Services Designed for Accounting
and Financial Planning Firms
Hi there,
My name is Scott Linden Jones and I am the Founder and General Manager of IT Leaders.
Over the past 7 years IT Leaders has been built around the importance of three things in business; skills, systems, and ethics. This has lead to sustained high growth, many hundreds of business clients that trust us with their businesses, an excellent reputation, and impeccably low staff turnover, this is a key part of our success.
There is currently (right now!) a a very real opportunity in the financial services sector for forward-thinking firms to leverage technology and gain significant competetive advantage. In response to the need in the financial services industry for an ethical, reliable and versatile technology provider that can expertly manage and advise firms of all sizes, I have prepared the following list of services that have been customised just for you.
This list will continue to grow as we release new products and services that are designed solely for the financial services industry.
Please browse the page at your leisure and also the rest of the site; there are many articles available to assist you in understanding the risks and benefits of technology issues, and these articles have been written for non-technical people to understand. Education of our clients is a very big part of what we do on a daily basis.
Please feel free to contact me or the IT Leaders teams at any time for advice.
Scott Jones
Technology Audits
Get a report in a language you can understand on exactly how your technology is impacting your business, either positively or negatively. There are very real risks involved with IT such as security, productivity and data loss. Most of these risks are increasing each year, and financial services firms are a key target for growing commercial espionage activites which is leading to increased legislation regarding IT security.
If you don't know how many software licences you own versus how many you use, and you don't know how old your computers are and whether they are slowing your staff down, let us take out all the guess work. Our audit and monitoring tools can show you exactly what you have, and show you graphs of which machines are at maximum capacity and actually slowing your staff down, and the most cost effective way to get rid of that bottleneck. Whether it's $100 RAM upgrades to extend the life of existing systems, or creating a technology lifecycle management plan to make budgeting as simple and effective as possible, we can help.
Either way, you want your staff members working at full speed because generally speaking, their time costs you a lot more than the technology they use.
Once you know where you are, we can help you plan and get to where you want to be - safe, efficient and profitable!
Click Here for more information on IT Audits
Business Safety Essentials
Unfortunately many businesses get stung by the risks associated with IT because they are not adequately prepared. Do you have a good Antivirus product that is up to date? Would anyone notice if it had expired? Do your computers have subversive spyware installed that slow them down and pose a security threat? Does your backup actually WORK each night? When did you last test restore it to check? If you realised today that an important file was deleted last month around the 7th, do you know if your backup system would recover it? Do you have an adequate firewall to stop hacking to your computers via the Internet?
These are important questions that cause financial loss and the demise of a great many unprepared businesses every year. These and many other questions we answer and transparently manage for all of our clients who take up our award-winning "Drive" IT Management services.
Articles you may find useful:
Complete IT Management
We specialise in managing your technology so that it requires the lowest possible effort from you, and delivers the highest possible ROI and business safety. We understand that downtime costs you money every single minute and we have completely engineered our offering to minimise downtime in ways that no other IT firm in Australia is doing.
Savvy business owners and executives understand that technology can give their business tremendous leverage over increasingly expensive human resources. in this way it can have a MAJOR effect on your bottom line.
With IT Leader's DRIVE! IT Management Plans, we report personally to you each month on network health, maintenance conducted, remote and onsite support deliverables, and strategic suggestions for IT improvement, AND we do it all for a predictable fixed monthly price.
Click Here and Fall in Love with Your IT...
We also have Drive [Assist] for larger firms with in-house IT resources. This is the ideal dynamic supplement to your existing resources, adding to your abilities and reducing your risks and support bottlenecks. Read more about Drive [Assist] here.
Procurement Support
Your time is incredibly valuable in dealing with clients (for both them and you!) You shouldn't have to waste that time on trying to figure out what technology your business needs.
Small firms are often quoted unnecessarily large sums of money for servers and network equipment when their business models and growth expectations just don't justify it. By contrast, it is also common the see servers deployed where inadequate thought has been given to the full lifespan of the equipment and what growth will occur in the business over that time. It is important to get the right equipment for both productivity and return on investment. This is also why online retailers and cut-price retailers will have trouble giving you the right advice - simply because they can't UNDERSTAND your business or what it needs without being fully involved. This needs a personal touch.
A typical firm could happily get 3+ years out of server between $3500 and $5500 in value - something like $3 a day for excellent quality equipment.
A firm of 50 to 200 staff requires a careful consulting process to determine requirements and implementation - advice we are only too happy to give.
Click Here for the advantages to getting a Microsoft Server if your practice is a small one.
Click Here for more information on the types of equipment we can supply.
Articles that may assist you:
Websites & Database Marketing
A website is only as good as the revenue and client retention that it generates. FAR too many website companies focus on producing pretty looking websites that don't have sound marketing principles behind them. The result is thousands of dollars wasted on an ineffective online prescence.
With IT Leaders websites you have a massive range of features to choose from, and you get a personalised service to ensure that you are quoted on and delivered a truly useful website for your business needs.
If you could see how easily our Database Marketing module can deliver ongoing personalised contact with your client-base, you will wonder how you've done without it. Keep in touch with your client base by:
- Sending regular awesome looking newsletters with perfect formating every time,
- Writing and publishing expert articles to remind them that you are the gospel for financial planning!
- Sending e-cards - how about a FULLY AUTOMATED Happy Birthday e-card for every client? Full points for remembering even when you didn't!
- Surveying your client base to find out waht they want to buy from you
- Running seminars - as you may already do.. but slash your seminar admin costs with the Event Management tools.
The Database marketing module with a customised training service for your firm's admin staff costs only $1800 plus a small monthly hosting charge for the volume of email you send out. you can easily import your existing client database from COIN or VISY etc and get started with e-marketing in a matter of hours.
If you want a full website (where the e-maketing seemlessly integrates) we have packages that are designed for your industry from only $3950, completed to your satisfaction within 30 days including the basic training you need to put your admin staff in charge of keeping it up to date - it's easy to do!
Read More about our Websites Here
Some articles for you to digest:
Phone Systems, Telephony, VoIP
Our award-winning Talkswitch range of PBX phone systems give you all the features of phone systems costing 5 times the price. IT Leaders is one of only a handful of Talkswitch certified providers in Australia.
These systems are versatile, can link multiple offices for free inter-calling, can allow you to dial out over either standard phone lines or cheap/free internet (VoIP) lines, have easily programmable menus and voicemail and music on hold and... well the list of what they can do is very long.
Don't know what VoIP or IP Telephony is? Don't know what to look for in a phone system?
Click Here for more information without any techno babble.
Remote Workplace Solutions
Need to get your staff (or yourself) out of the office more, but you're glued to the office phone or email?
Getting calls and email automatically routed to your mobile phone is not hard or expensive.
Click Here for more information
Custom Software for Accountants
Right now we are building a version of our StreamLeader ERP software just for accounting and financial planning firms. It will solve many common issues such as:
- Tracking new client acquisition via a sales pipeline
- Controlling corporate communications and emarketing messages
- Bringing together multiple data sources, and being able to utilise that data in new ways
- Improving the productivity of your office with task-driven workflow
- Seamless integration to Leading Accounts financial package
Right now we are also in development of a "Accountants Only" version of our Leading Accounts bookingkeeping/accounting software.
We cant give too many details away yet, but getting your clients to use our bookkeeping software will give you tools to let you bill more and work less and your clients will love you for it. Most accounting firms have not yet learned to utilise the real advantages of technology - it's not just about PCs and servers and billing software! Watch this space or get in touch with us for more information prior to launch.
We look forward to working with your Practice to make your business more successful!
Sincerely,
Scott Jones
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