Here are some highlights, but note that percentages related to “all firms” are heavily skewed to firms of under 10 employees, which accounted for 66 percent of respondents:
Backing up to the cloud is in a curious position. It’s the most popular primary system for accounting firms, but it’s on a decline, whether it’s handled by the firm or a vendor.
Cloud backup was chosen by 37.3 percent of respondents to the Accounting Firm Operations and Technology Survey, down from 42.3 percent.
Email is a core tool but that doesn’t mean firms want to be in charge of it. Only 18.8% of accounting firms choose to operate their own mail servers internally. The option is most popular among extra-large firms (101+ employees) and medium firms (11-50), at 46.7% and 42% respectively.
An external consultant is an answer 30.9 percent of the time, for projects or as needed, with a managed service provider taking on the rest. Of respondents who handle things on their own, 80 percent are solo practitioners, while full-time IT staff or an IT department are 60 percent likely at extra-large firms. READ MORE →
COVID-19 and its variants forced a number of challenges upon the accounting profession. Accountants are telling us that tops on that list were communication and workflow, at 49.4 and 49.1 percent respectively. Even solos felt the burn, at 40.6%, so it wasn’t all internal communication to blame, although large firms of 51-100 felt it most sharply, at 60%.
Survey Results
Top Corona Problems: Communication, workflow, and digitizing paper top the list.
Some responses that didn’t hit the top six still were notable. Postal mail was called out by 21.9 percent, including 40 percent of solos and 33.3 percent of large firms. Solos also reported phone calls and lost income at 24.6 percent. Despite most groups saying lost income was a challenge, relatively few put that figure anywhere near the one for paying bills, except extra-large firms noting 11.8 percent difficulty with lost income and 5.9 percent with paying bills.
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