The accountant's minimum viable tech stack

Every day accountants hear of software products touted as essential — even indispensable — for any well-run accounting firm, and to not adopt them is to risk being left in the dust of all those who do. As the number of such ostensibly vital solutions grows, leaders struggle to understand what tools truly are or are not necessary for their practice to survive. 

This raises the question, then, of what solutions exactly are necessary to run a firm? Not a great firm or a respected firm or a growing firm but a purely functional one that won't collapse in on itself in the first month. When you remove all the nice-to-haves, all the force multipliers, all the value adds, what's left? 

Basically: What is the minimum viable tech stack for an accounting firm? Not in terms of specific brands or products but types of technology needed for technical accounting work and for running the business of the firm itself? 

Helping us answer this question are three accounting technology experts who have observed and advised on hundreds, if not thousands, of tech stacks between them. They took the time to leverage that experience in providing Accounting Today some insights into what is truly essential for firms specializing in CAS, tax and audit. 

Meanwhile, our experts also weighed in on how to be strategic with a minimum viable tech stack, and how to vet vendors while building one.

This is the first part of our three-part series on Managing Your Firm's Tech Stack. Part 2, on how tech stacks fit into overall firm strategy, is scheduled for Monday. Part 3, which examines tech stack exclusivity vs. agnosticism is scheduled for Tuesday.

Client Accounting Services

Joe Woodard (CEO, Woodard)
Joe Woodard.png
Joe Woodard
(NOTE: Answers refer to services like pre-accounting, record keeping and bookkeeping. This does not include FP&A, fractional CFO, etc. Both after-the-fact and real-time services have been considered.) 

  • A general ledger with bank and credit card feeds (including any employee-held cards), with rules you can define so the process of capturing transactions becomes less labor intensive over time. 
  • A way to input or import revenues (e.g., through a journal entry) if the client is not working within the GL alongside the CAS practice. 
  • A solution that facilitates month-end close, preferably with AI enablement. 
  • If the firm is also providing back-office process outsourcing (administration) the MVTS would also include:
    • A payroll solution that integrates with the General Ledger the firm uses, assuming the firm does not have their own in-house payroll services department.
    • A sales tax solution that integrates with the General Ledger solution the firm uses, assuming the client is required to file sales tax
    • A spend management solution for procurement and purchasing (if applicable), bill pay, and employee spend.
  • An invoicing solution that captures and allocates customer payments, assuming the invoicing tool in the general ledger does not manage the invoicing and customer payments suitably for the client. 
  • Inventory tracking (likely periodic versus real time, if we're only talking about the bare minimum) 
  • A payroll solution that integrates with the general ledger the firm uses, assuming the firm does not have their own in-house payroll services department.
  • A sales tax solution that integrates with the general ledger solution the firm uses (if necessary).
  • A spend management solution for procurement and purchasing (if applicable), bill pay, and employee spend.
  • A way to document client production workflows. 
  • Cybersecurity solutions and local hard drive backup solutions. 
  • A secure way for clients to send documents. 
  • A scanner or some other way to digitize physical documents.
For CAS practices of 3-10 people: 
  • A task or project management solution for standard operation procedures and employee training. 
  • An internal communications platform that manages separate chats as threads and can support private/sensitive calls. 
For CAS practices of 11 or more: 
  • A practice management solution with the ability to manage workflows where tasks for a single client for a single cycle are allocated across multiple professionals. Preferably this solution will also provide team capacity reporting as well.

Tax

Randy Johnston (Co-Founder, K2)
johnston-randy-k2.jpg
All firms: 
  • Productivity software (e.g., email, spreadsheets, word processing, etc.)
  • Tax preparation software
  • General ledger
  • Invoicing
  • Laptops or desktops
  • A smartphone
Midsized firms (everything above, plus:)
  • Audit guidance
  • Payroll 
Large firms (everything above, plus:) 
  • A website 
Going slightly above minimum: 
  • Cybersecurity 
  • Tax workpapers
  • Tax research (midsized and large firms)
  • Audit platform (midsized and large firms)
  • CAS platform
  • Workflow automation (midsized and large firms)
  • Document storage (midsized and large firms)
  • Practice management (midsized and large firms)
  • Website/portal (midsized and large firms)
  • Scanner
  • Phone system
  • Business development (large firms)
  • HR (large firms)

Audit

Roman Kepczyk (Director of firm technology, Rightworks)
Roman Kepczyk

  • Trial balance/engagement binder
  • Audit guidance/work program
  • Client portal for data ingress/financial statement delivery
  • Financial report creation tools
  • Accounting platform for AP/AR/FS/PR
  • Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations
  • Video conferencing 
  • Cybersecurity
  • Multifactor authentication
  • Document manager
  • Expense/spend management 
  • Industry-specific 
  • Laptop
  • A second computer display
  • Docking station with internet or access via smartphone. 
Firms with more than four people will also want to look at a digital workflow/practice management tool.
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