3 New Apps In Office 365 Business Premium That Can Help Boost Your Small Business

by Felicien | Jul 18, 2017 | Education

Distinguish Your Accounting Firm from the Competition through Cloud-Based Technology

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}!

What Does A CIOs Need To Know About Digital Transformations?

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}.

Six Ways to Keep Your Identify Secure Online

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.

Are your Employees Putting your Business at Risk?

by Felicien | Jul 14, 2017 | Education