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Firm Management

Training, IT and Disaster Recovery Top List of Firm Concerns

The accounting association, CPAmerica International, released the results of its second Information Technology (IT) Benchmarking Survey to all its participants. The online survey collected data from association members in order to provide benchmarking data on software, certifications, training and disaster recovery.

Mar. 04, 2014

A new information technology benchmarking study by the accounting association, CPAmerica International, shows the top concerns among accounting firm management when it comes to software, certifications, training and disaster recovery.

“We have an annual practice management survey that all of our firms complete and that tells them where they stand against other firms within the association in vital areas. This is really utilized by the managing partners and the partner group of our firms,” said Alan Deichler, president of CPAmerica. “We wanted to give IT directors and network administrators a tool that they could use that would correlate to what the partners are using to measure the firm.”

The results revealed three major takeaways for all of the firms participating in the analysis. They are as follows:

  1. Training Needed: Most of the firms believe that training on specific accounting firm applications, such as tax or audit related software, would be the most beneficial to non-IT staff, closely followed by Excel and Word training.
  2. Biggest Challenge: For two out of three firms, training and keeping up with systems/projects/initiatives is the biggest challenge that network administrators face.
  3. Top Priority: Of firms participating, 62 percent do not have a disaster recovery plan. More than half of respondents indicated that disaster recovery was a top priority in the next two years.

“We have seen a great level of participation with this benchmarking program and have done the same for marketing and human resources,” said Joyce Arthur, senior member services manager of CPAmerica. “Our members want to know what their fellow association members are doing and to see where they stand compared to them.”