A different approach to cloud accounting software
(Image from Sage.com)
Sage (a leading provider of accounts software) have recently extended their most popular product to the cloud. And they have done to in a way which seems to address a lot of concerns.
My experience of cloud accounting software is that while it is functional and easy to use, it does lack some of the capabilities that desktop accounting software offered. What Sage appear to have done is taken their best product for SME – Sage 50 – and retained the best of both worlds. The news release at the link above suggests a new product, Sage Drive, allows the user to retain the desktop functions but store data in the cloud. This has several advantages. First, the sharing capabilities of the cloud are available once the data is stored there. Second, existing functions are maintained and this may particularly suit the accountant users. Third, it may ease some security concerns accountants often mention with the cloud. From my understanding, only the data is cloud hosted. Some desktop software is still needed to make sense of the data.
Technology number 2 concern of Boards
A recent report cited on CGMA’s website places technological risk at the second risk concern amongst a survey of Boards of Directors. The risk concern is with cyber-security, and was the number one risk concern of private firms. The report notes an increases in the perceived technology risk from previous years. It is interesting (and good) that Boards are well aware of technological risk – as most large organisations today are so reliant on their information systems. You can read the full report here and the CGMA article here.
The cloud – Dropbox
Here is a nice new feature from BBC on cloud storage company DropBox
MrExcel – a great source for all things Excel
This is a link to a great source for all things Excel – Microsoft Excel Tips & Solutions from MrExcel. This website boasts Excel knowledge that goes much beyond the standard Excel user, providing you with knowledge that will become beneficial not only to you, but also to you company.
So why did Lotus 1-2-3 lose against Microsoft Excel?
Image Credit: Andrew Mason/Flickr
In the textbook, we remark the following on Lotus Notes:
Especially Lotus 1-2-3 marked another quantum leap for electronic spreadsheet programmes, as it introduced now well-known tools like naming cells, ranges, macros, charting, plotting and database operations. Throughout the 1980s, Lotus 1-2-3 dominated office computers as the most widespread and most functional electronic spreadsheet programme.
So why did Lotus 1-2-3 not persevere? Not many of us can remember having seen Lotus Notes 123, let alone having used it at one point.
In the 1980s, Lotus 1-2-3 was quite the “killer app” – it dominated office computers worldwide, and was the quasi-standard of spreadsheet applications. At this point, spreadsheet applications were still mostly commandline-based, so you would not really need a mouse. In addition, the demand for a lot of functionalities was not that high, but when Excel came along, Lotus 1-2-3 was an already bloated and outdated piece of software. Its developers missed the sign of the times, and Excel took the market by storm. As more and more complicated calculations were needed, especially in the finance industry, Lotus 1-2-3 missed out and Excel took over. Within a few years, Excel became the dominating force in spreadsheets, and has been ever since.
Cloud computing breathes new life into the mainframe
This link leads to an interesting blog by Nick Hardiman that explains why the good old mainframe described in chapter 10 might experience second wind by cloud computing.
Mainframe
The power of the F4 key in Excel
In Excel, using various shortcuts helps enormously in saving time when creating spreadsheets. One of the most useful shortcuts I know is using the F4 key when entering a cell reference in a formula. Hitting the F4 key when a cell or range reference is selected cycles through various combinations of absolute and relative references.
An example. Let’s say we want to multiply a growth rate in cell A1 with a range of revenues budgeted for 2013 in cells B1 to B10, and let’s say we wanted to calculate the increase the revenues for 2014 by 10%. How would we do that quickly? First, we would create a formula in cell C1 that multiplied cells A1 (growth rate) by cell B1 (first revenue) like this
=A1*B1
To save time, we just want to copy this formula down to cells C2:C10. To keep the reference to cell A1, we need to make this an absolute reference. We of course could add a $-sign before the column reference A and the row reference 1. Using the F4 key allows us to do this much quicker – once we selected cell A1, we just hit the F4 key once (hitting it twice or three times creates mixed references, a fourth time back to the relative reference we started out with). In spreadsheets with a lot of formulas that require several absolute (or mixed) references, the F4 key saves a lot of time.
If you use a Mac, the keyboard shortcut to achieve the same result is CMD-t.
The Guardian – Should you put your small business accounts in the cloud?
This is an article published in the Guardian in January 2014, where I was interviewed to give my view on the cloud.
Credit: The Guardian
Cloud computing – explained by Stephen Fry
None other than Stephen Fry explains the history of computer thinking and the revolution of utility in cloud computing in this 5 minute animation. If you didn’t know why cloud technology is assumed to change business information systems in their core, you need to watch this.
Stephen Fry
The management accountant as cloud herder Part 2
It has been suggested that “management accounting” as a label is redundant (Otley, 2008), and that the management accountant as a role (or management accounting as a set of tasks) is moving away from counting beans and crunching numbers to an in-house consultant on operational and strategic topics and decision-making, even a business partner (Weber, 2011). In other words, they should help make sense of the information and advise the decisions that based on our textbook-knowledge the managers should take based on what management accountants provide them. I would claim that based on this, the management accountant is assumed to take a “grey eminence” position as a powerful advisor to the managers.
Now based on our own survey, as stated by Martin Quinn on his IMARN-blog, “a substantial number of respondents (40%) noted that managers use tablets and smartphones to obtain information for decision-making”. That means that managers (with or without knowledge of the management accountant) are able to make quicker decisions by obtaining decision-relevant information with a tap or a swipe, using anytime-anywhere technology like tablets and smartphones, powered by wifi and broadband. The easy access to cloud technology and the generation of so-called “big data” thus enables managers to bypass the management accountant. If their role was not to take another dent, management accountants will need to re-define themselves as quickly as the technological cycles go, on a permanent basis. They will need to be more than “just” business partners – they need to be IT-savvy knowledge workers (Bontis, 2011), experts in handling of big data, and “cloud herders”, up-to-date with technological developments that may impact how management decisions can be improved and supported. Management accounting will need to accept the responsibility to develop the IT procedures so the technology is able to provide information at a finger’s tap.
This would determine a strong impact on the discipline of management accounting itself – the toolbox of instruments like budgeting, break-even or variance analysis will not only need an overhaul but also an extension. Even practice will have difficulties keeping up with all these requirements due to the sheer pace of technological change and “information bombardment” that needs to be turned into corporate gold.
And where is academic research in all of this, with their overly long publishing cycles, cumbersome dissemination procedures and penchant for “theory first, practice later”? The number of publications in accounting and finance journals that deal with the aforementioned technologies (and their impact) is low. Closing the research – practice gap anyone? I might have a theory for it.
References:
Bontis, N. (2011), “Information Bombardment: Rising Above the Digital Onslaught”, Institute for Intellectual Capital Research, Canada
Otley, D. (2008), “Did Kaplan and Johnson get it right?”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, vol. 21, no.2, pp.229-239
Quinn, M. (2013). Researching information technology and management accounting change – some researchers thoughts. [Blog] IMARN. Available at: http://imarn.org/2013/01/28/management-accounting-change-and-information-technology-some-researchers-thoughts/ [Accessed 19 May. 2014].
Weber, J. (2011), “The development of controller tasks: explaining the nature of controllership and its changes”, Journal of Management Control, Vol. 22, Iss. 1, pp.25-46
Business information systems for accounting students 