2020 Innovation Group

New Products available

April 2007 saw the launch of Forms Letters and Tools 2007 - updated standard letters, administration and internal forms and checklists.

May 2007 - Tax Tips 2007/2008 launched. Now with 87 tools, including the ever popular Should I incorporate?, Tax Credits, Car tax calculator, salary v dividend and many more. Full details from 2020 at http://www.the2020group.com

Las Vegas Day 2

An early start for a 7:30 breakfast session - a choice of five to go to. After a short break Chris Frederiksen spoke on "Making the World flat for accountants". This focussed on outsourcing and case studies and photos from his recent visit to India to see for himself "how it is done". He was ably assisted by 2020 member Mark Levy of Berley & Co who has been outsourcing very successfully to India for some 12 months.

Roman Kepczyk of InfoTech brought us the Technology Solutions for Today's CPA - with a look at the latest devleopments in scanning and OCR techniques to get data straight from scan into a tax return, some of the features in Windows Vista which make it an real "must" for accountants to upgrade, and a look at some of the developments we can expect to see in the future - both hardware and software.

Las Vegas - Management Summit

18 January - first day of the Management Summit conference in sunny Las Vegas. An early start - welcome speech at 8 a.m. and all suffering a bit from jet lag - and excess beer in one or two cases!

An excellent speech by Bob Prosen of the Bob Prosen Center for Business Advancement. His book "Kiss theory Goodbye - Five Proven Ways to get Extraordinary Results in Any Company" formed the basis of his talk, which was very well received. The book was an Award Winner in 2006 in the USABookNews.com awards. ISBN10 number is 0-9776848-0-6 if you want to order it.

This was followed by Sam Allred CPA speaking on Serving only A-Level Clients, with observations about the clients we serve, getting rid of bad clients, screening for A - Level clients and consistently delivering A - level service. Watch out for some tools to help you identify "bad" clients and screen potential clients in the next version of Forms, Letters and Tools due out in March 2007.

Online Backup

A number of 2020 members are now using Online Backup to ensure their data is securely backed up. Backup tapes can go missing and also are subject to restore failures.

“I’ve just signed up with Bunker Backup after a two week trial. It’s all it says it would be and gives me peace of mind - especially as I now know my e-mails and precious attachments are backed up daily. One of the best recommendations from 2020!” Ed Ratnam, 2020 Member

Why Online backup?

• Hassle free and convenient. You can schedule when you want your backups to take place.

• No need to remember to take a copy. Backups are automatic and can be taken daily.

• Low cost. No tape, zip drives or local media to purchase, no staff training or staff involvement.

• Multiple file versions kept. You can recover earlier versions of the files you have stored.

• Secure and efficient transmission of data. Your information is encrypted and compressed before it is sent.

• A single solution. You can backup servers, desktops and laptops at the same time.

• Secure data storage. State of the art data storage facilities with 24/7 monitoring and support.

• Know what's there. You can clearly see what files and folders have been backed up.

• Confidence in your data security. Your files are secured with an encryption key that only you have access to.

If you are interested in further details of Bunker Backup then download a FREE no obligation trial copy of the software from https://www.bunkerbackupwa.com/2020GROUP100601.exe or call Vernon King at Bunker Backup on T.020 7603 1007. Email v.king@bunkerbackup.com or visit www.bunkerbackup.com.

Technical CPD program 2007

Our new Technical CPD Programme will run in Birmingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Gatwick, London and Nottingham. For further details go to http://www.the2020group.com/cms/document/Technical2007.pdf 

Practice Management Series 2007

We are delighted to announce that we have finalised our Practice Management Series of seminars in 2007 and members continue to enjoy free attendance at 6 seminars. For further details go to http://www.the2020group.com/cms/document/PM2007.pdf

Tax Tips and Tools

Tax Tips and Tools 2006 will be entered into the 2007 LexisNexis Tax Awards. The entry document is currently being written. We hope to go one better than last year, where we were shortlisted, and emulate our success in 2005 when the product was awarded "Best Tax Software".

Developments are currently in progress for Tax Tips and Tools 2007. If you have any suggestions for tools to add to the product we would be delighted to hear from you.

The Accountants Toolbox

Our newest 2020 product - "The Accountants ToolBox" is currently under development and will be released in February 2007. This product highlights over 60 "gizmos, gadgets and software" readily available to enhance your service delivery and improve efficiencies.

As an example, how about sending voice email instead of lengthy typing?

Las Vegas 2007

We will be reporting shortly on the "Management Summit" a two day conference to be held in Las Vegas in January 2007. Some exciting sessions are promised.

Welcome!

Welcome to the 2020 Innovation "blog". Blogging is the "new phenomenon - and is here to stay. Publish your comments, rants and raves about anything you like in the accounting, tax or legal world, or ask questions or seek advice and help.