Thomas Meehan — Bookkeepers’ Office Accounting Evangelist

 

MPAN member Thomas Meehan, MCSE, CCNP, owner of TINE Associates in the San Francisco area, has been around the block and back again. He worked as a CPA for several years, then spent 15 years as a CFO.  He transitioned into networking, specifically MRP (Manufacturing Requirements Planning). Now’s he back to accounting, this time as a networking consultant who works with accountants and bookkeepers. Meehan has Cisco engineering certificates and is a Microsoft Small Business Specialist, among other certifications. Meehan also conducts small business presentations, including the Small Business Summit in May and a recent presentation to bookkeepers on Microsoft’s 2007 Office suite and Office Accounting 2007.

 

Meehan is a self-proclaimed Office Accounting “evangelist” who sees his role as educating clients about Office Accounting’s capacities.

 

Clients’ Favorite Things

 

When it comes to Office Accounting, Meehan finds that “different people like different things” about the accounting software. Some small-business owners particularly appreciate Office Accounting’s PayPal integration, which enables them to send out an invoice with a PayPal/Credit Card logo link. Customers can then pay with a credit card or through PayPal with just a mouse click. Other clients are fans of Office Accounting’s eBay integration, which allows users to list items for sale directly out of their inventory, report sales back into Office Accounting, update inventory, post receivables, and bring in the cash.

 

Bookkeepers are especially keen on Office Accounting, he says, starting with their ability to view their clients’ books without driving to clients’ offices. “Bookkeepers use Office Accounting’s free collaborative website to remotely do payroll, month-end close, quarter-end close,” Meehan says. They can handle more accounts with fewer headaches and travel time.

 

Meehan likes the ability to share a database between Microsoft’s 2007 Business Contact Manager and Office Accounting. Customers can each be listed as an Account contact, with say the bookkeeper and purchasing agent as business contacts, then linked to the single Account. Users can view an account and the individuals connected to that account simultaneously. All business correspondence (i.e. email, notes, invoices, quotes, orders, etc.) is recorded and linked.

 

Meehan Has More Ideas

 

Meehan has a couple of suggestions for additional integrated features. His Office Accounting/eBay-using clients would like to be able to print shipping labels from the program, he says. He’d also like to see a link between Microsoft’s SharePoint Services and Office Accounting database. SharePoint Services users can have “on-time non-verbal communication,” he explains, working on a project together with access to both shared documents and the status of all participants’ work.

 

It is Office Accounting’s unique features — particularly online features — that make bookkeepers’ ears perk up, Meehan says. And with tax season behind them, more of Meehan’s clients are contacting him for support as they migrate data from other accounting software and accounting systems to Office Accounting. He’ll be there with expert advice. You can visit his website at www.tineassociates.com.