Top Tools for CPAs: Technology Products That Make Your Work Go Faster and Smoother
2004; American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; Volume: 197; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0021-8448
Autores Tópico(s)Service-Oriented Architecture and Web Services
ResumoToday's technology buyers face a unique challenge. Just a few years ago buyer beware was the universal watchword for CPAs buying computer equipment. Hardware reliability was so questionable that many cost- and quality-conscious accountants required computer retailers to bench-test hard ware to be sure it was sound before they shipped it. Today's products are generally of such high quality that such testing no longer is necessary. Even bargain-basement hardware suffers relatively infrequent failures. Functionality has improved, too. Today, computers are faster, more accessible (because of the Internet and wireless technology) and, especially when measured by what they can do, are far cheaper than yesterday's models. So what's the challenge? SURGING TECHNOLOGY Computer and software technology is advancing at a record pace, but rather than becoming easier to use, today's products generally are more complicated. Many CPAs lack the time and/or the patience to learn the skills needed to take full advantage of these advances. Even worse, the technology continues to move forward, getting more complicated and thus widening the gap between potential and actual use. Don't mistakenly interpret this challenge as an excuse not to explore the new technology or to fail to seek new ways to use what you have. If you fail to commit yourself to stay ahead of the game, you undoubtedly will slip into obsolescence, which is what happened to many CPAs when they failed to get aboard the fast-moving computer bandwagon of the 1980s. Admittedly, it takes courage to give up what works well now and explore new technology. But consider the alternative: being left behind while your competitors advance. To help you focus on recent technology that is especially useful to you now, this article will skip the gee-whiz hardware and software--the so-called bleeding-edge technology-and focus on products that will keep you efficient and effective today and in the immediate future. Manufacturers' list prices often are heavily discounted; for the most current price, check vendors' Web sites. In some cases 1 list the street price, which obtained by doing a Google search (www.googlo.nom) for the product. Data backup Despite warnings of potential disaster, many accountants still fail to back up their critical data. And by regularly don't mean once a month or once a week. mean every day--and sometimes even several times a day if the data are especially critical and irreplaceable. The excuses for failing to back up data usually include: It's too time-consuming, It's difficult, and the lamest of all, I forgot Admittedly, the first two reasons--time and difficulty-are valid, but they're not excusable. When you've lost critical data for lack of a backup, no excuse will satisfy a client, a boss or, upon reflection, even yourself. Most of the backup programs I've looked at tend to be complicated, slow and often lack reminders to get you to overcome your procrastination and initiate the backup. Many also suffer from an even more critical shortcoming: If they use compression technology (to squeeze the backed-up data into a more easily storable size), typically the compression method is proprietary. That means the only way you can retrieve your data is to run the program's unique retrieval application sort of running the backup in reverse. However, if the backup program fails, your data are not accessible, which means either you're out of hick or terribly inconvenienced until you can get the program running again. Such a problem probably happens rarely, but it has to occur only once to mess up your day. ZipBackup (www.zlpbackup.com) is a little program that aces those shortcomings. It compacts the files you want to store into the most common, and proven, compression format--compatible with WinZip and PkZip. Both can be added to run natively within Windows; so that eliminates the problem of proprietary compression software. …
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