[Anonymous]

Hey guys,

So, I passed the CPA exam thanks to Ninja two years ago and I want to know your perspectives on the new bank feeds option in accounting softwares.

From what I understand, bank feeds can basically automate the bank statement entry and reconciliation process by automatically entering in all the transactions when you download the bank statement and import it into the accounting software.

How do you guys/girls see the future of this? Is it putting your small CPA firm out of business? The CPA firms won’t need entry level staff entering bank statement data in manually anymore since it can now be automated right?

What do you think?

[Jay]

NO

Bank feeds have been around for a long time. Still need someone to make sense of all the garbage in and garbage out. Most these feeds label expenses wrong too. Small firms should focus more on consulting and less on bookkeeping.

Giving up is not an option.

REG 82
FAR 76
Aud 8/31/2016
BEC 11/30/2016

[livealittle]

what flimbar said. AND not all banks allow direct import into accounting software. Also clients still need help because they will often record transactions into the accounting system, then do the bank feed and not match the existing transactions, so you have doubled some transactions. overstating expenses and/or overstating revenues are equally bad.

it also doesn't account for uncleared transactions and transactions that post for the incorrect amount or transactions that clear twice. Last month on one of my regular monthly bank rec and sales tax clients, she had a paycheck she wrote to an employee clear her bank account twice. The same check number the same amount to the same person on the same day, cleared 2 times.

bank feeds won't put CPA small firms out of business.

BEC - 8/8/16
REG - 66, 77
AUD - 81
FAR - 9/8/16

[tkstcs]

Nope. I'm in the GIGO camp. Those transactions still go to the wrong places even after they have been mapped, and you still have to know where to put the items and manipulate the data. Getting the transactions in there is the easy part.

[Mike]

I worked for a small company that did their bookkeeping on Quickbooks and imported their bank transactions every day. They still had a CPA come to visit every month or two.

[Author]

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