The ocean is a combination of millions of molecules of water – yet, it also contains entire worlds of life, mountain ranges, coral and sunken ships. Comparing portal technology to the sight we see when sitting by a seaside resort allows the mind to comprehend the expanse of potential areas where portal technology could be a factor, particularly if we replace the concept of a “water molecule” with a bit of data.
Portals could be compared to a window into the sea. For example, if you were looking for sunken treasure, wouldn’t it be beneficial, through some sort of technology, to type in a few commands and see the desired prize right in front of you? However, if you saw the treasure, would you comprehend all that was in front of you and all that was within the immediate proximity?
Portal technology also includes intelligence, analysis and collaboration with that data, enabling you to be in front of the desired information. Just as fantastic as being placed within reach of a sunken treasure, good portal technology places you within reach of comprehendible, useful information. Depending on whom you talk with, a “portal” may also offer business intelligence, analytics and a collaborative environment; many take the word “portal” and apply the same, yet radically different definitions.
Although portals offer access to information in many different ways, the most common concept is that a portal is a point of access or a window into information. The information can be understandable to only a few trained people (such as the numerous listings of data scrolling across a financial planner’s screen), or can be so easy to grasp that no training is needed, such as the access found at Yahoo or Google. The information can be a straight dump of data from other sources or data analyzed to show different scenarios. Poor portal technology opens a window into incomprehensible information that is difficult to sort through and work with, such as extremely difficult user interfaces, slow processing, over-complicated requirements and direct access to unrelated information.
For a more official definition, Gartner defines a portal as a "Web software infrastructure that provides access to, and interaction with, relevant information assets (for example, information/content, applications and business processes), knowledge assets and human assets by select targeted audiences, delivered in a highly personalized manner."
Focusing on the term “highly personalized,” portal technology opens a window into a specific slice of data, as well as the most appropriate window for the person requesting the information. The term portal defines a generic concept, further defined as we think about specific portal products.
According to Gartner, “A portal product is a packaged software application used to create and maintain enterprise portals. These products can be used to design vertical or horizontal portals. [Where] vertical portals focus on accessing specific applications or business functions [and] horizontal portals seek to integrate and aggregate information from multiple cross-enterprise applications, as well as specific line-of-business tools and applications.”
An example of a horizontal portal is Yahoo, where the audience of people the portal is designed to address is fairly diverse and not focused on a specific subject matter. In addition, Yahoo is not really considered an interactive portal; users cannot upload their data or change specific data that is displayed.
An example of a vertical portal includes the member’s only access to AccountingWEB, where the audience is a very specific audience focused on accounting-specific topics. The AccountingWEB portal does contain interactive components. In comparison, an online shopping mall would be considered a “horizontal portal” because it gathers data from many different vendors (such as all the retailers in a traditional mall), and organizes and provides the products and storefronts to users in a centralized portal format. Users only need to go to one Web site to do all of their online shopping.
Accounting Applications
Now that we have a feel for portals, how does portal technology apply when considering the business process and the applications in use or needed within an accounting firm?
The accounting firm niche is a bit unique because of the many different applications required to meet all the diverse needs of the firm. These include tax preparation software, audit management, time and billing, scheduling, budgeting, due date tracking, accounting (internally and for the clients), write-up, and document management. In addition to the applications, data for these applications is stored in many different types of data repositories, including databases, flat files and folders on network sharing drives.
What we have not seen in the accounting firm niche is a total solution from one vendor. As the accounting profession expresses more interest, traditional CPA niche software vendors, including CCH, Thomson and a few others, are moving in that direction.
Can CPA firms really get best-of-breed access and analysis from a desired single vendor, or will they have to obtain data from multiple vendor applications and compromise? I argue that there will always be another application, slice of data or feature needed, but perhaps these will not be a part of vendor offerings. This is where portal technology and the complimentary “search” become valuable components.
Portal technology in a CPA firm can offer financial analysis and access to not only local data stores, but a compilation of data and/or applications from other sources, and a high level of control and access to business intelligence and analytics. In addition to offering access from a reporting and analysis need, portal technology offers an interactive repository of information.
Consider the need to modify a Microsoft Word or Excel document created by someone else in the firm. Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) portal technology offers access into a library of documents that can be checked out, modified, and then checked back in for interoffice collaboration with control.
As tax preparation services become a commodity and the niche surrounding “portals” offer the best of both worlds, CPA firms will embrace different business models. The intelligence and analytics of the world of financial business and a CPA’s background, along with the reach of technology into many sources of information, will facilitate this process. This includes client data, corporate data, research company information, the Internet, government repositories (e.g., Library of Congress) and more. Portal technology offers the framework to manage, control and filter this data for compliance and accuracy.
Unlike an application depending on one specific software vendor’s understanding and ability to accurately process the data it is capturing, portal technology opens a door into worlds of data that can be used to cross reference each other for improved accuracy.
If you consider Mark Twain’s comment, “There are four types of lies: lies, damn lies, statistics and survey statistics,” then you can appreciate one area where using portal technology applies: Cross-referenced analytical analysis that is complementary to statistics.
If we look further at two of the larger technology vendors and their direction, we must consider some rather interesting items. For example, Microsoft recently purchased FAST, a competitive search engine for data extraction and location. Google continues to grow beyond our imagination, while expanding its collaborative application offerings. Nevertheless, we are facing the future, which includes newer, more frequent uses of portal technologies, as well as more expansive, yet focused access to the sea of data that we all feel so overwhelmed by now. Instead of drowning in the sea, portal technologies offer the scale and scope of a few data points that offer more than a life preserver; they offer a passage to long-term rescue.
Contact Anne Stanton at astanton@therandgroup.com. Note that the opinions expressed here do not reflect an endorsement or recommendation from the AICPA.
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