But it might be better to say they first invest in technology that has an immediate impact on productivity and profitability.
The study was conducted by Randy Johnston, a well-known consultant in the accounting industry, and Leslie Garrett, a public relations executive.
Ten percent have one monitor connected to a single workstation on their primary work desk, while 89 percent work with two to four or more monitors connected. And the most commonly used web-based tool remains the portal. Portal useage has increased dramaticaly over two years. In 2015, 60 percent of respondents said they utilized portals and that has risen to 75 percent in the most recent survey. That was a 1-percent increase from 2016 which led the sponsors to conclude adoption may have plateaued.
The willingness of firms to move to the cloud is complicated. Only twelve percent have implemented some form of web-hosted of cloud-based software for one or more of their tax and accounting applications. But 42 percent report they are very likely or somewhat likely to implement this technology over the next two years.
While 80 percent say they use some form of cloud applications these are largely outside of common office applications. Thirty-two percent listed email hosting; 31 percent, large file transmission; 26 percent, disaster recovery; and 25 percent, Dropbox. Cloud-based office applications were named by 24 percent. The most widely used web-based accounting applications were QuickBooks Online by 53 percent; Bill.com, 18 percent; and Xero, 12 percent.
Intuit's dominance in the market was shown by the answers to several questions.
Used by 53 percent of those responding, QuickBooks Pro is the most popular write-up/bookkeeping software. QuickBooks is also the most popular payroll produced, the choice of 29 percent, while Intuit Online Payroll was cited by another 8 percent.
The most popular time and billing/practice management applications were CCH Practice Management (20 percent), Thomson Reuter's Practice CS (19 percent), followed by 13 percent using various editions of QuickBooks.
