Life can be very frustrating for accountants. Especially when they invest a lot of time and effort in crap corporate compliance software.
I always thought the reason accountants invest in software is to help their clients comply with the Law. So why would accountants invest in software that doesn’t?
First, if a software supplier shows you a PowerPoint presentation and does not show you their software, this should ring alarm bells. And if they bring the software developer along to fix bugs in the software during the presentation, this should ring sirens.
A proper corporate compliance software solution should have a permanent database – not a database refreshed every 2 weeks. If you want integration with your Practice Management software, shouldn’t this be a 2 way automated sync?
But let me share the comments of 1 (now) client, who didn’t do their due diligence:
- Unable to customise content/wording in resolutions
- Unable to create forms such as 2205 for paper lodgement
- Volume of emails when being cc’d in email going out to client – i.e. if directors resolution has 20 directors to sign and partner cc’d in DocuSign envelope it appears they will receive that email 20 times on the way out and 20 times on the way in once signed
- The way the ‘optional’ message is displayed in email to client – no spacing unable to customise for each person receiving email
- Grey line at top of email sent to client
- Unable to have transmittal letters on company changes or differing templates for each change i.e. email template for change of address, email template for share transfer, email template for share issue etc
- Unable to do share transactions other than allotments and transfers.
Over the past 12 months we have had to console and remedy a number of people who believed PowerPoint presentations and fantasy spreadsheets. And in the meantime, they lost years of company history from CAS Desktop. Some were even running 2 systems and paying for 2 lots of software.
