march2021 - 8

FROM THE TRENCHES

CLIENT EXPERIENCE
FOR TODAY -

PORTALS OR
SOMETHING

RANDY JOHNSTON

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

MORE?

EFFECTIVE DOCUMENT EXCHANGE, gathering, management, and distribution with clients
is a significant friction point for many firms. Possibly because of the COVID-19 pandemic,

client collaboration, workflow, and document management systems (DMS) came to the
forefront in 2020. Unfortunately, many firms were not ready for the extraordinary conditions of stay-at-home orders. While I have spent most of the last year assisting firms
overcome technology issues, with the common issues involving collaboration, workflow,
and DMS, four more technologies were problematic. These four include Voice Over IP
(VOIP), remote access, home network security, and portals.
Unrelated to all these technologies, in January, our K2 partners were
planning our CPE courses for 2021. We
noted that there was a widespread
shift to Microsoft 365 and a considerable interest in Microsoft Teams in
particular. Teams' popularity was
not a surprise, based on the various
meeting technologies required to
effectively work from home, including Google Hangouts, Google Meet,
GoToMeeting, WebEx, Zoho Meeting,
and Zoom. What was surprising
was the interest in using Teams as a
replacement for whatever portal was
in use by the firm.

MARCH 2021 ■

Our K2 partner meeting's other
unexpected outcome was our Paperless Office course's exceptional
popularity, ranking among our top
ten course offerings. Feedback from
our attendees also tells us that it is
time to move to a new strategy for
document management, which I
have concluded I will call Document
Management V5.0 for the moment.
Unfortunately, many firms are still
running DMS V1.0 or V2.0 because
they implemented the technology
early and then never upgraded again.
We will need to discuss DMS also
this year. But for now, let us look at

www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

document exchange, collaboration,
and client experience.

HOW DO WE EXCHANGE
DOCUMENTS WITH
CLIENTS?
For ten years, we have suggested
that firms use portals as the " front
door " of your practice, as noted in
my two previous columns (www.
cpapracticeadvisor.com/10369625
and w w w.cpapract iceadv isor.
com/10476270). This thinking
evolved as we were working
through the RootWorks organization's design with Darren Root and

Wade Schultz, the web designer
and innovator behind their efforts.
Traditionally, portals were built in
one of several ways. These methods
included integration with a practice
management system, like Thomson
Reuters Practice CS and NetClient
CS or GoFileRoom Portal, evolving
to Onvio Firm Management.
During my 2020 review of practice
management systems, I discovered
by my count that 37 systems have
portals and there are 23 features of
portals. While I could name all of
these features and products, we are

http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/10369625 http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/10369625 http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/10476270 http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/10476270 http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

march2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of march2021