A common perception of accountants and accounting professionals is that they are notoriously reluctant to change. Some of them may believe that they are not subject to the relentless advance of technology, because accounting practices as a whole have been the same seemingly forever. But the tools used to do the job have not stayed the same, however, and with the advent of the cloud, the entirety of how modern accounting is done is in the middle of a technical revolution.

Jim McGinnis, VP Product Management, ProConnect, at Intuit Inc., sat down with John Walls (@JohnWalls21) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the Quickbooks Connect event in San Jose, CA, to discuss the metamorphosis of modern accounting and how Intuit is working to smooth the transition to the cloud for accounting professionals.

The ‘Firm of the Future’

While it’s true that some accounting professionals may be apprehensive at first about changing how they do business, Intuit is trying to ease the transition with their ‘Firm of the Future’ concept. The concept breaks down the process into several steps that allows accounting firms to gradually feel more comfortable with the change, and in the end understand that their business will be much more successful once they are online and cloud connected and are able to take advantage of what this new way has to offer, according to McGinnis.

“Sometimes our accounting professionals or ProAdvisors will come to us and say, ‘Can’t you make it simpler? Can’t you break it down into a few steps so I can follow a roadmap step-by-step and get there?'” said McGinnis. “And we’ve done that a little bit with our concept of Firm of the Future.”

The advantages of being cloud-based

Once accounting professionals realize the benefit of moving to the cloud, most are convinced that doing so is not only required, but that it will greatly enhance their business. Tasks that were once a necessary part of doing business, such as meeting with clients or the legwork required to get one piece of information, are no longer required, McGinnis explained. The information is there online, and so are their customers, along with a growing ecosystem of partners that will help them run their business. So while making the transition may be uncomfortable at first, in the end they realize just how much they will benefit from it.

“All those desktops, they are coffins. The data is buried underneath your desk, and it’s unusable in so many ways,” said McGinnis. “When the data moves up into the cloud, now you can make connections between industries. We’re able to connect all these fabulous developers who are building solutions that we would never have been able to build. It changes everything.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of QuickBooks Connect.

*Disclosure: Intuit and other companies sponsor some QuickBooks Connect segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither Intuit nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.

Photo by SiliconANGLE