Business Interview: CPA Firm Goes All Mac.

Is it possible to run a successful business without using Windows? Mostly. Get ready to meet Art Nelson of Nelson Accounting Professionals.

Art, describe your business operation, customer base, and technical know-how.
We’re Nelson Accounting Professionals (NAP) in Poulsbo, Washington. We are a Certified Public Accounting firm that deals primarily with closely-held businesses and high net-worth individuals, including estate and retirement planning. We also aid in business succession planning, tax compliance, and IRS representation.

We put a very high demand on our computers, as they assist us in dealing with our clients’ complex and sensitive financial matters, as well as managing our office. Professional presentation is critical and this is where Macs really shine.

Couldn’t a business full of flat-panel Sony monitors do the same thing for esthetics? How do the Macs differ?
Aesthetics are important, but the primary focus is how everything works together as a whole. With a Sony flat panel and, say, a Dell box, you’d still have a big case somewhere that takes up a lot of space, is likely louder than the Macs, and does not run OSX.

It’d be merely adding a pretty face on top of the challenges of keeping a network of PCs running. With Macs, it really isn’t just what’s on the outside. Every facet of the computer and OS works together seamlessly and reliably.

How many employees are in the company?
We currently have 5 employees and are looking to expand. I am the only technical person on our staff and between 5 iMacs and OS X, we have not experienced any significant downtime.

Well, what sort of downtime problems have you experienced? How much time does it take to train a “formerly Windows-only employee” to a Mac?
We started our first busy season using Virtual PC w/ Windows 98. The printing was a nightmare. You’d hit Print and nothing would happen. You’d get it to print, only to see strange fonts or graphics. We’d update an application or two, and new printing problems would arise. Virtual PC was truly challenging that first year.

Microsoft has since bought Connectix and the stability is much better. And we were very happy to upgrade to Windows XP Pro when our various PC Apps made the leap. We have not had any downtime related to using Macs and native Apps.

In regards to training, all our employees were former PC users and adapted quickly to the new OS. We’re talking days, here. Not weeks or months. Plus, most Apps work very similar between their Mac and PC versions. One of our employees, who has a PC at home, has mentioned that many of the features on the Mac are more intuitive and easier to use.

One area that is a LOT easier is basic maintenance. We run Cocktail at the end of each week on all the computers. It’s a few mouse clicks and it keeps the Macs in top shape.

How long have you used Macs? How many Macs are set up in the company?
I’ve used Macs since 1984 and therefore carried a slight bias to the table. Our firm started in December of 2002 and I thought we should at least try to go all Mac, mostly so I could be the tech guy and buy lots of toys. OS 10.2 (Jaguar) had just come out and was what we started with. We update aggressively and are currently enjoying Panther (10.3).

As an experienced Mac user, what was the biggest obstacle to overcome when switching from Mac OS 9.x to Mac OS X?
I was just getting good at troubleshooting OS9 and had to learn a whole new set of techniques to deal with Apple’s new OS. It wasn’t totally foreign, however, because In college, I actually owned one of those cool NeXT Cubes, which of course was a precursor to OSX. I had some basic UNIX skills that transferred over really nicely. The Cube is still going strong, too!

Did you use Windows PCs? Why the switch to Macs?
My wife’s former CPA partnership was all PC. As much as I love computers, I was humbled by the technical knowledge required to keep their network running. But even with a team of independent (and very expensive) computer consultants, the office experienced significant downtime and wasted a lot of time troubleshooting.

We decided to go all Mac from day one, knowing we could employ PCs if needed. We’ve yet to reach that point. Our main objective was avoiding downtime and the costs associated with hiring consultants to troubleshoot.

Objectives were TOC (total cost of ownership)? What percentage difference (per Mac) do you project as cost savings by using all Macs (guestimate is fine)?

It was a combination of ease of use, stability, and a bias on my part to go with Macs. I was familiar with them and thought it would end up actually costing less to set up and maintain. This has been true so far and I expect it to remain so in the future as OSX improves even further. If I had to guess, I’d say we probably save at least $10,000 / year by using Macs.

Locally, independent consultants charge upwards of $200 per hour. Add to this the downtime during scheduling appointments and waiting in line for service, and you can see it just mounts.

What are the main computer tasks and requirements (word processing, spreadsheet, accounting software)? What specialized software do you use?
Our main focus is Accounting & Tax Compliance and we are extensive users of various software packages. MYOB AccountEdge Network Edition just came out and simplified our work considerably! It basically turns one of our computers into a ‘server’ even though we do not use OSX server edition.

Everyone works on client files that are hosted on a selected computer and the software keeps track of all the changes. This allows us to work on the same file simultaneously. Now, other than this, we have had to employ creative work strategies to get around the restrictions and permission issues of OSX Client edition. SharePoints is freeware and has made accessing files from a central location possible.

We have one iMac (the lovely and killer powerful iMac G5) that hosts all our office files. You cannot use shared folders to accomplish this. Sharepoints makes it so you can have a separate and dedicated SHARED folder that not only houses all the files, but when someone accesses those files over the network and then saves them, they take on the permissions and ownership of the parent folder, as dictated by SharePoints.

We have run into permission issues as employees access various files, and make ample use of BatchMod, another excellent freeware product. One other hint for prospective converts: make everyone who accesses files an Admin user. There will be various reports and client data files that will not print or save if not done by Admin accounts. Accounting software seems to be very picky about the type of account that it’s installed on.

We’ve saved significant costs using MYOB AccountEdge for time-based billing. The previous billing Apps that were used in my wife’s prior practice were extremely costly and difficult to troubleshoot. Many of our clients are Quickbooks users and thus we have had to have various versions installed on our Macs.

Quickbooks now allows us to easily convert files back and forth between Mac and PC. The same is true with Quicken, Microsoft Office, and other branded software. MYOB, in particular, excels at providing cross platform workability.

On the professional side, we are required to use Virtual PC w/ Windows XP Pro to work on the professional grade Tax software (we use ProsystemFX). This particular package is server-based, allowing us to access it via Internet Explorer on VPC through a secured connection.

The day they go all Java is when we’ll be able to drop Virtual PC and believe me, we put our request in every year. The more firms that attempt this switch and let them know there is a demand for it, the more likely they’ll offer such a product. It’s not likely we’ll see a Mac version, but if we could at least access and work with client files through the browser, it’d allow us to drop the largest memory hog from our application list.

Lastly, .Mac syncing has made the administration and scheduling duties a snap. Bonus… iPods are wonderful for their contact, calendar, and addressbook functions are thus partially deductible!

We’ve managed to use a consumer OS as a server OS, keeping it very very simple and stable. A few tricks and helpful shareware has made this possible. There seems to be a change in the wind. Applications are becoming more collaborative and easier to share files.

MYOB AccountEdge Network Edition is an excellent example and if more companies follow their lead, going all Mac will be easier than ever.

Do all Mac users in the company have full Internet access (browsing, email, file transfer)? What applications do you user for the average user?
Everyone has full internet access, which is primarily used for email and access to the tax software and research. We also use a .mac account to sync our calendars and addresses as well as transferring the occasional large file. We try to stay in Apple’s fold with Mail, Safari, iCal and Address Book.

And since we bill out hourly, everyone has access to MYOB AccountEdge. Everyone also has Microsoft Office installed so we can be compatible with our clients.

Who handles the company’s tech requirements for the Macs? Training? Support?
We’ve all become pretty good at the basic troubleshooting/maintenance on our Macs. But our employees enjoy working on their beautiful computers without having to know anything about the underlying complexity. Training is not really an issue once people get used to the Mac and OSX.

We are aggressive with updating our software and OS and this is probably the one thing that takes a chunk of time since we have 5 computers. Software Update lessens the blow considerably. Accounting apps almost always introduce new challenges with each update.

Give an example of problems associated with upgrading/updating the OS and applications.
The problems we encounter the most frequently are permission related. A new version of accounting software will come out and introduce new features such as simultaneous multi-user access to files, but will also introduce some new problems in accessing certain reports. When this happens, we’ll be on the phone with the developer as we try to narrow down the problem.

So far, the typical solution has been to wait for patches that fix the problem. Most software developers have excellent message boards that come in very handy in finding a workaround to the problem.

The same goes for OS updates. We always repair permissions, run fsck, and backup our data prior to an OS update, but even with all the precautions, sometimes there are small bugs that are introduced. We have a policy that all updates pretty much cease around January, due to busy season. If it’s working, we don’t rock the boat. After busy season, we get current with the latest updates and patches.

NOTE:A professional organization that gets along without Windows viruses, without worms, without pop-ups, without spyware, and very little downtime. And the boss is the IT person. Click Here for Page 2.