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Xcentric Celebrates 8 Years

Xcentric — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:30:57 +0000

Yesterday marked Xcentric’s 8th anniversary. What started out as a 6-man shop in a one-room home office has grown into the Xcentric we know today. We are excited about the growth that has occurred over these 8 years and look forward to what lies ahead.

We are honored to serve you and proud to be the team that supports more accountants than any other technology company nationwide. Thank you for your continued trust in Xcentric.

Tagged: Xcentric

Xcentric Growth

Xcentric — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:00:51 +0000

Xcentric grew 50 percent in our 2009 Gray Matter user count despite the economic challenges of the past year. This growth not only reflects Xcentric’s continued success, but also the accounting industry’s shift toward the Cloud. More and more firms are leveraging the Cloud so they can enjoy the benefits of secure and reliable technology, without needing to have their hands in it.

Xcentric was one of the first to offer a totally outsourced solution to the accounting industry back in 2004, with the introduction of Xcentric Gray Matter. Since then Xcentric has released several new versions of Xcentric Gray Matter and also offers managed services and online backup in the Cloud.

Xcentric has also recently been ranked as the top outsourced technology provider by both the CPA Technology Advisor magazine Readers’ Choice Awards and the Association for Accounting Administration 2010 SaaS Survey.

Tagged: growth, Xcentric

Infrastructure Best Practices

Michael Lynton — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:39:40 +0000

We’ve been doing a good bit of consulting lately with accounting firms of various sizes. Initially, we would start these conversations more or less assuming that the core pieces of each firm’s network were done according to accounting industry best practices. However, we learned quickly that this is not always the case. In light of this finding, we would like to share with you a few things that jump out as infrastructure best practices for a network:

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.

Tagged: best practices, infrastructure, servers, technology, Xcentric

Xcentric Listed Among Fastest Growing Companies- Two Years in a Row!

Xcentric — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:53:03 +0000

Did you know that Xcentric is one of the fastest growing private companies in America? Xcentric was included in Inc. Magazine’s 5000 List for the second year in a row. The annual Inc 5000 List celebrates the creativity, dedication and hard work that the country’s top entrepreneurs put into building their companies. Each year, Inc. Magazine ranks the companies with the fastest percentage growth in revenue based on submitted annual revenue numbers for the past three years. To be considered, companies must also be privately held, US-based, for profit and independent as of December 31, 2008.

Inc. Magazine attributed Xcentric’s continual growth to our focus on CPA firms and our ability to host all of a firm’s applications remotely. We agree that these are important factors, but we would also add our faithful friends and partners, our dedicated team, and God’s blessing to the list of essential growth factors. Thank you for your contribution to making Xcentric a success!

Here’s a link to the press release.

Tagged: growth, inc5000, Xcentric

What’s to come for CCH/WoltersKluwer

Trey James — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:39:53 +0000

Today we met with the CCH team at the WoltersKluwer headquarters in Deerfield, IL. Roman Kepczyk, Tom Davis and myself spent the day with the heads of Tax and Accounting and the various product managers to get a peek at what 2009 and beyond holds for their products. It will be interesting to watch how quickly the market adopts their latest SaaS versions of Practice, Tax, and Document this year.

Trey @ CCH/WoltersKluwer

Tagged: CCH, WoltersKluwer, Xcentric

The ThomsonReuters 2009 roadmap

Trey James — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:33:00 +0000

We met with ThomsonReuters at their Dexter, MI headquarters to review the latest updates and features in the CS suite of software. Tom Davis, Roman Kepczyk, and yours truly were introduced to the 2009 versions of Thomson’s products, spending most of our time on Practice CS, Engagement CS, and their near term vision for integration with the suite of portals. We reciprocated with an industry update on what the three of us are observing within the accounting community.

Tagged: CSI, Thomson, ThomsonReuters, Trey, Xcentric

Happy birthday, Xcentric

Trey James — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:12:00 +0000

Today, Sunday, March 1st 2009, marks Xcentric’s seventh year in business. Thanks to the efforts and stewardship of our team’s God-given talents, the continued trust that clients place in us, along with God’s willingness and grace, we’ve had an amazing journey over the years. Happy birthday, Xcentric!

Tagged: Xcentric