Accounting professionals are often considered to be the “trusted adviser”, working in the best interests of their client and helping overcome obstacles to business success. At the very minimum, business owners recognize that they need their accountant to get their taxes done, and that relationship alone requires a level of trust that no typical vendor can boast.
Accounting professionals are also often advocates for certain computer technology and/or software solutions, largely because they are viewed as tools which facilitate a better working relationship between the client and their accountant, and which may improve the quality of information available to both. Recommendations regarding the selection of accounting software packages and solutions to record and report on business activities may be made by the accountant, and those recommendations are often accepted by the business owner based on the belief that the accountant has the necessary understanding of the client business requirements.
Making software and other technology-related recommendations to clients allows the accounting professional to potentially influence the decision of the business owner, the result of which is often that the client ends up using a solution that the accountant is familiar with and can therefore assist with setup, training, and support services. Because the accounting professional simply made a recommendation to the client, there is some safety in the event that the recommendation ends up not working out. If the client purchases the wrong software or equipment, the professional retains a level of distance from the issue because they were not the vendor of the product. Recommendations are made based on the information available, and the accountant’s defense may be that they did not have all the necessary information to make a better recommendation.
But what happens when the accounting professional BECOMES the technology provider to their client? Accounting professionals should strongly consider whether it makes sense for them to be the technology provider to their client, or simply collaborate with the client on a recommended solution. The areas of concern may include operational impacts to the client business and cost, but one main area of concern should be in the client’s perception of their service provider.
As the accountant, the trusted adviser, you benefit from a high level of respect from your client. The client recognizes that you have knowledge that they need and that can help them. You have a high status level with the client.
When the accounting professional becomes the technology provider, however, changes begin to happen with the client’s perception of their once-trusted adviser. Rather than viewing their accountant as the provider of a valuable service, the client may now view their accountant as a technology provider, responsible for the performance and functionality of IT systems. Now relegated to the position of “technician”, the accounting professional must overcome a variety of obstacles, including those specifically and only related to the technology. Difficulties with technology may overshadow the other areas where the professional is involved, and will often become the focus of ongoing discussions. While the accountant may have been trying to improve their overall value proposition with the client, the actual result may be a reduction of confidence and trust. Where once the accountant was a trusted adviser, they are now simply an IT vendor (and a replaceable vendor, at that).
With accountants and their clients now embracing cloud computing models, many accounting professionals are recognizing the potential benefits of private-labeling and reselling cloud-based solutions to their clients. Particularly if a service becomes a key element to the workflow, or is an enabling feature of the accounting service, there are compelling arguments for incorporating the solution into the “package” offered by the accounting professional. Cloud solutions are, however, just another “flavor” of technology, and the same issues regarding reselling should be strongly considered.
Accountants provide a valuable professional service to their clients. While technology and information systems facilitate and enable this relationship, the relationship itself is not fundamentally IT-based. For this reason, professionals should use caution when considering how to involve IT solutions in their service offerings. Delivering a service under the accountant business brand communicates to the client who their service provider is, but it also communicates a level of responsibility that the firm may not be prepared to take on. When the systems are working well, the private-label model may work very well for the firm. But when systems fail, the risk to the professional is not only lost productivity, but a potential loss of faith and trust – and business – from the client.
Intuit’s QuickBooks is the top managerial accounting program in the U.S. Anyone can put QuickBooks on their resume, but offering potential employers tangible proof keeps job seekers relevant since those credentials reflect real-world job skills. Becoming a QuickBooks Certified User verifies the certificate holder has the knowledge and skills necessary to use QuickBooks proficiently in a business setting without costly software training.
About 60 years ago, bookkeepers worked for small local businesses or small firms and manually recorded entries in a large bound book. For many years, it was commonplace for accountants to graduate from college or finish their training, and then spend the next 30 or 40 years at the same job. Their employer paid for ongoing training, provided benefits and rewarded longevity.
Then, the market changed. Our financially driven economy, compounded by accounting regulations, is now motivated by dollars and cents instead of quality goods and services. Accounting firms can be large international organizations with billions of dollars in revenues. Accountants are valued consultants, but they are typically autonomous from their clients, left to obtain training and improve their skills on their own to advance their careers.
In addition, accountants today are responsible for information concerning all facets of a business from tax services to financial planning. Accountants are dependent on the latest technology for processing that information, and the role of accounting continues to expand greatly as technology advances.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, accountants and auditors should enjoy much faster than average employment growth from 2008 through 2018, with predicted growth of 22 percent, or 279,400 new jobs. Still, recent accounting graduates are finding a more competitive recruiting market than in the past. College officials report a general decrease in new-graduate hires, and fewer new graduates are finishing school with a job lined up at a large public accounting firm.
So, how can students and new graduates boost their resumes to be more attractive for open positions? How can they compete for jobs with ever expanding requirements based on the latest technology? The people dimension of technology often gets overlooked. Software doesn’t work by itself; it is people who maximize its value.
Companies are looking for seasoned, well-trained and well-certified employees who are ready to start working and perform with minimal supervision and training. When a hiring manager reviews multiple files with similar work experience; the specialty certifications and additional education will give an advantage over the competition.
Earning certification for a key accounting application, such as QuickBooks, shows employers the following:
1. Drive: Earning certification takes time and effort, and it shows employers the candidate cares enough to develop their technology skills beyond basic competency.
2. Proof: Certification gives employers tangible proof the candidate can use a software program effectively, instead of having to take their word for it.
3. Real world skills: A college degree and specialized accounting training teaches concepts, but certification demonstrates real world skills that will be more useful on the job.
4. Increased ROI: With certification, employers will see an immediate return on investment from a new employee, without having to spend time training them on current software programs.
Bookkeeping in the 21st Century requires more than knowledge of GAAP principles or an eye for detail – students need relevant computing skills. A recent Monster.com study analyzed more than 1.2 million tax and accounting resumes, and only 7 percent of job seekers listed QuickBooks as a hard skill on their resume. Obtaining QuickBooks certification as verified proof for this hard skill will set accounting job seekers above the rest.
Giving your QuickBooks company data to an IRS Auditor is almost like inviting a stranger into your home – you don’t know what they will do, and at this point in time, I haven’t found any information on exactly what an Auditor will look for or what they will do once they do get their hands on your data file.
To be honest, I don’t even know if they are required to return your QuickBooks (or Peachtree) data file to you once they are done. I do have to assume that they are required to do so, but you never know………..
Hopefully, you will follow the suggestions outlined in An IRS Audit and They Want Your QuickBooks File – Best Practices article and provide a data file that ONLY contains the year in question.
The last thing that you really should do before handing over the file to be audited is to create an External Accountant User for their use – do not give them your Administrator password.
An External Accountant is a fairly new type of QuickBooks user account that was introduced a couple of years ago. Anyone who logs into your QuickBooks file as an External Accountant User has access to all areas and information contained in your data file with the exception of sensitive customer data, such as credit card information (if you keep customer credit card data in your file).
To create an External Accountant User
You will need to be logged into QuickBooks as the Administrator and I believe you need to be in single-user mode.
- From the Company menu, choose Setup Users and Passwords
- Select Add User
- Enter a new user name and password – write this information down and give it to the auditor, and click Next
- Choose External Accountant in the Access screen and click Next
- Click Yes on the Warning message to confirm that you want to create an External Accountant User
- Click the Finish button
By creating the External Accountant user, you will be able to pull up an audit trail report to see if they changed anything if the file is returned. Of course this is getting a little paranoid, but one of the fears that I’ve seen people discussing is what if the auditor goes in and changes something…….
Please feel free to leave your own comments, suggestions and thoughts for best practices on this new procedure – it will be of benefit to everyone.
What account should I assign this transaction to? This is a frequent question that most QuickBooks users ask themselves at one point or another.
Frequently you will run across a transaction that you just aren’t sure which account you should be posting it too. Often times you end up “just picking one”, and tell yourself that you’ll remember to ask your accountant about it the next time you talk to him/her – and quite promptly forget.
To alleviate this problem; and give your accountant a “heads up” on transactions that you are having trouble classifying – add a new Expense Account to your Chart of Accounts called See (Accountants Name). Every time you have a transaction that you aren’t quite sure what to do with:
- Write a pretty detailed description in the Memo Field of the transaction
- Assign it to the See (Accountant Name) account
- Open the QuickBooks To Do List (Company Menu -> To Do List), click the To Do button on the lower left -> Choose New
- In the Remind me on date drop-down, enter January 1 of the next calendar year
- Start out with something to the effect of “Notes for 2010 See (Accountant Name) Account
- Referencing the transaction type (check #, invoice #, vendor bill #) and Vendor Name, Customer Name, etc. add additional details.
- You can easily add more information by going back to the Company Menu->To Do List and double-click on the original entry.
- When the reminder pops up on January 1, open the To Do Item and Print it out and include it you’re your tax return information.
You will find that your accountant, once he or she get’s used to this, will be very grateful for your extra efforts in notifying him/her of items that you are unsure of what to do with.
QuickBooks 2011 offers the ability to exclude Estimates, Sales Orders and Purchase Orders from the Closing Date lock. This is a key piece of functionality that will be attractive to contractors and other business types who often have open Estimates, Sales Orders or Purchase Orders; which I just learned about yesterday in a “New Features in QuickBooks 2011” webinar presented by Joe Woodard.
The Closing Date feature in QuickBooks is designed primarily to protect transactions from previous reporting periods from being changed – for example, it is often a general practice for an accounting professional to set a closing date in a clients QuickBooks file after they have finished preparing their tax returns. Setting a Closing Date allows the accountant to know that the client cannot go back and make changes to transactions that would impact the tax returns that were filed.
Unfortunately, the Closing Date feature works as a “lock”; and effectively prevents a user from making changes to open “non-posting” transactions such as Estimates, Sales Orders, and Purchase Orders.
It’s common in the construction industry to have Estimates that remain open for 6 months to sometimes several years – depending on the size of the job, when they were awarded the contract, and even when they actually start to work on their piece of the project.
With previous versions of QuickBooks, a business owner who utilized these types of non-posting transactions could not use this feature until AFTER the transactions had been closed (Estimate fully invoiced, Sales Orders fulfilled, or Purchase Order completely received); however, their accountants would frequently enter a closing date when they were finished with the tax return.
This caused a lot of hassle and additional work for the business owner. They would need to create a 2nd Estimate in it’s entirety and then create a single progress invoice billing out everything that they had billed up until the time that their books were “closed” by their accountant – they then had to set the invoice as “Mark as Pending” so that it wouldn’t show up in their Accounts Receivable.
With QuickBooks 2011, you can now choose to exclude these open, non-posting transactions when you set a closing date!
If you are a QuickBooks user be sure to tell your accountant about this feature, and if you are an accounting professional, ask them if they need access to these transactions BEFORE you set the closing date, they’ll love you for it!
This option is available from the Edit menu -> Preferences -> Accounting -> Company Preferences tab -> click on the Set Date/Password button -> then check the option to “Exclude”.
Right click on the image to enlarge it.
To some this will seem like a small and perhaps unimportant change; but for some it will be a HUGE improvement in the functionality.
 |
Request our FREE 142-page “What’s New in QuickBooks 2011? eBook, by completing a simple request form.
This eBook will provide you with with all the information I’ve posted here in our blog, plus MORE! Once you’ve completed our simple request form, you’ll have instant access to this 142-page .pdf eBook, designed to be duplex printed and put in a binder for future reference. |
