IRIS simplifies collaboration between accountancy practices and clients with latest version of flagship accountancy suite
IRIS World 2013, the annual conference series for the UK’s accountancy sector, has swung into action with a presentation from tax expert, Mike Warburton of chartered accountants Grant Thornton. Free to attend, the event, at London’s Twickenham Stadium, was specifically designed to inform and update accountancy practices across the UK on the latest developments in the market.
Keynote speaker, Warburton gave an illuminating summary of some of the main tax changes and tax cases over the past twelve months in the UK including the General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR); Statutory Residence and key changes in the Finance Act. He also outlined some planning ideas on Entrepreneur’s Relief.
Following the Twickenham event, the IRIS World conference series will visit the Ricoh Arena, Coventry (9 October); Salford City Stadium, Manchester (15 October) and Macdonald Inchyra Hotel, Falkirk, Scotland (23 October). This year’s conference series is expected to attract over 1,000 accountancy professionals, looking for the latest updates on technology, innovation and compliance.
New IRIS software solutions
Phill Robinson, CEO of IRIS Software Group, the UK market leader in accountancy and payroll software, also gave a morning keynote highlighting new products and new software functionality introduced by IRIS over the past 12 months. He focused on the growing portfolio of cloud-based accountancy solutions and growing base of over 40,000 end-users choosing to work in the cloud.
Highlights included the introduction of:
• IRIS Practice Dashboards – Instant graphical snapshots of key performance indicators (KPIs) direct from the IRIS integrated database;
• IRIS OpenWebsite – Takes the effort out of developing and managing an effective website for an accountancy practice;
• IRIS OpenTax – the UKs first professional personal, partnership and corporation tax return application for accountancy firms delivered as a service over the web;
• IRIS OpenAudit – Cloud-based financial audit solution, applying the market leading Mercia methodology for a wide range of business entities.
Robinson also explored key new capabilities that IRIS has added to other applications including: IRIS OpenSpace e-Approval; IRIS OpenSpace/IRIS Docs integration and IRIS Client Dashboards. In addition, he focused on integration, the foundation of IRIS accountancy software and explained how this approach is applied to every product the company’s designs and releases.
Robinson’s presentation updated delegates on the functionality of the company’s upcoming IRIS release v11.3, including details of new accountancy-specific, taxation and practice development functionality including accounts production for academies. This was followed by an ‘IRIS in Practice’ session, detailing the added value that accountancy practices can access directly by working with IRIS.
In-depth consultancy
The afternoon featured breakout sessions on topics including the IRIS future compliance roadmap and tips on making the most of the IRIS accountancy software, alongside detailed expert advice on areas such as how to “Transform auditing with the cloud”; “How to increase practice efficiency for the tax season and beyond”, “Maximising data and reporting in your practice”; and “How to market your practice online and win new clients.” The day concluded with a section, entitled Cloud computing and accountancy, with sessions devoted to: “leveraging the benefits of cloud alongside desktop applications” and “revolutionising the client accountant relationship with cloud bookkeeping.
According to Robinson, “In line with our own strategic focus on enabling practices to successfully navigate the changing accountancy landscape, IRIS World is packed full of useful ideas and information to help take advantage of the latest technological breakthroughs and drive enhanced profitability and competitive edge. It’s a must attend event for any forward-thinking practice.”
To register for forthcoming events or for more details about IRIS World 2013 visit www.iris.co.uk/irisworld
New completely paperless tax process, from start to finish
Extends seamless integration between desktop and cloud
IRIS Software Group, the UK market leader in accountancy and payroll software, has released the latest version of its award-winning integrated solution for accountancy practices. Available from today, IRIS Accountancy Suite v11.4 introduces a range of new capabilities designed to help accountancy practices to collaborate more efficiently with their clients. This includes new e-Checklists which enable accountants to securely request and collect personal tax data from their clients online. The release also enables deeper integration between IRIS Accounts Production, the market-leading final accounts software and IRIS OpenAudit, the cloud-based financial audit solution; and seamless integration between IRIS Accounts Production and KashFlow, the online bookkeeping solution from IRIS. Fully compliant with the latest tax legislation introduced in April 2014, v11.4 ensures practices and their clients stay ahead of new regulations, including updated forms and amendments to letters of engagement, across the suite. After a successful trial of the new version James Hayes, Associate Director at Fawcetts Chartered Accountants, commented:“The key enhancement for us is e-Checklists. This is really going to improve the flow of tax information between us and our clients. Clients have asked us ‘why don’t you just send me my tax return?’ when we have sent them a paper-based checklist in the past. “The new e-Checklists will show real value to our clients. IRIS OpenSpace e-Approval has been a recent move for us and using paper-based checklists seemed a backwards step, so moving to e-Checklists in this digital era is great. It means our tax process is now completely paperless from start to finish.”In addition, IRIS Accountancy Suite v11.4 features enhancements to the client dashboards module to simplify client interaction; faster reporting in IRIS Accounts Production; IRIS Practice Dashboards improvements and new Micro-Entities reporting in accordance with The Small Companies Regulations 2013. Phill Robinson, CEO of IRIS:
“IRIS Accountancy Suite is designed to give users a complete picture of their practice, clients and workload – enabling them to make decisions based on the best possible information. In this release we have added a range of capabilities that make it easier than ever before for firms to collaborate with their clients”e-Checklists in detail IRIS Personal Tax users can create and share personalised e-Checklists online to request tax data. Clients then simply complete the e-Checklist by providing details of this year’s income and reliefs and add any relevant attachments within the IRIS OpenSpace secure online document exchange application. The completed e-Checklist and attachments are then seamlessly transferred back to IRIS Personal Tax for verification by the accountant. e-Checklists can easily be tailored to the specific needs of both practices and their clients, making it easy to ask additional questions and ensuring that amending existing questions – for each individual client or for all clients at once – is easy to achieve. The new capability enables accountancy practices to eliminate the slow and painful process of manually collecting tax information from clients by collecting the data seamlessly, over the internet, as part of a completely paperless process. The result is a digital process that enhances process efficiencies for clients, driving time and cost savings and, at the same time, bringing additional environmental benefits. Customers are invited to a free online webinar outlining all of the enhancements, which can be further enhanced by on-site, remote and e-learning training. More details about the latest version of the IRIS Accountancy Suite can be found at www.iris.co.uk/whatsnew What’s new in IRIS v11.4?
