March 2014

What began as a modest bill in the 2010 New York state legislature has swelled into a full-fledged movement.

We live in a mobile world that is becoming increasingly so every day. Expectations are growing among mobile users that they should be able to do anything and communicate with anyone (including your firm) from the convenience of applications on their mobile devices.

It’s 2014, and no one can say exactly what will take place in the course of the year. One thing we do know, however, is that society seems to be moving so fast that none of us has a handle on all the changes taking place.

2014 started off awesome with my annual pilgrimage to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas where future trends and bleeding edge products are announced.

Building a successful business is about more than just finding a market with a need, motivation and savvy, it also requires efficiently managing company’s finances, sales, expenses and other costs. For many small business owners, however, this can become a chore.

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," by Stephen R. Covey, is a book that has had a profound impact on both my personal and professional life. Of the seven habits that Covey presents in the book, the second habit, “Begin with the end in mind,” is my favorite. This habit is directly connected to planning, because once we have the end in mind for how we want our firms and our lives to be, we must devise a plan, or a roadmap, to make it a reality.

So where does a retailer start when looking for a point of sale system? Just like there are a variety of retail businesses, there are also a lot of POS systems on the market, with some geared for smaller markets looking to automate for the first time, while others are designed for larger retail businesses that process thousands of transactions each day.

A new class of “digital plumbing” applications are helping many firms and small businesses solve another seemingly “impossible” task – automated synchronization and universal exchange of data between applications written by different software publishers.

This year is a great year to watch for improvements in procedures and processes supported by maturing technology tools. We can look for revolutionary changes to make in our practices. However, evolutionary change can be taught and assimilated in day to day work.

Accountants tend to fall in the analytical-left brain-thinker camp. This makes it difficult for some practitioners to make the transition to right brain creative thinking when the time comes to get a marketing program up and running.

Spending more time with clients reveals more service opportunities– leading your firm to higher growth. Yet you might spend more time than you’d like just managing your growing firm, trying to understand what’s really working and struggling to adapt as the business changes. Join me on one firm’s journey to address these challenges– and to put itself in a better position to serve clients.

Last year, Intuit created true harmony among its products and services, rolling out one look and feel that would make it easier for users to switch between products. The financial management solution provider has now extended that harmony to its QuickBooks Online Accountant solution. In February, Intuit debuted its enhanced QuickBooks Online for Accountants.

When I educate CPAs and accountants on social media marketing, I get two questions more often than any others. First, which application they should be on, and second, how they operate or participate in social media to get results.