A year ago we released The Vault, our full Client and Workgroup Colloboration tool and Secure File Exchange System. Since then we’ve continued to improve and update the tool and have kept it on the cutting edge of security and usability.

With our most recent Portal security updates and new FileVault application, we’ve begun the process of phasing out the older file exchange applications, so that we can be sure you’re always providing the most advanced, secure and fully-functioned tools to your clients.

You should already have the Firm and Client Portal built into your site. Check for a login button at the top or bottom of your site. It’s simply a matter of providing a new login and password to your clients, and we’ve added a tool to allow you to easily add a batch of client users.

To add a batch of users, simply log into your Portal as and administrative user and click the Firm Administration link on the upper right. Once there, you’ll find an “Add Batch Of Client Users” tab, which allows you to simply copy and paste a list of email addresses to create new accounts for each user.

Client files still stored on the previous versions of the Secure File Transfer will need to be moved over to the Secure File Exchange. While you’ll have to download each client file manually, the new FileVault application is ideal for moving the downloaded files into the new Secure File Exchange.

To make this transition as easy as possible, we’ve just added a new feature to our Vault help to walk you through the Secure File Transfer transition.

Once that transition is complete, your client users will have access to all the new features, tools and security provided by the Portal and Document Vault system.

You can rest assured knowing that your clients files are safe and secure on our servers because your Vault and Client Portal data is encrypted 100% of the time.

While many Client Portal vendors use encryption to secure data in transit, CPASiteSolutions is the only provider to implement encryption where it resides most of the time, on the server hard drives and other storage media.

If this were easy to do, everyone would be doing it. Storing data in an encrypted format requires a lot of programming from extremely high level security experts. All the encryption and de-cryption places a heavy load on the server’s processors so significantly fewer accounts can be placed on each server.

It’s expensive, but worth it when you consider that encryption is considered the most effective method of securing personal and corporate information according to corporate and government security regulators. In fact, many data protection laws specifically list encryption as a “safe harbor” exception to notification rules, and some laws explicitly require the use of encryption.

Keeping You In Compliance

All CPAs and accountants must comply with the privacy laws governing the safe storage of personal and corporate financial information. A single violation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act caries a fine up to $100,000. So your firm is in jepordy if it isn’t protected.

This new 100% file encryption gives you an extremely high level of protection and virtually eliminates the legal liability associated with data breaches. In fact, your Client Portal has very detailed Audit Trails that help prove that information hasn’t been leaked.

At CPASiteSolutions, we go overboard on security. Other Client Portal vendors provide 5 or 6 layers of security. We don’t stop there. We provide a full 14 layers of security to give you the most protection available.

You don’t need to do anything to get this new level of protection as long as you are using our “Vault” Secure File Exchange system.

If you’re using one of our older Secure File Exchange systems we strongly encourage you to upgrade now. There is no additional cost to upgrade. Yes, the upgrade is completely Free. So please call or email us and we’ll get you setup on our extremely secure “Vault” File Exchange System.

Your website is already a powerful marketing tool, but with the Google Analytics system, it becomes even more powerful. You can easily and closely track how people found your site, how they move through it and how they become customers.

We’ve expanded our Platinum Service Level’s marketing features to include setup and management of the Google Analytics tool for your site. We’ll set you up with your own Google Analytics Account and add your unique tracking code to every page of your site.

Once installed, it takes just a few clicks to view detailed information about how your visitors are using every aspect of your site. With this information you can carefully adjust your website to maximize incoming business at a minimal cost.

Google Analytics is completely integrated with the Google AdWords system, which means that you can even more closely track the success of your Pay-Per-Click campaigns.

Take a look over our Google Analytics overview for more features of Google Analytics, or give us a call to add this new feature to your Platinum Site at no additional cost.

It takes a lot to stand out in today’s marketplace. If you want to step beyond a template for your CPA Website Design and offer your clients something truly exclusive CPASiteSolutions is exactly what you’re looking for!

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to give your Accounting Website that “uniquely you” look, either. CPASiteSolutions offers a variety of custom design features that can give your site that custom touch that sets you apart from the competition for less than $300.

You’ll be amazed how much difference you can makes in giving your website a professional, exclusive feel just by changing the header!

CPA Site Solutions lets you change your header image with any image you want; a local landmark, your office… whatever you feel best reflects on your firm. Just Email us a copy of the picture you want to use and voila! For less than $300 your CPA Website Design has all the personality of a $2000 custom site!

If you can’t find a picture you like for an added charge we’ll take care of it for you. We’ll find a commercial photographer in your area and make sure that you have rights to your own image.

If you really want your CPA Website Design to reflect your company’s determination to stay on the cutting edge of technology you very likely have a flash landing page or header. You can also have these modified for the same low price. A custom flash page for less than $300 is unheard of in the web design industry, but at CPASiteSolutions our on-site flash artists have all the tools they need to modify your existing flash landing page with any image of your choosing for only $295.

Want to change the background color of your site? The Font? The menu? We can do that too; and for less than $200 .

Are you looking for more? Have you worked hard to get to the top of your game, and are you ready for your website to reflect that?

Then it’s time for a custom website and CPASiteSolutions is the perfect company to help you. We’ve been an innovator in the CPA Website Design business for 10 years, and the same skilled designers that designed our templates are also available to do custom work for you. We can usually have your site and running in our CMS in two to four weeks.

Of course if you already have a custom CPA Website Design that you like, or if you prefer to work with an outside designer, CPASiteSolutions is still your best solution. You see we can take your Custom Site Design and for the low price of just $495 we can integrate it into our “Site Manager” CMS.

What’s a CMS?

A CMS is a “Content Management System”. You no longer need to pay a web designer a ridiculously high hourly rate to make changes to your website every time your staff changes or your office moves. No more thousand dollar updates whenever your free reports need to be changed to reflect new tax laws or changes in the economy. You don’t need to know anything about coding to be your own webmaster. With our Site Manager CMS anyone in your office can make these simple changes for you: And best of all, as CPASiteSolutions continues to create new features and content you can easily and seamlessly incorporate your custom CPA Website Design with the new content.

Kenny Marshall
CPA Website Design and Internet Marketing Consultant

We’ve just completed another improvement to your ability to upload files to your clients’ secure FileVault. The next time you log into your Secure File Exchange System, look out for our brand new FileVault Windows application in your “More” menu.

This new Windows application is actually installed on your computer and allows you and your clients to quickly upload files to your Secure File Exchange System without having to log into the Client Portal.

This new version of the Windows Application includes many new features you’ve been requesting.

It allows you to upload complete batches of files with just a few clicks , eliminating the repetitive process of uploading one file at a time.

You can quickly upload files to any Client User. And each of your clients can upload files to their own account.

The One-Click Upload feature allows you to easily send any file to your Secure File Exchange System. Simply right click on any file and select ‘Send to FileVault’.

This new application also includes an automated file backup feature that allows your clients to backup their QuickBooks file (or any other file) every night. This is a great disaster recovery solution because your clients vital financial records are securely stored off-site. So if anything ever happens to their office or their computer they still have a clean backup of their accounting records.

Ensuring safe off-site backups of your clients accounting data is another way you add value. You use this feature to generate extra revenue by charging a small fee for the service. Many firms charge their clients anywhere from $9.95 to $29.95 a month for this service. Or you can offer it Free as a way to thank your clients for their continued loyalty.

The FileVault Windows Application is only available to Gold and Platinum level clients. To download it, log into your Firm Portal, select More, then click “Download Windows Application.”

Our Online Help includes a full walk through of installing this new tool and using all of these features.

Not all datacenters are alike. You don’t want your client’s data hosted on a low cost “cheap” datacenter. The best datacenters are SAS 70 Type II certified. That means 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.

Unlike the Type I Certification which only measures a certain point in time. The Type II Certification measures and evaluates security over time.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires all publicly traded companies to use SAS 70 Type II Certified datacenters. So you can protect yourself the same way publicly traded companies protect themselves, because all of CPASiteSolutions’ Servers are located in high quality SAS 70 Type II Certified Datacenters.

All our servers are housed in a secure, 24/7, around-the-clock, guarded facility with closed-circuit motion sensitive video surveillance. Physical access to the servers is strictly limited to only authorized datacenter personnel. And all personnel are further restricted by Dual Factor Biometric Authentication Barriers.

This is yet another way we protect you from online security risks. If you’d like to see the extreme measures we take to ensure the protection of your client’s data, please take a look at our CPA Website Security Precautions page.

Your Firm and Client Portal has been upgraded this month. This completely new release is even easier to use and comes with the most advanced security features installed.

Sarbanes-Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Compliance

The laws governing websites for CPAs, accountants , and other financial services fall under unique privacy laws that other website owners don’t need to worry about. If you are transferring sensitive files into and out of a directory on your website, and you fall under the definition of a “financial service” (this includes, among other things, anyone who prepares taxes) you need to pay very special attention to online security.

If you don’t take good care of your client’s financial data online, you could be fined up to $100,000 for each violation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. At that rate, it doesn’t take many violations to completely wipe you out.

At CPASiteSolutions are well aware of the responsibility you have to your clients, which is why our File Exchange System is continually updated. This is, after all, our responsibility to you. As a provider of websites to CPA and Accounting firms it is our job to keep you in compliance with the law, just as it is your job as an accountant to do the same for your clients.

That’s why we just spent more than $37,000 to develop a new portal system to protect you.

What is a Firm Portal?
The firm portal is your access to the secured area of your website. As a firm user you can not only share sensitive accounting documents safely and securely with your clients, you can also modify your website , transfer files into your root directory via FTP, and access your Email Marketing System .

The new portal was designed by a team of high level programmers and security experts. They went through every possible security threat and locked them all down so you can sleep comfortably at night.

In order to be compliant with the Sarbanes-Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act you need to have an audit trail of every user that accesses sensitive data. You now have a complete log of every access to the portal to keep you in compliance.

The Activity Log is both searchable and downloadable. For example… you can quickly search the log to see the last time one of your clients logged into the Vault File Exchange System. And you also have the ability to export a list of every access into Excel. You may never need to use the Activity Log, but it’s nice to know that it’s there keeping you in compliance.

Password Policies

All of the best security in the world becomes useless if you use weak passwords. It’s your responsibility to ensure the security and confidentiality of your client’s information. So if you allow your firm members or clients to access sensitive financial information with weak (easily cracked) passwords, you are in violation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

That’s why we’ve implemented new password policies. You can choose how loose or tight you want your policy to be.

Here are the 3 levels…

Low : Average password strength (6 or more characters) required for all Firm and Client users.

Medium (Default): Strong passwords (8 or more characters with a symbol or digit) required for all Firm Users. But “Average” passwords required for Client Users (6 or more characters).

High : Strong passwords (8 or more characters with a symbol or digit) required for all Firm and Client Users.

The new password policy will be enforced the next time a user signs in. If the user’s password does not currently meet the policy, the user will be asked to change their password (to the stronger version) before logging in.

Firewall Friendly

The previous portal used “non-standard” high ports to enforce Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Security. The new portal uses standard ports for SSL security so you and your clients will not have firewall access issues.

Quickly Import Multiple Clients

The previous portal system required you to manually enter each of your clients. Now, that wasn’t too terrible if you only had to enter a few clients. But if you have hundreds of clients the process was mind-numbing and a waist of valuable time.

That’s why we built a client import system into the new portal. Now it only takes a few seconds to enter hundreds of clients.

Easy-To-Use Intuitive Design

The new portal interface uses simple Control Panel Icons instead of a complex menu system. So adding new users, changing access rights, or simply logging into an application is intuitive and easy.

I hope you like this new secure firm and client portal system we designed for you. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment on this blog or call us.

I woke up on Saturday morning ready to update your newsletter to the June edition only to find that the server that holds this month’s newsletter was inaccessible.

We understand the importance of your newsletter, so saying I was concerned would be a bit of an understatement. The newsletter is a cornerstone of our websites for accountants .

While checking why this server was down I found that the datacenter where the server is located had a major disaster.

One of their high power transformers exploded and blew out three of the walls in their electrical room. So many wires were damaged that the backup generators wouldn’t work either.

The bad news is they don’t have power. And datacenters use a lot of power for the servers and the A/C cooling systems.

The good news is that none of the servers were damaged.

The Datacenter owned by ThePlanet and located in Houston Texas has been working around the clock to repair the datacenter bring the over 9,000 servers back online.

Last night they were able to bring up the 6,000 servers located on the second floor of their facility. I spent all day and night yesterday calling, IMing and posting tickets trying to find out if our server was one of the lucky ones located on the second floor.

Murphy’s Law prevails… and it turns out that our server is one of the unlucky ones located on the first floor where the damage is the worst.

ThePlanet tells us that they’ll have temporary power to the servers on the first floor tonight.

What’s Affected?

We don’t keep all our eggs in one basket. We utilize 4 separate datacenters to securely host our 10 servers. That way if one server goes down you still have some functionality.

Each server has its own function. Some handle your website, some handle email, some handle Secure File Exchange, while others handle DNS and other important services.

This strategy worked very well in this disaster. Many of the other companies who have servers in the Houston datacenter have full outages… Meaning their customers are totally without their website and email.

The only server that is affected by this disaster is the Email Marketing System server. That server holds your list of subscribers and the online newsletters.

Your data is safe… just not accessible until tomorrow morning.

What This Means

This means that your June newsletter won’t be updated on your site until Tuesday June 3rd. It also means that you can’t change your emailed newsletter subscription list today.

What We’ve Learned

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from this is that no matter how well a datacenter is built… no matter how many redundancies they have in place… disasters still happen.

I’m calling in a server disaster recovery expert to review our current plans and make recommendations on what we can do to prevent or at least minimize the downtime if this happens in one of our other datacenters.

When it comes to making changes to servers, I’ve found that it’s wise to thoroughly evaluate the implications of the changes. Then thoroughly test the new plan before making it live.

That means it takes time. Over the next few months I will keep you informed on our new and improved disaster recovery plans.

Update – Monday June 2nd at 5:00 PM EST

Ok, I have a bunch of good news…

First, I found a backup of the June 2008 Newsletter, so I installed it on your website. The cross server backup was there all along. I had simply forgotten about it. My brain doesn’t work too well on 2 hours of sleep.

Second, ThePlanet just got their servers back online, so the Email Marketing System is up and running again. ThePlanet did an outstanding job recovering from this disaster. I am happy that this recovery went so smoothly.

The fact of the matter is… “Disasters Happen”. That’s why we have contingency plans. It’s just gives me a happy warm fuzzy feeling when our disaster recovery plans work.

Update – Tuesday June 3rd at 1:00 PM EST

ThePlanet’s Woes Continue…

When it rains… it pours! The temporary fix ThePlanet put into place yesterday failed today. They installed a gigawatt generator to power the A/C and servers for the 3,000 servers located on the first floor of the datacenter.

This huge generator broke down today. So the datacenter is out of power again. That means the Email Marketing System is offline now.

It seems to me that we need to move our server out of this ailing datacenter, so we’ve put that in motion. We’ve hired someone physically pickup our server and drive it to another datacenter just 3 miles away.

The Email Marketing System will be back online once the server is hooked up and the necessary programming changes are made. We are working on the programming now so that won’t hold us up once the server is ready.

The ETA on the Email Marketing System being back online is sometime tonight. I wish I could be more specific but there are too many variables at play. Please come back to this blog post as I will keep it updated on our progress.

Update – Wednesday June 4th at 9:00 AM EST

Our server has been moved to the new datacenter and it’s in queue to get connected and powered up. Unfortunately there are 500 servers that joined us in the move. The datacenter can not tell us where we are in the list, but they are working as hard as they can to get our server online. We expect it will be up sometime today.

The good news is once the server is connected we will not have any more datacenter problems. If we kept the server in the wounded datacenter who knows what other issues would arise.

Update – Thursday June 5th at 5:00 PM EST

ThePlanet datacenter is having more problems. They promised to move our server to a new datacenter on Tuesday. We called them Tuesday night and asked when our server would be up and they said tomorrow morning.

When we called on Wednesday morning they said they weren’t sure but it was likely that our server was sitting in the new datacenter. They also said that they have a lot of servers to install and we would have to wait.

This morning when we called we got a totally different answer. They said that they haven’t moved our server because they have the power on now and they are in the process of booting it up.

This really pissed me off because we spend hours modifying our programs to adjust for the server being located on another IP.

So we waited for our server to come up. But it never did. We called them every hour today asking them when the server would be up. And each time they told us it should be soon.

My frustration level is at its max. And I’m not the only one. There are thousands of other business that have been severely affected by this outage. I’m sure the people at ThePlanet are doing the best they can, but I wish they would just tell us the truth.

I hope this is all fixed in the morning…

Update – Thursday June 13th at 7:00 PM EST

Well the Email Marketing System is up and running again, and the June Newsletter was only a day late. It seems to have gone off pretty much without a hitch.

I am terribly sorry for the complications with this months send

(and never get stuck with non-paying clients again)

You may not know me because this is my first post to a blog.

My name is Kathy O’Connell and I own and run CPASiteSolutions with my husband Brian. I’m also a practicing CPA. I’ve had my firm for over 12 years now. In that time I’ve learned a lot of strategies, techniques, and “best practices” that have enabled me to build a very profitable practice while spending less than 20 hours a week in it.

Brian has asked me to share with you a few of the strategies that have enabled me to get paid more while spending less time working in my firm.

So here’s the first one…

As you’ll see, when I finally snapped and applied this strategy, I instantly increased my cash flow, made my firm run smoother, and eliminated 16 hours of administrative work a month.

How I went from waisting time to getting paid on-time every time.

I don’t know about you but nothing pisses me off more than having to chase down slow payers.

After all, I work hard to complete their work on-time, so I resent it when they don’t pay me on time.

I don’t string them along. I make sure I get their work done on their deadline, even if it means working late or weekends.

In the past, I would promptly print the invoices, stuff and label envelopes, pay the postage and mail them out… Then, I waited. Some of my clients would pay me right away. (I loved those guys)

But some of my clients string me along for months.

So, for those guys I had to print and mail a second and often a third notice.

What a WASTE OF TIME!

I was not making any more money chasing down slow payers. Even with Janice, my office manager, doing the work, it was still a waste of time and effort. And Janice was so busy she often “dropped the ball” in her other responsibilities.

Some clients paid after receiving our “Second Notice” or “Third Notice”. (It seems I had trained them to ignore my first invoices and just pay me when they saw my “Third and Final Notice” stamp on their invoice.)

There were still clients who hadn’t paid me after our third notice. By this time it’s a full 60 days after I’ve completed the work.

Finally, Janice had to call them (there is no way I’m making those collection calls), and she complained because it was a horrid job. She called and called, got voicemail, no returned calls or worse yet, the run around by my client’s secretaries.

Eventually, after many wasted “non-billable” hours, we would get a few more payments.

But, Not all of them.

Sometimes, no matter how hard we tried, we didn’t get paid. And, nothing infuriates me more than getting screwed out of a bill by a client.

Not only have I wasted time doing their work, but I’ve wasted a ton of money tracking them down trying to get paid.

When Janice used to tell me that we can’t collect from a client, I’d get in this nasty foul mood for hours.

Finally one day after getting the news that one of my bigger clients just wasn’t going to pay me, I snapped.

And after a tirade and a half, I went home and decided I’ve had it.

I decided that I’m simply not willing to go the work if I’m not absolutely assured that I’m going to get paid. And I’m not going to go through this invoicing and collection BS anymore.

How I Turned It All Around

It occurred to me that I pay for so many things with my credit card, why couldn’t my clients pay me with their credit card. That way if they were short on cash, I still get paid. I’m not the one issuing credit anymore, their credit card company is.

That’s when I decided that I would not invoice another client again.

Now, I simply take their credit card numbers before I start their work. Then, as soon as I complete their job, I charge their card and I’m paid instantly.

I can’t fully describe the difference it’s made.

The biggest difference is how much more I enjoy my practice.

With the weight of collections off my shoulders, I am enjoying my practice again. It’s so freeing not to worry about whether or when I’m going to get paid.

Janice is thrilled. No more sending second and third notices. And better yet, no more collection calls. My office runs more smoothly now that Janice has time to help me with client work and the other once neglected office tasks.

If you are not having your clients pay you by credit card now, I highly recommend that you do so.

If you want to see how easy it is, just start offering your clients the option to pay with a credit card. You’ll find that there are a number of clients who prefer it. After all it’s easier for them and they get to earn frequent flier miles in the process.

Ok, let me give you one more recommendation…

I spent hours researching merchant processors (the companies that allows you to accept credit cards). And believe me they are all not alike. There are some real sharks out there. The rates vary widely. I found the lowest discount rates are around 1.67 percent. But then you need to look at the “other fees” like transaction fees (that vary from $.20 to $.30), monthly fees (that vary from $0 to $20), and the biggest one is equipment leasing fees (that range from $0 to $149 a month).

So after a long time searching the Internet and calling to uncover the “other fees” I found a truly outstanding merchant processor. These guys have the lowest discount rates (1.67%). The lowest transaction fee ($.20). And best of all, absolutely no leasing fees. They actually gave me a brand new card swiping machine for free.

I thought that this is too good to be true so I did some more research on the company. It turns out that they are one of the top 5 merchant processors in the United States. I even went so far as to check their financials. And they are rock-solid.

If you’d like to find out more about this company, the best person to contact is my friend Keith Day. Please email him and he’ll send you all the details or simply give him a quick call. He was very patient with me and answered all my annoying questions.

His number is 888-423-1116 Ext. 1

or email him at lkeithday@bizology.net

Good luck incorporating my hard won learnings into your own practice.

The more appointments you make, the more money you make. It’s the law of sales success that the more time and effort spent on marketing, the more money you bring in. However, as an accountant or tax preparer, you’ve got better things to do than struggling with mailings, seminars and consultants.

With our Pay-Per-Lead Program you can pass along the trouble of cold-calling, prospecting and mailings. We give you a consistent marketing program that’s guaranteed to bring you new clients with less hassle.

We take care of all the trouble of finding interested potential clients who are searching for tax and accounting help on the Internet. We find out exactly what they need and how big they are. Then we email you all their contact information, allowing you to make a call confident that you’ve got the services that they’re looking for.

There’s no contracts or commitment to the Pay-Per-Lead service, so you can give it a try and cancel anytime by just giving us a call. You’re only responsible to pay for the leads you received.

For more information, or to get started, just visit our Pay-Per-Lead Practice Building Program page and fill out our form. We’ll send you out additional information right away.