Accounting Firms Need their IT Solutions to Count

Most businesses rely on information technology in order to operate, with accountants, CPAs, and accounting firms being no exception. This means that modern accounting firms therefore have a lot of IT-related considerations to manage—particularly related to their security.

Cybersecurity is More Important Than Ever

As you might imagine, those who operate in financial services have a lot of reasons to be concerned about their security. On top of all the threats that these firms face, there are considerable regulatory requirements that must be upheld lest the accountant incur some negative ramifications.

While many financial organizations focus on maintaining the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, that is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to best practices. This is why we have a comprehensive assortment of cybersecurity solutions readily available to our clients, including:

• Fully Managed Cybersecurity
• Content Filtering
• Unified Threat Management
• Spam Protection
• Email Encryption
• Mobile Device Management
• Access Control
• Digital Security Camera Systems

The benefit of managed IT is that it is able to combine a variety of services, granting accountants a higher level of productivity and confidence in the technology they rely upon. 

How Big of a Threat are Accountants Under?

In a word: BIG. While it isn’t the most recent cybersecurity issue we’ve discussed, in 2019, a malware attack against an accounting software developer and cloud provider created some significant upheaval amongst accountants and accounting firms. After a malware attack, an unknown number of Wolters Kluwer’s clientele were suddenly cut off from their tax return information for two days.

For reference, at the time Wolters Kluwer served all of the top 100 accounting firms in the United States, nine-out-of-ten of the world’s top banks, and 93 percent of Fortune 500 companies. The impact was enough that the Internal Revenue Service extended the filing deadline by an unprecedented week. While it appeared that no customer data was breached in this particular attack, it serves to prove that accountants are most certainly a viable target for cybercrime.

As cyberattacks continue to increase, the threat to your organization is also increasing and while the Kluwer attack was notable due to its uniqueness in 2019, we continue to witness an escalation of large-scale cyberattacks which have gone as far as crippling the delivery of gas, disrupting meat processing and even threatening drinking water.

How We Assist Accountants with Their IT

As a managed service provider, we can provide an accounting firm with all of these services and more, all while offering solutions that can boost productivity and efficiency. With our assistance, your business can take advantage of some crucial IT security tools and preparations. For instance, data backups. Tax preparers and accountants of all kinds will need to preserve their data for some time, which a backup can help to ensure.

There are a lot of other ways that a managed service provider can (and will) benefit a business that works with them. On top of the security solutions and the backup and disaster recovery preparations that we can provide, we’ll also ensure that your business’ capabilities are expanded through cloud computing and many other modern technologies.

Of course, we can offer similar services to an assortment of industries, so even if you aren’t part of an accounting firm, you can still enjoy these kinds of benefits. Reach out to us at (512) 882-2242 to find out more.