"
Special Reports

Special Reports (155)

The Progressive Accountant is the leading online communit of public tax and accounting professionals focused on using technology to better manage and grow their practice.

Cracking the WIP - How Workflow Tools Can Aid Productivity


For accountants, workflow tools are about gaining control of information. Rather than spending  hours running from office to office seeking to learn the status of that lost tax return or incomplete compilation, with a good workflow solution you are promised access to any client file at any stage of completion anywhere in your (real or virtual) office. Ideally these tools also let you check the status of client work, monitor due dates, manage staff time, and review actual versus budgeted time. As more firms have moved from paper to paperless, these electronic command and control systems have become increasingly important for those seeking to realize the full potential of their paperless systems.

Read more...

Review: Scanning the Market for Scanners?

Like printers, cameras and cell phones, most of the critical information is hard to root out in advance, leaving accountants to fend for themselves in terms of ease of use, quality of output and documents scanned per minute. Read more...

Review: Tools to Build Your Web Site

construction imageAs an owner of a small accounting practice, I am constantly looking for new clients. One area of focus that seems to have a lot of growth potential is the new entrepreneurs. The new entrepreneurs are people who have either been laid off from large corporations or who are looking for second or third careers or young adults entering the workforce for the first time. The entrepreneurial spirit is still very much alive and well. People are taking advantage of technology and starting all kinds of interesting online ventures. I just read about some recent college graduates that have founded an online customized chocolate bars business, Chocomize, with bacon and chocolate being the most requested.

Read more...

Review: Workpaper Software Standard Tools in Unusual Times

It's amazing how quickly technology can change the way that we work. Old manual methods of working are replaced by new automated processes. And just as my 10-year-old children don't know what a 33-1/3 record is - or what they would do with one - the day is fast approaching when an accountant entering a new job will not recognize a stack of old fashioned working papers bound together by a rickety metal clip.

Read more...

Review: Sales Tax--No Place for DIY

Economic pressures have caused many individuals to stay closer to home. These homebound individuals have fueled a huge increase in DIY (Do-It-Yourself) activities. We’ve seen at home pedicures replace SPA visits, tossable dryer sheets edging out trips to the dry cleaner, even off-the-shelf mouth guards substituting for trips to the dentist. How this DIY trend has impacted small business revenue is a topic for another day, but when it comes to their internal operations, sales tax compliance in no place for businesses to consider DIY.

Read more...

Review: Budget Software Important in a Recovering Economy

Given its importance to the operation of any organization, it is amazing that software to help define and build a budget gets such short shrift in the marketplace. Yet it remains a fact that only a handful of software developers focus on this market.
Read more...

Helping Small Biz Get the Bills Out

Not everyone uses QuickBooks. But small businesses still need to send invoices. If some of your clients aren’t ready to automate their entire financial operations but want an alternative to Word and Excel for invoices, there are myriad options.

These applications are Web-based, easy to use and in some cases, free. The advantages of using them are obvious. Your clients can not only create customized invoices but easily e-mail them and track their progress. They can stay in touch with receivables anywhere there’s a Web connection, including an iPhone in some cases. And when they’re ready to move up to a full-fledged accounting solution, they have reliable A/R records.
Read more...

Making Mission Impossible Doable For Nonprofits

Nonprofit organizations have an almost impossible mission. They are expected to serve the needs of as many constituents as possible while making a minimum investment in administrative costs. Their reporting needs are extensive and their teams are expected to deliver miracles. They have to answer to just about anyone who makes a donation along with a myriad of government organizations. Every dollar they spend must be tracked from plan to action to results.

Read more...

Handling Documents the Smart Way

To go paperless or not, is that really the question? I think not.  I am from a generation that used typewriters for term papers. I like to see and feel paper.  I enjoy a good cup of coffee with a newspaper, that is if you can find a newspaper anymore. But that really doesn’t apply to a document management system. You can still hold and look at paper with a good document management system.  However, document management is more about our most valuable asset… Time. 

Read more...

Scan and Organize for Good Effect

The most significant reason to use a scan-and-organize application is to make operations become more effective. “Effective” relates to the total benefits received exceeding the cost of the system and its support. Anything that creates less revenue and more cost should not be considered. The good news is that many CPA firms have already discovered significant benefits by using systems that convert paper to digital data.
 
Information is forever expanding and there are more documents, more regulatory schedules, perhaps multiple W-2s, income from a number of employers and so on. This rising tide of paper is pushing up against the availability of people to do the work of collecting, sorting and filing. CPAs, both partners and staff, have a growing desire to maintain a quality of life. Performing clerical activities like manually making copies or storing documents wastes high salaried individuals’ time. It increases rather decreases firm operating costs.

Read more...

Visit other PMG Sites:

Template Settings

Color

For each color, the params below will give default values
Tomato Green Blue Cyan Dark_Red Dark_Blue

Body

Background Color
Text Color

Header

Background Color

Footer

Select menu
Google Font
Body Font-size
Body Font-family
Direction
PMG360 is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal data we collect from our subscribers/agents/customers/exhibitors and sponsors. On May 25th, the European's GDPR policy will be enforced. Nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed, however, we have made a few changes. We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to make it easier for you to understand what information we collect, how and why we collect it.