Accountants join the rush

 for Web Two

Gary Maller. This Digital Life.

Reprinted From The Range News

Of the four businesses I helped get onto Web Two last week, one was my accountant. Not generally regarded as innovators with an appetite for risk, when an accountant signs up for the most advanced, out of the box, e-business platform on the planet, you'd have to think the business case was rock solid. You'd also think that, if accountants are getting onto Web Two, the rush to be part of Australia's $33 billion online economy must be well and truly on.  You'd be right.  The online economy, already 4% of GDP, is growing at 55% p.a.

As explained in previous columns, Web Two is all about business applications hosted and delivered over the internet. But what's an accountant going to do with that? Most accountants deal with the past - recording transactions and preparing business accounts for tax. My accountant also wants to help his clients grow their businesses through value added services.

The first thing on the cards is an e-business community comprised of the six hundred small business clients on his books. Client's can profile their products and services in a directory and build a network of new business relationships.

The next thing is delivery of professional services online. Accountants can lodge tax returns electronically, but what about more efficient ways of managing clients' cash book and records?  Services like Bank Link, where clients assign bank statement debits and credits to ledger accounts, help to speed up the BAS process, but they're still paper based and manual. Imagine if you could lodge this statement electronically in your own account on your accountant's web site. Accounting staff with appropriate permissions can access your online portfolio, and they don’t have to be working from the office - which you might have guessed by now is virtual. Suddenly my accountant can do business with anyone, anywhere.