CPA_Practice_Advisor_June_2020 - 28

APPS WE LOVE

By Gail Perry, CPA, Editor-in-Chief

Apps for the New Normal
WHAT CAN WE expect post-pandemic? Are there apps you have discovered that
are helping to define the New Normal? Are there apps that need to be created
to help us continue to exist, socialize, get back to work? We asked members of
the CPA Practice Advisor community to share some apps they are learning to like,
and we also encouraged them to dream a little and come up with new apps that
it would be great to have as we venture out into the world again. Here are their
phone location to show trends and patterns in social
suggestions.
Will Hill, senior product manager-tax professionals advisory, at Thomson Reuters suggested, "I
can envision more office sharing. What app will be
created/repurposed to allow team members to 'sign
out' an office for the day or half of a day?"
Rick Richardson, CPA, CITP, CGMA, managing
partner at Richardson Media & Technologies (and
former drummer for The Beach Boys), wants to
remind us that, "During this crisis, our mental
health is suffering. Headspace is here to give you
the tools and resources to look after your mind. And
now, more than ever, it's time to support those who
really need it. If you're unemployed, you can get a
free year of Headspace Plus to help you get back
on your feet."
Richardson also wants us to be on the lookout
for Digital Health Passport. "Several researchers
are working with different technologies to create
smartphone apps that would provide a 'certificate'
of COVID-19 immunity which could be required for
someone to return to work. Some of these may also
incorporate Bluetooth-based contact tracing, others
will be using Blockchain technology."
Randy Johnston, executive vice president at K2
Enterprises, shared his awareness of several apps
that might come in handy:
* Confirmed: calendar scheduling that is better than
Bookings, Calendly or the other competitors
* Yabbu - a meeting agenda builder
* PhoneSoap - this is a product that provides
convenient sanitation and stops the spread of bacteria
* We need contact tracing apps to know when we
are exposed to unhealthy people. Johnston pointed
to TraceTogether and Unacast. TraceTogether,
an app released by the Singaporean Government,
exchanges Bluetooth signals between phones to store
information about people with whom you have come
in contact. It then works with contract tracers to
inform contacts of a COVID-19 case. Unacast tracks

JUNE 2020 ■

distancing.
* Health passports such as Onfido use facial recognition
to access a health profile and thus promote safe travel.
Jennifer Wilson, partner and co-founder of
ConvergenceCoaching, would be interested in seeing, "An app that can beep if you get within 6 feet
of someone else (helps maintain social distancing);
something to take the temp of the people you are
with; something that can measure the body heat in
a room and the size of the room to tell you there are
too many people in it to be safe. These might be all
paranoid ideas, but helpful during this need to stay
well away from others."
Sandra Wiley, president of Boomer Consulting,
offered to share her "I wish" app: "I really want to
get back out again, and I think the only way that I'm
going to ever feel comfortable going out and interacting in public again is if I have assurances that the
people around me are as healthy as science allows
us to detect. So the app would be a map of the area
around me in real time that detects anyone with a
fever. Then, I know who to stay away from. :-) The
next wave of the app would be some way to tell who
has had the vaccine (when it is finally developed).
I fear that would require a chip to be implanted in
people, and I'm not sure I am ready to go there yet."
"Work from home can have a negative repercussion on personal time and the work/life balance
as work is always there; coupled with quarantine
and the perception that there is nowhere to go, it
is easy for employees to feel they always have to
be available," explained Kacee Johnson, strategic
advisor at CPA.com. "For some, working at all hours
is the norm - but for the receiver of emails it can
pull them back in to work when the item can wait
until business hours. We need an app, or better yet
an add-on to our mobile email, which will hold all
emails 'sent' during off-hours. Or the ability when
you hit send after hours to 'hold delivery until 7am'
- this way those who want to work are not stunted

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by the lack of 'delay delivery' that desktop affords
and mobile does not, but the receiver(s) don't feel
compelled to work by the sound of the ding."
Natasha Schamberger, CPA, CEO & president,
Kansas Society of CPAs, is excited to see how this
pandemic has changed perspectives around remote
work and more flexibility in our accounting profession and is hopeful that new habits will form as
a result. "I see a prime opportunity for a Results
Only Work Environment (ROWE) to hop on board,
especially as our profession moves towards providing more advisory type services. However, I think
our profession needs tools to cope and manage a
ROWE. This is an idea for a new app, not knowing
if there is already something out there that I'm not
aware of.
"Instead of traditional performance management software tools or project management software, it's a combo and specifically geared towards

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