This issue discusses among other things the network community for accountants.   While you may or may not think of yourself as a networking mogul, you, in no doubt, are where you are due to the network you have surrounded yourself with.  People along the way influence what career you choose, where you settle, whom you work with and the customers you have.  One of the most powerful things about the network is that it is always working for you even when you are busy doing other things. 

When I left Intuit to start PayCycle, I knew the network would be helpful but I didn’t know how helpful.  With the germination of an idea, I started buying coffee, breakfast or lunch with people that I knew. I would explain the idea, get feedback and ask for suggestions with respect to the idea and other folks that might be helpful.  One thing led to another, and soon I had a group of 40 angel investors that were interested in investing, a handful of customers, some awesome co-workers and the beginning of a company.  I continued to nurture the network and good things continued to happen including attracting venture capital and some big companies such as Microsoft and Intuit as partners.  All of this was in the first 30 months of “hanging a shingle”.  And it taught me something very important: don’t underestimate the power and importance of the network.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” is a great book that explains the power of the network.  The best reminder of this in the book is in the opening chapter.  We have all heard of Paul Revere but did you know that there was another rider warning of the British invasion.  The problem is that the other rider went to a number of towns and shouted at the top of his lungs while Paul Revere when to a bunch of towns and informed folks in his network to spread the word.  Because of his network, many were prepared to fight and win.  Because of his network, we all know who he is.

In the book, Gladwell identifies three type of people that make a difference in the leveraging of the network: Connectors, Mavens, and Salespeople.  Connectors are people that know everyone.  Mavens are people that know a lot of people but also know a lot of things.  They are the ones that can tell you where to go eat in any city they have visited.  Then there are salespeople, that are constantly promoting things they like to the people they know. 

As you grow your business, it is important and critical to identify those individuals that are Connectors, Mavens or Salespeople.  It is important because these people are the ones that create the tipping point in the business.  And it is important to make sure you take care of them.

In my experience, there are lots of ways to take care of and feed your network.  The easiest thing to do is to literally “feed” them.  A good friend of mine suggested long ago that I buy every meal of someone in the network.  The reason being that people would always think positively of their meetings with me and would be interested in helping me grow my business.  While I don’t buy every meal, I do buy a lot and use the rule of thumb that if I asked for the meeting, I buy. 

The other way to “feed” the network is to provide information.  The value of your network is based on the value of the information exchanged.  In order to get information you need to share information.  So when you are “working” your network, you must be prepared to share something.  The thing that is interesting to me is that as you have more meetings, you have more information and are more “valuable” to your network.  And more importantly, the opposite is true: your network is more valuable to you.

Much is being said these days, good and bad, about social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs. While much of the talk focuses on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of some of the discussions that are occurring, I think that is only part of the equation—like focusing on the value of mavens and not the connectors and salepeople.  What I see are people expanding their networks and building relationships like never before possible, and with people they do not even know (yet). And because these networks expand and share information so fast, they can be immensely valuable for keeping informed, getting help, and hearing what others are saying about you and your clients. These days, by just typing the letters “RT” (Retweet, for those of you not yet on Twitter) you too can be a connector to thousands of others for far less than the cost of a lunch! If you haven’t already, I urge you or your firm to get started (shameless networking plug: be sure to “follow” us at @billcom!).

It is probably worth mentioning that the network is all about helping those in it.  As an accountant, your network of businesses and people is vast.  You can help your customers in so many ways.  You can introduce them to potential customers, employees, resources and new ideas.  As part of doing that you can add value in a way that is “priceless”.  Ultimately, the sum of the parts will be worth much more than the services you provide.  Never mind that helping your customers in this way can be one of the most fun things to do. 

So “Who are you?”

Rene

Ask Lacerte: Branding Your CPA Firm

This post previously appeared in the CPA Technology Advisor.

Please join me in a thought experiment.  Think of the name of your favorite restaurant.  Just think of the name.  Try not to think about the food, the service, the ambiance or the desert.  For me it is impossible to keep it just to the name.  As soon as I think of the “Flea Street Café”, I can’t help but think of all the attributes (tasty, organic, caring service, friendly) that make it a great place to eat and my favorite in the bay area. 

A brand is not about logos and colors; it’s about what people think about when they think of a company name. Marketing professionals try to influence that with colors, logos and other techniques but ultimately the brand is considerably more complex and is built over time.  And in the case of accounting firms, the brand of the company is the brand of you.  So with that in mind, what is your brand?  What would customers say if I asked them what you stood for?  And how would you like them to answer that question?  And finally, what is the best way to go about building the brand of you?

You may not be asking or know the answers to these questions but you should.  In the absence of you directing and influencing your customers and prospects they will determine your brand attributes.  You cannot afford this.  In the age of technology and outsourcing, your biggest advantage is you.

Every interaction with a customer informs and affects your brand image.  When the customer visits your office, they soak in all the details of your office without even knowing it.  For example, a messy desk full of papers may make them wonder about your organization skills.  An empty office, may make them wonder why you aren’t more busy.  Your degrees and certifications on the wall may help them get comfortable with your credentials.  The list is endless and my guess is that you don’t want your customers wondering about such attributes. Without purpose or context you are giving away your brand.

Accounting firms today are at a cross roads... Not about their image, but how they are perceived in the minds of their clients and market.  Are they a place for businesses to drop off their shoebox of receipts and papers and get back reports/forms, or are they relevant to their clients day-to-day finances/operations?  Ultimately, this is your choice.  Whatever your choice, though, you must communicate your brand consistently to ensure your customers think of you as just taxes and forms or all of that coupled with sage advice, or something else all together.  Whatever image you pick, you probably want it to do what all brands do – create customer loyalty and as a result greater revenue.   And we all would like more revenue and less attrition.  As someone who uses accountants for personal and business here are the things that matter most to me:

Responsiveness -  We are in the information age and for better or worse, information moves much faster now.  We all expect more sooner.  If I can get an answer on Google in 1 sec that would have taken me several hours 20 years ago, why shouldn’t my accountant respond to my question in less than a few business hours?  It may not be fair, but we all are being trained to expect this.  My advice, if you can’t respond quickly, tell your customer when you will respond.  That only takes a few seconds and will reset the expectations.

Communication- Communication is an essential tool in business.  While most firms communicate the positive, one of my pet peeves is communicating the negatives/mistakes. Failure is a unique opportunity to say something about who you are and what you stand for.  If you make a mistake, acknowledging and fixing it can and will enhance your brand.  We all know that we all make mistakes.  Yet it is rare for someone to acknowledge and to proactively make it better.  These are the people we trust and ultimately that is one of the most important brand attributes an accountant can have!

Completeness – Let’s face it, your job is all about completeness.  You have to know all the tax and accounting laws that may affect your clients.  That’s a huge burden but if you don’t then your clients will look elsewhere.  Maybe not today but when they learn that something was not done completely, they’ll move.  So if you are a small firm that may not be familiar with ISO’s and AMT or Family partnerships or some other arcane law, refer the client to someone who does or better yet consult that person and let your client know that you consulted with an expert.  

Efficient Technology– As a technology entrepreneur, it should come as no surprise that this is an important brand attribute for me.  It is the way I manage my life and given what it has enabled me to do, I wonder when someone I work with is not leveraging technology.  Technology can act like a wrapper around your product and services.  You can use it to track important client details and communications, do your work more efficiently, and become more proactive (more on that later).  For me, someone who leverages technology to the fullest has probably done it to get more time and better perspective. 

Proactive advice – Finally, all of the above attributes come together in this attribute.  Going above and beyond the call of duty is the holy grail in servicing clients in any business.  Combining technology and the complete knowledge of your client will allow you to reach the ultimate responsiveness – proactive advice.  Understanding the big picture for your client, timing on retirement, portfolio and investments,  shifts in jobs, business financings, etc is an opportunity for real value add.  After all, as my mentor at Price Waterhouse told me, “the language of business is accounting”.  Make sure you read between the lines. 

Accountants are in a unique position to be consigliore for their clients.  If you can position/brand yourself as such the rewards are strong.  Good luck and happy branding.

Rene

Ask Lacerte: Preparing for Disaster with SaaS

This article previously appeared in the CPA Technology Advisor.

Imagine you are having dinner outside at a nice café in your town.  You hear a fire truck racing by, you look up and then continue your dinner.  Then you see not 1 more but 3 more coming from all the neighboring towns.  Soon there is a lot of commotion.  5 blocks away there is a plum of smoke racing into the sky.  After the initial fear for loss of life, you realize that the smoke is coming from the same block that your family business has been operating out of for the last 70 years.  You drop your napkin and run down the 5 blocks to find out that you are safe.  It is not your building that is on fire it is the building 2 doors over.  You think “Wow, I dodged that one” and go on home.

The next morning you go into work and after a few emails you realize you need to go downstairs and get something out of the files.  When you open the door to go down into the basement, you are shocked.  It is full of water.  Apparently, the fire next door took 2Million gallons to put out and much of it ended up in your basement.  All the records that you rely on to make your business run are now gone.  You no longer know what you paid  Tom the last time he did that brochure or what your contract with “Big Company” requires of you.  You realize in a heartbeat that this will be the most challenging time in running your family’s business since your grandfather started it 70 years ago.  You’re afraid that you’re not up to it.  You’re afraid that the business won’t make it.  You’re afraid that in just one moment you lost everything that your family has worked for for generations.

Pretty scary isn’t it.  This actually happened to a friend of mine and it has affected their business in so many ways.  She has survived but it has not been without its sacrifices and challenges.  In the following 2 years, she would close one store, sell inventory below cost, and work harder than ever before.

The department of labor estimates that 60 percent of businesses hit with such a disaster close the doors within 2 years.   Think about that, when disaster hits your clients you have a 60% chance of losing them.  Not because of anything you did or they did but something out of anyone’s control.  

It doesn’t have to be that way.  You, as a trusted advisor, have the opportunity to influence decisions and actions ahead of such a disaster.  Imagine if my friend’s accountant had influenced her to have a disaster recovery plan.  It would have been a few weeks of disruption but the business would not have been at risk.  Instead of the accountant facing a 60% chance of her going out of business and losing a client, my friend would be telling all of her business friends about how her accountant saved her business by forcing her to plan for just this moment.  So instead of the stress of a disaster, the accountant would be busy managing referrals.  As a businessmen and not an accountant, this is exactly the type of advice I expect my accountant to give me. 

This issue is dedicated to giving you the tools to provide lots of ways to help you help your clients plan for that awful moment of when disaster strikes.  My objective in this column is to stress the importance of planning and the value of Software-as-a-Service when it comes to planning the disaster.

By definition “SAAS” solutions have a disaster recovery advantage.  SaaS applications leverage the Internet so that you can work from anywhere.  Everyday, this has advantages.  I do my work from the office, home, on the road, or on my phone.  When it comes to a disaster, this advantage can save your business.  It means that when a Hurricane, an Earthquake, or a Tornado strikes you can leave town like you should and resume work from the next state or town where it is safe and there is an Internet connection.  

The other primary advantage of a best in class SaaS company is that it thinks about disaster recovery and incorporates a strong plan into the DNA of its company.  It is our job and if we don’t do it clearly our business is at risk.  Core to every disaster plan is the backing up of data and documents routinely.  Most small businesses think they are doing great if they back up their files once a month.  Best in class SaaS companies have this built into their application.  We make it so the software and the data that drive the application are backed up REALTIME in different locations that are thousands of miles apart and not in the same disaster zone.  In fact we make sure they are on different Internet back bones and different power grids. That means that as long as there is Internet, you and your clients will be able to get to the tools you need to run your business.  Duplicating this capability for a small business is prohibitively expensive from a cost and time perspective. 

How do you know if the company you are looking at is “best in class”?  You should check the background of the management team for prior successes where this would have been part of their job, make sure they have strong investors that have backed successful companies where this is valued and most importantly make sure they are Sas70 certified by a reputable firm.    The SAS 70 requires that certain procedures be in place including controls and security around any of the stated operations.  The auditors have to check that the procedures are followed so that the data is backed up at the frequency stated.

As you consider adding or expanind your disaster recovery consulting, please consider SaaS.  There are SaaS applications for phone systems, accounting, document management, bill management, payroll, tax preparation, inventory management and pretty much everything you and your clients will need to run your business.

Finally, please don’t wait for the disaster to strike before you see the benefit of developing a disaster recovery plan.  You clients are depending on you to push them, to serve them and to protect them from such disasters.  I should know, I am one of them.

Rene

News from Dallas

It’s an exciting and busy time at Bill.com. On the heels of last week’s successful Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, we are in Dallas this week at the 2008 QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions User Conference.

Today, Bill.com announced our enhanced QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online Edition (QBOE) integration for small businesses and accountants -- the combination of our Web-based, on-demand accounts payable software with the nation's best-selling small business desktop accounting software creates a simple and affordable, enterprise-class solution for managing accounts payable and enhanced business bill pay.

From the beginning, we knew that integration with QuickBooks was essential and of great value for Bill.com customers. Our enhanced QB integration is a result of customer feedback and focus groups. There is no other system that pulls together a Web-based payables, document management and bill payment solution with a desktop version of QB. Check out the news release on Bill.com's Enhanced QuickBooks and QBOE Integration here.

Bill.com makes Waves at Office 2.0

Come join us at the Office 2.0 Conference happening this week in San Francisco. Bill.com’s very own vice president of marketing, Jeff Schultz, will take part in two Office 2.0 Conference panels titled,  “Money 2.0” and “Going 100% SaaS.”

The conference starts today (9/3) and continues through Friday (9/5) over at the St. Regis Hotel, south of Market in San Francisco. Office 2.0 gathers together technology visionaries, thought leaders and customers who use innovative online services and helps them collaborate on the future of online productivity. The theme this year is Enterprise Adoption. 

Jeff’s first panel, “Money 2.0”, is scheduled for Thursday, September 4, 2008, 2:15 PM to 3:00 PM. Here’s the conference agenda description:

While consumer applications are making the headlines for most Web 2.0 related news, business applications are receiving their fair share of innovation as well. Among them, accounting for individuals and small businesses has seen a flurry of activity over the past 12 months. This panel will show us how bookkeeping can be fun. 

Over the past year, Bill.com's innovation in the area of accounts payables has put the company on the forefront of changing the way businesses and accountants manage payables by leveraging features only available in a SaaS model. The features include collaborative multi-user workflow, exceptionally fast time-to-implementation, low cost, and massive efficiencies of scale that allow us to deliver services to small businesses that used to only be available to the largest enterprises. We really believe that bookkeeping in this model is not only fun, but also the best, most efficient way to do business today.

The second panel, “Going 100% SaaS,” takes place Friday, September 5, from 9:30 AM to 10:15 AM. Here’s the conference agenda’s description of the content:

More and more companies are adopting Software as a Service solutions for all their IT needs. This panel will attempt to explain the logic of such an approach, discuss the barriers to mass-market adoption and will outline the benefits and lessons learned by some early adopters.

While CRM, marketing, and conferencing/ collaboration applications have been the first to take off as SaaS solutions, we believe that financial services are the next big opportunity. Cash management and bill payment are critically important to business success and now require a greater collaborative effort between different departments and between people who are often in different geographies. However, invoice approvals and payment today are still handled in many organizations via paper-based manual processes. It’s hard to believe that a premier organization would handle customer issues by writing on paper, creating duplicates, sending (or walking) paper around the company so people can write comments before sending them back, and filing copies in a filing cabinet for future reference, yet this is what is happening in many businesses when it comes to managing invoices. Online bill payment has taken off in the consumer world and we see enhanced online bill payment and collaborative A/P taking off with businesses.

At the same time, we are big believers in the SaaS model and could never have launched our company without it. Bill.com is almost 100% SaaS internally and has been able to implement many processes that used to be reserved for later-stage companies in the areas of collaboration, accounting, CRM, and marketing. Not to mention A/P!

The St. Regis Hotel is located at 125 Third Street in San Francisco. Make sure you stop and say hello to Jeff.

 

Managing Your Cash Flow—The Lifeblood of Every Business

Managing cash flow is both a science and an art. Making sure you have enough cash in the bank while making decisions on what bills to pay, and what to do with your company’s cash, is a critical element of business operation, whether you are cash rich or cash poor.

As I was growing up, I learned from my parents' and grandparents’ businesses that cash is king. Stretching your payables and pulling in your receivables is the most important thing a business can do. There is an art to doing all that and my parents and grandparents had the gift.

When you pay your personal bills, you have to have to ask yourself several questions to make sound payment decisions—for example, do I have enough money to pay this credit card and when do I want to pay it? It’s a defined skill that entails determining what you are going to pay, in what order and when. The skills are similar when you are running a business.

The critical issues of cash flow boil down to two concepts: visibility and control. Visibility means that you know what money is coming in and what’s going out and just where you stand financially. Visibility is also giving you the access to the information you need to support your payment decisions. Control is having the power over what you are going to do with your cash at any given time. This control requires having the right tools in place so you can have the visibility and the knowledge to make informed decisions.

In many cases, when you run a business, what you pay is based on the relationships you have. The whole basis for starting Bill.com was that the complexity of the decisions surrounding cash flow and accounts payable is more than just looking at the due date and an amount, it’s looking at the whole relationship. You always pay rent and utilities first - you have to keep the lights on, but after that there is a lot of discretion that you use every day when managing your cash. It means considering what the contract says, when was the last time you paid a vendor, whether they cashed the check, what was the work they did and was it something you feel great about.

Some business owners and accountants just sit down and pay all payables based on due date, but they’re not maximizing their cash flow because they’re not taking advantage of the terms they have. If you can create a schedule and pick the dates when you make payments , you can make your money work better for you.

Many successful businesses manage cash flow using an artistic approach, knowing intuitively whom they can pay when. The intuition involves a good amount of data analysis that is not put into a systemic process. As a result it can be risky. Much of Bill.com is taking the art of cash management intuition and translating it into a process that provides tools for customers to become more methodical about cash flow. For those that have the intuition, it makes their life easier and for those that are just learning, they have the experience and intuition at their finger tips. The cash in your bank account is your working capital, so if you can stretch out your vendors an extra two weeks, you’ve just gotten yourself enough capital to hire two more people, ten more people, a hundred more people.

Managing cash flow has different implications for different sized companies; a larger-sized company would have a treasury department that uses different processes to maximize cash. On the other hand, a small business owner has a different approach and might be trying to tie the inflows and the outflows better to keep afloat.

Cash flow management plays out differently based on the economy—during a recession you have less cash on hand to meet your accounts payable obligations. It’s important to be prepared for when receivables start turning more slowly, that you have enough cash to cover what you are going to do. Make sure you have an equity line on hand to help you if you need it to do the things you want or need to do. By using tools, like Bill.com, you can manage your cash flow through the good times to weather the bad times, combining both the art and science in business.

Here are some additional links for tips on managing cash flow:

Business Owner's Toolkit: Managing your cash flow

Entrepreneur.com

Inc.com: The Art of Cash Management

Small Business Accountants Make it Work

We have big news at Bill.com. For the past few weeks, we have been incredibly busy working on the launch of a strategic alliance between CPA2Biz, a subsidiary of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and Bill.com. Through this new agreement, CPA2Biz becomes the exclusive provider of Bill.com to accountants and their clients. This is really exciting for me for a lot of reasons. The most important are 1) my belief that accountants are the most important trusted advisor for most businesses; 2) accountants benefit greatly from our service; and, 3) accounting and accountancy is in my DNA.

Here’s the DNA part: the night I was born, my mother was sorting punch cards for payroll/general ledger job for one of my folks’ biggest accountant customers. My dad and grandfather had started a data processing business in the early 60’s focused on serving accountants. They knew I was due any day and they couldn’t afford to have any errors on this job. So picture my mom, 9 months pregnant, carrying 50 lbs. of punch cards from machine to machine. Two hours later she was in labor and I was born. Combine that with the fact that both grandmothers and one great-grandfather were accountants. As you can see, accounting is in my blood, it is part of my DNA. No wonder that my first job out of college was at PriceWaterhouse, and then I worked at Intuit for a few years.

CPA2Biz provides marketing and technology services to the AICPA for its wide array of products and services. CPA2Biz also develops and manages client-focused business solutions (like payroll and banking) that enable CPAs to build stronger relationships with their business clients or employers.

I sought out CPA2Biz as a strategic partner because we both have the same mission with respect to accountants: we want to make the accountants life simpler and more efficient for basic accounting services like Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. We also wanted more profitable opportunities for CPAs, accountants, bookkeepers and their business clients. Bill.com offers an easy way for the two groups—small businesses and financial professionals—to work together cohesively.

For most businesses, an accountant is most important advisor the business will hire. We’ve talked about some of the other professionals who are key to a small business infrastructure . Accountants offer more than basic bookkeeping and day-to-day financial management. They prepare tax returns, offer tax advice, and help manage a consistent cash flow through budgeting and forecasting. All of this insight puts accountants in a unique position; they see more about the business than anyone else. Not just the numbers either. This is why I took my first job in accounting. The recruiting partner, Dave Sweet, said something that just made sense. He said that “accounting is the language of business and if you want to run a business you need to understand the language.” I really believe this, so make sure when you hire your accountant that you hire someone that can really advise you.

For more on the role of the accountant, click here.

So, now that we’ve established the importance of having an accountant, how do you find one? And, once you do, how do you know you’re hiring the best one for you?

Not too long ago, I advised finding a bookkeeper here. Here is a similar resource that lists and helps you find 35,000 accountants across the U.S.

In terms of finding the best accountant for you and your business, here’s an excellent article with a list of 50 questions to ask a prospective accountant.

Finally, I think it’s essential when talking about hiring an accountant, someone who will be intimately involved in the financial details of your business, to discuss the reality of fraud. There have been many horror stories about the accountant running off to the Caymans with all the money from a business—and it doesn’t only happen to Hollywood stars.

There are many ways to mitigate fraud when working with an accountant:

1. References are imperative. Use your network to find candidates, but also check as many references as you can during the interview process.
2. Keep accurate records and don’t give anyone access to your bank account until you trust them.
3. Set up procedures and processes that offer a variety of controls and separation of duties. For example, have different people handle the money that you receive and the money you pay out.

Here are more safeguards from embezzlement.

I believe that having your accountant working with you and your business using Bill.com will make your processes more efficient while providing much stronger controls and significantly less exposure to fraud.

Bill.com provides a simple way to both manage your finances and leverage your accountant—at the lowest cost with the highest impact. With Bill.com, you and your accountant will have 24/7 access to all your financial information. That means better collaboration internally and externally, better productivity and increased financial visibility. Accountants that have learned about our service have commented the following:

"Anything that makes us more efficient makes it more efficient for our clients."
“It is easier for our clients to find things.”
“It helps the client to organize.”
“It gives them procedures and process that bigger companies have.”

I think that is enough of a commercial for now but please check out www.bill.com to learn more.

I am passionate about simplifying business finances for businesses and their accountants. It’s in my blood and I have experienced the power of the accountant relationship on both sides. Good luck finding your trusted advisor and in making them more valuable.