by Felicien | Jul 18, 2017 | Education
Pitching your accounting firm to clients doesn’t have to be boring. You can radically adjust your accounting firm’s image through new cloud-based technologies.
Let’s face it: it’s difficult to make an accounting firm exciting. At best you can usually hope for “stable and trustworthy.” But when differentiating yourself from the competition, you really want a “wow” factor. You just need to figure out how to introduce that into spreadsheets and depreciation schedules. And that’s where technology comes in. Few things get people as hyped today as “the cloud.” By using the cloud, you can position your accounting firm as modern, technologically advanced, and cost-effective.
The Future of Accounting Is On the Cloud
Actually, the future of everything is on the cloud — and it’s useless to fight it. Just a few years ago, cloud-based technology was regarded as a sort of quirky trend. Microsoft was running inscrutable advertising about moving your photos and documents “to the cloud,” and there was wave after wave of security-related concerns. But that’s not today. Today cloud-based technology is the de facto standard for enterprise-level work. The lowest estimates of companies using a cloud-based infrastructure hover around 55%. So why should the accounting industry lag behind?
An Industry Based on Legacy Solutions
There are very few industries that are as fixated on legacy solutions as the accounting industry. Similar industries include the legal profession and the medical profession. It’s simple math: anything that has to deal with numbers is usually best left to old and proven solutions. But it’s also something else: the accounting field (and the medical field, and the legal field) tends to deal with highly educated, intelligent professionals, who are not necessarily tech savvy.
And there’s nothing more stubborn than a very intelligent and very busy partner. Partners in accounting firms tend to be very resistant to changing their technology. Not only is it an investment of time and money, but it can disrupt their own work flow — and why fix it if it isn’t broken?
The Advantages of Cloud-Based Technology
But because accounting firms are historically hesitant to adopt new technologies, it opens the door for accounting firms to become competitive. Cloud-based technologies have some tremendous advantages, both for businesses in general and for accounting firms specifically:
Employees can work from anywhere. Partners can easily work from home without disruption; employees can be outsourced from different states or different countries. As a work force is consistently going mobile, this becomes very important. Accounting firms will even be able to recruit better talent by offering work-from-home hours or flex-time.
The cloud is intuitive and easy to use. Though partners may be hesitant to adopt new technology, the cloud is different — the cloud is an intuitive platform built primarily on web interfaces. Many of the software solutions being ported to the cloud are things that the employees and partners are already familiar with using, such as Office 365.
Services can be automated and improved. Through the cloud, organizations are able to tap into tremendous amounts of resources and advanced technology. Firms will be able to automate much of their services, delivering better services at lower costs. They will also be able to offer more to their clients, in terms of advanced solutions such as web portals.
Cloud solutions are far less costly. Rather than having to invest in on-premise servers and equipment, a company can pay for only the resources that they strictly need through their cloud solutions. This means that they can spend more money on other areas of their business, such as expansion or customer care.
A cloud service provides better uptime. Because a cloud solution is generally managed through third-party services along with a 24/7 help desk, accounting firms don’t need to fear potentially going down or experiencing business disruption. Companies also don’t need to invest in in-house IT services when they have a cloud-based solution.
Cloud solutions are better secured. Accounting firms deal with tremendous amounts of personally identifiable information and finance-related information. Though there were security concerns initially, the cloud is now very well secured — and that’s important in an era where ransomware and phishing attempts are running rampant. Many cloud solutions can automatically detect and mitigate these threats.
It isn’t just that cloud-based solutions are the future of accounting — it’s that it’s likely that your competition isn’t leveraging the cloud in an effective way… or potentially at all. A cloud-based solution is going to give your organization a huge number of benefits, both in terms of costs and services available. It’s also going to show that your organization is committed to advancement; that it isn’t afraid to change and to evolve.
It’s hard to transition to any new solution, but cloud-based solutions are much easier to transition to compared to other types of upgrade or radical infrastructure change. Today an accounting firm can get absolutely everything they need setup for them in a single, all-in-one infrastructure — improving upon productivity and reducing IT-related expenses. The only question is when you’re going to take your first step into the clouds.
Is your {city} accounting firm thinking about moving to the cloud? Contact {company} today to find out more about leveraging the cloud for your firm, either through {email} or {phone}!
by Felicien | Jul 18, 2017 | Education
CIOs need to take the lead on creating enterprise digital transformations that leverage the power of cloud-first solutions, such as Microsoft Office 365.
Office 365 is one of the largest things to happen to business enterprises since the launch of Salesforce. With over 85 million users, Office 365 is a global force that is helping companies boost productivity, while simultaneously reducing the burdens felt by IT departments. As Microsoft seeks to continue its digital transformation, CIOs need to be prepared to rethink how they can use the platform to their advantage, while simultaneously rethinking the architecture necessary to get the most out of Office 365.
Why Do CIOs Need To Pay Attention To Office 365?
As a CIO, it is your job to lead your company’s digital transformation. This means that you must take into account your current and future needs by asking “is your network ready?” The use of Office 365 can transform your IT infrastructure by moving users away from desktop solutions, while also migrating the LAN to the cloud. The latter migrations can result in an increase of Internet-bound traffic by as much as 40 percent. To effectively leverage the benefits of this transformation, you must determine if your network is ready for a cloud-centric approach.
Preparing your network is made easier when you take into account the following factors:
Your network must be ready to move from a LAN based network to a WAN based network.
Firewalls, Internet gateways, and proxies must be prepared for the migration.
You must do more than simply upgrade central gateways and increase bandwidth.
Through an agile approach you can redesign and restructure your network to support Office 365. However, to do this, you must look for information beyond your network. As CIO, it is your job to design, strategize, analyze, and implement your company’s digital transformation strategy. This means that you must recognize that your internal network will not typically be equipped to provide the optimal user experience when using Office 365 to its full potential. As such, you must accept that the open Internet can provide the network solution that you need to create a new, secure corporate network that is beneficial to your users.
Keep in mind that the decision to become a cloud-based or cloud-first architecture is not one that should be made from the top down. In other words, as CIO it is your job to coordinate your teams to discuss the networking, security, application support, risk, compliance factors that must be considered before a migration can be completed. Don’t let your teams fall back on traditional solutions that will slow down and complicate your digital transformation. Instead, grasp innovation by the horns to ensure that you have the technologies, controls, support, and digital practices needed to deliver benefits to your entire enterprise.
Speaking of benefits, before you balk at the thought of redesigning your network’s architecture, take a moment to explore the benefits of Office 365.
By restructuring your network to support Office 365, you can move away from the legacy architectures and promote digital transformational growth.
You can more easily scale your enterprise IT infrastructure to more readily meet evolving business needs.
Office 365 is designed to bring about positive digital transformations that will benefit the entire business.
Security is no longer dependent solely on internal network solutions; instead, a wider source can be deployed to strengthen cloud-based security applications.
Improved collaboration amongst employees is made easier (especially when employees are dispersed across locations or working remotely).
Increased productivity for users who need to work on multiple devices.
Enhanced opportunities for mobile usage, as well as easier setup, maintenance, and security.
Through the cloud-based solution, resources are freed-up so that they can be strategically allocated.
The Bottom Line: Office 365 Can Help CIOs Complete Digital Transformations
It is clear that Office 365 provides countless benefits to any enterprise looking to continue their digital transformations. However, the issue that many companies encounter is the cost benefit. To ensure that the cost of equipment upgrades and network infrastructure enhancements do not surpass budget allocations, enterprises need to account for cost efficiency measures. In this vein, a transition to a cloud-first strategy is made easier when you work with a team of experts who have successfully deployed Office 365 enterprise solutions.
By working with the right individuals, you can ensure that you avoid the challenges of other enterprises, who have chosen to rely solely on internal networks during their digital transformation. Instead, you can leverage the power of Office 365 as a catalyst to increase user collaboration, improve productivity levels, streamline communications, and create the infrastructure needed for continued business growth. To discover how Office 365 can be successfully implemented within your enterprise contact {company} located in {city} via {email} or {phone}.
by Felicien | Jul 18, 2017 | Education
Help protect yourself from identity theft online by asking yourself these six questions.
I feel safe in assuming that if you met a stranger on the street who wanted you to disclose your personal banking information, you would tell him to go take a long walk off a short pier or keep you would keep your mouth shut at least. Then why do so many otherwise intelligent business owners fall for scams online?
When I speak to my clients about phishing scams and protecting their identity online, they nod their heads and assure me they would never fall for a Nigerian banking scam or open an attachment from an unknown person. Yet, every month, successful business owners contact me to ask for help reclaiming their lives after cyber criminals steal their identities.
The hard truth is recovering from identity theft is a long, painful process. It is much easier and way less expensive to prevent identity crimes from occurring in the first place by protecting yourself from an identity scam.
Protecting Your Identity Online
Help keep your identity more secure online by asking yourself these six questions to help prevent yourself from becoming another victim of identity scammers.
Are you expecting to hear from the person or business contacting you? Unless you have an ongoing relationship with the sender of an email or message, any inquiry for personal information you receive is most likely an attempt to defraud you. Even if you have business with the company supposedly contacting you, is there a legitimate reason for the business to communicate with you now?
It is now common for a fraudster to choose the name of a large company like PayPal, Amazon or local utility company which most people use. So just because you are a customer of a company, doesn’t mean the email is real. If you are ever in doubt about whether a request from a company is legitimate or not, open a new web browser and visit the company’s website by typing the full domain name directly into the address bar. Never click on any links from the email which may take you to a copy of the company’s site.
Does the email look professional? Carefully examine any email you receive which asks for sensitive information. Compare the questionable email to other emails which you have received in the past from the same company and know are legitimate. Look at details like the logo, the salutation, and the way the email is written. The majority of phishing scams originate outside the United States in countries where English is not the official language. Many scam emails contain multiple spelling and grammar mistakes.
When an email contains language which encourages a quick response to prevent being locked out of your account or losing your benefits it is most often a red flag.
Do I really know who sent you that? Online scammers are great at making their emails and social messages appear to be coming from a friend or associate you know. Manipulating the source of a message, or the header is ‘spoofing.’ Spoofing causes US businesses to lose billions of dollars in fraud.
Before you respond to an unexpected message requesting by sending any form of personal information, always double check that the sender’s email matches the person or company you think sent the message. If the sender is using an email address which is different, don’t respond. The safest approach is calling and speaking with the sender by telephone to verify the legitimacy of the request.
Why is the person asking for that particular information from me? Many scammers use a spoof email to ask users to confirm personal information relating to the individual’s account. Most of the time, the information these scammers ask for is something which a real business would not need to confirm a user’s identity.
Banks and financial institutions never request users to confirm passwords or user names through email. A legitimate business won’t ask for you to send sensitive information over an unsecured server.
Is the payment page secure? The majority of purchases in the US are made online. But before you input your credit card information, you need to make sure you are not about to send your credit card information to a scammer. Help keep your bank account safe by always checking that the payment page is secure and authentic.
Never access a payment page directly from an off-site link. It is common for a cyber criminal to send a spoof email which contains an embedded link to a special offer. But when you click on the link, it redirects you to a copy of the site designed by the scammer to steal your credit card information. Never pay on a page which doesn’t have a “https://” before the domain name and look for an icon of a padlock in the address bar. If you are unsure about the security of a site’s payment page, don’t make a purchase.
Am I revealing too much personal information on social media? A profile on a social media service like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter is a treasure trove for identity thieves. Many users of these social media services do not understand just how much of the information they publicly share can help scammers to gain access to their accounts. Avoid sharing sensitive information such as birth dates, anniversary dates, names of children, pets, friends, and spouses. Don’t post pictures scammers can use to create fake accounts. Never reveal your home or work address.
Always use the highest level of privacy available from a social media service and never accept strangers as friends.
Regrettably, it is impossible to guarantee you will never be a victim of online identity theft, but when you remember to ask yourself these questions, you will lower the chances you will.
by Felicien | Jul 14, 2017 | Education
What’s your ransomware and phishing risk? If you have employees, you won’t know, unless you test your team to see exactly how they react when faced with a suspicious emai or voicemail.
Ransomware and malware make headlines every day, with massive data losses and high costs. Everyone from the FBI to the IRS issue regular warnings to both individuals and business about the dangers of phishing and how hackers use phishing to deliver the malware that puts you at risk. While regular security updates and other measures can help protect you, your loyal, hardworking employees are actually your biggest risk when it comes to phishing.
A full 91% of business data breaches all start the same way – an employee falls for a spear-phishing attack and the resulting malware rapidly spreads through the entire company network. Why do so many employees fall for phishing scams – and how can you tell if your business is at risk? Employee education and threat detection testing are key to preventing an outbreak of ransomware or data loss in your organization. Learning more about phishing, including the latest spear-phishing methods, and using simulated phishing testing can help you discover where your own risk lies and allows you to take prompt action to protect your business.
The Spear-Phishing Crisis
In July, the IRS and other Federal agencies issued an alert to tax professionals and other key industries warning of a rising risk of spear phishing. Spear-phishing is commonly used by cybercriminals to target businesses and organizations; a spear phishing email will generally target a wide group of users within an organization, hoping to snare a victim. Posing as prospective clients, trusted entities and familiar connections, the criminals hope that victims will assume the email is from a legitimate source.
IN most cases, the victim is asked to download a bit of information, open a document to review a prospects files or even click a link to access data. Once the bait is taken, the malware is downloaded and the criminal can seize control of the user’s machine or steal their data.
How your Employees Put you at Risk
Employees boost your risk of becoming a victim in several ways:
Lack of awareness: Employees may simply lack the skill to detect a spear-phishing email or not even be aware of risk. Once they click that bad link, a piece of malware could rapidly spread through your network.
Poor password hygiene: Posting passwords in a physical location, like the top desk drawer, or worse, on the actual computer monitor can invite a criminal right into your network.
NO idea what to do next: Once an employee discovers they’ve made a mistake, they should know what to do – if they don’t quarantine their device immediately and seek help, your entire organization could be in jeopardy.
Falling for a delivery scam: One-way criminals try to get your team to click on bad links or download malware is by sending a realistic looking shipping notification from a big brand like FedEx; your employee clicks and the next thing you know, you’re infected.
Trying to impress a new client: Opening attachments from anyone, including a prospective client, is a bad idea. Hackers have figured out that employees that are not terribly tech savvy can be social engineered into opening a bad link in the name of customer service or closing a deal.
Reveal your True Risk
Your employees could put you at risk in any or all the above ways – and probably some ways you haven’t even considered yet. There is just no way to know – unless you test them to see just how savvy they are. The more employees you have that are truly Phish-Prone, the better off you’ll be. Smart, aware and in the know employees are your best defense from spear-phishing, and once you know where you stand, you’ll be able to take steps to mitigate your risk and exposure.
How Spear-Phishing Testing Works
Cyber attackers are more sophisticated than ever before, so your employees need to gain more knowledge than they ever had to have in the past. From identifying social engineering attempts to spotting (and avoiding) spear-phishing and ransomware attacks, {company} can help. By identifying those users that are most vulnerable and gullible, you can properly equip those employees with the skills they need to help protect your business.
Setting up a spear-phishing test is fast and easy and you can customize the test to most suit your business and environment. You can even choose the landing page your employees see if they fail the test and click the link. For educational purposes, your team can see what red flags they missed or a shocking 404 page with a message. Most people learn well by doing, and failing a phishing test is a memorable and shocking event that will help the message resonate with your team.
After you run your test, you’ll get a comprehensive report detailing how well your team did and what percent of users failed the test. The answers are usually eye-opening and surprising! Even your computer savvy team members could fall for the right type of attack; the ones that successfully pass the spear-phishing test could be caught unaware when tested with other methods. The {company} “Vishing” test is designed for these more sophisticated users and will allow you to test how social engineering savvy your team members are with simulated voice mail attacks.
Reduce your Risk with a Free Spear-Phishing Test
It’s not only fast and easy to discover just how much risk your team is exposing you to – it’s free, too! At {company}, we’re committed to helping you identify and reduce risk, and our free phishing testing will help you get started. To begin your free phishing test, contact us at {email} or {phone} to ensure your team gets all the support and training they need to protect your organization.
by Felicien | Jul 14, 2017 | Education
From improving efficiency and productivity to making it easier than ever for your team to process orders and complete projects rapidly.
Automation is already having a significant impact on how businesses handle orders, complete projects and serve customers. From machine learning to creating software robots that perform the kinds of repetitive tasks that most humans avoid. Robots are not only capable replacements for people for these types of jobs; they can perform data entry and simple processing more quickly too. Best of all, when you incorporate automation into your workflow, your employees end up with more time to work effectively and can perform their jobs more efficiently as well.
When you add machine learning into the mix, those automated features and functions can perform tasks that require logic and learn as they do so. Each time a robot completes a task, it remembers what steps and changes were needed to make the next project or process even more streamlined. An automated robot can also learn to spot problematic orders or interactions and alert a human operator to intervene or quarantine the order or data until it can, but it also enhances.
Machines and automation excel at logic and defined tasks but are not ideal candidates for creative projects or those requiring creative thinking to resolve. Automation can recognize and flag projects or processes that require human intervention, but can’t come up with any “outside the box” solutions.
What Does the Growing Interest in Automation Mean for Employees and Employers?
Automation changes the way we work and could eliminate some jobs and even fields in the coming years. Some industries will be impacted more than others, but automation reduces the need for people to handle rote tasks – and increases the need for individuals with critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. Every industry is different, and some will be impacted more than others:
Healthcare: Automation and robotics are already in use for everything from surgery to training and the handling of patient data and records. Automation will continue to be useful for the processing of insurance claims to the patient intake process; actual patient care requires empathy, experience, and even creativity and is unlikely to be altered much soon.
Entertainment Computers dominate the actual processes involved in making everything from video games to movies and television programs, and automation can be used to perform critical tasks – but it is not creative or forward thinking. Expect to see humans using tech to produce entertainment, not the other way around.
Service Industries: Machines can and do complete tasks and services, but a real human is still best of the social and emotional side of things. Automation can be used to enter customer data, engage clients and even ensure that prospects get the correct documents and information when they are shopping around; the human element is still needed to pull everything together.
Insurance: The insurance industry has already begun to embrace automation for claims intake, and processing and automated robots could start to edge out their human counterparts in some areas or positions. Data entry and similar roles are easily filled by automated robots, but actual decisions on claims will still require human involvement.
Accounting Perhaps the heaviest hit industry by automation – bookkeepers, and CPAs are already being replaced by automated programs and solutions. Automation is changing this industry and the way we attend to our taxes and personal finances.
How Can Automation Benefit your Business?
Improved Efficiency
Automation streamlines your processes without sacrificing accuracy or quality. When your team can access the accurate data they need to perform their jobs, efficiency naturally goes up.
Heightened Productivity
The best tasks for automation are those that are repetitive and boring for human workers. Automated robots don’t get bored – and can make rapid work of multiple pages or reams of data that could take a human worker day to get through. If you have a workflow process that starts with client and customer data, you’ll experience delays at the start of projects if there is too much initial information to enter.
A human operator will naturally take a longer amount of time to get everything inputted and handle any processing or early stage tasks that need to be done. By automating these tasks, you can improve the speed of your entire workflow and make it easy for your team to tackle more projects per year.
Boosted Accuracy
Automated systems are a natural match for any process that require entirely accurate information and figures. Robots don’t get fatigued or bored and won’t misread a word. Your 1,000th entry will be as precise and reliable as your first. The accuracy of an automated system not only helps when it comes to having confidence in your data, it enhances the customer experience, reduces frustration and even allows your team to process workflow more efficiently than ever before.
Easier Collaboration and Tracking of Progress and Changes
Without automation, your employees need to accurately input information, complete tasks and then remember to alert other workers to move the project along or complete essential duties. Once you automate critical tasks, they can be completed swiftly and then the proper teams or groups can be notified. An automated system doesn’t need to be prompted to update or track progress, will never forget to move a project along and can keep track of both progress and changes. Real-time alerts allow you to have a birds’ eye view of the process and your progress so you can allocate more or fewer resources as needed.
Your employees will be better able to collaborate when they can instantly access a project or file and know it has everything it needs and that all data is correct. Your team can proceed with confidence, knowing that they are working with the latest and most accurate information about the project or the client. At its best, automation does not replace human workers, it enhanced their roles and made their jobs easier and more efficient.
Enhanced Flexibility
Automation is not a one-size-fits-all solution; you can pick and choose how you integrate the latest innovations in automation so they most benefit your business and workflow. Careful consideration of which tasks in your different procedures and methods are the best candidates for automation can help you make the most of the technology.
When you decide which tasks can be automated, look for those that are mundane, repetitive and that require a large degree of accuracy without a lot of creative thought. From data entry to simple processing and even tracking of your documents, automation works best when you have given careful thought to the best places to incorporate it.
Make the most of the age of automation by learning more about what this dynamic and innovative solution can do for you. At {company}, we’re committed to not only keeping up but staying ahead of trends and securing the latest innovations for our clients. Contact us at {phone} or {email} to learn just how big of a difference automation can make for your organization.
