Acct1st - Acct1st Technology Group LLC

Best Fit

Small to large public accounting firms with a tax practice.

Strengths

Brief Product Description and Pricing

Acct1st was designed by a technology software development group and a group of technology-driven CPAs specifically for the tax and accounting firm environment as an enterprise-level solution that can support the needs of larger firms. Acct1st EDRMS (Electronic Documents Records Management System) is designed to run in a SQL environment, with an option to run via web connection without an IIS Internet server because it has its own built-in web services. Acct1st Technology Group also offers a hosted option, http://www.acct1st.com.

Pricing will vary with how the product is run and additional services.

Technical Specifications

Application may be run locally on a standard Windows network environment or as a SaaS Internet-based solution, incorporating Cloud computing and storage.

Integration with Accounting and Ease of Setup

Acct1st offers direct integration with all of the major tax preparation software packages, and direct integration with CaseWare’s automated workpapers application is also provided. A special print driver allows for publishing any application-generated document or report to Acct1st. IQ is a universal export/ import tool that allows for the automatic transfer of data between Acct1st and other applications. In addition, Acct1st has established a working relationship with Sage Software to integrate with the MAS software product line.

Representative Client List (if available)

Company History and Contact Information

Acct1st is developed with the combined efforts of a Dallas-based CPA firm and a Seattle-based software development organization. It is very much an “accountant-centric” application and offers the best of both worlds in terms of allowing the choice between deploying it on your internal server or using the vendor’s secure web hosting service.

Commentary (The following is provided by the Editor with notes and comments from others.)

Acct1st is very strong in its capabilities to bring in documents in bulk or batches. Scripts may be developed to automatically index and file existing documents, based on the folder properties to which the files belong. This assumes that you have a structured file system already in place. However, currently Acct1st does not offer a PDF Printer driver in order to generate PDF output from other applications and file them into the system, so you will have to acquire this from another source.

One feature which we particularly like is the ability to export documents to a CD for distribution with a royalty- free viewer.  This allows the accountant to package a tax return, audit, or other engagement and file,  or to distribute to the client with a digital record of all the related forms. While the application does not have as strong workflow management tools as other solutions we have previewed, it does provide for routing documents to others within the firm via user-defined fields to customized workflow with various routing rules established.

Records management and retention is a core to the application.  Since the designers and developers of Acct1st came from a strong records management background, there was already a good focus on the importance of managing digital documents effectively. Acct1st utilizes retention rules that are established and applied to files managed by the application; these include native format files, as well as scanned images. The user may establish an unlimited number of retention schedules which can be based on document type or policy. When a document is destroyed, you can determine whether or not the metadata (indexing values, etc.) are maintained for an audit trail or destroyed with the document/file. In addition, documents can be put into an “on hold” status during litigation, which means the selected documents cannot be edited, and the retention schedule is suspended.

As we mentioned previously, security of sensitive information is crucial to any document management solution. Acct1st provides security through permissions which can be set to view or to edit documents based on the user, groups, folder (document category), and document type.
For firms using CCH Practice Manager (Previously CPASoftware VPM), Acct1st provides direct integration. Acct1st automatically pulls client name and number information via an application interface. Acct1st has a Software Development Kit (SDK) available to develop integration with third-party software applications. Acct1st is also an integration partner with Sage and others.

If you are not sure about running your own document library with all the associated cost of servers, including upkeep and maintenance, perhaps an online solution is right for you. Acct1st is also one of several vendors to offer online document hosting services.

Acct1st maintains the environment, including automatic upgrades, implementations, and new versions when they are released. To secure the online environment, Acct1st maintains a high level of security, and systems are monitored for intrusive activities 24 hours a day. The system is equipped with user name and password authentication, as well as 128-bit encryption; all user activity is tracked and recorded with a full audit trail available. Few in-house document libraries have a stronger infrastructure in place.

Finally, while many ECM solutions deal strictly with PDF files, EDRMS is a full- service solution that supports a secure central repository for all types of electronic and physical files: MS Word™ documents, spreadsheets, scanned images, e-mail, audit files, and even records retention for paper if you must have that, too.