Despite significant technological investments, most firms have not realized their vision of
integrated applications seamlessly sharing client and firm data. In fact, most firms currently
have a technology stack that represents departmental requirements rather than integrated firm solutions. As a result, people waste time entering redundant data into multiple applications.
Maintaining multiple databases is time-consuming and costly. In the past, firms were quick to
blame solution providers for not offering an integrated suite of applications. However, today you don’t need an integrated suite of applications to have different databases speak to one another. An application programming interface (API) allows various applications to talk to one another and share data within and across the organization.
Accounting firms employ a lot of cloud-based and on-premise applications and systems in their daily operations. These solutions gather large amounts of data, including client information, payroll records, transaction data, etc. If these solutions are integrated and able to “talk” to one another, your firm can maximize the data shared across systems, saving time that would otherwise be spent entering the same data in multiple locations and reducing errors.