You can get plenty of visitor data for any accounting website hosted by CPA Site Solutions via the webalizer. Wouldn’t you rather be able to chat with these potential clients? There is a way to have live chat for free on your CPA web site. Here is a breakdown of how that can work.

Download the software. The company is called Volusion and the download is free. Although you are limited to one operator, for most CPA firms this shouldn’t be an issue. If it is you can check out their Premium Edition and the comparison chart to the free service.

Free Online Chat Service

Very easy set-up. Once you install the software, you then enter an email address and password. A verification email is sent to the email address you used.

Install the code. Code is generated to be used on any page of your CPA website. Just copy and paste it into the page you want to use it via the source view in the site editor. Alternatively you can email the code to support@cpasitesolutions.com and indicate on what page the icon should appear.

Start it up. Now when you want to chat you just open the Volusion software, sign in and your set to go. Although you are limited to one operator, that operator can have up to five chats going at once.

Works offline. They system even works when you are not logged into the account. When a user clicks on the icon they can send an email with their question. You then get an email to the email account you registered with.

Create a custom email. One way around having only one operator is to create a custom live chat email account. If you have the password available to people in the firm then anyone can manage the account.

Volusion’s free live chat feature is fairly quick to set up and use right away. Although you could spend a lot of money per month for a more robust system, for the a lot of CPA websites this service fits the bill quite nicely.

As a CPA, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to get a helping hand when you need it? Consider utilizing interns as part of your accounting office to solve your work challenges and save time.

CPA Interns need experience, you need help, time and value. Interns are a great way to get more time during the busy season. They gain valuable work experience while you get the needed help during a busy time of the year. Another great value is that most of the time the help they offer is free as they are gaining college credit as their compensation.

Offset the busy tax season by hiring an intern.

Analyze work done on a regular basis. Review your daily workload. Analyze it to find tasks that could be done by an intern with minimial training. Tasks like appointment setting, information gathering, data entry and basic paperwork could  be done by an intern.

Calculate. Calculate how long it would take you to do it. Add extra time for a person with less experience to get a realistic idea of how much work an intern could accomplish in the 10-20 hours a week you’ll get from them.

Job description. Based on the analysis of the work you have write a quick job description. Be brief, to the point, yet informative enough for the person looking.

Contact local university. Go through some of your local universities to find college students looking for an internship. You can coordinate with people at the university. Take a look at their transcripts, even those classes outside of the usual accounting.

Interview. No search is complete without an interview. Instead of doing the usual interview, you might consider them shadowing another person in your CPA firm for a certain period of time doing a variety of tasks. This can actually provide you with hands on feedback that the usual questions might miss.

If you have never used interns before you might consider trying them before going into a busy season. There are certain tasks that they can do that help offset your busy tax season. At the same time you are helping someone further on their new career path. Who knows you may even find a person you want to hire permanently.

As a CPA, tracking how much time you spend upon each client can be an easy task when you use the right tools. Yast is a service that allows you to track easily, effectively, and you can email results that are specific to a particular project. Here is a quick breakdown of how you can use Yast to keep track of the hours you spend as a CPA on your clients work.

Free sign up. Sign up is free and easy all you need is an email address and password. It is all online so you can access it anywhere you have access to a browser. So even when your’re not doing accounting work in the office you can still keep track of the time you spend.

Click play. Starting or stopping a project is as easy as clicking on the play or stop button. That means that, when you take a break to update something on your CPA website for example, you can start or stop your current project with just a click. You get an overview of how much time has passed right now as well as for the day and week.

Color Coding Multiple Projects

Keep track of multiple projects. You can have multiple projects going at the same time. Even so each one has their own individual record. This gives you flexibility when it comes time to view and send reports of your time spent.

Color code. You can color code each project or person you are doing work for. This gives any CPA an easy way to keep track of records at a glance.

Create groups. You can organize different projects or people into groups (folders) so you can keep the overall record clean and easy to view.

Export. When you are done working on a particular project you can export it as an Excel, CSV, or PDF file. This can later be emailed as an attachment for those who need to view it.

You can view the list of times you clocked in and out of a project before you export it. This allows you to add comments or delete times that shouldn’t be included.

Yast is easy enough to use so it stays in the background without interrupting your daily work flow. Having an online tool to keep track of your clients means you can start and stop a project even when you are not in front of your own computer.

The welcome page for some CPA web sites remains the same or very similar to what it was when the site was first launched. You can and should shake up your welcome page on a regular basis. There is a previous post from CPA Site Solutions that talks about the SEO benefits of a fresh profile page.

The same is true but even more so for your welcome page. Here is a breakdown of why and how you might consider sprucing up the first page that many visitors see when they come to your accounting web site.

The why of change. Before starting any project it is best to know why your doing it. Then if your motivation wanes you can reconnect and remain focused on the task. Writing a bit for your CPA web site is a project worth the time and effort due primarily to the SEO benefits. Aside from that, when a user comes to your web site and see’s information that is recent, even if it is just seasonal, they have greater confidence in the web site as a current resource.

Search engines. Google and other search engines love unique and fresh content. The more of this type of content you can provide on a regular basis the stronger your domain.

Current resource. It can be hard to tell if a web site is up to date. When you put fresh content that is relevant and current on the welcome page you put a visitor at ease because they know right off the web site is updated frequently rather than put up in 1999 and left alone.

Use Current Tax News

Current news. Are there changes in recent laws that may effect a majority of potential clients? Having some information regarding this is a great way to draw people to your CPA web site.

Images. Adding images that are familiar and appealing to those local to your accounting firm’s office can help make new visitors more comfortable. Any images of you and the rest of your firm gives a face to who you are making it easier for potential clients to trust you.

Create interesting text variations. Along with what to write is how it is displayed. When you take the time to provide variations in text color it helps the eye gravitate to important main points.

Color and size variations for headlines is the more commonly used tactic. What shouldn’t be overlooked is bold text for important sentences within your paragraph. If the bold text is relevant to what you offer overall then it is also a plus with search engines. See the help section on how to make changes to text.

There is a lot you can do on a regular basis with your welcome page. If you don’t have a lot of time just making some quick seasonal changes can go a long way to help keep your web site fresh.

Any CPA with a website hosted by CPA Site Solutions can exchange documents securely using the vault. There are times when a one on one visit to your client is needed so that questions can be answered in the moment.

CPA’s are busy so it can be hard to find the time to drive across town when both you and your client are free for a one on one meeting. There is another way through a free screen sharing service that makes it possible to see what your client sees without ever leaving your accounting office. Here is a breakdown of how the service works and some ways to take advantage of it.

LogMeIn

All online. The service is found at LogMeIn Express, requires no sign up, and only has a small application to download. Although you do need to download the small application each time you use it, the download is very quick.

Once you download the application it shows as a small bar with a code. You have the people you want to see your screen go to the LogMeIn website and enter the code. There is no application the people seeing your screen have to download and they start viewing your screen right away.

Multiple users. You can have multiple users, up to 100, that you can share your screen with at one time. This gives you the flexibility to use this with an online seminar if you wanted.

Live chat. You can use the live chat feature available within the bar that displays for both you and the people viewing your screen. Alternatively, if you are just working with one person, you can just call.

Quickbooks. After exchanging a Quickbooks file via the vault, you could work on it with the client watching. This allows you to answer questions in the  moment and can be as effective as being in the same room.

Screen sharing can be an effective way to make presentations or work with a client over a hard to explain concept. Having a visual element within any explanation can help save time and be easier for others to understand.

There is a previous post on how to use seminars to help you make money and pull potential clients to your CPA website. Here is a way to make any seminar even easier to run, a free online slide presenter.

Morowitz and Company Seminar Page

Now you can set up slides with all of your content that can be easily emailed to your participants either before or after the seminar. Here is a breakdown of how 280 Slides works.

Runs from any browser. No need to download anything as you can run the slide creator from any browser. This means you can do your work from anywhere you have access to the Internet.

Sign up. Although you could use the service without even signing up, it is free and allows you to leave a project and come back to it later. To sign up just click on Launch, then on Login in the upper right, and then register. All you need is an email address and password.

Download the content. If you don’t want to sign up you can create a presentation and then download it. You can download it as a PowerPoint 2007, PowerPoint 97-2004, Open Document, or PDF.

Embed the code or Email it. Once you do sign up then you can finish your project and then embed the code (see sample below). You can have the site email you a copy or send one to anyone you want.

Potential uses. You could create an introduction to a new seminar you are doing on your CPA web site. The introduction can serve as a form of advertising to peak interest in the seminar and get people to sign up.

You can then embed the code onto any page of your website or within your blog. Don’t worry if your not sure how to do this you can just email support@cpasitesolutions.com with the code and where you want it.

Any CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions has the option to add a Quickbooks affiliate page. When you do this you can make money off of the sales of Quickbooks to your clients.

Recently Quickbooks has sent out an email making sure that every affiliate is aware of recent FTC guidelines regarding product endorsements. Here is a breakdown of what that means if you are an affiliate or planning on becoming one.

If you have an existing affiliate page on your website hosted by CPA Site Solutions you don’t need to do anything. There is a pre-existing banner that should be updated soon with the required badge guidelines.

New badge. Quickbooks now has an “Authorized Quickbooks Affiliate” badge for you to post on your website. The badge needs to be “somewhere prominent on your site to inform your audience.” The home or landing page is a great place to consider putting this badge.

Getting the badge. You can get the badge by logging into your “Quickbooks Affiliate Toolkit.” Once logged in go to the “get links” section and then click on the “Quickbooks Authorized Affiliate Logo.” There should be some code available to place this on your website. You can email support@cpasitesolutions.com with this code and where to place it on your accounting website.

Message from the FTC. The FTC has an information section that seems to indicate that the laws around this haven’t changed. They have indicated they are now highlighting the already existing laws to get people to be more aware.

If you get the memo. If you get a memo from the Quickbooks affiliate team don’t follow the link from the email (it won’t be long before someone tries to spoof this, see previous post on computer security). Instead go from the link you have in your records for logging in to the Quickbooks Affiliate tools page.

Once logged in, get the badge code and place it on your website. Alternatively you can email support@cpasitesolutions.com with the code if you want it placed on your home page instead of just on your affiliates page.

In a previous post about a Quickbooks scam there were indications of what to do to protect your computer. The best option is to keep the sensitive data stored within the Vault.

Secure File Exchange

However, if you have to keep your clients data on your computer then, as a CPA, you are responsible to keep it safe. Here are some steps that can help ensure just that.

Be cautious. The number one way to stop threats is to be cautious of content and verify before proceeding. Despite all the anti-virus software, security patches, firewall and more the user is the weakest link. When you look at engaging with the Internet on a daily basis it should become habit to question most everything that you see.

Firewall, security patches, anti-virus software. The gateway to being online is through your Internet connection so you should have an up to date Firewall, security patches, and anti-virus software. The key is to be up to date and make a habit of manually checking these on a regular basis rather than relying upon automatic updates.

Put it in your calendar to check each of these every two weeks at least, it doesn’t take that long and is worth it to prevent potential risks. How you check these manually is different for each and may take longer the first time you do it but become second nature later.

Your browser. The gateway to most of how you interact with the online world is done through your browser. If you want to be extra secure then you should disable Javascript and only enable it for those websites you trust. Here is an add-on for Firefox and another for how to do this with Internet Explorer.

Email. Attachments that you get,even if you know the user, are always potentially dangerous. Do you really need to open it? If not just delete it. Otherwise understanding what it is you are opening is key. If it is an executable file, see executable file extensions, then you won’t want to open it at all.

Any email can look like it is coming from a legitimate source. Instead of clicking through on anything from the email, go directly to the company or person based on what you have in your personal records. The extra time you take to do this can save you a huge amount of headaches later.

Know the root of scams.  You can get these type of requests via the Internet, phone or the mail. In all cases instead of responding to the request via the information given, go to the source via your own records, or a third party like the phone book for example.

Most scams work  by enticing users go to what they think is a legitimate place of business online when in actuality they are not. Often times requests for data verification is attempted and then that stolen information is used to acquire sensitive information or your full identity.

Common scams to be weary of.

• You won the lottery in a far off land!
• Your website domain is about to expire.
• Your credit card company needs to update your information.

Always use your own records to call the person back and verify it’s a legitimate request rather than ever giving any information to another person online.

A migration is changing your CPA website from an older platform and system to a newer, faster, and all-around better one. Over time every website with CPA Site Solutions has a migration in their future. Here are some benefits to migrating now and how to request the change.

Newer website designs. New website designs are being created all of the time. If you are interested in any of the newer website designs you need to migrate in order to use them.

New Website Designs

Of course you don’t have to pick a new design, you can keep an existing one. Just be aware that these older designs have been “upgraded” slightly so when you do migrate the design might have a slightly different look.

You can check our web site design collection to view your design number (last three numbers are key) to compare it with your current style. If you don’t know what your current design number is give us a call and a designer can let you know.

Workteam Collaboration Suite. The more recent version of our email platform is the Workteam Collaboration Suite. When you migrate you can switch and have access to many of the cool features such as seven gigs of storage, ability to have an appointments page, live chat with other people in your firm, online documents, and more.

Drag and Drop

Increased functionality. There are improvements made to the newer system all of the time that are not available on all the older systems. Examples include having a blog, an appointments page, drag and drop site map, easier interface for the vault, and more.

Logistics. It generally only takes a couple of business days to complete the migration and your current website is unaffected. Once the migration is done you get another link to login and make sure everything looks alright.

Once you give the go ahead then a change is made with your registrar to point to the new server. Your “new” website is live at that point and you can take advantage of the newer designs and other increased functionality.

Make the call or email. If your interested in migrating now send an email to support@cpasitesolutions.com or call 800-896-4500.

If you have the Workteam Collaboration Suite included with any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions you have the ability to add an appointments page. There is a previous post on this added functionality. Here is an easy way to set up appointments pages with multiple people in your accounting firm.

Firm Calendar

Set-up the calendars. First take a moment to set up each of the member’s calendars to share. There is a calendar help section on this if you need it.

Add the appointment pages. After you set-up the calendars add an appointment page for each person. There is also a appointment help section on how to add and set-up the appointment page if you need it.

Unlike some of the other pages when you add an appointment page it is still available to add again. This means you can add as many as you have people in your firm.

Change the navigation and file name.

Rename the pages. Since all of the appointment pages have the same name when you add them to your website you need to rename each page. In the example here there are three different pages named for the person whose calendar is being displayed. What you name the page is what shows in your navigation.

Be sure to also change the file name. For this example the file names were changed from custom1.php to the first letter of the person’s name and appointments. So Peter’s appointment page became pappointments.php. You can use your own naming convention as long as each page name is unique.

Move each page below the hub page.

Add a hub page. Add a hub page with pictures renaming this with something like “Firm Calendars.” Make sure the name is relatively short as this is what is going to show in your navigation area.

Move all appointment pages. Move all of your appointment pages as a sub-page of the hub page you just created. Now when you mouse over “Firm Appointments” each page in the main navigation area, each person’s calendar page shows as an option.

If you click on the appointment page then each page is listed. When you click on a person’s page you are brought to their calendar.

Special notes. When you get an email from the person requesting an appointment you have to manually update your calendar. Once you update your calendar though the appointments page on your website is also updated.

You cannot change the picture being displayed in the hub page. You can change the header area to a custom header and show a personal picture as what shows in the example.

Use custom images in the header.

It doesn’t take too long to complete and, if you are at the Gold level, you can request that a designer do the work for you. You can do this by calling 800-896-4500 or emailing support@cpasitesolutions.com.