Small Business Cloud Migration: How to Transition Your Clients Without Creating a Tornado

Editor's Notes

• #2: “Small Business Cloud Migration: How to Transition Your Clients Without Creating a Tornado”. Accountants today must be able to manage the migration of multiple connected systems in the cloud. Being able to see the data from anywhere allows accountants to be more efficient and provide better client services 24/7. For firms transitioning clients to the cloud, moving these systems and data can be a difficult process which cannot be accomplished in a piecemeal fashion. Doug Sleeter will share important knowledge which will shed light on this process, as well as reveal ground breaking data on how the cloud migration is affecting all small business models.
• #4: 85% of small businesses want proactive, strategic advice from their accountant. They want proactive involvement from their accountant for business planning, technology planning, and overall business development. They want answers to questions like: "What are my margins and how can I improve them? What about my cash flow?" But only 24% of business owners say their accountant provides it. Instead, they say their accountant is focused on reactive, backward-facing reports (financial statements), and tax returns (compliance).
• #5: Lead: Build a Team Form a change team and fill the team with key stakeholders across the organization. Find strong leaders, but don’t limit this to just senior staff. The people who perform most of the day-to-day work must be involved. If you skip this step, or fail to involve the right people, you may discover that you’re a lone crusader, and the project will ultimately fail.
• #7: Set the Stage, Collaboratively = embrace the change! Re: forming a change leadership team: If you skip this step, you may find yourself a lone crusader in your firm. We’ve seen people skip this step (internal note: Ken Jurgensen of Nasif, Hicks, Harris & Co) and even when they’re making incremental wins they find it hard to see their own success, because no one is there to collaborate or help cheer the whole team on Stakeholder analysis: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_07.htm Sponsorship: Ensuring there is active sponsorship for the change at a senior executive level within the organization, and engaging this sponsorship to achieve the desired results. Buy-in: Gaining buy-in for the changes from those involved and affected, directly or indirectly. If you’re going to move your practice to the cloud, the first step is to convince yourself that the cloud is the place to be, and then build a team of colleagues, including front-line workers to help you manage the process of converting your solutions to the cloud. Gather your staff and make sure everyone is on board with the transition to the cloud. You’re the boss, but getting buy-in from all stakeholders is very critical to your success. Of course, the same is true when you convert clients to the cloud. Without commitment from the people involved, you won’t get very far. So make sure the whole team understands and embraces the vision for the transition. If you don’t have everyone on board, there is little chance of success.   In a nutshell, the most important benefit provided by cloud solutions is collaboration; it’s the perfect platform for accountants and clients to work collaboratively on the same data, at the same time, anywhere in the world. By centralizing the client’s data in the cloud, surrounded by robust security measures, we can provide clients with the same features and capabilities they used to get from their premise-based systems, while working collaboratively to manage their business information.
• #8: 2. Take Inventory: What you need: Take inventory of your business processes, why you need each chunk in the system, and your current solutions List interdependencies of each solution, and they are connected to each other Measure (pain) costs - $ and people costs of maintaining systems – How manual are your processes? Recheck your initial assumption – Can you stick with desktop, or is it just not working for your business? Multi-location? Remote workers? Mobile access? Mired in manual solution? Lack of visibility/control on business? Are you constrained from growing the business, offering new products/services?
• #9: First, verify all of your business processes, why you need each “chunk” in the system, and create a list of your current solutions.   List the interdependencies of each solution and how they’re connected to each other. Cover all parts of your system, including: The core accounting system. The external add-ons, merchant accounts, ecommerce, and digital plumbing. Industry-specific programs and processes for product-based businesses (inventory management, fulfillment, and order management). Industry-specific programs and processes for service-based businesses (time, billing, projects, job costing, and subscription billing). Industry-specific programs and processes for nonprofit activities (funds, programs, grants, and projects).
• #10: As you list each business process, measure your costs – a real pain point for most of us – and be sure to include the total burdened costs, including hardware, networking, and the “people” costs involved with running the software, processes, and maintaining the systems. It’s important to fully document these costs before you make your move to the cloud, because you’ll be comparing them to solutions based in the cloud. You want to have as much information as possible to allow an apples-to-apples comparison. Software Costs Hardware, Networking, and IT staff to maintain Consulting, Training, Data Integrity Backups and Security
• #11: When comparing software costs, consider how desktop software is different from online software. For example, when you subscribe to online software , you’re renting access to the hardware, network, data, and the application, whereas with desktop software, the purchase price only covers the software – you also have to purchase and maintain all of the hardware needed to run the product. Desktop Software Infrastructure Hardware Data Storage Network Security and Backup People IT staffing Consulting, Training, Maintenance Support Vendor Support Consultants Training Cloud No Upfront Software Cost Monthly fee includes Software Hardware Data Storage Network Security and Backup IT Staffing Support Training Consulting
• #12: After you’ve taken inventory, pause and recheck all your assumptions. Challenge the current solutions, and ask how they work for today’s real-world demands on business. Is your current solution working for you? Do you have multi-location issues for employees, or travelling staff? Do you hire remote contractors? Does your current system allow for mobile access to the information? Is your current solution scalable? Does your current solution require lots of manual and/or duplicate data entry?
• #13: 3. Evaluate: Evaluate and test new solutions: Don't be fooled by brochureware. Test with realistic data.
• #14: Focus beyond accounting to include the whole business management system. Quite often, you’ll find that one or more of the chunks in the system will be: Lacking in efficiency Unable to provide the marketing and sales departments to easily track and manage customer relationships Lacking in efficient payment processing, both for vendor payments and customer receipts. Or…
• #15: Unable to satisfy the needs of the modern, Internet-focused world Unable to allow travelers to easily track and submit travel expenses Unable to provide a secure way of transferring large data files Costly in terms of manual or duplicate entry of data Or…
• #16: Let's focus in on what I call Brochureware While brochures are useful for getting the big picture and system requirements, they are from the marketing department. And the job of the marketing departments is to say what products do,
• #17: But quite often products don't do what the marketing department said.
• #18: What could be: You must be the gauntlet through which brochures must pass… There is nobody on earth who is more capable to evaluate and advise clients on the right solutions for their business. But in order for you to provide inspired advice, you'll need to dig deep into each solution and understand how it will or won't work for each client. Evaluate: Go out into the tradeshow and look at each one. Look deeper. Look for product differences as well as their similarities. Sometimes the checkboxes can fool us, so your job is to discover the whole story. Watch the complete demo and take notes of areas you want to investigate further Resist the intoxicating effect that a great demo has. Remember that demos are designed to show you the BEST features of the product, and most likely they will never show you the missing features. That's YOUR job to discover.
• #19: Evaluate: Go out into the tradeshow and look at each one. Look deeper. Look for product differences as well as their similarities. Sometimes the checkboxes can fool us, so your job is to discover the whole story. Watch the complete demo and take notes of areas you want to investigate further Resist the intoxicating effect that a great demo has. Remember that demos are designed to show you the BEST features of the product, and most likely they will never show you the missing features. That's YOUR job to discover. Testing and stress testing ----------------------------------------------- Get a test account and data set that allows you to work through all of the use cases your client will encounter. Stress test that software with large data sets to verify performance as well as usability. Consider the whole business when evaluating chunks. Consider the digital plumbing between the chunks, and make sure data flows correctly Scrutinize the usability of the product, and consider the training ramifications before recommending What process/staffing change will this solution require?
• #20: 4. Plan: Develop implementation schedule, allocate resources (Who/How/When).
• #21: Consider your businesses processes and who is affected. List your old and new solutions, the new process for each and the staff positions that are affected.
• #22: Next, detail out your list of conversions, identifying chicken-egg scenarios. It could be that you’ll need to start small and work on different parts of your system separately so as not to break some processes as you replace other processes. 
• #23: Once you have these pieces of information, it’s time to prepare your data for transition: List cleanup, including customers, vendors, accounts and items. Clean up all of your financial data before moving Decide how much old data to convert. What do you really need and what could be stored in case you need it some time in the future? Clean up your physical inventory. Print your general ledger and other reports to PDF and safely store them. Export data to the format needed by the new system. Complete a backup of the original data.
• #24: 5. Deploy: Deploy new systems in parallel with old for the first month or more and verify accuracy
• #25: It’s time to deploy your new systems, but there are several points to keep in mind. When will you “go live?” Can you schedule this during a slow time? Ensure your staff is on hand to help; overtime may be needed. Have a fallback plan; remember Murphy’s Law?
• #26: Ensure you have a comfortable transition by working in parallel with your old systems, at least for the first month or even longer. Remember that very few of us like change, so working in parallel not only verifies the accuracy of your new system, but also helps you maintain the consensus you worked hard to create throughout the entire process.   Second, don’t expect perfection right away. When you changed software and services in-house, you no doubt hit a few rough patches along the way. The same will happen when working in the cloud. I’m not asking you to lower your expectations; just be aware that there will probably be some changes you’ll want to see happen – and most likely, even some custom programming.
• #27: 6. Measure: Measure results
• #28: Just as you should do with any other endeavor, you’ll want to measure results and see how you did. Take the time you need to completely follow through with this step and remember that not all of your results will be positive. Still, no matter what kind of results you get, you can use them to learn more about what you need to do in the future.   Suggested measurements include: Is your staff more efficient? Is your data more reliable? Are manual processes reduced and/or eliminated?
• #29: 7. Decommission, Document and Archive: Decommission legacy systems, document the transition, and archive old data
• #30: Once you’re up and running in the cloud, you’ll want to stop using what you no longer need. Here, you’ll decommission legacy systems, document the transition and archive old data – storing your documentation and archives in the cloud, of course.   Don’t wait for Step #7 until you think you’ll have the time! Be diligent and clean up your systems as soon as you feel comfortable doing so. Wait for Full Business Cycle At least One Calendar Quarter After All Reconciliations, Tax Reports, Etc. After Stress Testing New System Archive Old Systems Decommission Hardware as Appropriate Stop Automatic Fees/Charges in Old System Document the Transition Note significant changes to old vs. new processes Document the Process – Make it Repeatable
• #32: Working in the cloud has significant benefits for you, your firm and your clients’ businesses, but preparation is key to success. Follow the seven steps outlined in this article and you’ll not only be ready to move to the cloud; you’ll also soon wonder why you didn’t make the move before now.