Going Mobile

Now that many of us — including yours truly — no doubt ingested enough protein and side dishes over the long holiday weekend to film our own  reality TV  versions of “Super-Size Me,” it’s probably sage advice  to get some distance between the refrigerator and outdoor grills and return to our collective for-pay pursuits.
 

Last week, before I attempted to out-eat the entire five boroughs that comprise New York City (and you can toss in Long Island for good measure), I hosted back-to-back webinars on the trends and issues that are currently making more than a slight dent on the public accounting profession and in not-so-subtle ways are basically reshaping how CPA firms conduct business.

As I pointed out then (and for those who weren’t in attendance, will reiterate now) one of the primary — if not the leading — change makers is the advent and adoption of new technologies. Whether it’s the rising user rate of cloud applications, the adoption of intra-firm portals, or making a firm-wide decision to go paperless (or perhaps more accurately “less paper”); whether the profession is ready or not, those firms that procrastinate with regard to technology implementation and upgrades will more than likely be the ones that get left behind.

But headlining this evolution is inarguably the exponential increase in in mobile devices.

If, like me, you have two children under the age of 21 you have probably have experienced this phenomenon first-hand, waiting in snaking lines at one of the local wireless carriers after  you’re reminded a beyond-annoying number of times that their mobile phones are eligible for an upgrade.

According to A.C. Nielsen research, the average teenager sends and receives more than 3,000 texts and makes and receives nearly 650 phone calls per month. And no, that’s not a misprint. At Chez Carlino, that figure may even be higher. Thank God for those unlimited plans.

But I digress.

The spike in mobile device usage has also allowed CPAs 24/7 access to client files and information and not only allows them to work remotely untethered to desks, but brings to an end the days of CPAs schlepping footlockers of audit work papers to a client, a trend that no doubt cut down on chiropractic visits.

Recently,  I read an article that told on how Top 100 firm Carr, Riggs & Ingram created a new mobile Web site that provides smartphone users with access to the sections of the accounting firm’s portal that are most often visited by mobile users including information about the practice, contact numbers for CRI partners, its service offerings and client categories.

Users can also search for a CRI location by entering a city, state, and zip code, or allowing the site to access the user’s GPS location. The mobile site also offers driving directions and maps of CRI office locations.

The result? A 373% growth in in viewership by mobile device users.

You don’t need Kreskin to tell you that you will no doubt see more firms follow similar mobile strategies.

Meanwhile, I just received my wireless bill for May. I should have known something was amiss when the mailman delivered it with a hand truck.

That call from A.C. Nielsen should be coming any day now.