Avoiding PC Perils

“I’d always worked on PCs in my prior professional life,” says Kelly, “and I knew the potential pitfalls: viruses, server problems, runaway IT costs.” Art continues, “In other firms where Kelly worked, it always amazed me that inevitably during the heavy tax season — when CPAs need their PCs 18 hours a day — the network would fail. It was shocking to me that these systems could stump the brightest guys in the business, and their servers would be down for several hours at a time. During busy season it would add up to a significant loss of productivity.”

Thanks to their network of iMac desktop systems, this headache is one that Nelson Accounting Professionals has never encountered. “With Mac, we have zero fear of losing valuable hours to viruses,” says Art. “We just plug and play, and the computers communicate with each other.”

Intuitive Communication

“We use the network edition of MYOB AccountEdge as our primary accounting application, and it recognizes that multiple people want to work on the same files,” explains Art. “I don’t have to run specific server software — Kelly’s iMac acts as the server. So the system is sweet and simple. Our three CPAs and support staff — even those trained on PCs — understand it almost intuitively. And we haven’t had a moment of downtime since we opened our doors four years ago.”

Nor have they experienced any problems communicating with the PC world. “These days,” he continues, “virtually all the tools we need to run our business — Microsoft Office applications, web browsers, email apps, even many accounting packages such as MYOB AccountEdge and QuickBooks — work seamlessly across platforms. Even ProSystem fx, our professional Windows tax software, can now run on Intel powered Macs via Parallels Desktop.”