As accountants are gearing up for another challenging busy season, so are the IT professionals who support them. The technology staff at accounting, tax and CPA firms have the difficult responsibility of creating a stable, performant and secure experience during the most stressful time for the business.
The making of a "smooth" busy season can be an ever-elusive goal for IT departments this time of year, but according to a group of accomplished CIOs in the profession, it is possible.
Here are the top five recommendations made by the IT leaders we surveyed from our CPA client base.
1. Understand your audience's specific needs
Every busy season is a little bit different. You have new staff, new partners, new solutions and processes, and some years you even have new service lines. Understanding your firm's business goals allows IT to plan for and adjust to any new expectations as IT strives to deliver a smooth busy season from a performance, security and support standpoint.
Mark Barstow, director of information technology at Oregon-based Perkins & Co, sends out a survey to his firm's employees early on, probing for information that allows him to prepare for a successful busy season. Mark says, "Get the word on the street from your users about how well-prepared they feel for busy season using the technology that you provide. The IT department will also need to do a back-end technical assessment to determine whether the current environment is adequate to run the tools that the firm will be using — and perhaps adding — for the current season."
When assessing your resources, a review of additional user counts, new application requirements, and historical workload increases will allow you to adjust accordingly. Increasing hardware resources now is far less costly than losing billable time and your firm's confidence if you have unplanned downtime during busy season.
2. Revisit your security posture
Focusing on security is an essential part of protecting the firm, its users, and clients from risk, but no one said that would be easy. According to Security Magazine, there was a 61% increase in phishing attacks in 2022 versus 2021, so that alone should be a signal that you cannot be complacent with security. A regular cadence of end-user security awareness training is critical during busy season, when accountants and their supporting staff are most likely to make a mistake. Protecting confidential information is a fundamental part of the job and essential for the firm to maintain the trust of its clients.
All that said, the measures taken to ensure that protection can conflict with productivity. Security awareness training, multifactor authentication across multiple applications, secure connectivity methods and good password hygiene are a few of the security measures that are data security table stakes, but they also cause firm employees angst when working long hours and plowing through mountains of client work.
While gaining user buy-in for your security programs is essential, it is equally important for IT to reduce any negative impact to productivity by optimizing for performance. Adams Brown CIO Kamran Faruqi explains, "If IT implements security measures that are affecting accountants' performance because the tools are eating up bandwidth and requiring intrusions into the firm's platforms, users will understandably resist. To avoid this resistance, IT leaders must preemptively plan and put tests in place to prevent these hurdles from forming. You do not want team members saying they do not want security because it is slowing down their progress. The security really cannot be taken away without exposing the firm and its clients to risk, so it is best to make the situation tolerable for users."
3. Validate the resiliency of your IT environment
The fraught atmosphere of busy season can catalyze unfortunate errors, pitfalls and distractions that can lead to risk, wasted time, and damaged morale. Defusing this bomb from a technology standpoint is all about planning, testing and redundancy. Tools that provide flexibility and scalability, such as virtual desktops in the public cloud, can be an essential part of IT's toolkit when the unexpected happens. Redundancy in systems, infrastructure and endpoints will give you a place to turn when the pressure is on, and the firm is waiting on IT to get them back up and running.
Kamran notes, "There is no magic bullet or switch to flip that makes everything error-proof. Planning and testing are the best ways to ensure that the right data is accessible to the right people at the right time. Also, create layers of redundancy including multiple circuits in each office, backup equipment like virtual desktop environments and spare local machines. That way, if one solution fails, there is always another available to take its place."
4. Create transparency around availability
Busy season inevitably brings long hours and stress to even the most tireless professionals, which can beget panic, fatigue and disorder. CPA Gabe Grzeskiewicz, a partner at Porte Brown who also leads the firm's technology team, works on both sides of the fence as he juggles client work and IT. Gabe's recommendation is, "IT needs to tell people what the team's 'live availability' is during which people can expect to call in and speak with a real person during busy season. Set their expectations for turnaround time on trouble tickets and maintenance window timing."
Communicating uptime and downtime early on allows people to assimilate that information, which manages their expectations and leads to far less frustration.
Communication within the IT team is equally important. Perkins & Co.'s Barstow suggests, "Make sure that your technology team understands the objectives of the firm relative to busy season, and is briefed on any special client service initiatives the firm has. This will help IT team members to get on board and shift their focus to include supporting the firm as usual while also incorporating time-specific objectives."
When accountants are in "heads down" mode, they will often rely on workarounds to overcome technology issues and stay productive. What would normally come in as a service ticket will not even make it over the line to IT during busy season. However, neglecting minor issues will cause frustration that will show up in post-busy season surveys and meetings. Worse, these smaller issues can be early warning indicators of larger breakdowns, and you may miss the opportunity to head those off at the pass.
Shifting to some proactive support tactics can help mitigate this risk. Gabe makes sure he visits his satellite offices throughout the busy season so that no one feels like they are isolated on an "island." Occasionally walking around the office or setting up 15-minute virtual meetings with end users leads them to feel supported, eases their stress, and can uncover systemic issues.
5. Expect the unexpected
Even with all the right planning and preparation, the unexpected can and will happen — and often at the worst possible time. A level head and a steady hand go a long way as IT enters crisis management mode. Panic, finger-pointing, and blame are the enemies in these scenarios. Staying positive as you engage in problem solving is key.
Gabe suggests, "Keeping a positive attitude, even when one is stressed, will help alleviate the tension. You cannot plan on when something will break, but what you can control is how you respond to it. Just staying positive helps keep everybody moving forward."
Conclusion
Busy season will always be hectic, but a top-notch IT department can create efficiencies and safeguards to make it smoother and a little more bearable. IT can create a positive, communicative, and secure environment for firms to achieve their client service and revenue goals at the busiest time of their year.
