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The publication of the AITUK,
the association for
Accountancy IT Directors
May 2015
#
In this issue… Two Critical Ways to Reduce Your Exposure to Cyber Attacks
Collaboration Tools
and Enterprise Social Networking
www.aituk.co.uk
Welcome
JimGreenfield
The first Technical Meeting of the year, held at our usual
British Computer Society was attended by various members
and suppliers covering different topics. The content of the
presentations covered many of the areas that are high on the
list of concern to member firms with the feedback scoring
them well. Moving forward, we are looking towards the June
Technical Meeting where the audience will be updated
by Practice Engine, PointBeyond, Gamma, Huddle, Wolters
Kluwer and Egress. Planning for the Annual Conference is well
underway; we are very much looking forward to working with
all of the confirmed sponsors to ensure it is another varied and
informative event. We should all remember that the interaction
between the group’s members is what makes it such a success.
Over the last seven years we have grown from informal
gatherings for IT Directors only, to technical meetings open to
a cross section of technical and managerial staff. In addition
to this the 2015 conference will provide 2 days to network
with other AIT UK members, suppliers, old friends and some
new ones. It would be great if we can increase the input from
member firms, so if you are able to provide a presentation on a
recent project, or help lead a discussion do let us know. 2015 is
going to be yet another busy year for AIT UK and I look forward
to welcoming you at the varied events we host.
Contents
4
Two Critical Ways to Reduce Your
Exposure to Cyber Attacks
7
Cryptshare AIT Presentation
Review
8
Thomson Reuters Launches Digita Practice Advanced
10 Collaboration Tools
and Enterprise Social Networking
11 AITUK Meeting Dates
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Contact for all enquiries: [email protected] Tel: 01582 872597.
2
13 Thomson Reuters Digita conferences guide accountants towards success through technology
#AIT_UK
www.aituk.co.uk
Supportingyourcolleagues
astheytransitiontoFRS102
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Whenitcomestoresearchingandlearning,everyonehastheirownstylesoourcomprehensive
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A range of expert guides and in-depth commentary is available in printed books or on our ebook
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Two Critical Ways to Reduce Your Exposure to
Cyber Attacks
The Threat Landscape is
Increasingly Complex
Today’s cyber-attackers are well funded
and sophisticated. They increasingly use a
number of stealthy and continuous phases
to break into a network, avoid detection,
and harvest valuable information over a
long period of time.
This makes attacks increasingly difficult
to detect. Statistics for 2014 show that it
took on average an organisation over 200
days to detect a cyber breach.
By deploying zero-day attacks and other
advanced techniques, hackers can bypass
conventional defences such as firewalls,
intrusion detection, and anti-virus. Their
objective is to infiltrate a firm for financial
gain or to access confidential information
such as customer data.
Preventing, detecting or disrupting the
attack at the earliest opportunity limits
the business impact and the potential for
reputational damage. Putting in place the
right security controls and processes to
ensure your business is a hard target will
give you increased resilience to cope with
more complex attacks.
Redscan helps businesses to effectively
manage the risk of cyber threats. Here are
two critical steps that all firms, large and
small, should employ to reduce or limit the
damage a cyber breach can inflict.
Step One: Close the backdoors
that hackers can exploit
Vulnerabilities and weaknesses within your
systems and applications present a risk
to your information security. Occurring
4
through flaws, features or user error, they
are an easy path for attackers to use so
that they can gain access to and exploit
your environment.
Addressing these weaknesses is
essential. Not only do you remove the
easy points of entry an attacker can target;
it also ensures that when a breach does
occur, the attack surface the hacker/
malware can exploit is significantly
reduced. This is critical in preventing or
limiting the damage a breach can inflict.
Redscan strongly recommends
that firms adopt regular vulnerability
assessments and penetration tests as part
of their information security strategy. These
provide the essential intelligence needed
to prioritise remediation based on the risk
posed to their business. They also enable
firms to more strategically allocate budget
and resources to the areas that require
immediate improvement.
For firms that outsource their IT or
use managed service providers, the
responsibility for a data breach ultimately
lies with the firm. It is therefore critical to
ensure that your service provider is taking
the necessary steps to protect your critical
data. Regular vulnerability assessments
and penetration tests are a good way to
enforce this and measure the performance
of your service provider.
Step Two: Know what’s
happening on your network
Situational awareness is essential for firms
to manage their information security risk.
The ability to rapidly identify a breach
can prevent or limit the damage an
attacker can inflict. A recent report by
Verizon stated that 84% of all breaches
left footprints of the attack in the logs that
networks generate.
With the proposed EU data protection
regulation coming into force in early 2017,
firms need a more strategic approach to
identify, respond, and remediate threats
and breaches. And while many firms have
deployed firewalls, anti-virus and intrusion
prevention systems – these systems
provide no visibility of attackers who have
bypassed their defences.
To successfully carry out proactive
monitoring of your network requires a
combination of skilled security expertise,
security analytics tools and technologies,
and global threat intelligence. As the
amount of data networks generate
increases, the task of identifying genuine
security incidents from the noise of false
alerts also becomes more challenging.
The cost and complexity of this type of
monitoring has proved a barrier for many
firms to implement. However, many firms
can now access fully managed security
services that both lower costs and provide
a much higher quality security service with
bespoke reporting capabilities.
Summary
traditional defences of firewall and
anti-virus are required as the first level of
defence but are no longer sufficient on
their own. The best security practice now
is one of assuming a continuous state of
compromise and implementing ways of
detecting breaches and vulnerabilities so
that the time and attack surface a hacker
can exploit is reduced.
This prevents or limits the damage
a cyber breach can inflict and enables
firms to more effectively manage their
information security risk.
More information:
www.redscan.com
[email protected]
0800 107 6098
Malware and hackers are today much
more evasive and sophisticated. The
Supply goods or services to
professional services firms?
The AIT provides a variety of opportunities
for suppliers of IT related goods and
services to reach the large accounting firms.
To find out how the AIT can work with you
please contact
[email protected]
01582 872597
#AIT_UK
www.aituk.co.uk
5
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Flexible solutions for accountants
Cryptshare AIT Presentation Review – March 2015
Tim Waggett of Befine Solutions – the Cryptshare Company, presented an encrypted email and secure file
transfer solution to us at the March AIT seminar in London. Tim opened with an apology saying that rather
than giving a sales pitch and a demo he would like to discuss the problems of email use in a wider context
before proposing his solution.
Cryptshare’s mission statement is “Making
E-mail Better” and they provide firms of
all sizes a low cost, easy to use way to
secure those sensitive and confidential
messages and large files. Tim asked us,
“Do you all use email?” which of course
we replied “yes”. He then asked, “Do you
impose restrictions on file sizes?” Again
most of us replied “yes”. Finally Tim asked,
“Would you like better security for your
email?” to which we all replied “yes”. So
although email is a vital business tool
having enhanced security and the option
to send large files securely, with an audit
trail, knowing they will not get caught by
firewalls and MS Exchange restrictions, is
seen by us all as very important.
Tim summarised the problems of email,
saying that despite being a universally
accepted medium for messaging it has
three fundamental flaws.
meta-data, client free operation on the
recipient side, initiation of adhoc large file
transfers or provision of the detailed audit
trail we require. (The full details of this are
in Tim’s presentation which is posted here
http://aituk.co.uk/downloads/CryptsharePresentation.pdf). Tim’s presentation
closed with a factual comparison of
Cryptshare to these alternative solutions.
Tim gave a short demonstration of use
of Cryptshare and although we didn’t have
time to see the back-end administration
console we were assured that tight
policies can be set around passwords,
document sizes and data retention. It was
clear that one of the benefits to us as IT
people is the saving in time required to
administer the recipients. As Cryptshare
does not use a private and public key
infrastructure we are not required to
register people which makes it easy for
Email has no audit trail for compliance:
Your messages run an unpredictable route from A to B via a chain of
e-mail servers that can be distributed around the world. This path and
any interventions along the way are not recorded. A plain text (unencrypted) message or attachment could be read by anybody and you
would never know.
Email is not suitable for big files:
Email was not designed to handle large files that is why you and your
clients set size limits in your own e-mail system. You know your limit but
do you know your clients? There is a double hurdle to delivery of large files.
Email is not secure:
The email protocol provides no encryption of data in transit. Thus, there
is no protection against spying and manipulation as messages are in
plain text. In addition the authenticity of e-mail senders and recipients
cannot be verified.
Tim took us through the pros and cons
of the most common solutions to these
problems such as S-Mime, PGP, FTP, S-FTP
and Cloud services and while admitting
they all have their strengths suggested
that in each case there are weaknesses
such as in their ability to encrypt the
staff to send files on an adhoc basis and
for recipients to collect them securely.
During questions It was noted that
this solution can be hosted on-premise
or in an ISO27001 data centre of your
choice. When so many vendors are
pushing towards cloud solutions this was
7
a welcome change and one that I think
you would agree fits in more closely with
our need for keeping client information
within our control without the risks of data
graveyard.
“Would you like better
security for your
email?” to which we
all replied “yes”.
A feature that created some interest
was that the Cryptshare license allows the
recipient (your clients) to send information
back to the sender through your firms
own branded Cryptshare website without
having to install any client software or
register a user name and password.
Your questions showed clear interest
as we are all trying to find easy, secure
and inexpensive ways to communicate
bi-directionally with our clients when
sharing confidential financial information.
One further question that did come up
on the day was how Cryptshare could be
integrated into existing archiving solution
such as MimeCast. We were pleased to
be told that can be achieved through the
use of their API and the Cryptshare Robot
scripting tool which would allow archiving
and DLP scanners to interact with the
Cryptshare server.
Finally, Tim gave us an indication of
price suggesting that where as a cloud
or competitive product might cost £10
per user per month, Cryptshare for a 250
mailbox license would cost just £0.80 per
month or £24 per user over 36 months.
For more information or a free trial
please contact :
Tim Waggett on 07977009547 or
[email protected]
Thomson Reuters Launches Digita
Practice Advanced
Breakthrough in practice management software to deliver real-time integration and greater efficiency
Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading
source of intelligent information for
businesses and professionals, has launched
Digita Practice Advanced: a fullyintegrated practice management solution
that provides accountants with the ability
to manage their entire tax and accounting
practice from one central place.
In a recent survey of Digita customers,
two thirds of accountants identified
pressure on profitability and the need to
differentiate their practice as key business
issues. Over 60% also identified moving
to new cloud technology as a priority
and half need a more flexible working
environment to meet increasing demand.
Digita Practice Advanced is a new
solution designed to meet these
challenges, providing access to real-time
information to aid better decision-making,
client communication, billing, costs and
resource planning. Designed specifically
to deliver major cost and efficiency
savings to medium and large accountancy
firms focused on practice growth, Digita
Practice Advanced also includes a cloudbased portal solution to enable improved
collaboration with clients.
The accompanying free mobile app
also helps firms to further cut down on
wasteful administration tasks and drive
additional time and cost savings by
enabling accountants to access key client,
staff and practice data when out the office
– ensuring that they are always up-to-date
and able to track time and update activity
whilst on the move.
Andrew Flanagan, managing director,
Digita, comments. “Many practices are still
using third party practice management
systems that are not integrated so
information is not automatically shared
across systems. By moving to a fullyintegrated system such as Digita Practice
Advanced, accountancy practices can save
time and money and benefit from more
efficient working practices by eliminating
duplication and time wasted re-keying
in client and staff information numerous
times. For a large firm, this could save in
excess of thousands of hours over the
course of a year.”
One such firm that is already benefiting
from Digita Practice Advanced is Westlake
Clark – a growing accountancy practice
with offices across Hampshire. Zoe
Redmill, partner at Westlake Clark, said:
“In switching over to Digita Practice
Advanced, we now have real-time visibility
of billing and client work, right across the
practice. Each of our 25 team members
can now keep track of who owes what and
what work is in progress and outstanding
for each and every client. This level of
integration and visibility is already bringing
benefits to our practice and we’ve only
just begun to scratch the surface of the
software’s capability.”
8
About Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world’s
leading source of intelligent
information for businesses and
professionals. We combine industry
expertise with innovative technology
to deliver critical information to
leading decision makers in the
financial and risk, legal, tax and
accounting, intellectual property and
science and media markets, powered
by the world’s most trusted news
organisation. Thomson Reuters shares
are listed on the Toronto and New
York Stock Exchanges.
For more information, go to
www.thomsonreuters.com
To find out more about Digita
Practice Advanced and to book a
demo, visit:
http://www.digita.com/pro/
software/practice-management/
dp_advanced.aspx
COLLABORATION TOOLS AND ENTERPRISE SOCIAL
NETWORK – Knowings Collaborative Accountants
Nowadays social media is a part of nearly
everyone’s personal life. Since the early
2010’s, following the strong popularity of
social media platforms, medium to larger
sized organisations have started to roll
out company specific social networks,
which are later integrated within their
collaborative platforms. Despite the great
success of enterprise social networks, few
accountancy firms have yet to take the
plunge into this new generation
advanced software.
Collective Efficiency, Mergers,
Multiple Locations, Young
Professionals etc. – The
Opportunities Are Endless
In a world where firms are concentrating,
accountancy practices are looking for
differentiating factors and new services to
offer. Therefore, to demonstrate an ability
to stand out and to suggest innovative
services that are suited to their customers
are vectors of growth that can be achieved
through an enterprise social network.
For an organisation operating from
multiple office locations, communication
can become a little more complicated.
Luckily, enterprise social network tools
and collaborative platforms are able to
provide a solution for the communication,
collaboration and coordination issues
that such companies encounter on a day
to day basis. Moreover, staff and clients
expect smooth communication flows from
which they are presented with targeted
and relevant information which only an
industry specific collaborative extranet,
with added social networking features
will be able to offer. With such a solution,
data and knowledge relevant to the firms’
activity is dispatched tidily from a central
document repository.
The younger generations expect from
their employer the same kind of tools they
utilise in their personal lives. Therefore
such tools should encapsulate their
characteristics of design, ergonomics,
easy communication, universal access,
10
reactions, suggestions etc. An enterprise
social network is able to satisfy these
expectations, both within the organisation,
but also externally. Additionally, the
provision of a modern platform would
act as a genuine talent catalyst towards
revealing the expertise; and maximise
potential of all individual employees within
the organisation.
By monitoring interactions on the
platform, clients’ needs can be anticipated;
a client who chooses to make a query
on a particular subject would receive a
creditable response, but could also be
potentially in receipt of informative advice
on this particular subject; so the benefits
are twofold. With such a platform, the
company is going to be able to detect
new requirements and offer new
services. Also through knowledge
capitalisation, it will be able to present
other clients the opportunity to benefit
from such interactions.
Development of Innovative
Tools for Employees, Clients and
Prospects: Concept to Reality
Whether as an internal document
repository, a collaboration software
platform or a communication tool with
clients, partners or prospects, firms using
an enterprise social network solution
have developed applications that are
specific to their requirements. Such
requirements can include the need for a
human resource intranet system or for an
external marketing tool. And while this
demonstrates the diversity of Knowings
Collaborative Accountant, each site
has one characteristic in common: the
ease with which the platform can be
implemented, whether as an in-house
installation or in a SaaS (Software as a
Service) environment.
2015 should therefore see the
acceleration in the deployment of such
solutions within accountancy firms.
Who is Knowings?
Knowings is a leading software editor that
specialises in document management
and collaborative solutions. Already
established within the Accountancy
profession with its innovative EDM
solution integrating collaboration features,
Knowings now proposes a collaborative
enterprise network platform dedicated to
accountancy firms to specifically address
their collaborative requirements.
What is Knowings Collaborative
Accountants?
Knowings Collaborative Accountants
(KCA) is an integrated ECM, knowledge
management and collaborative software
that is targeted specifically towards the
accountancy profession. KCA is a predefined, ready to use, platform that is built
on the foundations and expertise that
has been gained over the years through
working alongside accountants. This new
generation intranet and extranet addresses
the growing demand for collaborative
tools; hence generating increased
collective efficiency whilst concurrently
taking advantage of opportunities to
improve productivity.
Knowings Collaborative Accountants
will advantageously replace traditional
intranet and extranet solutions.
For more information :
www.euro-accounting.com/knowings
0845 680 5168
Meeting Dates for 2015
TECHNICAL MEETINGS
Thursday 25th June
BCS offices, Southampton Street, London
ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Thursday 24th-Friday 25th September 2015
Beaumont Estate Hotel, Windsor
Presentation/Sponsorship packs are available for both Technical Meetings and
the Annual Conference. Please contact Emma Jones [email protected]
if you would like further information.
AIT are on LinkedIn
To request a signup invitation please email
[email protected]
#AIT_UK
www.aituk.co.uk
11
SymphonyDox Document Automation for Professional Service Firms Client Conscious -­‐ Opportunity Driven In today's world of risk and compliance, slow payment by clients, ever-­‐
changing scope of work, and increasingly high costs of unbillable work, professional service firms need to ensure that their business relationship with new clients is clear. The SymphonyDox document automation solution does exactly that, producing accurate and compliant professional documents and letters. Less time on non-­‐billable work Fee earners need technology to help them work smarter and more productively. The less time they spend on non–billable work the better. This is where SymphonyDox document automation comes in: Client Acceptance. Easily deal with risk assessment and money laundering requirements specific to the type of client and engagement. Robust terms of engagement. Tried and tested document templates accompanying each new engagement gives a firm the best start for a successful client relationship. Legal and Brand Compliance Apart from legal compliance many firms still struggle with standardisation. Engagement. Select which categories of advice to specifically exclude for each engagement. Assign the correct team or entity for each engagement or document ensures and the correct contact details and references are included automatically. Fee arrangements. Structure fixed fee arrangements in different ways including estimates, initial caps and fixed fee arrangements. Selectively request costs on account amounts as required. No more cutting and pasting. You will save time, and because you no longer have to cut and paste from previous letters, potential embarrassment is also avoided. End to end Solution SymphonyDox document automation will integrate with your back end systems using the SymConnect integration Server maximising fee earners’ accessibility and mobility and minimising errors. Run from anywhere. With the SymphonyDox cloud–based solution templates can be accessed from anywhere. For a fee earner on the road, at home, or in the office, this solution is a real time saver. The SymphonyDox solution can be deployed on premise or in the cloud. Using the SymConnect integration server, document templates can access data from ODBC compliant databases. SymphonyDox is also integrated to SymphonyCRM to automate client acceptance and continuance processes. Symphony – APS
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Copyright © 2014 Symphony Professional Solutions Limited.
SymphonyDox document templates are powered by XpressDox
Thomson Reuters Digita conferences guide
accountants towards success through technology
SYNERGY 2015 – New technologies unveiled at Thomson Reuters Digita user conference events
LONDON, 18 May 2015 – Thomson
Reuters, the world’s leading provider of
intelligent information for businesses and
professionals, played host to around 300
accountants and shared with them the
positive advantages of investing in new
technologies, during the company’s Digita
conference series, SYNERGY 2015.
The series of events was held to help
accountants gain the maximum benefits
from Digita tax and accounting software,
understand the latest issues facing the
accountancy industry and discover
strategies for practice growth.
The three conferences, held in Thomson
Reuters flagship Canada Square building
in Canary Wharf, as well as venues in
Chepstow and Harrogate, introduced
keynote speakers, including Darren Root,
CEO of RootWorks, Neil Massa, director
of Space 2 and top business coach, Rudi
Jansen of Accoa.
SYNERGY 2015 coincided with the
launch of Digita’s new Tax Guidance
Pack – an online research and guidance
tool which provides instant answers to
compliance questions. The tool includes
core tax annuals and current awareness
topics and is integrated with key help
topics linked to Digita tax software so
relevant results can be found easily and
quickly. Digita’s new Client Portal was also
revealed which allows practices and clients
to share files in real time and enables the
electronic signing of tax returns.
Andrew Flanagan, managing director
at Digita, part of the Tax & Accounting
business of Thomson Reuters, said: “These
conferences are a great way for us to talk
to our customers about the challenges
they are facing and guide them in the
best ways to harness technology to gain a
competitive edge.
“According to the Office of National
Statistics, 1800 accountants went out
of business in 2014 for reasons such as
compliance work yielding less margin, a
decline in audit work, and attitudes and
regulations in regard to tax planning.
Investing in a technology strategy to tackle
these challenges, improve efficiency, save
money and allow employees to work
flexibly will help accountants differentiate
themselves from their competitors and
attract more suitable clients.”
During his presentation ‘Developing an
Entrepreneurial Thinking Model’ Darren
Root, talked about how practitioners can
develop their mindset to build a business
that will support the lives they want to
live. His speech led delegates through
a refined model for focused, intentional
development, including creating a vision
and business model, enhancing leadership,
and building a strong brand to attract
ideal clients.
13
Portsmouth Chartered Accountant,
Bharat Hathi, said: “I really enjoyed the
event. I’ve been going for a few years
now. The speakers are always great and
the afternoon one-to-one surgeries gave
excellent insight and advice. I attended
three this time and found the Personal Tax
Software session particularly useful. I was
shown how to easily pull off a list of clients
that hadn’t filed their tax returns. This
will really save me time and will make my
workflow much easier in future.”
Andrew added: “An increasing
number of our customers are now using
cloud-based technologies and this is
set to increase. I believe the recent
announcement by the Chancellor to
replace annual tax returns with realtime online accounts will also accelerate
demand for the cloud, and it was great to
get immediate feedback from our clients
on what they want from the cloud and
other technology to help them build
stronger and more profitable practices.”
To find out more about Digita
solutions for accounting, visit:
https://www.digita.com/pro/