Personal information managers: useful tools for accountants

Abstract

Accountants must work efficiently with words as well as numbers. An accounting firm's or a company's numerical data usually fit easily into the structure of spreadsheets, databases and other traditional software products. But other information, such as appointments, notes, phone lists and outlines, simply doesn't fit. Furthermore, such data, normally collected and recorded according to individual tastes and habits, must be made more systematic to be useful to the organization as a whole. To be effective, the accountant must have well-organized information. Good time and task management requires the ability to organize and access textual information. PIMs can help the accountant organize many sources of text. With a PIM, the user can create many useful relationships among the data and then view the information arranged categorically rather than chronologically. PIM software offers a diversity of features. Because no two people work in the same way, features valuable to one user might be little used by another. Thus, picking the right PIM i s a very individual process. PIM FEATURES This article focuses on the following features offered by PIMs: * Time and task tracking. * Text retrieval ability. * Outlining. * Hypermedia. * Phone dialers. * Time and task tracking. PIMs designed for tracking essentially integrate tasks, appointments, phone calls, clients and expenses into a coherent format. For example, an appointment list can be cross-referenced to a client list, a to-do list and a Rolodex file. Many products allow the user to build a calendar for days, weeks and even months ahead. Some packages feature alarms for appointments and let users coordinate their personal calendars. A key feature of many PIMs is the ability to link calendar items with notes and phone numbers from other parts of the database, thus allowing a CPA who is managing several projects to keep track of the information about the various jobs at hand. Since calendar and schedula management is crucial, this may be the most useful feature to accountants. * Textual retrieval. The capability to retrieve text allows the user to look at information from various files based on user-defined keywords contained in those files. The most obvious application is searching out and relating information about clients and engagements. For example, the information base about an audit client would include the names and phone numbers of key personnel, a meetings schedule, a to-do list, notes on special needs or concerns about the job and other information. The user could enter the data, import key memos and then relate this information for later retrieval. Most PIMs have some text-editing capabilities for data entry, and many allow the import of text files from word processors and other sources. Many PIM users consider flexibility of information access a key component. The ability to access information by subject and by a person's or company's name makes the PIM more powerful. Many PIMs let the user specify the desired links in information access. This results in the creation of data chains that can be used repeatedly. * Outlining. Creating an outline on a PIM is easier and quicker than on a word processor because an outliner stores data in a hierarchical structure and manipulates headings and subtext as a unit. Preset tabs do the indentation. The user can expand and condense an outline on the screen, thus allowing any part to be viewed. * Hypermedia. With hypermedia, also known as hypertext, unstructured data such as loosely connected notes can be linked, cross-referenced, expanded or condensed. Even if information is stored in different files, it can be linked by key words and phrases. Thus, the user can scan larger amounts of information while picking out all items related to a single topic. Accountants are using hypermedia to link several sources of professional literature and standards for a single area of interest. …