Integrative Advisory Services

CHAPTER 2Bringing the Human Side to Technology

For the longest time, humans were the best accounting machines—although the process was often slow and time consuming.

While our ability to speed up the process of accounting has improved with technology, we still are dependent on the human factor. Over time, accounting became about imputing data manually, keeping up with new tax codes and the ever-increasing number of deadlines.

Technology has transformed how often we can interact with numbers. New software programs can create cleaner data management. Also, they can add other components to better track different categories of information—no matter the size of the business—as well as introduce features like multicurrency for businesses with an overseas customer base.

Nowadays, you don't have to write a custom report in a software program or in a spreadsheet for each client. Instead, you can create templates one time that can be shared across the entire practice and apply those templates to each client when appropriate. What used to take hours to create can now be generated in 15 to 20 minutes and may only require a few tweaks. Technology can even streamline how you organize your daily workday. And you can do it all from your smartphone, tablet, or even a watch.

Current technology enables us to create conversations with our clients. We can set messages to alert them in real time. For example: “Good morning, Amy. Overnight we received $12,000 from last month's outstanding invoices, ...