Technology
2010 Review of Document Management Programs
Jun. 02, 2010
From the June 2010 Issue
It’s that time of year again where you put down your workpaper files
and pick up the latest edition of The CPA Technology Advisor to learn
about how you can move your firm forward with technology. To help make your
summer reading worthwhile, we once again bring you our comprehensive review
of document management systems (DMS) for accounting and tax practices. It’s
been another exciting year on the development front, with the major vendors
continuing to move the ball down the field in terms of providing practical solutions
with more timesaving features and functions. It’s great to see this segment
of the accounting technology market continue to mature.
We’ve also been moving the ball down the field here at The CPA Technology
Advisor. This year, we have introduced a new approach to the software reviews
that provide ratings based on a greater level of detail, which increases the
objectivity of how vendor solutions are compared against one another. You will
notice that our ratings scorecard has a much deeper level of detail to improve
the accuracy of the overall ratings.
The major evaluation categories for this review have been re-defined based
on the evolution of the products to include four broad categories:
CORE
PRODUCT FUNCTIONS & FEATURES
This rating addresses the overall usability of the application and the user
interface, along with reporting tools that help you do a better job of managing
your database of electronic documents and files. We also looked at some of the
key capabilities to get both paper and digital documents into the DMS using
a print driver and OCR (optical character recognition) to enable full text searching
of documents.
INTEGRATION
This continues to be a critical evaluation factor because it directly measures
the ability of a DMS to streamline your workflows by minimizing the amount of
data entry required to move information from one application to another. The
classic example is the ability to directly file a tax return into the DMS from
the tax prep software. In this section, we looked at integration with Outlook,
Word, Excel, Acrobat, and tax and accounting applications.
REMOTE CAPABILITIES
The bottom line on this section is how effectively you can access the DMS contents
remotely. This can come through a variety of methods, including remote access
login via Citrix or Terminal Server, through a browser to a web-enabled server,
and through a portal application to upload and download content. Remote access
is becoming increasingly important in a wireless world that allows us to work
from anywhere at any time.
SYSTEM MANAGEMENT
This feature section is focused on the functionality that allows you to manage
the document files through four basic tools: document security to control who
can do what with specified documents, document retention to automate the process
of purging files according to your established docu ment retention policy, version
control to facilitate keeping multiple versions of a document as it progresses
through its lifecycle and, finally, check-in/check-out functionality to control
the document editing process, while at the same time allowing other users to
view it.
So let’s jump in and take a look at what this year’s crop of DMS
solutions has to offer.
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- Acct1st Technology Group, LLC
– Acct1st - The development team at Acct1st has been working
hard to continue to move the application forward in its breadth of features
and functions. The company’s signature pricing model of $1.00 per
user per day remains intact as the product continues to mature. - Read Full
Review
- Cabinet NG, Inc. – CNG-SAFE
- This is an example of a DMS solution that is designed
horizontally for deployment in a variety of industry types, but the vendor
focuses on the accounting firm market as a key niche. - Read Full
Review
- CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
– ProSystem fx Document (SaaS) - The folks at the CCH division of Wolters Kluwer
have been busy working on bring-ing their Next Generation suite of accounting
and tax applications to market, with a focus on a SaaS (Software as a
Service) deployment model. - Read Full
Review
- Conarc, Inc. – iChannel
- This offering comes at the DMS application from
a slightly different perspective than the other products reviewed here.
Conarc, the developer of iChannel, has integrated a comprehensive CRM
(client relationship management) system with DMS functionality - Read Full
Review
- Doc.It – Doc.It Suite
- The Doc.It suite has evolved to a very mature solution
as it approaches its 10-year anniversary, which is a lifetime when it
comes to accounting-centric DMS solutions. Doc.It continues to be loyal
to the concept of separating archived documents from work in process documents. - Read Full
Review
- NetDocuments R5-09
- This product was launched in 1999 and has been primarily
focused on law firms and financial services organizations. The vendor
claims to be custodian for over 100 million documents. NetDocuments is
beginning to target the accounting firm marketplace, with 20 firms currently
using the system. - Read Full
Review
- Thomson Reuters – FileCabinet
CS - FileCabinet CS is one of two powerful DMS solutions
available from Thomson Reuters, targeted specifically to the tax and accounting
marketplace. The greatest value of FileCabinet CS is derived from its
deep integration with the other solutions that make up the CS Professional
Suite for the tax and accounting profession. - Read Full
Review
- Thomson Reuters – GoFileRoom
- GoFileRoom was the pioneer application for a completely
web-hosted, browser-based DMS solution. The product was acquired by Thomson
Reuters about five years ago from Immediatech. GoFileRoom originally focused
on the large firm market but has steadily expanded into the small and
mid-size firm space with an attractive, all-inclusive pricing model. - Read Full
Review
- Treeno Software – Treeno Content
Server - Treeno Software is new entrant to our DMS reviews
this year with its Treeno Content Server. My first impression is positive.
I like the fact that it is offered as a web-hosted or on-premise solution
and that it is browser-based. Treeno Software is a relatively small company
with a staff of 12 and was founded in 2002. - Read Full
Review
- Xerox Corporation – Xerox DocuShare
- DocuShare is new to our DMS reviews this year. Xerox
has developed this as a horizontal application to work in many different
types of organizations. The focus is on small to mid-size businesses,
although DocuShare also scales to accommodate larger organizations. - Read Full
Review
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— Related Articles —
- Accessorize Your DMS
- Technologies and services that can enhance document management systems.
- Read Full
Review