How CPA Firms Can Help Prevent Major Outages
OVERVIEW
King & Oliason is “A Seattle CPA firm specializing in tax consulting and tax return preparation for high net worth individuals, their families, and closely‐held businesses in the Pacific Northwest.” This CPA firm heavily depends on the stability and reliability of its IT network. After an analysis of their existing system, concern about its life expectancy was raised. To prevent a potential outage during their busy season and to avoid the enormous negative impact that would have, we moved forward with the server upgrade project.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
King & Oliason carefully evaluated whether to continue using the server currently installed or to upgrade to a newer system. Although the server in place was working adequately, it was older and had a short life expectancy with the risk of a failure that would lead to costly and damaging downtime. Replacing the aging server offered stability and reliability the previous system could not guarantee.
PROJECT SOLUTION
CPAs have several busy seasons throughout the year, with the most notable being January through April. In addition to the typical demands of a server upgrade like this, the firm needed this conversion done over a weekend with minimal disruption to end-users and support as the new system stabilized. This server upgrade project started with an HP ProLiant ML350 server running Microsoft Windows SBS (Server Business Server) 2000, which was upgraded to a Dell PowerEdge 2900 server running Microsoft Windows SBS 2003 software.
ISOutsource managed the entire process and procured the hardware and software from King and Oliason’s chosen vendors. The server and software transitions were completed on time and on budget and ISOutsource was able to successfully complete the transition with almost zero lost productivity for the client. Our team was onsite at the start of business the Monday morning following the conversion and resolved any minor issues that could or did come about as a result of the upgrade.
CLIENT COMMENTS
“The transition to a new server was virtually transparent to our staff, and more importantly, to our clients;” said Carolyn Burkland of King & Oliason. “ISOutsource understood our business needs and successfully managed this project to ensure those needs were met. We appreciate that high level of support.”
HOW STABLE IS YOUR CPA FIRMS ENVIRONMENT?
It can be easy for CPA and other financial businesses to unintentionally neglect their technology environment until it’s too late. Slower seasons are a great opportunity for CPA firms to get an assessment of their IT environment to check for stability, life expectancy, security, and more. An assessment can help put your mind at rest regarding your firm’s data, continuity, and security.