The study was conducted by Randolph P. Johnston of the Network Management Group, Leslie Garrett PhD of the Insight Rearch Group and Brian Tankersley

Among technology issues, workflow efficient was by far the largest concern. Security was cited by 19 percent of respondents, with 14 percent naming getting clients onboard to work with firms in a more digital way. The top firm management issues were more evenly distributed. Thirty-nine percent said recruiting and retention top their issue lists while attracting new clients was the most important concern for 38 percent.

The survey shows the continuing dominance of Intuit products among accounting firms. Sixty-nine percent of respondents use some form of QuickBooks for client accounting with 26 percent using QuickBooks Accountant and 25 percent QuickBooks Pro. Similarly, Intuit products represent 59 percent of the answers for write-up and bookkeeping software with two packages from Thomson Reuters the choice of 16 percent. Fifty-percent said they use QuickBooks Pro, 9 percent, Creative Solutions Accounting, 9 percent, QuickBooks (not Accountant version); and 7 percent, Accounting CS.

QuickBooks is also the most popular payroll software, cited by 25 percent. The other products lagged far behind and were in order Creative Solutions Accounting Payroll, 9 percent; ADP, 7 percent, Intuit Online Payroll, 7 percent; PayChex, 6 percent; Sage Payroll, 5 percent; and Accounting CS Payroll 4 percent.

Products in Wolters Kluwer's CCH line led several categories. These were as follows: scanning applications, CCH Scan, 20 percent; tax preparation, CCH ProSystem fx Tax, 30 percent; engagement software, CCH ProSystem fx Engagement, 27 percent;

Besides its strong showing in write-up software, Thomson Reuters was dominant in research. Forty-nine percent cited the company's Checkpoint as the most commonly used research tool. In order, the other choices were government Internet sites, 33 percent; Google, 32 percent; and CCH IntelliConnect, 25 percent.

Thomson's FileCabinet CS was the top choice for document management applications at 14 percent, following by Doc.It with 13 percent. Thomson's Practice CS and XCM tied as the choice of 11 percent each in the workflow software category.