firms likely will be updating this year.
by roman h. kepczyk
quantum of paperless
to be effective in business today, every member of your firm must optimally utilize the microsoft office suite at an intermediate to advanced level for outlook, excel and word.
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due to the lag of accounting vendors providing support to the latest versions of office, today’s recommended standard is office 2013.
many firms continue to utilize office 2010 because some accounting applications (engagement binders) did not support office 2013 until this past year but it is expected that conflicts with the major accounting vendors supporting it and with windows 10 will drive firms to update in 2017. firms should review their listing of accounting applications after the busy season to determine if they can transition all of them to office 2016 and if not, still buy the 2016 office licenses, but install office 2013.
the latest office applications promote efficiency through a standardized “ribbon” menu that takes advantage of today’s wider screens and utilizes symbols representing actions, instead of pulldown menus that use descriptions in words. office 2016 also promoted a consistent look regardless of whether the user was working on a desktop, tablet or smartphone. people see and react to images much quicker than they read words, which makes them more efficient in the long run. when any one of the office applications is effectively learned, users are more proficient working with all of them.
as mentioned above, the top accounting vendors have worked out most of the bugs between their applications and the 2013 version of office. if your firm is on office versions 2007 or older, or has microsoft software assurance where the upgrade is included, it is recommended that the firm jump to the latest supported version of microsoft office.
while many firms have transitioned to office 365 for outlook/skype for business, we recommend firms proceed cautiously for word, excel and other productivity applications as the automatic microsoft upgrades may cause incompatibilities with your accounting applications (which traditionally take the accounting vendors between 6-12 months to support the latest version). always be sure to verify the compatibility of your specific applications with microsoft office before upgrading!
once you get the go-ahead to upgrade to a new version, send some of your best communicators to advanced excel, word and outlook training so they can understand the improvements and then set up customized, accounting firm-specific training for the rest of your personnel. while there are excellent web resources for training including lynda.com, one exceptional training resource that works directly with many state cpa societies is k2 enterprises (k2e.com), which has very effective instructors and strong content tailored to accounting firm needs particularly for the excel and quickbooks courses.
recommended actions:
- verify the firm’s audit/accounting applications are supported on the current microsoft office version.
- plan transition and training to one common version as part of firmwide rollout.