The Future of IT for Accountants

Joe DrumgooleVP Solutions FeedHenry

http://twitter.com/jdrumgoole

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What do Accountants Do?

Setup

CRO Filings

Advice

Planning

Payroll

Budgets

Audits

Book Keeping

VAT

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What do Accountants do with IT

• Accounting Packages• Email• Storage• Document Management• Microsoft Excel and Word

Accountants are conservative in their IT choices

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An IT Adoption Model

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Another IT Adoption Model

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Could There be a Relationship?

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This Is Not Continuous for All Products

Vista Newton MySpace

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Clayton Christensen:The Innovators Dilemma

Better/Expensive

• Office– Writing any kind of doc

• Digital Cameras– Take professional photos

• Laptops– Run all your MS software

Cheaper/Worse

• Google Docs– Collaboration

• Phone Cameras– Take a photo and publish

• Tablets– Carry anywhere

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Some Global IT Trends

• Open Source• SaaS• Big Data• Analytics• Cloud Computing• Mobile

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Open Source

• IP should be free• Free as in speech not free as in beer• Underpinnings of all SaaS services• LAMP Stack: Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl• Top Open Source packages today : ERP• Open source makes convenience the value

proposition

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SaaS: Why Should I Care?

• Cheaper• No CAPEX• Free to trial• Adjust to your demands• As easy to turn off as to turn on

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Services You Can Use Today

• GoDaddy: Domain registration• Wordpress : Website• Crashplan : PC Backup• Google Apps: Email, Docs, Calendar, Intranet• 99Designs: Graphics Design• FreeAgentCentral: Book keeping, Accounts• Paypal : Credit card payments

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• Keep every document forever• Searchable• Accessible• Safe• Shareable• Is my financial plan utter pants?• Can you play in that playground?• TAS Books: Where Data goes to die!

Big Data

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Analytics

• What does it all mean?• Need understanding• Visualisation• Real-time• The end of monthly postings• Mobile visibility of my cash position• Notification of transactions in real-time

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Cloud Computing

• The underpinnings• Infinite Storage• Infinite Compute• Everlasting• SaaS : Online Services• Paas : A platform for building online services• IaaS : Build blocks for all the software in the

world

Smartphones : 40% Penetration in US

AppsLocation

OpticalSystems

PIMTouchScreen

Internet

Apps : 15 billion downloaded

AppsEntertainment

Social Networking

Personal Productivity

Mobile Workforce

Health

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Its Big

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The Accountant of the Future

• Client does all postings via an App or website• No Rekeying (source of 80% of errors)• Reconciliation is exception based• Real time accounting dashboard• Shared views of Single Master Accounts• Infinite longitudinal record• The accountant as analyst• The accountant at the centre of his own social

network of clients

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Thank You