Small firms can do big business online.The Internet is an inexpensive gateway for novel MCS (1) See Microsoft Cluster Server. (2) (Microsoft Consulting Services) The consulting arm of Microsoft which offers support for installation and maintenance of Microsoft applications and operating systems. engagements. John E Lacher, CPA (Computer Press Association, Landing, NJ) An earlier membership organization founded in 1983 that promoted excellence in computer journalism. Its annual awards honored outstanding examples in print, broadcast and electronic media. The CPA disbanded in 2000. , is a sole practitioner who devotes his entire practice to management consulting Noun 1. management consulting - a service industry that provides advice to those in charge of running a business service industry - an industry that provides services rather than tangible objects . His clients range from other CPAs to small businesses to a Fortune 1000 company, from Louisiana to California to Sweden. But he never leaves his office to perform an engagement. Lacher has carved carve v. carved, carv·ing, carves v.tr. 1. a. To divide into pieces by cutting; slice: carved a roast. b. a niche for himself consulting online exclusively on various Microsoft products, especially the popular Excel spreadsheet program. Clients e-mail him projects and he delivers the finished product the same way. "A typical small engagement might start with a job to modify an Excel spreadsheet," he said. "A client may want me to add an advanced feature or an automation function to make it more useful. A chief financial officer may want some additional reporting, but he or she doesn't have the expertise on staff so will call on me. Clients send me partially completed spreadsheets; I add the features they need and return them." He's working with a CPA in Louisiana to develop an order entry system. Another CPA in California wants to develop a financial reporting package. "My largest current engagement is to develop an executive information system for the chairman and top management of a major corporation. We'll pull in text files from all the management reports. These data will be loaded into a database, and then a series of Excel worksheets will make sense-- for the first time--of all that information." MERGING MULTIPLE TALENTS Lacher has spent most of his career as a management accountant, serving as manager, director, vice-president and regional vice-president for small, mid-size and Fortune 500 companies in a variety of areas. Nearly two years ago Lacher got the idea for this consulting service Noun 1. consulting service - service provided by a professional advisor (e.g., a lawyer or doctor or CPA etc.) service - work done by one person or group that benefits another; "budget separately for goods and services" as a logical combination of over 20 years' accounting experience and his computer skills. He saw an increasing number of businesspeople joining online discussion forums to exchange information about computer topics. They had a lot of data and knew the tools were out to there to sort and make sense of the information, but they lacked the skills. Computer programmers This is a list of programmers notable for their contributions to software, either as original author or architect, or for later additions. See also: Game programmer, List of computer scientists had the technology skills but not the financial knowledge to give the companies what they needed. Lacher concluded there might be a niche for a CPA who could apply information technology to business problems. Lacher works with clients who are comfortable sending and receiving files over the Internet; he's designed his Web site to make this as easy as possible. Lacher points to his many satisfied clients as proof that this is fertile fer·tile adj. 1. Capable of conceiving and bearing young. 2. Fertilized. Used of an ovum. ground for CPAs interested in MCS engagements. He notes that currently only clients already interested in information technology may be comfortable with online consulting as opposed to more traditional MCS engagements. However, he believes that as more and more businesses become even minimally proficient pro·fi·cient adj. Having or marked by an advanced degree of competence, as in an art, vocation, profession, or branch of learning. n. An expert; an adept. in using the Internet, other MCS areas will open up to online consulting, even for CPAs only minimally skilled in Internet use. Lacher maintains a traditional billing structure, however, billing most of his longer jobs by the hour. Small engagements are billed at a fiat [Latin, Let it be done.] In old English practice, a short order or warrant of a judge or magistrate directing some act to be done; an authority issuing from some competent source for the doing of some legal act. rate. APPROPRIATE MARKETING What better way to advertise online services than on the Internet.> Lacher has a Web site (http://www.lacher. com) that is both a gateway to sign up for his services and an advertisement. It contains examples and tutorials in spreadsheet use and descriptions of his services. He includes half a dozen quotes from clients around the globe, showing visitors not only the quality of his services but his ability to "travel" all over the world with his online capabilities (see "People Who Have Been to Worthington," page 82). He does not have elaborate graphics, which can take a long time to load, so his site pops up quickly. As a marketing tool, it's worth a look even for CPAs not involved in MCS. Online forms (see exhibit on page 79) make submitting a query or small engagement easy even for clients still learning their way around the Web, and Lacher provides not only his email address See Internet address. but "snail mail Mail sent via a country's government-regulated postal system. (messaging) snail mail - (Or "snailmail", "smail" from "US Mail" via "USnail"; "paper mail"). Bits of dead tree sent via the postal service as opposed to electronic mail. " (traditional paper-and-envelope mail) address and phone number. The software to set up the Web site was Microsoft FrontPage Microsoft FrontPage (later full name Microsoft Office FrontPage) was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It was part of Microsoft Office application suite from 1997 to 2003. , available for under $200. Lacher spends $24.95 per month for maintenance. He paid a one-time set-up fee of $49 and $100 for a two-year domain registry that reserves "lacher. com" for him. Hypertext Markup Language (hypertext, World-Wide Web, standard) Hypertext Markup Language - (HTML) A hypertext document format used on the World-Wide Web. HTML is built on top of SGML. "Tags" are embedded in the text. A tag consists of a "<", a "directive" (in lower case), zero or more parameters and a ">". (HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. ), the language used to set up a Web site, can be daunting daunt tr.v. daunt·ed, daunt·ing, daunts To abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay. [Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin for the novice, but Lacher is able to modify his site even without using HTML: "I can create an Excel example and copy it onto my Web page for instant posting. The software even came with an automatic search engine, so visitors to my site can go directly to any topic."(See "Doing Business on the Internet," JofA, Mar. 96, page 42, for details on how to set up a site and its costs.) Lacher is not affiliated with Microsoft, the company that manufactures Excel and other software he uses, but he does advertise he is a Microsoft Most Valued Professional Award winner for his work on the CompuServe Excel online forum. (This is not only good marketing but community service to the online world.) He participates in other online forums as well. Other marketing efforts include posting his Web site on the various Internet search engines (the Yellow Pages of the Internet) such as Lycos and Yahoo. Such listings are free. Lacher writes articles for specialty information technology magazines and material for Que, a computer book publisher. Lacher is not shy about sharing his knowledge: "I'd love to see more CPAs doing online consulting. The more who do it, the more it will be accepted. It's a great way to do business." EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * JOHN LACHER, CPA, DEVOTES his whole practice to helping businesses of all sizes arrange their data in useful, sophisticated Excel spreadsheets. * HE KEEPS HIS OVERHEAD LOW by performing all his engagements online: Clients send him assignments online, and he returns the finished product the same way. * LACHER DEVELOPED THIS NICHE from his twin skills: software competencies developed working in a variety of industries and business and financial knowledge gleaned from his CPA background. * MARKETING AND BUSINESS are conducted through a World Wide Web site that was easy to set up and is inexpensive to maintain. * EVEN CPAs WITH MINIMAL ONLINE SKILLS will be able to enter the online consulting niche in a variety of areas, although right now information technology engagements are by far the most common. RICHARD J. KORETO is a news editor at the Journal. Mr. Koreto is an employee of the American Institute of CPAs and his views, as expressed in this article, do not necessarily reflect the views of the AICPA AICPA See American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). . Official positions are determined through certain specific committee procedures, due process and deliberation deliberation n. the act of considering, discussing, and, hopefully, reaching a conclusion, such as a jury's discussions, voting and decision-making. DELIBERATION, contracts, crimes. . Firm Profile Name: John E Lacher CPA Year opened: 1995 Location: Worthington, Ohio Worthington is a city in Franklin County, Ohio, United States. The population was 14,125 at the 2000 census. The city was founded in 1803 by the Scioto Company led by James Kilbourne, who was later elected to the United States House of Representatives. Total personnel: 1 Number of partners: 1 Number of CPAs: 1 Areas of concentration: Online consulting on various Microsoft Office Microsoft's primary desktop applications for Windows and Mac. Depending on the package, it includes some combination of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook along with various Internet and other utilities. software products including Excel, Access and Word. Percentage of fees in online consulting: 100% Size of clients: Sole practitioners to Fortune 1000 Type of clients: Other CPAs and companies that are developing applications with Microsoft Office. Type of applications: Financial reporting and analysis, order entry, commission calculation, estimating, forecasting, time reporting, inventory control and executive information systems. Advertising and marketing programs: Web page at http://www. lacher.com and participation in online forums. Magazine articles and contributing author to several Que computer publications. Best things I did in the first year and a half of business: Establish an Internet presence and high visibility in online forums. Focus on serving the growing market for Microsoft Office products. Worst things I did in the first year and a half of business: Lost focus by spending too much time writing technical books--with little return. People Who Have Been to Worthington Worthington, Ohio, where John F. Lacher, CPA, is located nor--really does not receive a great many visitors. But Lacher has been keeping track of those who visit his Web site and this partial list shows the power of the Internet to bring together small companies and individuals located nowhere near each other or any metropolitan area. Project engineer at Xerox Professor at University of Salzberg Chief accountant for a church Analyst programmer (1) A hardware device used to customize a programmable logic chip such as a PAL, GAL, EPROM, etc. See PROM programmer. (2) A person who designs the logic for and writes the lines of codes of a computer program. in Ireland Owner of a plumbing plumbing, piping systems inside buildings for water supply and sewage. The Romans had a highly developed plumbing system; water was brought to Rome by aqueducts and distributed to homes in lead pipes—hence the name plumbing from the Latin word plumbum company Realtor Forestry research assistant in Finland Administrative assistant in a trucking company U.S. Air Force flight commander Sony engineer in Thailand School district treasurer Sales coordinator at trailer manufacturer Information technology manager at Swiss railroad railroad or railway, form of transportation most commonly consisting of steel rails, called tracks, on which freight cars, passenger cars, and other rolling stock are drawn by one locomotive or more. Head of music at religious college |
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