What are we working on?
It has been quite some time since our last post. During this period, we are busy working on the following:
- Simplifying the program in response to user’s opinions.
- Data conversion for Baker Tilly CPA (system) and other CPA firms (manual).
- Adding more options to different ways of handling things in CPA firms.
These changes are small but very meaningful to practicing CPA firms. Increase ability to enter everything in one entry, keeping track of the mark up charges for each expense reimbursement, supervisor approval of expenses and mark up charges…
All these are important to day-to-day operation of a CPA firm. Our goal is to make life easier for CPA by taking care of every little detail of these practices. After all, the value of a system is just the multiplier of user’s experiences and whether those experiences are put in practice.
We will publish a summarized report of our user’s experience in their conversion from existing system or manual system to CPAnywhere. The conversion touches on existing jobs, clients, time sheet charges, expenses claim, reimbursements, issued invoices, accounts receivable, chart of accounts, leaves and HR data.
We hope we can share the issues concerning big international CPA firm like Baker Tilly to local accounting firm’s success stories to the public.
Discussion with partners of a large CPA firm
We had a lively discussion with an international CPA firm’s partners about the CPAnywhere system.
I like to sum up their concerns here.
- How frequently do we increase the rental fee?
- How much do we charge for future upgrades?
- How often do we backup the data?
- Is it secured to locate the server at a remote location?
- How fast to access the system from China?
- How easy to handle multiple business entities?
Basically, these are the real questions that concern partners, to cap the uncontrollable increase in price and the security of the data. At the end, we felt we have learned a lot from the partners’ insights and suggestions. (to be continued!)
Result from the seminar on correspondence
We always get something good from the seminar especially from general discussion. Although many people were absent from the seminar, we were fortunate enough to have an in-depth discussion with Jenny Kun, a young, pretty and knowledgeable practicing CPA of JK & Partners CPA about the actual use of the current correspondence system for small CPA firms.
Producing IRD Reply Letters
Miss Kun had told us her frank observation that really hits our head, that is the current correspondence system only manage the ins and outs of the letters but not producing the letters itself. It is the automatic production of the reply letters to the IRD on behalf of clients that is more important than just the management system. Why? Because the firm can let the less senior ones to produce the IRD letter based on the selection of various templates and the items in concern and the senior manager can just do the sign off function. This is a revenue producing function. Got it!
We will implement the similar system like the Minutes and Resolution in CSA in the Correspondence System. The user can set up and modify the content of the templates. In the meantime, we will ask our existing users to share the commonly used letter templates to start with. If you have your own letter templates and you wish us to incorporate that into the new Correspondence System please send us the copies.
Auditwork
Miss Kun has used Auditwork to produce the final audit financial statements many years ago. She asked us whether we will continue the Auditwork program by incorporating the most recent accounting format. If we have to do it, this system will be an Internet based system like our Hedgefund system. That will be a simple system that goes from Trial Balance, Audit Adjustment, Notes and then directly export to the final presentable audit reports. If any of you are interested in it please call me at 2521-3110 for general discussion.
Thank you for your interest. We would like to express our gratitude for Jenny Kun’s good observation and suggestions that will benefit other users.
“Correspondence with the IRD”
Seminar: “Correspondence with the IRD” on March 18, 2016 (Friday).
The purpose of the this seminar is to introduce to you the complex Correspondence system in CPAnywhere. Although the system is all type of correspondence, however, we will concentrate only to the letters coming in or going out to the IRD. Last year, we were fortunate enough to have the representatives from Cheng & Cheng CPA to talk about their intensive use of the system and their 10,000 letters coming in and out of the system. This time, we will concentrate on the actual set up of the various IRD Letters, deadline setting, payment amount and time charged.
We hope this is a timely event because the end of the tax year is coming due on March 31, 2016 and a little bit preparation will help a lot. This time, we do encourage existing CPAnywhere users to come to study the system if you have not yet initiate the operation. For other users, this seminar will help your way of organizing your own tax letters for your clients even you have no intention of shifting to CPAnywhere at the moment. We will tell you everything that you need to organize this complex system.
The coming seminar is to introduce the Correspondence System in CPAnywhere to CPA firm, law firm and professional service providers as a powerful practice management system.
Target audience:
- Partners and owners
- Senior Manager in charge of IRD Letters and correspondence system
- Present staff who need the training on the Correspondence System
We will discuss the following features in the seminar:
- General introduction to CPAnywhere
- How the Correspondence System works
- Setting up Correspondence Type
- What to do when you receive the letter
- Reports and deadline monitoring
Please bring along an iPad, Tablet or a smart phone to the seminar. CPAnywhere is an extensive ERP (Enterprise Resources Management) system and it may take years to fully implement the various aspects of the functions. If you are new to the system, you can try out the system at the seminar. If you are already using CPAnywhere, you can directly access your own data and ask specific question relating to your own practice.
Sincerely,
Harry Tsui CPA
Title : [CPAnywhere] Seminar – Correspondence with the IRD
Date : 18th March 2016 (Friday)
Time : 11:00 a.m. to 13:00 pm. (2 hours)
Venue : Room 408-409, Fortress Tower, 250 Kings Road, North Point, Hong Kong
(Next to Fortress Hill Station, B Exit)
Seats : 20
Reservation : Please call Mr. Aki Ho at 2521-3110 for reservation
For : Partners, owners and Senior Manager
Cost : Free
Speakers : Aki Ho, System Consultant (Tel: 2521-3110); Harry Tsui, CPA (in Cantonese or English, if needed)
Some new ideas!
We have just completed the seminar today. Out of the seminar we have found some good ideas aired by the participants:
Interest accrued for unpaid bill – this is interesting because most of us have ignored this because of the high collection rate in Hong Kong. However, this is not the same in the US or South America where the bad debts are common. The user can modify the Invoice Template to add the interest charge cause and then add the interest amount onto the Quick Charge so that the Client Statement will show the additional interest amount.
My report – adding this feature is a convenience to user. Every user can set his or her favorite reports to the My Report portal for easy access.
One thing that we feel the participants are very interested in is the development of the Android mobile application for CPAnywhere. It will further enhance the communication platform within the firm for employees and outside the firm with its clients.
[CPAnywhere] Seminar – Productivity reports for Professional Firms
Dear Sir or Madame,
We would like to invite you to come to the seminar on the 1st of March, 2016.
The purpose of the seminar is to examine the various productivity reports that will be useful for CPA and law firms. Attached please find the sample of the reports for your reviewing. At the seminar, you have the opportunity to ask question, voice opinion or making suggestion to the various reports. CPAnywhere is a very large and complex system. However, we will make the seminar useful to you by just walking through the much anticipated reports for professionals and leave the actual operation to other courses.
- The coming seminar is to introduce CPAnywhere to CPA firm, law firm and professional service providers as a powerful practice management system.
Target audience:
l Partners and owners
l Senior Manager in charge of system development
- We will discuss the following features in the seminar:
- Time sheet and job management
- Invoicing, disbursement and advances
- Settlement, credit memo and receipts printing
- Trust monies management
- Executive information portal
- CSA Data Transfer Program, installation and setup
- IRD letters management
- Client newsletter publishing, set up and running
- Leave management
- Payroll, MPF and IRD reporting
- Accounting system setting
- Accounts payable
- We will also talk about the difference between CPAnywhere and the coming Master Payroll Service (MPS.HK) platform. The MPS platform is to be used to serve your clients on payroll and HR matters.
Please bring along an iPad, Tablet or a smart phone to the seminar. CPAnywhere is an extensive ERP (Enterprise Resources Management) system and it may take years to fully implement the various aspects of the functions. If you are new to the system, you can try out the system at the seminar. If you are already using CPAnywhere, you can directly access your own data and ask specific question relating to your own practice. Please bear in mind that only the designated partners can access to the secretive Executive information portal of your firm.
Sincerely,
Harry Tsui CPA
| Title | : | [CPAnywhere] Seminar – Productivity reports for Professional Firms |
| Date | : | 1st March 2016 (Tuesday) |
| Time | : | 11:00 a.m. to 13:00 pm. (2 hours) |
| Venue | : | Room 408-409, Fortress Tower, 250 Kings Road, North Point, Hong Kong (Next to Fortress Hill Station, B Exit) |
| Seats | : | 20 |
| Reservation | : | Click to Reserve a seat(s) |
| For | : | Partners, owners and Senior Manager |
| Cost | : | Free |
| Speakers | : | Aki Ho, System Consultant; Harry Tsui, CPA (in Cantonese or English, if required) |
Welcome!
Starting after the Chinese new year, we are sending out a limited number of advertising pamphlets to practicing CPAs of the CPAnywhere system.
Because of the space, we only highlighted the importance of the most up-to-date information for partners and managers, accessible by mobile phone, tablet and PC.
In order to gather all those crucial information, the system links many areas of activities that involve customer, job, staff and finances together to form a full picture of what is going on in the firm as a whole.
In short, this is a system that can cut down your cost, speed up the work and put you informed along the way.
If you want to know more about the system, we encourage you to come to our seminars or simply give us a call at 2521-3110, we can come to your office or vice versa at your convenience to discuss about your requirements.
Thank you!
The standard reports
We are reworking on all of the standard reports, as well as the reports included under the Report Builder, to include an expanded option to choose from many more criteria to select companies to print.
We have developed this one from Newsletter Publishing function and found it to be very practical.
Recap of MPS Seminar
Summary of the MPS Pre-launch seminar held on September 21, 2015-
We have divided the seminar into two parts:
1.) The information session regarding how to use MPS platform to market, operate and managing the payroll and HR services to clients.
2.) The actual presentation of how the MPS Specialist using the platform to create and manage payroll and HR services and the client’s access to the system using Open Sapien mobile system. There were a lot of responses and suggestions to the MPS system. Please let me present some of the suggestions that we will implement immediately.
Candidate management –
Dr. Teresa Chu of Victor Chu Solicitors proposed that we can add the candidate management function to the MPS so that files can be stored for future reference as well as for timed destruction in accordance to the laws. We will include that function along side with the regular personnel record.
Employee appraisal –
Mr. Ken Wu of Newhaven (Hong Kong) Limited has proposed the addition of an appraisal system. The MPS already has the attendance and leaves ranking system. All staff can view the daily or monthly ranking of attendance by use of their Open Sapien mobile system. We can add the numerical ranking by supervisors in the MPS.
However, this is a subjective approach rather than the objective one to let the system to do the evaluation in profitability and efficiency based on the inherit data.
Security –
Again, Mr. Ken Wu of Newhaven (Hong Kong) Limited has proposed to use the second password for service provider as well as the IP address restricted access to the MPS system.
The present MPS system already has the IP address restriction. That means people can only access the MPS within the designated area. We will include the second password for added comfort.
Multiple MPF accounts –
Linda Mok of Hong Kong Manager has proposed the handling of the multiple MPF accounts. At present, the MPF account is on client level. Only one MPF account per client. We will change the MPF account from company level to employee level. Good point!
Fee –
Josephine Yau of McCabe International Limited asked about the fee structure. It is very simple. There will not be any charge to the First 100 MPS Service Providers as long as the number of client’s employee on MPS platform is equal or over the number of employees at the service provider. The cost to your client is HK$ 20 per active employee per month. A minimum of six months notification of any fee increase. There is no setup fee and no initial training fee.
Roster and Shift –
A restaurant chain’s representative asked whether the system is adequate to handle their complicated shift structure and whether we will charge for any additional fee for alternation of the system to fit their needs.
First of all, the present shift system is very strong and it is capable to be adopted in a restaurant setting. If not, we will modify it with no cost to users.
We are so lucky to have such a quality group of people with very intelligent suggestions.
In fact, we are already receiving many interest to be the First 100 MPS Service Providers.
We will conduct another Pre-launch seminar very soon for those who cannot get in to the first seminar.
We will notify you shortly once we know the booking detail.
Again, thank you so much for your interest in MPS.
Sincerely,
Harry Tsui
XML Excel Reports
We are going to add in the XML Excel reports to most of the standard as well as some custom reports. This will help supervisors to better manage their work by being able to work under the familiar Excel environment.
We have sent out the letter earlier regarding our concern on data safety.
Many of you had called and voiced your concerns. Most of you would like to host the program as well as the data at our location rather at yours.
We are working to achieve that goal. The goal is to have the maximum security to your data at the lowest cost. We will let you know once we have formulated the plan.
Thank you for your calls.