Review of Website Builders for Accountants -- 2005

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• December 2005 Issue
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From the December 2005 Issue

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Think about that when you undertake the task of designing a new or improved web site strategy for your firm. Your web site will continually evolve as your virtual office of the future, serving as a gateway to new clients, a service center for existing clients, a recruiting tool for new employees and more. It is highly likely that you will have more client interaction via your web site rather than through client visits to your office.

There are some distinct advantages to conducting business through your virtual office (web site). Clients can come and visit anytime, from wherever they are. They don’t need an appointment, and they can pick up and drop off documents and files (electronically). With the current evolution of web conferencing tools, they can even have face-to-face meetings with you via your web site. One thing you can be sure of is that your clients will want the option to be able to conduct more and more types of business with your firm via your web site. Therefore, you are well advised not to take your web site and its design lightly, anymore than you would casually design, build and furnish your bricks-and-mortar office. Therefore, in this magazine’s endless pursuit to help you improve the quality of your practice, we present this review of web site building tools and service providers focused on the accountant community.

Continuing with our analogy between your bricks-and-mortar office and your virtual office, let’s consider the alternative methods available to design and build your office. At one end of the spectrum, you may want to establish an office at the lowest possible cost that meets your most basic needs. This typically means you’re going to lease pre-built space in a multi-tenant office building that requires limited “build out” and may even be pre-furnished with office partitions and desks left by the previous tenant. At the other end of the spectrum, you may view the office as the most important investment your firm can make, second only to your staff. In this scenario, you might buy your own real estate, hire an architect to design it to your exact specifications, construct it and then have an interior decorator design your “theme” and recommend your furniture selections and wall, window and floor coverings, etc. The same spectrum of options applies to web site design and construction. At one end, you can utilize a pre-fabricated web site design with minimal customization that is relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain. At the other end of the spectrum, you can hire a web site development firm to design and build a completely customized web site to your exact specifications. Each approach has its pros and cons.

The purpose of this review is to focus on the “pre-fabricated” approach. We are featuring web site builder tools that streamline the site development process at a fraction of the time, cost and complexity of a completely built-to-order site. The good news is that the tools we have reviewed are increasingly offering a greater array of functionality and features that give you the best of both worlds.

This review of web site builders courting the accountant community is focused on the following evaluation criteria:

Design Theme — This refers to the capability to design a site that is easy-to-navigate, visually pleasing and flexible enough to allow you to convey the desired image of your firm’s virtual office. This criterion covers items such as templates, color schemes, navigation tools, etc.

Content — This refers to the breadth and depth of pre-fabricated content that you can customize or brand for your firm, allowing you to have a site worth visiting without the burden of having to constantly develop content from scratch. Examples include electronic newsletters, tax and accounting bulletins, news releases, etc. Typical tax and financial calculators are included within this section, as well.

Site Maintenance — This refers to the “under the hood” work that is inevitable, including web page editing, design changes, custom links, application integration, hosting services, etc. The better this functionality, the less dependent you will be on the vendor to make changes and additions to your site.