CPA_Practice_Advisor_June_2020 - 29

APPS WE LOVE

managing employees and a team in a Results Only
Work Environment. So maybe an app or tool that
allows for project-focused SMART goals, project
tracking, milestone recognition, and ways for teams
to see individual project goals, their team member's
progress, team goals and how it all feeds into the
organization goals. I'm envisioning a collaborative
platform similar to an online learning path where:
* Instead of students, it's professionals
* Instead of learning content within a course, it's steps
to achieve projects.
* Instead of earning a digital badge after learning
content, it's earning a digital badge (or something
similar) for achieving certain milestones
* There could be a leaderboard for some friendly
competition and motivation on a team
* The manager would have a dashboard view of all
team members, the project(s) interconnectivity and
progress, plus built in accountability to have regular

performance discussions with their employees
In addition, there could be a component where
the organization posts the projects with SMART
goals/milestones and the employees choose which
projects/project teams they prefer to work on.
"I believe our profession would be more apt to
move towards a Results Only Work Environment if
there were specific tools to manage it and if they
could envision it working for advisory type service
offerings. This would tie into value billing as well,"
said Schamberger.
Caleb Jenkins, leader of client accounting
services at RLJ Financial Services, told us, "I think
a big category is going to be a better way to manage our time going forward. As we move forward
from COVID19 into the future there will be a mad
rush of everything that will compete for our time,
energy, and attention. We probably have all enjoyed/
appreciated the extra time at home with family, so

we are going to need to strategically decide how we
add events back into our lives the next few months.
Managing our time effectively is crucial to keeping
us in line with our goals. One app I'm testing out
right now is Strides to help me manage my goals
during the next few months."
Garrett Wagner, CPA, CITP, founder/CEO of
C3 Evolution Group, said, "It is funny, but as we
think about what is happening today and then
what will happen going forward, for some of us, we
were already virtual and using a variety of apps to
communicate, collaborate, share knowledge, and
get paid. For those of us who already embraced the
future not much has changed, except others were
forced to join us. As we move forward with life are
the majority of people going to move away from food
delivery and video communication or will they adopt
a better way of doing things? Perhaps the best app
is one that helps people continue to use technology
vs. going back to the way things used to be."
Blake Oliver, CPA, director of marketing at Jirav,
suggests, "We need augmented reality technology
ASAP. Imagine working from your home office,
joining an online meeting, and a hologram of a colleague or a client pops up appearing to sit on the
other side of your desk. Making the two-dimensional
video conference three-dimensional could do a lot
to help give virtual meetings more of the same feel
as in-person meetings."
Jackie Meyer, CPA, CEO/founder at Meyer Tax,
said, "The pandemic has exposed virtual weaknesses
firms have as it forced full paperless conversion on
everyone, in any stage. The app of the future is a true
platform, embedding software into your processes,
not vice versa (trying to mash your processes into
several different apps that don't talk). Once firms
are tired of cookie-cutter solutions they may have
jumped into and can invest time in a truly personalized system, many more firms will be custom
developing a platform. Qount.io is that platform for
us. We began implementing it in Fall of 2019, before
the pandemic, but are so thankful for what we have
been able to accomplish by converting (so far) half
a dozen apps into the one platform and expect to
convert another dozen or so by the end of 2020."
Samantha Mansfield, part of the DCPA Team and
founder at Samantha Mansfield, LLC, said, "Using
the personal shoppers has been great for grocery
shopping, and I don't see giving up that time saver
and convenience. Next, it would be great if Alexa
would send our 'Shopping List' to your grocery store
account to populate what you need, and schedule
the pick-up date!" ■

JUNE 2020 ■

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