E-Office Concept for CAs

CA. AJAY PANCHARIA
on 10 April 2019

Dear Friends, with the increased impact of digitisation and automation now it is the right time to say "There is no requirement of physical office for chartered accountants in practice." The Concept of E Office aims to improve productivity, quality, resource management, turnaround time and increase transparency by replacing the traditional office system with an electronic office management system.

In this Article I’ll try to explain how the traditional office system can be migrated into the E Office System.

Basis/Point of Discussion	Traditional Office System	E Office/ Cloud Office System
Storage of Files or Documents	Documents are kept in physical files at particulars geographical locations	Scanned Files can be stored on cloud (for example Google Drive.)
Meeting With Clients	Client generally visits the office of CAs to discuss particular issue or problem.	In the Next generation Office System, one can discuss particular problem or issue through Video Conferencing or Video Calls.
Documents Collection	Client generally visits the office of CAs or emails the documents.	In Cloud office Concept documents can be shared with CA and CA can also share documents or reports with their clients. (Google Drive’s Sync function helps good in this case)
Data Processing with Software	Generally system installed software are used for filing returns or submitting forms etc.	In GST-era, there are many software through which filing and submission of documents is possible on cloud anytime anywhere.
Staff / Team Management	Generally Staff members attend the physical office location to complete their daily routine work of office.	In E office concept, Office Staff need not to visit the physical office location. The work can be done from anywhere anytime.
Multi Branch Management	We need to deploy experts at each location.	In E office Concept; expert can retrieve the data from common database at HO level and process the detail in an efficient manner.

These are some the benefit from E Office Concept;

Anytime Anywhere Data Processing
Reduced office Management Cost
Efficient and Productive Management of Staff members
Ease for Clients(Time Saving and cost saving to clients)

We discussed benefits of Cloud Offices, yes there are certain challenges also which are;

Non Availability of Internet
Non Availability of Good Cloud based Software
Untrained/Unskilled Office fellows.
There are certain service for which concept of E-office cannot be applied.
Data Security

We Professionals also have some expectation from government;

To Ensure 100% availability of Uninterrupted Internet facility
To Ensure 100% availability of Uninterrupted Power Supply
To formulate policies to train youth for cloud based data processing system.
To formulate policies for easy and cost effective availability of processing instruments like Laptop, Mobile, and Tablets etc.

The author can also be reached at caajaypanchariya@gmail.com