When you have a website hosted by CPA Site Solutions you have access to over 250 website designs. There are so many designs to look at and, most of the time, you need to show it to other firm members before deciding. Now, when you have just the design number, you can easily jump to any design with the click of a button.

Over 250 Ready To Go Website Designs

Flexibility. A nice bit of flexibility to any hosted CPA Site Solutions website is that you can change a website design at anytime without your content changing. This means that all that hard work you did creating custom content for your welcome page, stays with you.

Website Design Choices. When you look at any website design in the viewer there is a number below the design. When you find a design, write down that number for easy reference later.

You can then head to the bottom of the design listing page and there is a small area you can put the website design number. Click on the “Go” button and a new window comes up taking you directly to that design.

The Number For This Design is 353329

Saving Time. You can now save time when sitting down with another person to decide upon your CPA website design. Instead of panning through the designs until you find the one you were looking at, you can go directly there.

Multiple Website Designs. Look at multiple designs side by side to make it easier to decide. After you have put in the design choice and press go, take that window and re-size it. Put in the next design and re-size the new window that comes up as well until you have each side by side to compare.

Email Designs. You can email your website design choices by copy and pasting the URL of the specific design page in an email message. You can then make a list of your best choices to other people to vote on the best choice.

Having the right design for your CPA website is a fun process and just became that much easier with the “Jump to Style” button. New designs are coming out all of the time. Contact CPA Site Solutions via email at support@cpasitesolutions.com or calling 800-896-4500 with your website design choice. You can also consider customizing your website which can produce some great results as well.

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Any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions has access to a Tax Organizer that saves time for both you and your client. For many that might use the electronic version, there are others who just want to print it out and fax it back. Here is a breakdown of some alternative ways to present the Tax Organizer to your clients.

Add Page. There is a page you can add to your website with the PDF version of the Tax Organizer. This page can be placed anywhere on your CPA website or you can take the text and link to include that within an existing page. Here is how you add the page:

• Login to the Portal.
• Click on “Modify Your Site.”
• When you are in modifying your website click on “Add Page.”
• Scroll down until you see the page titled “Tax Organizer (PDF).
• Click on the page and then click the “Add” button.
• Go to Site Map and drag the page where you want it to show on your website.

PDF Version of Tax Organizer

Download, Edit, Replace Link. If you have a PDF editor (if you don’t there is also a free PDF editor you could use), you can download the Organizer to edit it. You can then upload the PDF and link to that anywhere you want on your website.

Download, Print, Fax. You can now direct clients to your CPA website Tax Organizer PDF link. The clients can download, print out and then fax it back after filling it out.

Download, Modify, Upload. Another alternative is to direct your clients to the free PDF editor above or another one here. They can then download, modify with the right information and then upload it to their client folder within the Vault.

There are many different clients who like traditional methods of exchanging information. For them the PDF version of the Tax Organizer can be a great alternative.

There are others who just like to do their work offline yet still exchange electronically. Either way, having a CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions gives you the flexibility for all of your clients.

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Every website hosted by CPA Site Solutions comes with access to the Workteam Collaboration Suite powered by Google Applications. You can have an appointments page on your CPA website that clients can view and request appointments. Here is another solution for those wanting to leverage even more out of the Workteam Collaboration Suite.

Managing your firm’s calendars and meetings can be a full time job. You can shorten the time it takes by allowing the Tungle.me system to do some of the work for you.

Free Sign-Up. Tungle.me is free to sign up and use. Once using it you can have your own Tungle.me page that others can visit or you can just rely upon email.

Tungle Meeting Scheduling Multiple Times

Pick Times. When you schedule a meeting multiple times are given to the participant(s) via email. They are taken to the meeting page where they can choose the best time that works for them.

Once they decide and click on the one they want,  an email is sent to both you and your participant. The best part is that your calendar is automatically updated.

No Conflicts. If you have multiple appointments there is bound to be a conflict in times at some point. These types of conflicts are avoided by the system as it automatically updates meetings as they are booked so you don’t have to.

Your Personal Page. You have a personal page that can be linked to from your CPA website. Anyone can then organize a meeting complete with multiple times to choose from.

Once the time is accepted then the meeting is automatically added to your calendar. You can even personalize your page as much as you want.

Mobile Devices. The system works with mobile devices, Outlook and more. You can do everything on the go easily because if you have access to email you have access to your calendar.

During the busy season it can be a chore to get the right appointments in place. When you  use the Workteam Collaboration Suite alongside Tungle.me you can reduce meeting confusion and stress.

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Managing to-do lists, including updating your CPA website, obviously becomes the most challenging during the busiest parts of the year. When your CPA firm is busy you may need to enlist help, but that requires more management of other tasks along with your own. Although a previous post has a great free task manager to use, Hiveminder is another that can leverage what little time you have.

Hiveminder

Free Sign-Up. Sign-up is free and, although they do have a pro version, looks to remain that way. The interface is simple and easy to use.

Tags. You can use multiple tags to help organize your to-do list. Mark an item with Intern, temp help, birthday, fun, etc. and it becomes that much easier to find all tasks with the same tag.

Email Tasks. A great feature is being able to email a task to a person who isn’t already a Hiveminder member. This is a great feature if you use Interns or other short term help. You can add a task, tag it with the keyword of Intern, and email it to be done.

They receive an email with a link to a page with the task details. They can comment on the task, change the priority, tags and more. If they are not a member then this is all they have access to.

When done with the specific task, they can click save and complete. You then get an update and can view the notes if any.

Add Tasks. You, or others you give a special email address to, can update your list with a task to complete. This can be great if you just want to send a quick task to yourself without having to login.

Review All. Once a week or so you can click on a button to review all open tasks. This forces you to either set a new completion date, mark it as done, or otherwise. This feature makes it so you can make a quick overview and clean up as necessary.

However you look at the busy season it is important to have a task manager that helps manage what you have. If your looking for a new task manager or a quick tool to help you through this season, Hiveminder might be the ticket.

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A previous post talks about helping to establish your CPA firm’s online image. One of the tools used for this is Facebook. Here are some fun and helpful guides for using Facebook.

Silverlight Application For Facebook

New Silverlight Facebook. Microsoft has come out with a great application that works independently from your browser with Facebook. The application uses Silverlight and, if you are used to logging in directly to Facebook, enhances the visual experience ten fold.

Free Download. You can go here to download the application. You first have to download and install Silverlight if you don’t already have it. You then come back to the same link and finish the process.

You link into Facebook and can then access it anytime by starting the application instead of going to your browser. The appearance is not only a lot more appealing but it is easier to keep track of what you are doing.

Understand Settings. If you use Facebook at all, displayed on your CPA website or just personally, you should take the time to understand privacy settings. By doing this you have much more control over who sees what. This becomes important as you might end up blending private and business with unintended consequences.

Promote Your Blog. Any website with CPA Site Solutions can have a blog directly on their website. You can link directly to your CPA website blog from Facebook by editing your profile with the hyperlink.

Facebook makes changes on a regular basis to what you can do with your settings. Facebook is usually pretty good about notifying users of the changes but it is good to keep checking news or back on the help page.

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If your CPA firm has a website hosted by CPA Site Solutions then you know you can easily create regular and custom forms. Although these options are great there is an even easier method to not only create the forms but also manage the responses. Here is a breakdown of how the service works.

Custom Form Responses Easily Managed

Free Sign-Up. The site is called Formspring and has both a paid and free plan available.  The free plan is pretty good with three forms, ten fields, and 50 entries saved. As long as you do regular deletion of old entries this could work for many small to medium sized firms.

Creation. It couldn’t be easier to create a form. You can choose one of the pre-made forms and then change everything from how it is set-up to who the form is sent to. You can even specify multiple email addresses that the response is sent to.

Data Saved. The true benefit of this type of set-up for your CPA website is that you get all the responses saved in one place. You can then organize the data or export it as an Excel or Word document.

Management. The data for the forms is all in one place so you can easily review responses. This way responses don’t get lost within a list of other emails for the day.

You can export all the responses when it comes close to the 50 response limit. You can then delete and start over.

Multiple Forms. This makes it much easier to create multiple forms for different pages on your CPA website. You can also have forms created for different marketing campaigns being run. You can then export the responses and compare the data with previous responses you might have received.

Have a moment, go ahead and send along a comment with the form below created with Springform.

Sometimes just a few quick tips, such as on using the Site Manager, can make life much easier. Here are a couple of tips on using signatures for your email and editing Google maps.

Signatures. If you have ever gotten an email from any of the crew at CPA Site Solutions you might have noticed a common signature. A signature similar to those that you see can be recreated using Wisestamp.

Firefox or Chrome. Wisestamp functions as an add-on for either Firefox or Chrome. If you use either of these browsers it can then be used with any webmail service. Check the Wisestamp FAQ for how to install and use it.

Suggestions for Use. Adding your CPA website, Twitter, and Facebook icons are just a few suggestions. Otherwise a fun seasonal quote can be another refreshing dynamic to add to the usual name and business address.

You Can Edit Where Your Firm Shows in Google Maps

Edit Google Maps. Google maps is great for displaying addresses and showing exactly how to get there. Sometimes though an address can show incorrectly and if it is your CPA firm that can be a serious frustration.

If you have an address that shows incorrectly in Google Maps you can edit it. You need to login to your Google account in order to make any changes.

How to Edit. After you login to your account you can edit your listing:

• Look up your address in Google Maps.
• Click on the A tag that shows in the map.
• Click on Edit.
• Click on Move Marker.

If you have to move the marker more than 200 meters then it may take a little while for the change to show. Either way being able to make the correction to your CPA firm’s location can be a big help.

Sometimes small changes, such as to your email signature or fixing your Google maps location, can make for a better week. Have a comment about this post? Fill out the form below.

The Financial Calculators are included with any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions. The great features behind how the Financial Calculators work have recently been improved upon. Here are some highlights.

Financial Calculators Updated

Cross Browser Compatability. The Financial Calculators have been updated to be compatible with Google Chrome, Firefox 3, and IE 8. This makes it so that anyone using any major browser should be able to access the calculators without difficulty.

All U.S. Mortgage Rates Normalized. All default interest rates have been made consistent across all mortgage calculators. The following rates are now used:
* 30 Year Fixed rate: 6.00%
* 15 Year Fixed rate: 5.75%
* Adjustable Rate (mortgage): 5.00%
* Equity Line of Credit: 9.0%

Rates of Return Normalized. All default rates of return have been made consistent across all calculators (Savings, Investment, Retirement and certain Mortgage and Loan calculators where investment rates are required). The following rates are now used:
* Long term market rate: 8%
* Conservative/retirement market rate: 6%
* Savings/bank rate: 2%
* Federal mid-term rate: 2.95% (Used for 72T calculators only)

Health Savings Accounts Calculator (HSA) Finalized. This includes the following new contribution limits and rules put into law for 2010.

• Self only coverage 2010 contribution limit $3,050.
• Family coverage 2010 contribution limit $6,150.
• HDHD 2010 required deductible for Self Only coverage $1,200, for Family coverage $2,400.
• HDHP 2010 Maximum out-of-pocket for Self Only coverage $5,950, for Family coverage $11,900.
• Tax table to detemine marginal tax rate updated to 2010 tax rates and income brackets.

1040 Tax Estimator Finalized. This includes extensive changes to the labels and field names to match the actual tax form. Additional changes to the definitions, output pages and input fields have been completed to comply with tax law changes. The form matches the inputs on the 1040 Tax form. The changes include:

• Automatic calculation of additional child tax credit
• New total of “Non-refundable tax credits”
• New total of “Refundable tax credits” which includes Make Work Pay credit, additional child tax credit, and other refundable credits such as the first time home buyers credit
• Added entry for new vehicle sales tax added to calculated increased standard deduction

Estate Tax Planning Calculator. This has been updated to the 2010 rates and rules including the repeal of the estate tax for one year in 2010. This has affected the definitions and the calculations. No new input or output fields have been added.

A new note has been added that it is likely that some sort of congressional action will take place during 2010 to reinstate some sort of Estate tax. It is as follows: “It is very important to note that it is very likely that a congressional change will be made in 2010 that could greatly impact estate taxes, and it could possibily be retroactive to the beginning of 2010.”

9. Minimum Distributions Calculator (RMD) Updated.  The RMD is now required and no longer reported as $0 as it was for 2009. The suspension of the Required Minimum Distribution for tax-deferred retirement accounts in 2009 has expired as is no longer available in 2010.

This includes distributions from IRAs, 401k(s), 403(b)s and other defined contribution plans. These calculators have been updated so that the RMD is now required and no longer reported as $0 as it was for 2009.

These are highlights of some of the recent changes. Let us know if you have any comments by filling out the form below.

There are many new designs that have been added to the list of website designs available to any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions. As previous posts have noted, there are many options for customizing a CPA website. Here is another great example of using a firm’s own web designer’s design integrated into the CPA Site Solutions system.

The Website. The Watts Group has a design based on a few great ideas kept simple and reinforced throughout the website. CPA Site Solutions custom designers worked to integrate the design so that it would work well within the system.

Seeing the Light. A light bulb, with drop shadow, is used to indicate where a user is on the website. This indicator reinforces their business name in a fun and useful way.

Services and Packages. Another great element is the use of expanded text on their Services + Packages page. This expansion method not only looks good but keeps the elements on the page contained within a certain height.

Watts Group Contact Form

Logo Header and Overall Theme. The logo is simple which also reinforces the overall theme. The pages are kept contained so you don’t have to scroll down long pages of content to see everything.

Through the simple theme the graphics used are able to come through even more effectively. A prime example is their contact form made up of a background image of hanging lights.

Custom designs can be of all types and be easily integrated within the CPA Site Solutions system. Many designs, like the one from the Watts group, concentrate on a few elements. This serves to keep the overall theme, via specific graphics that work well together, and message, via few but concise text, clear and unmistakable.

Your Own Custom Design. Are you interested in a custom design? Contact CPA Site Solutions via phone 800-896-4500 or email support@cpasitesolutions.com and a custom designer can help solidify your website needs.

Have a comment? Fill out the form below or email support@cpasitesolutions.com.

There are ongoing changes to existing security laws that affect CPA’s and other tax professionals. An example of this is within the new Massachusetts law governing how a client’s personal information is handled. Regardless of what state you are in, if you have a website hosted by CPA Site Solutions, then there are several ways that you and your clients data are kept secure that should meet any new requirements you may encounter.

14 Layers of Security

14 Layers of Security. All data for any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions has 14 layers of security. One way to think about layers of security is with your house.

If you have a key and an alarm then you have two levels of security. Once I pick the lock and disable the alarm then I have gained access. Each of our 14 layers protects you and your clients data from illegal access.

SAS 70 Type-II. There are many data centers out there that have security measures in place but our data center is SAS 70 Type-II certified. This means that, “a specially trained CPA Firm performed an in-depth audit attesting to the fact that the datacenter has sufficient processes, controls, and safeguards to keep your data safe from theft, corruption or mishandling.”

Passwords. There are stringent requirements for creating a password for an admin, firm, or client accounts. Beyond that none of our account representatives have access to any of those passwords.

Data Logs. Every CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions has a report that can be run showing all of the activity on every account. These data logs can be accessed at anytime.

(To access the data logs you need to be logged into the Secure File Exchange. Up near the top left corner is a More option. When you click on this you get several options one of which is titled “Usage Report.” )

There are many ongoing changes to the security laws in place. By using Secure File Exchange that comes with every website hosted by CPA Site Solutions, your firm can help stay within compliance.

Have a comment about security? Fill out the form below.