Document Management (Aus, NZ & UK)
Business Issues: Email Management, Access to information, Standardisation through a practice, knowledge sharing, and security

Many firms approach APS looking for their solution to their document or content management questions. We have found that whilst document management is a broad area affecting almost every firm – each firm is specific in terms of their requirements or main business drivers for a document management system. For this reason we have spent well over 5 years reviewing, working with, developing, and testing the latest document management solutions available.

Today we are excited to be able to offer our clients and prospective clients options ranging from entry level document saving and retrieval to a fully automated document management solution including email management, version control, scanning solution, all with an offline ability.

Some of the main areas we have been helping firms to solve are; email management, standardisation in their practice, security around their content, easy access/retrieval of information in their practice, improved efficiency by better document management, and rolling out an intranet and extranet.

Email Management: With Advance version 9.1 and Advance Docs version 1.9 we will be releasing Advance DM (which is an extension of our current notes and links) and with this we provide the ability to “save on send” within your e-mail system. This feature allows users to send an e-mail but at the same time have the e-mail saved appropriately in your document management system.

We have gone even further with some firms with the fully integrated Interwoven communication server where e-mails can be automatically profiled not only when sending but also when receiving based on the properties allocated to certain e-mail addresses.

Standardisation and knowledge sharing: Most practices have standard processes that they would love their teams to follow - but if their document/content management solution does not make it easy to implement and then manage those standards they never get adhered to across a practice. Often firms with multiple partners share their concerns with us about not being able to share knowledge throughout the practice from one partner’s team to another’s. By saving all of your documents/content into one system you have the ability to search over that content to share any information throughout your practice, as well as implement standard processes, thus saving time and ultimately money.

Security: Many practices have concerns about the security of their documents in their practice and the archival and retention rules around their documents. With APS’s document management solutions we can set-up rules and processes that allow security on your documents but also allow bulk archiving and retention of certain types of documents.

Recent Wins – new DM Clients (Aus, UK)
APS have been very pleased with the high uptake of Interwoven by leading firms (17 of our Top 100 firms). In the past 6-9 months the following firms have purchased or installed Interwoven.

Australian firms include:
	PKF - Sydney
	HLB Mann Judd - Sydney
	WHK Greenwoods - Sydney
	Walter Turnbull - Canberra & Sydney
	Grant Thornton - Sydney
	Accru Felsers - Sydney
	WHK Rutherfords Regional NSW
	Boyce Chartered Accountants - Regional NSW
	Pitcher Partners Melbourne
	Mclean Delmo Hall Chadwick Melbourne
	Bentleys MRI Brisbane
	Grant Thornton Brisbane
	Prosperity Advisors Newcastle
	Farrow Wyatt Newcastle
	Hood Sweeney Adelaide

	FW Stephens
	Bruton Knowles
	Myers Clark
	Wright Vigar
	Scrutton Bland
	Rober J Hart & Co

firms include:
If your firm is interested in discussing your document management requirements with APS further, like many of the above firms, then please contact Sam Allert on sama@aps-advance.com.

Australian Tax 2007 – (Aus)
The roll out of the 2007 Australian tax forms has again been very smooth with minimal issues experienced, meaning less user down time. This has been aided, in part, by the changes in the overall installation process.

Key Issues: Tax upgrade installation and ‘Warning’ messages.

Tax upgrade installation: This year’s installation is now combined in one file rather than many and reduces the time it takes administrators to complete the standard installation. There will also be some more refinements to the installation over the next few tax seasons and these future changes are designed to reduce administrator overhead significantly.

Warning messages: Tax manager also saw some minor enhancements which included additional warning messages upon opening tax manager if the version control has not been updated, street address added to tax agents console and the email function is now possible from within tax lists, which were changes requested by clients over the past 12 months. Although we have managed to keep the changes to a minimum in this year’s product, we are still actively working on other significant enhancements features which are scheduled for future releases, some of which will be previewed at this years APS conference.

Apart from future product features, there are also many existing features which are designed to enhance the capabilities of your practice in managing your tax return information and making the most from the tax data already stored in the system.

Features like Tax assessment mail merge letters (use the letters already in the system or design your own), drill down on your tax form data by using the Tax list functionality, (great for all those add hoc reports). If you are the tax administrator have you used the Tax data investigator to ensure your data is in the best shape it can be (particularly for managing ATO reports)?

If you would like information on some of these existing features please contact your APS account manager.