It is no secret that accounting firms produce, manage and store a large amount of paper - creating a need for increased staff and storage and resulting in lower productivity and smaller profits.

Now is the time to evolve your firm's paper-based processes and consider green technologies to reduce your firm's carbon footprint - and more.

"In the long run, moving your operation away from paper will save more time and energy, but maybe more importantly, it will increase your ability to provide better client service," said Doug Sleeter, president and chief executive of QuickBooks consulting concern The Sleeter Group.

By considering the following technologies, your firm will be able to do more with less.

DUAL MONITORS

Most firms are on board with dual monitors. However, if your firm is in the minority that has not implemented them, it's time to immediately pilot at least two dual monitor set-ups in your firm. One of the most common processes that can be enhanced is tax preparation and review, since the system allows the user to have the tax preparation program open and running on one screen, and the client's source documents on the other.

The dual-system also aids in audits - with workpapers on one screen and trial balance on the other - and with just about any other situation where the user has two windows open, such as a write-up program and Outlook. "Two monitors save me from printing returns. I can look at one screen and key punch in the other screen," revealed John Lally, a CPA in North Dartmouth, Mass.

SCANNERS

Front-end scanning, scan-and-organize solutions, and integrated tax preparation software have taken accounting processes from paper-heavy to nearly paper-free.

According to Copanion Research's annual survey of 450 accounting firms, 68 percent of tax professionals surveyed scanned tax documents in 2008, up from the 45 percent that scanned in 2007.

"Adoption and usage is now accelerating rapidly," said Ed Jennings, vice president of sales and marketing for Copanion. Scan-and-organize solutions like Copanion's GruntWorx automatically organize scanned client documents and deliver them in a bookmarked PDF file that makes it easy to prepare and review returns. With solutions like these, Jennings stressed that the scanner matters. Scanners fall into the following tiers: desktop, workgroup, departmental and enterprise. They typically vary on image quality, speed and daily load, as well as other areas such as bundled software, feeding mechanisms and drivers. A 300-DPI in black and white with a decent speed of 20-30 pages per minute is common across most scanner levels.

"The biggest mistake we see is when people don't factor in the daily load. Low-end scanners can handle the quality and speed, but not for a large volume of pages," said Jennings. "Once firms are moving all client tax documents into a paperless environment, they will need to scan potentially thousands of pages a day during peak season. We suggest a minimum of a workgroup-level scanner."

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