Thomson Reuters — Practice CS

Thomson Reuters - Practice CS
800-968-8900
CS.ThomsonReuters.com 

From the August 2010 Review of Practice Management Systems

Thomson Reuters offers the Practice CS system as a part of its CS Professional Suite of tax, accounting and business management programs, providing an overall practice management application that includes time and billing, productivity analysis, staff management functions, contact management with Outlook integration, and project management capabilities. The system integrates with other components of the CS Professional Suite, most notably the tax, engagement, document management and trial balance systems, to provide a comprehensive system for managing firm workflow, client tasking and collaboration. The system’s Staff Management Module received one of The CPA Technology Advisor’s 2010 Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Awards. This review is of the installed version of the Practice CS system, which is also available as a leased SaaS application.

Basic System Functions:

Practice CS opens into the familiar interface shared by most of the programs in the CS Professional Suite, with a vertical menu on the left offering access to the key program areas, along with pull-down menus and icons across the top of the screen. Since the system was redesigned using the .NET platform, the interface offers excellent customizability and intuitive navigation, plus a very crisp appearance. The key work areas for users, depending on their access rights and role within the practice, are available in the left menu, with the ability to access firm, staff and client activities. Each of these function areas include dashboards that offer summary data specific to the client, staff member or firm activity.

Day-to-day functions, such as entering time and expenses, managing calendar items and accessing client contact data all occur on very intuitive screens that provide simple entry and quick drilldown access to underlying data. The program is specifically designed for the workflow and client management needs of professional accounting firms, with the ability to scale to any number of users.

Time Management Capabilities:

Time and expense data-entry screens provide tabs for moving between time or expense and spreadsheet views for entering data based on client, engagement, project, rates and activity, along with the ability to add notes. Because of the advanced .NET programming, users can easily sort columns by dragging and dropping column headers, while other areas of the program also offer this customization capability. Additional methods of timekeeping include an automated desktop timer that can be used with any program and an Integrated Entries feature, which provides a web-based component for mobile staff. Management features for time and expense reporting include an approval process.

Practice CS offers strong project management capabilities, including multiple dashboards that help track project due dates, WIP and completions, while also keeping track of staff availability and individual and team performance. Staff can customize their own dashboards to help maintain productivity and workflow, while management tools provide greater insight into firm processes. Client management functions give streamlined control over all aspects of client engagements and projects, with the ability to track all work and communication activities, including email, phones calls, meetings and invoicing, with the data easily searchable. The system syncs with Microsoft Office in real-time to provide accurate contact information and track time spent.

Practice CS has the most comprehensive staff management capabilities of any system designed for accounting professionals, with the ability to track staff billable hours against budgeted or targets, and to track and schedule projects, set up reminders, quickly view staff calendars for multiple staff or groups, and assign tasks to work queues based on staff availability and qualifications. The Staff Management Module also provides strong HR functions, enabling the tracking of staff benefits such as paid time off, comp time, holidays and other accruals, as well as tracking CPE and other custom data.