CPA Websites Marketing Tips

The right kind of client keeps the working flowing, day after day.

Websites for accountants are critical for the CPA. They draw in new clients, help retain current clients, and increase the efficiency of your firm.

But not all clients are created equal.

The All-Important Business Client

A good deal of accounting work centers around tax preparation for the individual. But business clients are often more complicated – thus bringing in more revenue – and provide year-round client work.

CPA Site Solutions provides websites for accountants that help you appeal to the business client – so you enjoy a year-round, stable revenue stream.

Features of Your Website Help Draw Them In

QuickBooks Services

One of the best ways to reach out to business clients is to offer them QuickBooks services. QuickBooks is the most popular accounting software used by small to medium businesses.

Your website with CPA Site Solutions has a whole section dedicated to QuickBooks services.

The menu for QuickBooks services.

Online Payroll

With our partner, Intuit Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals, we offer you an Online Payroll System that gives your clients more control over their payroll.

Our system is a convenient “back office” payroll processing service priced as low as $10.99 per month, per client.

Your clients access their accounts directly from your website  – which means they enter their hours, print checks, and view reports with or without your assistance.

The Onine Payroll sales page.

Client Portal

Our Client Portal – the most secure on the market – is a must for the small business owner evaluating accounting firms.

With the Portal, you can easily exchange large accounting files with your business clients. No more hassle trying to send attachments that are too large (and, as it happens, not at all secure). No more faxing or using a courier service.

Your clients simply log in to your secure Client Portal and upload their materials with the click of a mouse. You access the documents in the client’s folder, and you’re able – just like that – to get back to the billable time that actually supports your business.

The sales page for your secure Client Portal.

Business Services Section

Your website includes an entire 13-part section on the various services you offer to business clients. (Of course, you can remove any pages that your firm doesn’t actually offer.)

From pages devoted to Part-Time CFO Services to those on Business Valuation and Litigation Support, your website explains just how well you serve the business owner.

The menu for Business Services.

Articles and Newsletters

Don’t forget about the 3,000 pages of financial guides included as stock content on your site, or the Monthly Client Newsletter – both of which educate and guide your clients wrestling with the day-to-day functioning of their organization.

Let Your Website Shoulder the Burden

If you ever feel overwhelmed by the need to even out your workload throughout the year, remember that your website can help.

In highlighting your usefulness to the business client, your site attracts the kind of stable, revenue-generating work that helps to build up your firm.

Have Questions? Give Us a Call

If you would like to remove any of the Business Services pages on your site – or add a new page for a service that’s not listed – call your Dedicated Webmaster at 1-800-896-4500, or email support@cpasitesolutions.com.

What feature of your site do you find most useful for business clients? Tell us about your experience with a comment!

Think of the Quick Login for the Client Portal as a gateway to billable time.

It’s 9:00 am. You’re in webmail, checking messages and mapping out your day.

You get an email from a client asking you to check on a figure in his tax return. You start to close the message and move on, thinking you’ll take care of it later – when you remember:

“I can log in to the Portal directly from my webmail!”

And so you can.

Accounting websites from CPA Site Solutions just got more efficient. Now you can access the Client Portal directly from a link in webmail – which means you only need to remember one password, and it’s that much easier to jump in to client work.

And, of course, the easier it is to do client work, the more you do – and the more your profits grow.

Quick Login to the Client Portal

When you add the link, you get a Portal option in the menu on your webmail.

This means you can quickly go from your email to your Portal – eliminating the need to open a new window, get into your website, enter your password, and click to the Portal from there.

The link to the Portal shows up on your “More” menu, as seen here:

Two Mighty Features That Save You Time

Two of our most popular features – our email solution and the secure Client Portal – are now connected.

Email Solution. Our email service is a huge time saver for your firm.

For one thing, our webmasters support the tech aspect, so you no longer need to rely on the IT guy if your email is down. Our email is also easy to manage – there are no folders, and the search function is fast and highly targeted.

Note that the Quick Login feature does not integrate with Outlook. To take advantage of this time saver, use our email solution. (When you do, you benefit from its full integration with the Workteam Collaboration Suite, including its shared calendars, wikis, and instant messaging.)

Secure Client Portal. Our Client Portal includes QuickSend and 1-click send, both of which save tedious administrative steps and help your day run more smoothly.

Of course, our entire Client Portal is highly efficient – allowing you to easily and securely exchange large accounting files and sensitive financial information with your clients.

How to Get the Quick Login Feature

It’s easy to add the Portal link to your webmail page.

If you’re a Gold client, give us a call at 1-800-896-4500 or email us at support@cpasitesolutions.com. We’ll be happy to add it for you.

If you’re a Silver client, visit our Help file for instructions on how to add this link. Don’t worry – this is an easy one! It takes just a couple clicks. (If you’d like us to add it for you, upgrade to Gold and have a Dedicated Webmaster make all your changes.)

Add the Quick Login to the Client Portal and enjoy the improved workflow – from webmail straight to work.

Do you think this new feature will improve your workflow? What other suggestions do you have for cutting out steps in your daily routine and bumping up efficiency? We’d like to know. Share your thoughts below.

A new Security Measures page helps clients understand the Web is not the Wild West anymore.

Are your clients afraid of the Internet? Do they mistrust the security of cyberspace? And does this prevent them from taking advantage of all CPA websites have to offer?

The Internet is not the Wild West anymore. Safety measures are now in place – firewalls, encryption, and anti-virus software – that make it a much more trustworthy environment.

It might be time to give your clients a little push – to show them how secure the Internet is these days. With a bit of encouragement, clients start to feel comfortable using the Web for more than just contact information.

A great place to start is your secure Client Portal. Once clients see how it improves their financial lives, they’re hooked. They’re more satisfied with your services…

And you reap the reward in higher retention.

Our New Security Page

You have an easier time convincing your skittish clients to use the Client Portal with the new Security Measures page.

Clients get to the new page with a link on the updated Client Portal page.

When clients go to the updated page on your site, they see this:

Your updated Client Portal page includes a link to information on Security Measures. Click on the image to enlarge.

When they click on that last link, they’re sent to a Security Measures page detailing the Portal’s impressive 14 layers of security.

Benefits of the Client Portal

Although they might need some encouragement to try it out, once your clients do take your Client Portal for a spin, they love the benefits.

The Client Portal provides…

• a secure, convenient, and easy way for you and your clients to exchange and share files;

• 24/7/365 access for clients to their tax returns, financial statements, scanned documents like W-2’s, employee data, corporation papers, and legal documents;

• secure access to their tax information – with your Online Tax Organizer – anytime from anywhere, so they no longer need to complete and mail paper organizers;

• a way for them to make entries, print reports, and have full access to QuickBooks, Sage Peachtree, or any accounting software from home, office, or any location in the world (when you add the Online Accounting module); and

• a secure environment to enter their hours and earnings, print detailed reports, print checks, make direct deposits, and file all federal and state payroll taxes (when you add the Online Payroll option).

There’s no question that the Client Portal improves your clients’ financial lives.

And in a way, when you push them to try the Portal, you’re doing your job at a high level – offering information, technology, and support to help your clients stay organized and in control of their finances.

How to Get the New Pages

Let us know if you want the new Security Measures page on your site. It means adding two pages – the updated Client Portal page as well as the Security Measures page.

If you’re at the Silver service level, visit our Help file called “Adding the Updated Client Portal and Security Measures Pages” to learn the steps involved in publishing them.

If you’re a Gold or Platinum client, give us a call at 1-800-896-4500 or email support@cpasitesolutions.com to request these pages. We’re happy to add them.

Sometimes the only barrier between your clients and all the tools built into your Client Portal is creating user accounts for all those new users.  If you’ve got a lot of clients who need to send you files through the Secure File Exchange, it can be a long process to create their accounts one at a time.  Fortunately, you can spread out the work by encouraging your clients to create their own accounts.

There are three ways to add your clients to the Client Portal system: a firm or admin user can add client users one by one, an administrator can add a batch of client users through the Firm Administration menu, and by clicking the link on your Client Portal page, your clients can self-register.

After clicking that “register here” link, all your client has to do is fill out their contact info and choose a password.  They won’t have access immediately, but they’ll receive a confirmation email and their username and password will simply log them into a page with no access.

Once the client completes the registration, all your administrative users will be notified of the new registration, and any firm or admin user will have the ability to log in to the portal and verify the new user.  The verification system ensures that your resources won’t be used up by users who are not already your clients.

When a new client is waiting, you’ll see a notification above the Firm Portal menu.  Just click the link then select the email address of the user you want to verify or delete.

Then it’s just a matter of clicking the appropriate button.  Verify will allow the user to log in and send an automated email to the client. The delete option permanently disables the log in and sends no email, though the user could still attempt to self-register again.

No matter how your client users are added to the Portal, you have complete control over access to your Firm and Client Portal and all the tools inside.  For a more detailed walkthrough of managing clients, take a look at our instructions for adding client users and Self-Registration.

Your Client Portal has a brand new feature.  In response to your requests, we’ve made it easier for you to manage your Portal users.

Now you can stop spending your valuable time searching through unfamiliar email addresses to edit a single client. The next time you log into your Portal’s Add/Modify Client Users section, you’ll see our new Search By Name feature.

Your client User list can get pretty long, and with the self-registration tool it’s easy to lose track of which email addresses belong to which clients.  This new Search By Name lets you easily find a user by simply entering a name or company in the search field.  The Portal will then list every matching account, allowing you to quickly find the user you’re looking for.

With your feedback, we’re continually improving our tools and features to produce the best possible services for you. If you have any concerns, suggests or improvements we can make for you, please give us a call, send an email or contact us through our Live Help Chat.

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 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.