CPA Practice Advisor - 6

FROM THE TRENCHES

Do Your Best
Small Business Accounting
SO MANY THINGS have changed in small business accounting over the past few years, it
may be time to re-invent yourself, your practice and your clients' businesses using these
tools. As public practice professionals, it is clear we need professional grade tools for
write-up, and our small business clients have dozens of choices for accounting software
today. The AICPA ENGAGE conference this year proved that the pace of change for small
business software is not going to slow down.
The key selection questions for
small business accounting include:
which product to use, what are the
benefits to my clients, how many
third party tools are needed to create
a complete solution, who supports
the implementation, when should
an upgrade be considered from a
small business platform, and where
is the product going to be used.
Most products are going to require
add-ons for sales tax, reporting and
other required functionality. If you
are going to run a Client Accounting Services practice, how does
this restrict your choices? The day
this article was written, two public
practice CPAs asked which tools to

6

JULY 2019 ■

use for their clients and both answers
were AccountantsWorld Accounting
Power with Payroll Relief, which is
clearly a Client Accounting Service
leader that includes virtually all
functionality needed without using
third party applications. Further,
three more people asked about the
differences between QuickBooks
Online Advanced edition and other
QuickBooks Online offerings...and
the answer is Intuit is building more
advanced functionality into the larger
product, just like they have done with
QuickBooks Enterprise desktop. The
one sure thing after working in the
small business accounting market for
40+ years, one size does not fit all.

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SO, HOW DO WE PICK?
There are many more criteria than
the list above that drive making
your decision. There are clearly the
"safe" choices which come from the
larger vendors: QuickBooks desktop,
QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Business Cloud, Sage 50 and Accounting
Power. There are choices that do
a better job with inventory and
costing such as Gravity Software,
AccountingSuite, Zoho Books and
BQE Core. Note that with very little
effort, you have ten product offerings
with even more options as you will
see below, each of which is uniquely
different. We maintain reviews of
all of these products and more at
www.accountingsoftwareworld.com.
But the base product is only part of
the story.
If you decide that you desire
cloud accounting software, consider
these characteristics:
■ Minimal up-front expenditures
■ Leverage "legacy" technology investments, like portable computers and
printers
■ Quick deployments
■ Automatic backups
■ Bank/credit card/debit card feeds
■ Ecosystems of complimentary tools
■ Easy communication with external
advisors
There are also five critical considerations before implementing any
small business solution:
■ Does the application provide access

RANDY JOHNSTON

EVP & Partner
K2 Enterprises &
CEO of Network Management Group, Inc.
randy.johnston@cpapracticeadvisor.com
@RPJohnston

to critical functionality to meet
specific business needs?
■ Does the application adequately
secure sensitive and confidential
information?
■ Can the application process the
anticipated volume of transactions
generated by the organization?
■ Is t he appl icat ion capable of
prov id ing adequate f inancial
and operational reports to team
members?
■ Will the application generate an
adequate return on investment
(ROI)?
You'll need to do your own
research so you know what a product can do and what it can't do. To
further illustrate with QuickBooks
Online consider the five options
available:
Each vendor's product has
strengths and issues. For example,
in QuickBooks Online, strengths
include: brand/product familiarity,
easy conversion from QuickBooks
Desktop, large number of external
advisors offering support, five
options to help businesses with
various needs, great mobile app,
and a large 3rd party ecosystem.
Potential issues include: one of
the pricier offerings relative to its
capabilities, payroll is a paid addon service, remaining stigma from
its early days, perception of lack of
reporting options. As of March 2019,
new usage limits are in effect for
Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus:
■ Entries in Chart of Accounts is
limited to 250
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CPA Practice Advisor

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