Options to Automate Your Tax Preparation Workflow

Donny Shimamoto

As tax busy season, seems to keep being tax crazy season year after year, tax preparers must begin leveraging tax automation software and other innovations to help bring some sanity back to their work. Attend this session to get updates about the technologies and other options available to help streamline tax return preparation, optimize client collaboration, and maximize firm profitability. The topics we’ll touch on include: client portals, workflow management, e-signatures, robotic process automation (RPA), outsourcing, and value pricing.

Exploring the A-B-C-D of the Digital Age and Their Impact on Accounting

Donny Shimamoto

This session with start with a quick look at how Artificial intelligence, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, and Data governance are impacting the accounting ecosystem supporting transaction recordation and financial reporting. Then we’ll dive deeper into how to identify opportunities for automation, whether with traditional programming, robotic process automation (RPA), or machine learning. We’ll close out with a look at how the role of the finance team leader will change and the skills needed to be successful in the near future.

Proven Strategies to Leverage Automation & Outsourcing to Reduce Your Accounting/Tax Workload

Donny Shimamoto

Busy season seems to keep getting busier. Last-minute changes to the tax code, delayed tax software updates, workload compression, and a shortage of experienced accounting professionals continue to exacerbate what is already a grueling season for many accounting firms. Client fee pressures force firms to figure out how to get more productivity out of their existing staff while not burning staff out and maintaining a high staff engagement level.

Yet, some tax and bookkeeping firms have been showing strong growth and even increased work-life balance. We interviewed a variety of these firms to see if we could identify the secret to their success. Attend this session to learn how these firms are bucking the general trends and achieving growth and increased profitability.

How Automation and AI are Enhancing Management Accountants

Donny Shimamoto

Headlines abound saying that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) will eliminate the need for accountants. In reality, RPA and AI provide an excellent opportunity for accountants to automate more routine procedures and focus on delivering more value-added insights to help improve an organization’s performance or risk mitigation. Conversely, the use of AI can also have some adverse results if not managed properly. Accountants must be aware of these risks and work to ensure that the proper controls are in place to manage an organization’s operational and financial risks associated with automation and AI. Learn more about these technologies and their implications to the skills and knowledge needed to be an effective management accountant.

Understanding Your Cybersecurity Tech Options: How Non-Techies Can Mitigate Their Malware Risks

Donny Shimamoto

Confused by all of the techno-mumbo jumbo around cybersecurity technologies? Let us help demystify it for you. Attend this session designed specifically for non-techies to be talked through the major cybersecurity risk areas (malware protection, device management, email protection, backup, secure document exchange, e-Signatures, etc.) and the types of options of solutions in each area that helps mitigate your risks. You’ll leave this session with a better sense of your residual cybersecurity risks, and potential option to talk to your IT person about to help mitigate those risks.

How to Modernize Your Accounting Tech Stack with Mature Innovations

Donny Shimamoto

Tired of everyone telling you that you need to modernize your accounting services, but not telling you how to actually do it? Let us guide you through creating your accounting innovation strategy and developing a plan for modernizing the way you provide accounting services using a holistic and time-proven view of your processes and information needs. Walk away from this workshop having:

Identified opportunities to leverage technology to automate accounting processes
Identified ways to classify information needs that drive decision-making
An understanding of how to create a more sustainable organization by shifting to a strategy-driven view of your products & services
Identified potential vendors to help optimize your accounting services

Learn to revamp your service offerings to increase profitability (accounting firms) or reduce cost (accounting departments) as well as optimize your staff’s workload. While many technologies come with some cost, they can greatly reduce manual labor and risk of error when integrated well. By providing more holistic services to your “customers”, you also better position yourself to be a trusted advisor and increase “customer” retention and satisfaction.

Enabling Hybrid Work: How to Ensure a Holistic Approach to Customer, Employee, and Cybersecurity Risks

Donny Shimamoto

The move to remote work changes not just your cybersecurity risks, but adds an element of customer-facing risks, and also increases employee engagement risks. Learn more about these risks and some practical tactics to mitigate these risks by attending this session designed for non-techies. Learn what questions to ask your IT team and what you can do to reduce your data breach risk. Also get some tips on how accountants can help their organizations evaluate and prioritize addressing these risks.