Data Health Check 2018
10 year edition

Databarracks

Accountancy practice management software has come a long way. Today, features like automated billing and reconciliations are easily integrated into the day-to-day practice workflow of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK customers.

Our employees work side by side with our customers to create and manage these solutions – driven by a deep understanding of their needs and addressing the rapid changes in their environment.

However, it’s often hard to look beyond improving performance in day-to-day operations. Amid Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and other disruptions, accountancy practices and their clients are dealing with an unpredictable economic landscape. Future business planning can appear daunting.

However, technology can support accountancy practices (and their clients) in making informed business decisions, and planning for the future. In the first part of our Accountancy Practice Management for Future-Fit Growth series, we’ll explore how they can use technology to define and easily track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Doing so gives practices closer control of performance tracking, and deeper insights that will inform strategic growth plans.
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Saving Time

For several decades, business technology platforms have enabled practices to track performance metrics that they have customised. This highlights areas that qualify for improvement and underpins strategic planning.

Contemporary technology, such as CCH KPI Monitoring, makes setting up KPIs faster and easier for accountancy practices than ever before. This is vital today. The current business landscape demands that firms assess and amend KPIs more frequently, based on fresh market variables. KPIs such as client retention rate and business time-to-recovery have become increasingly prominent performance indicators in the past year. If clunky technology makes KPI management difficult, practices have less time and insight to plan future growth.

Reducing Risk
CCH KPI Monitoring makes it far easier to track KPIs and report on them. This is fundamental in minimising risk. For example, if a KPI is set to track and escalate debt filtered by overdue dates, the ability to easily set alerts and automatically generate reports is critical to practice performance management.

Some practices are manually running monthly reports to measure KPIs. Others are running real-time reporting engines, a key feature of CCH KPI Monitoring. This latter solution allows practices to review essential data at any time – covering both performance management and compliance requirements. They can do so remotely or on-premise.

This means that firms can assess issues before they become problems, and thus act proactively. Real-time reporting is a true asset in building a future-fit practice.

The Proof is in the Practice
A number of Wolters Kluwer customers have been using CCH KPI Monitoring for several years now. Our customers look to us when they need to be right. Ryecroft Glenton has successfully integrated CCH KPI Monitoring with its own system. This consolidates information from several sources, including CCH Central and CCH Practice Management.

“We can use the year end date to trigger a sequence of reminders. Have we asked for the books? Have they been received? If a request to a client has been outstanding for a certain period, the partner will receive an alert via email. For limited companies, we can monitor the corporation tax and Companies House filing deadlines – as well as the different deadlines for pension schemes”

– Ian Smith, partner at Ryecroft Glenton

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

A snapshot of the IT industry, from the people on the ground

The Data Health Check is our annual survey into cyber security, cloud computing and IT resilience. Every year, we asks industry practitioners what’s going on in their world for a snapshot of what Directors, Managers and technicians have experienced in the last 12 months.

In the last year, we’ve seen global corporations brought to their knees, public figures’ secrets exposed and presidents put on the back foot. IT and cyber security face scrutiny like never before. 

The rate of change is startling, the twists and turns throwing new challenges at every business, large and small. Some are prepared, some are on their way, and others are behind the curve. 

Here is just a taste of what came out of the survey this year…
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Backup (2008-2018)

Due to increasing digitalisation, managing exponential growth is key to any business, particularly a growing one. It’s unsurprising the number of businesses protecting over 100 TB of data has more than doubled since 2008. 

How much data do you protect?

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

There’s still a high percentage of businesses with a specific DR plan. After a minor drop in 2017, it’s good to see more businesses with a DR plan in place.

Do you have a specific IT Disaster Recovery Plan within your Business Continuity Plan?

Cyber Security

Given the rise in internal investment, it’s surprising the number of businesses happy with their in-house cyber security has stayed relatively level. While we expected to see a bigger rise than 3% in two years, it is difficult for cyber security teams to keep pace with the persistent rise of new threats. 

Do you feel like you have sufficient cyber security skills in-house to deal with current threats?

Cloud Computing

Businesses are increasing their dependence on cloud computing. We’ve seen a sharp rise in 40-60% of systems being stored in the cloud in the past 12 months. We expect this to grow.

What percentage of your IT systems are in the cloud?

We’re really happy with how Disaster Recovery has progressed. DR is trending towards the positive (admittedly quite serenely). There is more rigorous governance, planning and testing, all leading to greater confidence. Long may it continue.

Cyber security and cloud computing appear to be the big challenges. Given the Internet of Things and all the new challenges it will bring, it’s up to us to plan where we can and react when we need to within Cyber Security.

There is also a clear movement towards the cloud. The benefits of scalability, storage and security are drawing more and more businesses to base their IT practices on cloud computing.

It’s hard to look too far ahead, such is the rate of change. But I hope to see more positive trends in the coming months before Data Health Check 2019.

The benefits of scalability, storage and security are drawing more and more businesses to base their IT practices on cloud computing.

A snapshot of the IT industry, from the people on the ground

The Data Health Check is our annual survey into cyber security, cloud computing and IT resilience. Every year, we asks industry practitioners what’s going on in their world for a snapshot of what Directors, Managers and technicians have experienced in the last 12 months.

In the last year, we’ve seen global corporations brought to their knees, public figures’ secrets exposed and presidents put on the back foot. IT and cyber security face scrutiny like never before. 

The rate of change is startling, the twists and turns throwing new challenges at every business, large and small. Some are prepared, some are on their way, and others are behind the curve. 

Here is just a taste of what came out of the survey this year…
‍
Backup (2008-2018)

Due to increasing digitalisation, managing exponential growth is key to any business, particularly a growing one. It’s unsurprising the number of businesses protecting over 100 TB of data has more than doubled since 2008. 

How much data do you protect?

Aug 2018

Why a feature analysis is an important part of a software swap-out

As organisations migrate to Windows 10 many will use it as an opportunity to improve other parts of their information systems. Refreshing the tools you use to work with and manage documents all at once can have a positive impact on costs and save a whole lot of time and stress. There are, however, many products available that promise to solve a problem. How will you know which one to pick?

How to Choose a Cloud Based Document Management System

According to Colin McArdle, Tikit’s Senior Account Director for the Accountancy sector in EMEA, we’re at the point where firms can clearly see the benefits of a cloud-based document management system (DMS). The question is now, “Which system should I choose?” Here Colin provides some useful answers

Accountants in IT stimulating collaboration

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audrey.brown@aituk.co.uk
07506 861 417
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