Jake Grimm, Summit CPA Director of Technology, and COO Adam Hale join Jamie Nau after having attended the Live 360 IT conference in Orlando to talk about what they learned and what they're going to be bringing back to the firm. It’s important to attend conferences that are relevant to your industry or relevant to different aspects of running your business. This conference was not specific to CPA firms specifically, but it was relevant in the technology necessary for managing our team. Making conferences like this a priority for your business will be an important way to stay up to date on the latest tech or other industry standards.
“One of our strengths as a firm is that we are not afraid to move on to the next best software.” - Jamie Nau
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Narrator: Welcome to the modern CPA Success Show where we're 100 percent focused on helping accounting firms achieve success. If you're an accounting firm owner who wants to learn how to provide virtual CFO services, then this podcasts for you.
Jamie Nau: All right. Welcome to a very special podcast. Today we have Jake and Adam joining us again but this time from Orlando. So they've jumped on a phone call in between some rollercoasters. So they're going to talk to us about what they're doing down Orlando. So I'll start with you Jake. What are you guys doing down there?
Jake Grimm: So we joined we found a I.T. conference called Live 360. That really brings together a bunch of different topics in the I.T. world, Microsoft world predominantly, that we felt like was really relevant, or a lot of the different things that we're looking at as a firm. The different projects and efficiencies we're trying to bring for our team and for our clients and just security issues too, making sure we're always kind of staying in tune with what's going on from that perspective, and what new features that are out there. From a Microsoft perspective, making sure we're keeping our stuff locked up.
Adam Hale: Yeah. I think the big thing here, you know, in terms of the seminar that we're at right now it's a little bit different. Most of the time we're going to accounting centric software CBE kind of stuff, you know, like Quick Books Connect, stuff like that where we're looking at software that pertains to our industry and solves a specific piece. This is more on the backend, the dev ops side as Jake mentioned. It’s got Microsoft here a lot of SQL. So things to do with the data and how we push it together and do it in a secure fashion. So it's kind of a unique opportunity. We're definitely the oddballs in the group being like, non-tech first kind of a focus. But it's really cool to be around these folks and see all the great things that they're doing both on the security front and on the data mining side, and pretty excited about what we might be able to bring back and do with the firm.
Jamie Nau: Awesome. So on our last podcast we talked about how one of Summit’s strengths is we're not afraid to move on. So if we are using a tool, even if we have been using it for three months, we're willing to jump on to the next best thing. So what can I expect when you guys come back to the office and what kind of changes will I be seeing?
Jake Grimm: So at least for me, personally as we've been going through this conference, there's what they call: lanes of topics. There's I think six different lanes. The big three ones that apply for us specifically is Office 365 and SharePoint. Some of the power being the reporting abilities, sequel server stuff, and then security stuff. So in terms of upcoming changes, you know, what I've been kind of looking at and curious about is on Office 365 and SharePoint. We use Microsoft platforms for all of our stuff basically. So kind of better utilizing all the different applications that they have available to us. So we are looking at moving from Dropbox, we currently use that for our file storage, to SharePoint and some of the different things that we can structure inside of there. The one thing that we're considering now from this conference, is switching from Slack to using Microsoft teams for just a little bit better collaboration with our team. And just overall file structure and just kind of pieces, you know, once again all those different software tools that we use together from a reporting standpoint. Looking at Power BI pretty heavily, just to see what else is out there you know, how to better utilize that software platform and if that's something that is better ease of use for my team from a reporting standpoint. So I mean those are the three biggest ones that are coming out of this conference that we're going to be heavily testing and potentially putting into the pipeline for future changes in the near future
Adam Hale: Jake and I will talk, and I mean we definitely are still best in breed kind of software, and whenever it comes to software that's kind of our take, right? We want to make sure that we're getting the best of each piece. But there is a lot of stuff to gain within the Microsoft platform as it relates to things like SharePoint, and teams seems really cool. I mean it's got a lot of stuff for like noise reduction in the background, you know, screen drops. It might be able to replace our virtual office one of these days. So we might be able to take Slack and our virtual office, and combine it into using teams. Deliver meetings with clients that way. So maybe take out GoTo Meeting. So it's all under the same model in terms of the price and everything. Could be huge savings and works together obviously. So I think those are all really big as it relates to teams, specifically for me, that's the thing that I've been kind of hanging on to. And then as Jake mentioned Power BI it's been a beast for a long time. I think one of the things that intrigues us now is one, it's a lot more affordable than it used to be. And surprisingly it's even more flexible than it was before. I mean that was never a hang up for us a while back, but it's pretty amazing and user friendly, even I can use it which is cool. As you two know that's that means a lot. So pretty exciting stuff. I mean it doesn't look quite as cute as I'd like it to. So you know, that's important the visuals, but it's definitely super flexible. So pretty excited about Power BI what it can do for us on the back end anyway.
Jamie Nau: So you're saying if we were on team right now we wouldn't hear your cartoons playing in the background like we do currently?
Adam Hale: That's Jake's background. Yes that's what I was going to say. That's right. You don't have to hear Looney Tunes in the background. And you wouldn't have to see, I know you can't see it, but you wouldn't have to see the TV in the background of Jake.
Jamie Nau: So I'd like to hear a little bit more about SharePoint. I've used your SharePoint in the past and I know Summit originally didn't use SharePoint. We've kind of moved our providers for a lot of our files three times now. I'm just curious, what's the advantage of SharePoint and why are we moving in that direction?
Jake Grimm: The biggest thing getting all of our platforms under one house. Microsoft from a security standpoint has done a really great job of putting together a platform that can identify potential issues. And when you have those things kind of all working in the same house we can catch those flags. That's why one of the biggest things advantage wise, I feel like we're really secure with how we kind of handle our stuff now, but just that other added layer protection. Plus there's some reporting built into Microsoft that tells you security scores. It goes into very detailed areas that you can improve upon. So that's the kind of thing that we don't have as much visibility into now. That's one big thing. The other is I feel like it's little bit better from a collaboration standpoint especially with Office 365 and being able to use Excel online, and Work online. They're trying to kind of mirror a little bit of like Google applications, like google sheets where people can hop and do an excel sheet and work on it at the same time. So a lot more flexibility from that standpoint as well. kind of the two biggest factors.
Adam Hale: Which is the same reason why teams would be so good because you're able to move emails directly into your channels which is really nice, and work on documents collaboratively using SharePoint for everything. And let's be honest, there's another reason, it's also already included in our 360 platform. So we'd save a bunch of money, and don't get me wrong, one of the best moves we made was moving our file server from a traditional server over to Dropbox. Super expensive. Always had problems. And then if it wasn't the file server issues it was usually the applications and everything. So whenever we made that effort to move all of our stuff to the cloud in terms of our applications, moving the file server to the cloud was a huge win for us both in cost savings and headache. And so this just seems kind of like a nice next step. And as Jake mentioned security is a big thing. I mean for us that's you know, got to be the focal point. And with Microsoft, in that integration, we probably step up the security a little bit with the conversion. So that will be good.
Jamie Nau: Great. It sounds exciting. Like I said, I've used SharePoint in the past and I think the integration is huge. You know just the fact that everything's in a Microsoft platform, and makes it easier to communicate and also move from file to file, all that good stuff.
Jamie Nau: So let's talk a little bit about, just to move on from the conference a bit. How did you guys get down there? And this is something I know the answer to, but I'm curious and our listeners want to know, what is our CPE policy and how do we help our employees get this type of training?
Adam Hale: So for us we like to sit down with everybody at the beginning of the year and kind of map out what they want to do, you know. Whenever we're working with them on their annual review we talk about what do they want to work on in the future. What skills do they need to develop, those kind of things. But in terms of the financial aspects of it and coordinating everything, we turn that over to the team. So you know we'll talk about those things, if we see those things out via email or what-have -ou on the web, I might reach out to Jamie and say, hey you know I remember you talking about X Y Z. I found a great conference for you. But from a financial perspective, we do PEX cards. So everybody gets a little bit of money loaded on to a prepaid card and you're in control of that. So you can, as it relates to CPE specifically, you know we always tell our team, you know, grab one of those $499 a year. Get as much CPE as you can. Make sure that you hit all your requirements for your license and all that kind of good stuff, and then save the rest of the money to go to a high impact conference. You know Jake chose this one here in Orlando. I think it's because he really likes Disneyworld. But outside of Disney, I think it definitely is going to fit the development skills, and we wouldn't find this conference in our CPE stuff, right? Like this just doesn't exist. But it's something that's super important and is really going to help the I.T. team. It’s going to help Jake and obviously the company as well. So having the ability for him just to kind of go out and search whatever he wants to pay for, it it's a no brainer for us.
Jamie Nau: And then are three of you there, or four of you? How many people from Summit are at the conference?
Jake Grimm: Three of us. So we have Patrick with us. We're trying to get two more with our I.T. team to join but with other things going on they weren't able to come this week. So we're sad that we couldn't get everyone here, but there's three of us and I'm trying to soak in as much of content as we can.
Jamie Nau: I think that's the other part that's really great about the way Summit does it. You travel in groups. A lot of times you'll see three or four people out of the office and in different locations and really getting to know each other, and that's one of the advantages of our distributed office is you get to know people via video, but you don't always get to see them in person. So if there's a conference in Los Angeles, or Florida, or somewhere in New York, that everybody wants to go to, they can group together and say, let's pull our funds and let's go to that conference and get out there, and get to hang out a little bit. So that's cool that the three of you are out there and having a good time.
Adam Hale: Oh yeah. The escape room is on the agenda tomorrow, so you want to talk about bonding together. Get locked into a room for an hour, figuring your way out. Luckily it's the tech team, they should be able to get right through it.
Jamie Nau: You guys are three smart guys and you're all super competitive. So I think you'll be bragging about how fast it took you to get out of that room
Adam Hale: It’s always which one is the hardest and how fast can we get out. That kind of stuff is really important too. I mean that's a great point. I mean culture goes hand-in-hand with the education as well. I mean you know, in order to stay high impact in your position you've got to be curious about what you do. You got to have a little bit of a passion for what you do, and being able to have the opportunity to go out and find your own education, not to check a box for a state society is really important. And it becomes more meaningful whenever you're able to take a few friends from the team, and have them join you. It makes it a little fun with learning. Definitely a much better experience for sure.
Jamie Nau: So we talked about the education PEX card, and I know Summit uses PEX cards quite a bit. Can you talk about the other ways we use PEX cards and how that helps the employee?
Adam Hale: Yeah on the tech stipend side, so similar to how we work the education side. We have another PEX card that we give the team, and we load that with I think, about two hundred bucks a month, is what everybody gets, and that two hundred dollars is tax free. And the team is free to spend that money on anything home office driven. So if you want to buy a different chair, a standing desk, a new headset, whatever, you can use it toward your cell phone because a lot of times our team will use their cell phone as their primary phone, although they have a cell phone. You can use it towards your internet and most importantly the primary purpose of it is to handle your machine. So that's our most important tool in our tool bag. Making sure that we have the latest and greatest in terms of a computer. And so whenever you sign on at Summit we hook you up with a really nice machine right out of the gate that you can either purchase, or you can lease, and that lease can come out of your PEX card. You know we can just directly take that off of there.
Jamie Nau: For me—I am an accountant. So I'm always a little frugal. I always hesitate buying things and having a PEX card has definitely helped me make some purchases that have made me more efficient. And also the things I've appreciated. Recently I bought a Surface tablet that I use for taking notes, and talking about Microsoft I use it for One Note. Take all my notes in there now, and they're all integrated in one place and that's been super helpful.
Jamie Nau: So Jake, any cool purchases you made with your PEX card?
Jake Grimm: A year ago I bought a really nice standing desk, that was one that I really enjoy. I do have a Surface as well. I had that previously and I bought a couple of things more recently to do the note taking. I bought a smart pencil for it, and a couple other things to just to kind of help from a note taking perspective. Those are the two biggest ones. I did save up for a while and bought a pretty hardware-heavy desktop computer that I use at my home office for processing a lot of Excel files predominantly, so those are the biggest ones for me.
Adam Hale: So the computer nerd has three computers is what I just heard.
Jake Grimm: I do. I have a little Surface, I have a laptop and my desktop.
Adam Hale: A standing desk was definitely a quality purchase with a little stool, that's nice. But yeah I mean it's cool. I mean people are pretty creative on our team. They come up with all kinds of really cool things to use that money on and that's great. I mean in terms from a business owner perspective, you know, being distributed has a lot of advantages to it. And one of them is we're able to control some of those costs. So instead of people just asking for things and things breaking down randomly, putting that budgetary item back on their plate is so that they can get to decide what's important and what's not important. And then as an employer we're able to set those boundaries and know what to expect from an education standpoint. We know what to expect from a technical office supply standpoint. So being able to walk those things in place is pretty important.
Jamie Nau: Did you use that money to buy your golf course fathead that's behind you at your house?
Adam Hale: Of course, that's an office essential. Everyone should have one.
Jamie Nau: You know every time we talk to Adam on video it looks like he's on a sunny golf course, and behind him people playing. So a very good purchase.
Adam Hale: Yes. And it's makes me feel good. I can look into my camera and see that nice, sunny golf course, it's pumps me up for the day. Gets me my sunshine.
Jamie Nau: All right. So one final question for each of you. I'll start with you Jake. So which is your favorite park down at Disney World and which is your favorite ride?
Jake Grimm: My family came down Saturday and Sunday before this conference. So we hit up Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. My favorite ride was probably at Hollywood Studios, and it was the new slinky dash ride. So it's was pretty fun. Kids enjoyed it. The Star Wars Land: Hollywood Studios is pretty cool. I'm a big Star Wars nerd. I've been getting into the new Mandalorian show. So it was cool to walk around and see. I'm excited for the new ride. It’s a ride that's opening in like three weeks I was kind of disappointed that this conference couldn’t wait like a month for us to come down here for that next ride to open up. But those are the two biggest things that I took away from heading to the parks.
Jamie Nau: What about you Adam?
Adam Hale: I've been working. I've been working hard at the conference learning a bunch of different stuff. No, actually the only one that I've been to so far is Hollywood Studios. So planning on hitting a couple more the next day or two, and then go into universal so TBD. But for right now I think the Star Wars one in Hollywood Studios was probably my favorite. Although I missed the Indiana Jones stunt one. I heard that's pretty amazing too. Not really a ride but more of an attraction.
Jamie Nau: It's pretty cool. They show one whole scene from the movie and kind of show you how they did it which is which is pretty fun to watch.
Jamie Nau: Well I definitely appreciate you guys joining us from your conference and I think we got a lot out of this conversation. Like I said definitely excited for you guys to come back and to work through all the changes. I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining the show.
Adam Hale: All right thanks Jamie.
Narrator: Enjoy this episode? Visit our website at: summitcpa.net to get more tips and strategies for achieving modern CPA firm success. We're here to be a resource in this ever-changing industry.