macpa innovation summit -...

ThinkTank™ Session 127

MACPA Innovation Summit

MACPA Innovation Summit Innovation Stations Report from Session 127 Started Monday, June 16, 2014, 4:00 ET Ended Wednesday, June 16, 2014, 5:30 ET



AGENDA 1 Innovation Station Activity 2 Innovation Station--Leadership 3 Innovation Station—Not for Profit/Government 4 Innovation Station—Young Professionals and Students 5 Innovation Station—CFO/Controller 6 Innovation Station--Tax 7 Innovation Station—Accounting and Auditing 8 Picture This!—Innovation Stations INNOVATION STATION #1 Leadership

1. How are you thinking differently about innovation? 1. It’s not as strange as it appears 2. Get all employees thinking outside the box 3. It’s a continuous process 4. Forward thinking wins the race! (Temporarily) :) 5. Leaders need to have passions about what they do 6. Now I need to know how to make the transitions -change the culture 7. Innovation means thinking differently! Stepping outside of your comfort zone and exploring new ideas & options 8. Collaboration and sharing

2. What does it mean to your area? (Leadership) 1. It means we are embracing change, efficiency. Always on the lookout 2. Surround yourself with positive, forward thinking people 3. We need to encourage employees to generate mindshare new ideas



4. Offering leading edge tools leads you to talent 5. An innovative leader will inspire & nurture growth & exploration in others, as well as collaborative thinking & not allowing fear to hinder growth 6. Use information for social platform to share with professionals network

3. What do you need to help you drive innovation in your organization? 1. A person who organizes the project and facilitates the implementation 2. More communication and collaboration 3. Small firm alliances to take small companies virtual 4. Eliminate negative people (vampire) empower the remaining staff. Give constructive and positive feedback 5. Good consultants 6. Speak up more & understand the audience 7. More time I admit 8. Money allocated on the budget 9. An individual that has the time to dedicate to innovation

4. What other insights would you like to share with us? 1. Leadership means balance between Responsibility=Authority=Accountability 2. Collaboration necessary between accounting & IT 3. Innovate or die 4. Really liked “10 business myths” breakout --seemed alike from a leadership perspective, it could have been “10” separate breakout sessions 5. Good conference thank you 6. Building future leaders required investments from seasoned leaders



INNOVATION STATION #2 Government/Not for Profit

1. How are you thinking differently about innovation? 1. Thinking the same 2. In government, you have to follow the rules 3. Small increments 4. It is a must to advance in new research and development new reporting standards when required 5. Necessary for success 6. I need to get an iPhone and become more up to date on current technology 7. What increases efficiency while maintaining necessary controls in a small business environment 8. It is everybody’s job, not just leadership. It is constant and ongoing; creative destruction never stops 9. Our organization is big into saying that we have to be twenty first century, but the leaders never said anything or asked anyone to do anything differently for leadership 10. I am more concerned with IT risk due to system breaches

2. What does it mean to your area? (Government/Not For Profit) 1. More automation 2. Slow but steady wins the race 3. Staying ahead of the IRS 4. The chance to do more with a small staff and small budget 5. Need for new high level leaders who never turn over in government and less bullying. 6. New system development & consulting advisement

3. What do you need to help you drive innovation in your organization? 1. Thinking the same 2. Right people on the bus 3. Funds and time to do the research 4. More automation and costing standards integration at various modules levels could help clients complying with government reporting requirement without incurring additional costs 5. Efficient communications 6. Funds and time to do the necessary research



7. More collaboration between accounting/finance and the IT group 8. Money to implement and less jealous supervisors who hold people back 9. Look for websites to help with manual procedures such as putting re-registration of students on line need the president’s permission to do so 10. In august I will be driving innovation with a US holding company. I will be focusing on the cloud implementation and risk analysis

4. What other insights would you like to share with us? 1. Best practices are dead. Focus on future 2. Its exciting time to be in our industry 3. For best results, keep it simple 4. Simplification of cost standards for common understanding of non-accounting client 5. It’s an existing time to be in our industry 6. NFP are often strapped by limited resources, we are looking for ways to connect donors/partners with innovations 7. Getting the work done takes all day plus overtime. What time is left for our ideas? We have many 8. Late adoption of cutting edge technologies (not bleeding edge)

INNOVATION STATION #3 Young Professionals and Students

1. How are you thinking differently about innovation? 1. Small steps are all it takes

2. What does it mean to your area? (Young Professionals & Students)

3. What do you need to help you drive innovation in your organization?

4. What other insights would you like to share with us?



INNOVATION STATION #4 CFO/Controller

1. How are you thinking differently about innovation? 1. It’s an attitude and a thought process - not inventions and/or technology only 2. Trying to keep thinking about how innovation can help our operation 3. Maybe it is not as expensive as I thought to replace/update a legacy system 4. I am much more willing to explore the new accounting software and new payroll systems 5. Looking beyond just technology and consider innovation in terms of human potential 6. Focus on mobility and security 7. How it impacts productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness 8. Stay current - try new things - explore new opportunities 9. It is not just what you think-it is what you do 10. Thinking more about how to innovate the accounting services to improve corporate performance. Technology isn’t the only solution 11. Anticipating needs of the customer requires building strong relationships. Locating pain points is a somewhat intimate process 12. Innovation is a must 13. 1. Requires stepping back and being intentional, doesn’t just happen. 2. Being more innovative in “career” planning. 3. Innovate or die 14. A new appreciation of risk tolerance 15. Less focused on evaluating tools and more evaluating the problem and choosing only what’s necessary. If it’s not broken... 16. Probably can’t avoid social media forever 17. Innovation is the solution to accelerating rate of change 18. I am realizing more and more how important innovation is to weave into weekly perspective

2. What does it mean to your area? (CFO/Controller) 1. Be proactive and anticipate. Change perspective. Stay alert and aware 2. Find differences in the finance department specifically 3. As a controller for many small companies, I need to be aware and advise them about what is available 4. Time to move forward



5. Differentiation 6. Taking care of individuals and staff - getting more sleep, working smarter, not harder 7. If innovation isn’t working then I can’t give the appropriate information to heads of business units 8. Stay current to be an effective leader 9. Find new ways, methods of servicing internal customers 10. My organization depends on the accounting and finance area to be practically invisible, yet entirely supportive 11. You have to innovate or get left behind 12. Find new ways to do things-integration 13. Another necessary evil 14. Think through the problem first without a specific solution/product in mind, and then look for the solutions using tools I might already have. Try not to build more silos 15. CFO/Controllers need to be CAO-chief Anticipation Officer or Chief Future Officer 16. Can’t just adjust/accept the change that is happening. You have to look ahead and plan for change you anticipate is yet to come

3. What do you need to help you drive innovation in your organization? 1. Time to research 2. Communication and participation 3. More opportunities talk one on one to the companies who are designing this new system 4. Work on change management and employee confidence 5. Evolving technology 6. Not much - I just need to do it. Of course, communicating it well can always be improved 7. A technology manager that is collaborative 8. Consensus 9. Open-minds-willing to change 10. Receptive environment, improved communication skills 11. Technology! 12. Time to think 13. Passionate focused leadership in the organization 14. Time to think 15. I need to take the leap from bean counter to value added; acquire much insight into ways to do this 16. time 17. Software developers/vendors who focus on solving organizations problems more than on gaining market share and revenue 18. I need help getting my team to be more conscious of innovation 19. Everyone has to be involved in the plan and be excited, and informed to participate

4. What other insights would you like to share with us? 1. Change is inevitable. Energy matters 2. This is more thought-provoking than I thought it would be 3. Thanks for setting up the conference 4. The only thing constant is change 5. Need to diffuse opposition by embracing objections to improve your position 6. Collaboration with other groups and leaders within the organization is critical for corporate success 7. The future is here... 20 years ago MACPA had a two day technology conference. That is a thing of the past. Now we recap the benefits of collaboration with technology 8. The event highlighted the need for personal networking 9. CPAs need to be more involved in their company’s success 10. Love the keynote speaker. Very motivating to start the day 11. Too many social networks, too little time 12. There is so much to be gained by working with/partnering with IT companies to offer clients more complete solutions 13. Give up building an argument from the detail and support to the conclusion. Start with your conclusion and only work backward to the detail as far as time or need for it/permit/allow/require to move to the next issue.



INNOVATION STATION #5 Tax

1. How are you thinking differently about innovation? 1. It is possible and maybe even helpful to start small 2. Need to be more open to change to innovate 3. Thinking about going to the cloud 4. Giving more thought to the concept of value pricing 5. Having an a1 client invoice list with value pricing 6. The way in which customer interaction occurs is moving accounting firms to the cloud 7. Change in Process, better system, start small, find way to save info, value pricing 8. The Innovation Summit helped me understand that nothing stands still and changing the way we do business 9. Giving more thought to value pricing 10. Using technology to handle client issues (i.e. portals) and pushing clients to it 11. To be more open to change 12. Improve Productivity 13. Going to the cloud

2. What does it mean to your area? (Tax) 1. I’m a big fan of standardization as a first step in reform 2. No longer relying on referrals 3. Better Service 4. Being more efficient 5. Creating more value to clients

3. What do you need to help you drive innovation in your organization? 1. 10 minute CPE block will help with just in time learning, to help deal with information overload. 2. The new information that needs to be transmitted quickly 3. Ideas ideas ideas and more project management / and implementation follow up material 4. Double edged sword of tech vs distraction in younger students 5. Changes that are coming about quickly and needs to be transmitted



6. having a software comparison that is unbiased and shows the pros and cons 7. More innovation seminars 8. To be quickly abreast of tax changes/rules in summary form 9. Ideas and more ideas, how to implement ideas: Thoughts -> action 10. Resources to keep up with changes 11.Software products / Ted Talk 12. Social Media – Technology Updated 13. Time to analyze 14. Identification of new trends, independent review of software products

4. What other insights would you like to share with us? 1. Volunteering actually has a lot of benefits that people don’t understand because many don’t volunteer 2. Volunteering can be profitable to your own business 3. Implementation shifting to the cloud 4. Volunteering Encouragement

INNOVATION STATION #6 Accounting & Auditing

1. How are you thinking differently about innovation? 1. Trying to stay ahead of the curve...today’s already tomorrow 2. Automating audit work flow process 3. Innovation requires constant change in the accounting working environment 4. Collaborate to innovate 5. Don’t try to beat the changes, but plan for them and work to keep up, specifically in regards to technology 6. Innovation of entire audit process , not just certain aspects which are most easily automated



2. What does it mean to your area? (Accounting & Auditing) 1. Need to spend time to keep up to date and work the new ideas into my business 2. Improve the review process, timeliness and client communication 3. Use collaboration to transform the audit process

3. What do you need to help you drive innovation in your organization? 1. Time to research design implement 2. More hours in the day 3. Workflow software, training and integration with channel 4. Make colleagues understand the benefits for adopting to innovation methods 5. Bette tools and leverage materials 6. Provide opportunities to collaborate with peers, specifically on the future and changes 7. Push total process mapping/analysis (lean process)

4. What other insights would you like to share with us? 1. The future continues to look so promising and CPAs will be in the front 2. Convergence of different accounting standards 3. Wiki for accounting standards 4. More complexity is not serving public well if we don’t get ahead of that someone else will 5. Simplification 6. Need to sort through relevant data 7. Computer software is not perfect 8. Nice us of technology for crowdsourcing 9. We are good at plugging tech into the process, but people still need to transport the data...a lot of inefficiencies. Not mapping all of the processes 10. Add ins are inefficient 11. We’re on a train that keeps picking up passengers and picking up speed...try to get off and you are dragged behind 12. We react/ fix to the bad apples and fix is irrelevant to those that 13. Use it 14. Auditors maintain documentation however very few document their inefficiencies wasted time etc. some think you can review workpapers and find inefficiencies however I think it is a lot harder to find the inefficiencies

PICTURETHIS! Innovation Stations

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