Leading firms through the next generation of change™

Q4 2012 Webinar

ACS Conversion: What We Have Learned

May 10, 2013

Learning objectives

• Learn Tips & Tricks for converting from CSA to ACS

• Cover items you may want to consider not converting from CSA

• Go through the next steps after conversion

Our Conversion Process

• Used CSA to Process Payroll and Do Financial Statements (no G/L, CBS, Engagement)

• Began Conversion in 2012• Finished Conversion Jan 2013• Trained Staff – Now have Periodic Meetings

to cover any questions/issues• Found the Conversion gave us the

opportunity to setup items and set processes in a standard format

Recommended Strategy For Converting

• Payroll Only Clients First• Clients you use CSA to just do the Tax

Return (Trial Balance Only Clients)• Clients you do Financials for (Start

with easier clients first)• Clients with more complex Financials• Clients you use CBS or Engagement

CS for

Recommended Strategy For Converting

• Payroll Only Clients First• Clients you use CSA to just do the Tax

Return (Trial Balance Only Clients)• Clients you do Financials for (Start

with easier clients first)• Clients with more complex Financials• Clients you use CBS or Engagement

CS for

What we chose to NOT CONVERT

• Payroll Earnings Data – We converted employee demographics and input the YTD Earnings

• Financial Statements – The only ones you may want to convert is very detailed formats you created in CSA

• Accounting related Transaction and Balances – We re-imported Trial Balances from QB

• Essentially we did not convert anything that once converted did not allow us to make changes and clean-up our data

Our Conversion Process - Payroll

• Changed employee ID’s in CSA to not include symbols• Removed Salary Amounts from inactive departments on

Employees• Re-queued the checks for WebEmployee after changing

Employee ID’s• Did not convert Vendors – ACS has the Payroll Vendors and

we re-setup our Garnishment, etc. Vendors• Had a Client (not Template Client) setup with default

payroll items for 401K, Caf. Plans to map our existing items to (ACS Tracks Tax Treatment of Certain Items)

• After Conversion – Setup our Payroll Check Layout, Report Profiles, Entered Earnings Data and customized Batch Data Entry Screen.

Our Conversion Process - Accounting

• Did Not Convert Transactions or Balances• Converted Chart of Accounts• Made sure our COA in ACS and QB were

matching• Re-imported Trial Balances from QB and

imported for comparative statements• Re-Setup our Financials – Most Clients

are Setup using the same template Financials

What Is Your Plan?

• Engagement CS or CBS Clients?– What do you replace CBS with?– Is Workpapers CS ready to replace Engagement CS?

• Training the Firm – If you don’t get trained on ACS – 1. Don’t Complain about the System 2. It’s setup and organized totally different than CS– Thomson Training Options– RootWorks Training?

The Inevitable Truth is that CSA will cease to exist (Date unknown as of now), if ACS is your planned replacement, a thought out Plan is

Highly Recommended

What is not recommended is waiting until you are forced to make the conversion.

Leading firms through the next generation of change™