2009 AAA 2009 Benchmarking Paperless Office Best Practices by Roman H. Kepczyk

AAA 2009 Benchmarking Paperless Office Best Practices Survey
By Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP (December 20, 2008)

What is the status of paperless office practices in accounting firms today? To find out, the Association for Accounting Administration surveyed their members (more than 940 firms) and received input from 222 firms this past week. This survey followed up on the AAA’s landmark studies done in 2003, 2005, and 2007 which were intended to find out exactly what digital practices firms would have in place for the 2009 busy season. Benchmark your firm against your peers and you may find there are some leading practices your firm should be implementing prior to the busy season. Additional findings for specific questions with an (*) are detailed below the survey listing. To find out more about the specific results of this survey and how your firm can take the next step towards a more digital environment, Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP will be presenting a webcast for the Association for Accounting Administration on December 11, 2008 to discuss findings.

AAA Benchmarking 2009 Paperless Office Practices	2009	2007
1. Tax - Is the due date status of returns updated electronically by personnel in real time format (including managing the digital workflow of Tax documents?)	71%	69%
2. Tax - Is your firm scanning client supplied information for storage of Tax return supporting document?	86%	75%
3. Tax - Does your firm scan client source documents (W2, 1099, etc.) at the front end of the process when the return is received and/or prior to review so they are utilized online?	65%	NEW
4. Tax - Does your firm primarily utilize administrative staff for scanning of Tax documents?	81%	67%
5. Tax - Does your firm instruct its personnel to primarily utilize email for communicating with Tax clients for additional information requests?	49%	54%
6. Tax - Does your firm have a policy to deliver electronic Tax information to your clients in a secure password protected or encrypted method (including a portal or FTP site)?	57%	45%
7. Tax - Does your firm utilize dual monitors for all Tax personnel?	90%	69%
8. Tax - Does your firm have any personnel with three or more monitors?	37%	10%
9. *Tax - Is your firm utilizing intelligent scanning to organize scanned documents or input them into the Tax return?	32%	29%
10. AUDIT - Are documents prepared by clients requested in an electronic format such as a PDF, spreadsheet or scanned image?	73%	68%
11. *AUDIT - Are all workpapers stored in a paperless audit application?	86%	71%
12. AUDIT - Is your firm producing financial statements utilizing electronic links between the audit application and the reports, rather than re-keying data?	79%	75%
13. AUDIT - Does your firm primarily link its audit applications to its Tax application to digitally transfer trial balance information?	73%	64%
14. AUDIT - Do your personnel working outside the office access firm applications and information via a virtual private network or Citrix/WTS more than 50% of the time?	63%	54%
15. AUDIT - Do your auditors carry dual monitors in the field?	30%	NEW
16. ADMINISTRATION - Does your firm utilize an intranet to store firm wide information (i.e. personnel manual and internal firm procedures)?	71%	68%
17. *ADMINISTRATION - Does your firm deliver firm financial and management reports electronically via email, secure portal or posted to owner section of the intranet?	62%	46%
18. ADMINISTRATION - Does your firm have an electronic document destruction procedure to ensure deletion of outdated electronic files on the network?	45%	39%
19. *ADMINISTRATION - Does your firm use a firm-wide document management program for archival of all final Tax returns, financial reports and firm correspondence?	51%	55%
20. ADMINISTRATION - Does your firm pay accounts payables via electronic means such as credit card, online and direct deposit?	45%	34%
21. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT - Do owners/managers receive internal management reports electronically (via email or by looking them up on the computer)?	71%	67%
22. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT - Are the majority of invoices prepared onscreen (rather than using billing sheets)?	60%	51%
23. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT - Does your firm maintain its contact/prospect list in its practice management or groupware applications?	73%	72%
24. *COMMUNICATIONS - Do all partners and managers utilize notebook computers as their only computer?	34%	31%
25. COMMUNICATIONS - Does your firm have a digital fax system that allows you to receive faxes via email and save them digitally to the network?	57%	50%
26. COMMUNICATIONS - Does your firm deliver client invoices by email or digital fax?	20%	13%
27. COMMUNICATIONS - Does your firm utilize a client portal/extranet to transfer and store client documents?	40%	22%
28. TECHNOLOGY - Does your firm backup all firm data to the Internet (web-bases storage) on at least a monthly basis?	32%	25%
29. TECHNOLOGY - Does your firm utilize a SharePoint team server or Lotus Notes knowledge database?	23%	19%
30. TECHNOLOGY - Do your personnel utilize smart phones for remote email, calendar and contacts?	74%	NEW

Additional Findings on Specific Questions:
9. The survey found that of 63 firms using Intelligent scanning tools that 47 utilized CCH FxScan and 16 utilized SurePrep 1040 Scan.
11. Of the 173 member firms using an audit document container, 112 utilized CCH Engagement, 36 utilized CaseWare, and 25 used Thomson Engagement CS.
17. 137 firms used digital delivery methods to send firm management reports. 81 firms utilized email, 29 utilized a secure portal and 27 posted them to an owner section of the firm’s intranet.
19. The number of survey participants that had a document management system dropped from 55% in 2007 to 51% in 2009, which would most likely reflect differences in participating firms rather than firms discontinuing to use a document management system. Of the 79 firms that did have a document management system, 40 utilized CCH Document, 31 were on Thomson GoFileRoom and 8 were using Doc-It.
24. The 2009 survey found that the number of partners and managers utilizing laptops as their only machine had increased from 31% in 2007 to 34% today. Interestingly in the 2005 survey participants stated that 49% of tax personnel had laptops. We believe this overall decrease is due to firms adding remote access solutions and more people having computers at home with broadband Internet access.
30. BlackBerry is the clear favorite amongst smartphone users as 116 firms utilize them along with 40 still on Palm/Treos, and 40 using Microsoft Mobile. The surprise in the survey pointed to 7 Apple iPhone users.

For any additional questions regarding this survey, please email Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP at roman@itpna.com or phone (480) 706-1728. This article was printed with permission from the Association for Accounting Administration (www.cpaadmin.org).

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