When many firms began their move towards becoming a "paperless" office, most took on the task of scanning their documents to a disk and storing them until needed. These days, the method is less popular since they have found the need for security, workflow and integration to their tax, audit and practice management applications.

Moreover, the acceptance of placing client documents either on a server, portal or some secure cloud-based location has grown among CPAs. As such, so has the availability of those offerings.

Technology analyst and consultant Randy Johnston stressed that for CPAs, the growth and use of document management tools has a lot to do with the overall convenience they offer.

"Cloud or SaaS-based versions of document management systems are being introduced by a number of players targeting the CPA community now more than ever," he pointed out. "The advantages are the backup is automatic and assured, and access is more universal. There are some difficulties, however, including getting scanned documents to the data center where the document management system lives, the speed of delivery to the local desktop, and integration with some applications [that CPA firms use]."

Salina, Kan.-based CPA firm Kennedy and Coe went paperless six years ago using CCH fx Engagement. While it's not a document management system, it gave the firm a place to store needed files. Two years ago, the firm began using iChannel as a document management system and hasn't looked back, according to IT director and principal Greg Davis.

Davis noted that the firm didn't necessarily need iChannel to be cloud-based, and currently, the firm enjoys several features about the solution, which suited all of the firm's primary document management needs. These include client portal capabilities, ease of access to documents/document search, and the ability to automatically enforce its own document retention policy.

"At the end of the day, we really chose this solution because it was easy to use. Some of the vendors are moving their products to the cloud and smaller firms might be moving to the cloud for document management, but we are not," said Davis. "We are getting most of the benefits of the cloud already. Although we have eight offices, all of our data is centralized in our main location. We use [hosting via] Citrix to give staff access, and this gives our staff the ability to access client files from anywhere they can get an Internet connection. With also being paperless, we can scan in a client's information and anyone in the firm can work on the project."

Tempe, Ariz.-based Skinner + Co. also began using document management tools within the past couple of years. Much like Kennedy and Coe, the firm cited ease of access to documents and overall convenience as its primary reasons for doing so, though the security they offer was an added plus.

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