A day later I found myself in ‘the chair’ with that haunting light over me, hearing deep sighs from the dentist. “Son, we have a problem. You not only need one root canal, you need THREE.” Horrible news, especially for an 18-year old.  But at least I’d found someone who could fix it; someone experienced with helping people get their mouth back in good form, right?

Fast forward 10 years later to a few weeks ago.  There I sat in the dentist chair once again, only to hear another deep sigh from the dentist, “Son, you need a root canal.”

What?  How on earth? I brush regularly, now with a Sonicare toothbrush nonetheless (Link to my Sonicare post), and haven’t had a single cavity in 10 years.  How could this happen?

Turns out the last dentist hadn’t cleaned out the infection properly during the root canal. I won’t go into specifics, but basically tooth #14 has 4 canals, of which the 4th is hard to find.  My previous dentist didn’t find it, which means it didn’t get cleaned out. Thus I have had an infection for possibly 10+ years in tooth #14.

Why hadn’t the dentist gotten to the root of the issue (in every senses of the word)? In short, he wasn’t a specialist. He was a generalist. He was actually a great dentist, but he wasn’t a skilled Endodontic Specialist. In certain cases a specialist is needed and, in this case, the dentist didn’t possess the lens needed to find the 4th canal in tooth #14. Luckily my current dentist knew he wasn’t a specialist in this matter so he referred me to an Endodontic Specialist.  He was the expert and, for him, finding the 4th canal was routine.

In summary:
I had an issue.
I found help.
It wasn’t the right help.
I had another issue.
I found the right help.

How does this relate to your technology?
Glad you asked.  As a CPA firm your technology needs are more complex than SMBs, ie. your clients. Most technology companies are generalists and have 90% of the tools (staff and/or technology) for 90% of the businesses out there. But what happens when your audit application won’t sync? What happens when an update blows up? Most likely a generalist technology company won’t find that 4th canal and may even have no clue how to help you…unless they spend multiple hours looking for a needle in a haystack, which they may or may not find, but will most certainly bill you for.

Why won’t they find it? Like the generalist dentist, they don’t have the right lens. They don’t possess that skill. They are generalists and they may be a great generalist at that…but that’s not what you need. You need a specialist.

*Article was written approx 30 minutes after completing the root canal, I blame typos and non-sense on the drugs!

• Real Time Collaboration – Emailing documents in circles, going through VPNs, and using thumb drives are examples of how data USED to move. Sure it still moves like that, however it has been proven that is not the most efficient or secure way of doing things and these college kids have seen it implemented on a mass level. Try telling them it can’t be done in a firm and you will get a blank stare.
• Anytime Anywhere Access – Internet as you know is the life blood to this whole conversation. These students seem to live in a connected state and they (and most of us by now) have now ingrained internet access into their lives. Home, work, cafes, parks, campus, phones, etc – they have rewired their lives in efforts to find a wire to the internet. They can smell the internet!
• Easy – We all know what easy technology is right? It just works. When you click it does what you expected it to do. When you try something for the first time you don’t have to read a ‘HELP’ section because you can just feel your way around. That is easy technology, and while it’s still not the norm, it is becoming the standard of those who gain market share.
• Fun – yes I said fun. Colleges are producing technology geeks in droves! People who have not only intertwined technology into their daily lives in order to get work done but also ones who go home and get right back on the computer to discover, share, and learn about the world and their friends.

To sum up: These college kids are what’s being called ‘digital natives’ and while that is important to know & understand that phrasing it’s more important that the non-digital natives are not the ‘digital naive’. Merging mindsets, not displacing or replacing, but merging will lead to a culture that is headed in the right direction.

Google Education Link

Outsourcing taboo?

Mention “outsourcing” in the accounting community and the first thing that comes to mind is sending tax preparation to India. To some that is a good thought, yet many others have an immediate and negative reaction.

However, since the invention of fire… oh, and the abacus… CPAs, themselves, have successfully convinced businesses that outsourcing their accounting and tax compliance functions is a good thing:

“Take advantage of our experts.”
“We do this all day long.”
“We have the credentials.”
“It’s too risky to do it on your own.”

These are all good points, and I agree completely – hence I use an accountant, and thus my own company uses a CPA firm to do its taxes. We couldn’t possibly compete with our CPA’s experience and, most importantly, I couldn’t do my day-job if I tried.

The paper-based to Internet-based transition is a perfect example of outsourcing’s advantages. As with tax research, technologies of all kinds are following suit. It’s pervasive. Software is being web-enabled. Servers are being virtualized. Networks are moving to the cloud (see Jason Conger’s article Is Cloud Computing just a fancy name for Virtualization?). And the younger generations are thankful for it. They get it. They want it. And they don’t understand why we’re resistant to the change.

What is the cloud?

Firms today are moving toward the inevitable – the cloud – a model where technology help desk, hardware, software, and management can be completely outsourced. No more servers, fewer IT people, improved productivity and more time to focus on the business.

If India just popped into your mind, you can rest easy. Few, if any, US-based hosting providers are opting to offshore their IT talent, so we needn’t worry about our precious client data traversing the globe to lands far far away. Plus, learning about the provider’s operations is a straightforward piece of the due diligence process.

Remember when the “web” became the catchy new term for the up-and-coming Internet? Well the “cloud” lives on the web and it’s the new hip way to refer to a cornucopia of outsourced web-based technologies. The cloud is best defined as a “pay as you go computing web-infrastructure, leveraged for economies of scale.” You will often hear the cloud referred to as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), and even IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service). Wikipedia is a great resource for learning more about each.

What can be put in the cloud?

All of your software will eventually live in the cloud- tax, practice management, engagement/trial balance, document management, QuickBooks™/Peachtree™, the aforementioned tax research, Microsoft Office™ collaboration tools (email, shared calendars, tasks). Nearly everything will go into the cloud; it’s just a matter of time.

You’d be surprised how many firms have already moved there. Small firms with two employees, large firms with hundreds of employees and everything in between. Multi-office firms and firms who need remote access are especially good candidates because everything is securely accessible via the web… from the cloud.

What does this mean for all of us?

In short, all of our technology will eventually live in the cloud, and we will be better for it. This transition will allow us to focus on what we do best in our businesses, leaving the rest for people who focus, and are experts, on what we don’t care to do or are not good at. Technology is a cornerstone to most of our businesses in terms of success — we can’t live without it. But ask yourself why you started your business to begin with. If ‘technology management’ or ‘technology services’ isn’t core to your firm’s purpose and mission, then it likely falls squarely into the ‘headache’ category. Aside from the distractions related to doing technology well, there are inherent risks to consider. Security, reliability, performance, compatibility, redundancy, and obsolescence are just a few that come to mind.

As a profession, accounting firms can no longer be a pioneer on the outsourced technology/hosting front. The good news is that many firms have made the transition successfully and they’re asking themselves why they didn’t go there sooner. Their client data is far more secure in a SAS-70, type II data center than it ever was in their closet at the office. These firms now live in a world where they spend little, if any, time planning for technology upgrades or future IT expenditures, working on IT staffing issues or fretting over security concerns.

Just as in most successful transitions to outsourced services in the past, we are much better off after the change if we can just get ourselves to start the move in that direction. Of course, there’s always the alternative of walking uphill, in the snow, barefoot. Think fancy three-ringed binders on beautifully ornate book shelves.

By the way, has anyone seen the tax binder containing Revenue Code KGF 6386 Z9 C644 1979? It’s not where it should be!  Hello?

• RAID – make sure that your servers have a RAID configuration on both the OS and Data partitions. For example, if you have a File & Print server, you would want to have your OS partition in a RAID configuration, as well as your Data partition in a RAID configuration.
• Redundant power supply – this one is fairly self explanatory. Redundant power supplies are a fairly standard option on new servers these days. However, if your server is a couple of years old and does not have redundant power, it would be something worth looking into.
• Dual gigabit NICs – gigabit NICs are usually a given on a server, however dual NICs are not always as common. Xcentric always implements dual NICs on servers. You can run these in a failover mode or as load-balancing.
• Gigabit switches – you want to have at least all of your core network servers connected to a gigabit switch to reduce any bottlenecks.
• Server warranty – it is always in your best interest to have enterprise-grade production servers that are covered with some sort of next business day service & support contract. You may have lasted the previous 3 years without one, but that is a big risk to keep taking.
• Server room- Computer equipment may look tough on the exterior; however, it is very sensitive to the environment that they operate in. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommends a temperature range of 20–25 °C (68–75 °F) and a humidity range of 40–55% with a maximum dew point of 17°C as optimal for data center conditions, according to their “Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments”.
• Power  source- A single server can draw up to 300 Watts of power, which means special planning must be made to supply uninterrupted (backed up) power. Datacenters and server rooms should not share power circuits with other high-power consumers such as copiers, refrigerators or air conditioners. Some battery backup units also require special outlets to be installed from dedicated power circuits.
• Server hardware- Only Tier One hardware should be used for the production environment. Your entire firm has its lifeline routed throughout this hardware and our best practice is to use either Dell, HP, IBM, or severs of this caliber.
• Server patches and updates- Operating systems are full of security flaws and bugs that need to be patched on a regular basis. If these critical updates are not installed, the system can be vulnerable to attacks and data can be compromised.
• Remote access card (optional) – Dell has a card called a “DRAC” (Dell Remote Access Card), and HP has something similar. These are virtually like another NIC, however,  they allow you to gain access to the server, even if it is turned off or inaccessible via  the network. This is a very valuable tool.

If you have any questions regarding infrastructure best practices, feel free to contact us at 678.297.0066 or support@xcentric.com.

I find my conversations with CPA firms on the topic of their IT budget intriguing. Whats the intriguing part ? They don’t have a budget!! The government has found that in order to cut costs you have to know what costs are – hence the need for a budget and a system to track expenses. It is truly a rare occasion that a CPA can get a tip from the government on how manage $.

Click here to visit the IT Dashboard

**btw I should add  (thanks to Dan’s comment): They seem to at least track IT spend, or put forth the effort – now do they actually save the money? Not thinking that is the case…that’s where CPAs may have wisdom to apply what’s learned from the exercise.