The future is sooner thank you think - Sage at Accountex 2014
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The future is already here, says AccountingWEB’s editor, and accountants need to adapt to the customer-focused, always-on nature of modern business life. This presentation will identify the big technical, demographic and technological trends affecting the profession and offer a set of principles to help accountants negotiate the challenges ahead.
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The future is sooner thank you think - Sage at Accountex 2014
- 1. The future is sooner than you think John Stokdyk, Sage Theatre, Accountex, 15 May 2014
- 2. Agenda • Introduction – a bit about me • Get used to change – more is on the way • What tech lets you do • Pros and cons • How to keep up • Practical tips • Questions and answers
- 3. Who am I? • AccountingWEB.co.uk editor • 110,000 registered members, average 1.7m visits/month • Mission: to help our members do their jobs better • Comprehensive tech resources • 15 years of member feedback • My own IT adventure
- 4. The more things change…
- 5. …the more they stay the same
- 6. Virtualisation – technological and organisational
- 7. Big data – the new frontier • Petabytes of data: 1,000 terabytes, or 1,000,0000 GB • Everything is measurable • Spot and act on underlying trends • More sophisticated KPIs – for both practices and clients • Apply within your firms: easier said than done
- 8. Cloud & mobility – Any time, any place, anywhere
- 9. Economic and social changes • Staff seem to get younger every day • Tech-savvy digital natives • Less hierarchical • Harder to motivate • Less loyal
- 10. Impacts of recession and regulatory reform • Anti-red tape drive: Cash-based accounting Audit threshold changes • More volatile client base • More interested in collaboration and advisory services • Pressure on fees • How can can tech help?
- 11. What is the cloud? • Software and services delivered via the web • Shorthand graphic – a cloud • Not tied to any single operating system or device • “Utility computing” – no need for in-house servers
- 12. Cloud accounting is more than just online books • Don’t just do what you’ve always done, but online • Platform for interacting with clients • Set them right in real time – eliminate adjustments • Management accounts & KPIs • Document portals and data collection • Mobile tools for reports & presentations • Clients are asking for it and fast-growing firms are using it
- 13. Cloud-powered “Practice in a box” • Low cost of entry with reduced hardware requirement • Scalability: Pay for what you use • Ease of use • Convenience of 24/7 remote access • No need to email/ exchange data files!
- 14. Who’s using cloud and how? • Baby Boomer IT enthusiasts - Keen to exploit new trends • Generation X entrepreneurs - Flexibility - Remote teams • Millennial start-ups - They’ve grown up with it Who’s using cloud and how?
- 15. Cloud pros and cons – the case against • Security and data management concerns • Disruption of change • Training requirement, especially for clients! • Return on investment? Open-ended commitment • Specialist tax and accounting tools are yet to reach market • Fragmentation risk if you don’t have a coherent strategy
- 16. Which side are you on? • Operating system Windows, Mac or Android? • Network BT, Three, 02, Vodafone or EE? • Infrastructure Cloud, desktop or hosted? • Business applications Office 365 or Google Apps? • Website DIY, packaged or pro design?
- 17. Some practical tips • Go in with your eyes open • Link to what you’ve got • Research and discuss tools that might benefit your firm • Try things out and see if they work for you • Move at your own pace: newer, better cloud tools will be along soon • Test systems with your own data • Focus on efficiency, not tech for tech’s sake
- 18. Any questions? • What kind of tech user are you: Enthusiast, Pragmatist, Sceptic or Digital Native? • What demands do your team and your clients make on tech? • Have you adopted cloud? • If so – how? Bookkeeping – or portals, & online collaboration?
Editor's Notes
- Can’t hope to give you a detailed commentary on all the technology trends sweeping through the accounting marketplace – but my colleagues have done a pretty comprehensive job at this event. What I will try and do is draw a lot of the strands together and give you some working principles to apply to your use of new technology.
- I was born in Silicon Valley in the same year as the microchip and grew up with computers during the time-sharing era, when you would plug in a TeleType terminal to a central mainframe over the telephone network. That’s me on the right with my sister in the late 1960s.
- And after nearly 40-odd years, this is the “new” model of Cloud computing. The scale, functionality and speed of online systems has changed massively, but conceptually, it’s a very similar set up.When it comes to the web and Cloud computing, the accounting profession proved a little slow on the uptake. We have tracked this in our annual Software Satisfaction survey of accounting and finance software users…
- Going to borrow a bit of technological jargon, because its useful to explain the impact that all this distributed computing power is having on firms.Virtualisation replaces physical servers within data centres with software versions – the “Virtual machine” that you may sometimes access if you run an emplatorprograme. There’s no specific hardware there – you’re just using a bit of another server that has been carved out and ring-fenced for your use.Organisations are getting like too – your firm is less about the physical office location than the human capital you are able to bring to bear on a particular client’s problem. More use of freelancers, contractors, partnerships and short-term project teams.
- The cloud is all around you and you are probably already using it for online banking, shopping, picture and video storage – and not thinking twice about it. Business people are adapting these tools for work, without even thinking about it. For the next half hour or so, that’s what we’re going to be doing.Cloud storage & back-ups: they’re better than you – services like DropBox can synch your mobile/laptop to desktopCollaborative environments: WebEx, GoToMeeting – great for detailed presentations, IT training and supportSocial media: LinkedIn, Twitter & AccountingWEB.co.uk! Job hunting, PR, promotion and new business development, eg searching for “tax return” during Self Assessment season
- Clients and staff used to latest technology: Will lose patience with clunky tools and restrictive tech policies and be tempted by better offers
- Emphasise that it’s not hosted, but native browser applications
- Eliminate data re-entry with Automated bank feeds or get clients to do the input themselves, Virtual management accounting: PEA conference 3 people in 2013; 40% at Accountex in 2013 Cloud also ties you more closely move towards a more advisory, forward-looking role: This is what top-performing PEA firms are doingMobile: iPad presentation and interactivity, Expenses capture/authorisation SME cash accounting, you can retain such clients and serve them at a lower cost basis
- Convenience and efficiency: as accountants I don’t need to tell you the advantages for capturing data at the earliest possible time, so it’s ideal for things like expenses reporting or completing timesheets.Nor should it escape your notice that with a cloud platform you don’t have to send data files back and forth, or worry about which desktop versions you and your accountants are using.
- So far all you’ve heard is cloud propaganda and I would be surprised if you haven’t heard a lot of it before.But I’m a realist. No new technology is a panacea for all your problems, there are downsides that you need to consider before deciding whether cloud computing is right for you.First and foremost is security and data protection. Security of sensitive private data has always been a big concern, and rightly so. But cloud services are probably better than you at back-ups and recovery. How many people can recover the past week’s activity within 24hrs?- I liked this image because it also reflects how I sometimes feel about all my cloud-connected devices. Synching and switching can be a pain and unless you are very methodical, you can easily find your applications and data get spread out around in different, unconnected places – can find yourself almost worse off than with a desktop, eg spent half the week trying to download four iPad videos to a PC via DropboxOn the issue of data protection, cloud computing is affected by the UK Data Protection Act and EU rules that say personal data stored online should remain within the community. Most US suppliers have “safe harbor” status, but with many cloud platforms you don’t really know where your data physically resides. If you’re a stickler – which I find most accountants are – you should make proper enquiries of any service provider to establish where their services are based.ROI – this is an important one to consider: it’s cheap to get signed up but once you’re committed, you may not know what it’s going to cost you in the long term, particularly if your firm grows and you add a lot of new functionality. With some systems if you take extra storage options, different modules and third party add-ons, the monthly subscriptions can mount up. Suggest taking a three-year view, doing an estimate of your growth and functional aspirations and then comparing that to past three years’ costs (don’t forget to include hardware and training). The previous period’s costs won’t really give you a totally accurate comparison, but are a benchmark that can give you an idea of the advantages of making the jump. Who knows? Perhaps the growth and extra services cloud will allow you to provide will more than offset any additional running costs?
- there’s never been a better time to set up in practice. But don’t let the bewildering variety of choices distract you from your business goals, writes John Stokdyk. If anything the choices are so extensive that it can be hard to make your mind up. We are going through a period of unprecedented change, but what hasn’t improved is the intensity of technology turf wars and the ramifications of choosing which sides to take. Just consider some of the options:
- What have you already got? Which tools do you enjoy using? Do they fit with your office tools?Avoid religious devotion – technology changes too fast!Even the stuff you like will become obsolete or break, so always be aware of your next migration routeIt all comes back to understanding the technology needs of you and your team – individuals have different preferencesSome love touchscreens, but in my view they’re no good for data entryBeware of the DIY approach – you may devote much of your life to it, when a commercial app would be more cost-effective
- What works for you?Interface preferences – size, touchscreens, keyboard, miceSolo operator or team tools?Integration with existing systemsRisk appetiteTime, cost and resourcesQuestions