Public
Accounting/CPAs
Computhink’s ViewWise® Document
Management/Email Archival product-line addresses
the immediate
market demand for CPAs and Accountants that
require a solution that facilitates regulatory
compliancy, meets
security requirements, enables
email archival, and delivers
measurable productivity improvements.
ViewWise® allows
archiving and searching of over 350 file formats
- without
the native authoring application. Click
here for file formats supported.
Immediate
Benefits include:
Williams, Pitts and Beard, PLLC, a
CPA firm in Hernando, Miss., utilizes
Computhink's ViewWise for its integrated Document
Management Solution to achieve impressive productivity gains and cost savings.
In 2000, 15 tax consultants had 180 hours each of overtime. The next year this
dropped to just three hours each of overtime as a direct result of implementing
ViewWise. At $50 per hour, the firm directly saved over $132,000 dollars. More
importantly the streamlining of information processing by ViewWise resulted in
significant reduction of the firm's 30-step accounting process. Overall, ViewWise
reduced time needed in some processes by 80%, giving employees more time to cultivate
client relationships and generate more billable hours.
Compliance
The Challenge: In
the arena of corporate governance and compliance, the
FRCP Amendment and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)
has commanded considerable attention, and deservedly so. Developed in response
to accounting scandals that rocked the corporate world, SOX is aimed at improving
the transparency and accuracy of financial accounting and record keeping of
U.S. publicly traded companies. SOX sections 404 and 409, involve monitoring
and reporting content as well as the process of managing information. Although
some of the technology requirements overlap, there are additional capabilities
needed. Specifically, these regulations require process management and monitoring
of the information, not just storage and retrieval. SOX was enacted to ensure
that U.S. publicly owned companies establish and maintain internal controls,
as outlined in Sections 103-a and 404-b of the regulation. The compliance
deadline for Sarbanes-Oxley section 404 has been extended to the
first statements
of
a company's fiscal year ending after June 15, 2004. Failure to comply with
SOX and the penalties are even greater - up to $5 million or 20 years in
prison.
The FRCP Amendment is a new set of rules which
require U.S. companies to keep better track of their employees' e-mails,
instant
messages
and other electronic documents in the event the companies are sued, legal
experts say. They are part of amendments to federal rules governing civil
litigation and were approved by the Supreme Court's administrative arm in
April after a five-year review.
For more on compliance
and rules and regulations.
How
to deploy ViewWise In House
Document
Capture:
Reduce paper consumption by receiving
original documents electronically. For
example, incoming faxes, emails
with attachments or content
from a web site can
be routed electronically into
the ViewWise system and to the appropriate
associate
for handling -
precluding the need to create,
store and handle paper documents.
Existing hard copy records
can
be easily scanned and
converted to electronic formats
early in their life
cycle. Relocate hard copy records
offsite!
Information Processing:
Office
Based Application:
Now that you have the records in
the ViewWise Server “File
Room”,
an electronic document file
can now be linked to a specific
accounting transaction, allowing
it to follow the transaction
from start to finish, effectively
a work
flow process. Users add annotations
and highlight sections that
need attention to these electronic
files. This functionality is
ideal for auditing purposes,
as reasons for approvals or
rejections can be noted on
the document itself or
an attached sticky note, while
maintaining the integrity of
the file’s
image. With the appropriate
viewing privileges, a user
can then access
a more detailed
set of information about
the transaction.
Store and
keep track of changes
made to these electronic documents
with automated version and
revision control,
audit trails,
and back up/restore
capabilities.
Flexible
workflow tools allow
the entire team to collaborate
and easily stay apprised of
the
current engagement status.
Engagement-based
Application:
The audit case carries documents
needed for "today" or
for "the
project" to the client
site. With ViewWise “Check
Out/Check In” functionality,
staff and partners check out
their client’s electronic
engagement work papers onto
a laptop and bring the information
to the client’s site.
Upon return to the office or
upon completion of the engagement,
the updated work papers
are then to be checked back
in to the office server “File
Room”.
Discovered that you forgot
certain work papers needed
for the engagement
while
at the customers
site? Web browser
functionality
allows you
to search and retrieve
information remotely, enhancing
your performance. Be fully
prepared at an
engagement! Client
files at your
fingertips,
no matter
where you are. Permanently
record your thoughts, notes
and highlights
when they occur, right in the
working papers.
Record Retention:
Accounting firms are legally
obligated to retain files for
varying lengths
of time. According to
the IRS,
however, original books and
records may
legally be
destroyed as long as the files
are reproduced in an electronic
storage
system, as outlined in Revenue
Procedure
97-22. Check with your state
and local authorities
as to their particular records
retention requirements.
Security:
Security schemes and a 128
bit encryption algorithm are
used
to control viewing
privileges and allow
different levels of authorization
and access. For example,
different parts of a tax file
can be locked or masked so
that only
pre-authorized individuals
can see the
entire document or make changes.
Same security
will further allow sharing
of such information within
and outside
(e.g. clients)
of your organization
who can use their web-browsers
to view papers you decide to
allow.
Source Documentation
Formats maintained:
Convert transactional documents
such as checks and payment
receipts, financial
statements,
tax organizers
and tax
returns and scanned
documents like bank
and credit card statements
into *.PDF or other digital
file formats
and integrate
with tax,
accounting and
other applications
via
utilization of the ViewWise
SDK
- document/image enabling link.
Store and manage
native digital files created
by Excel, Word, WordPerfect,
etc.,
in ViewWise.
Capture and
store
your
fax and email traffic, including
attachments. View the native
file formats w/
our viewer
and save on buying other software
licenses for each user who
just wants to view
the file(s). If
you need
to make
changes,
right click
and launch
the
application
associated with the digital
file format of the document(s).
Example,
an excel file can
be stored
in ViewWise
and
can either be viewed
with our “viewer” (without
the Excel program) or, launch
the Excel application on your
computer via a
right click from within
ViewWise,
make your
changes to
the file and then save your
results back into ViewWise.
Version and Revision controls
and audit trails
will
facilitate your
tracking of changes
made
to your native
digital files.
Information sharing:
Empower your clients to retrieve
their own documents from customized
private client
sites. For example,
if a client needs a copy
of his tax return for
a loan application, he can
retrieve it from his secure
file drawer via his
web access to the system and
then e-mail
it to
their
loan officer. Utilizing intuitive search
tools and with the added
functionality of “Full Text Search and Retrieval”,
you and your clients can easily
find those sought after files.
If the source
documents
are images, utilize our
embedded OCR
engine resident in the ViewWise
program to convert image files
into text, facilitating the
search even
further. Never
lose that information
again.
What's
New in ViewWise