A Rose By Any Other Name……

Friday, July 20th, 2012

Sometimes accountants have names for things that “normal people” don’t understand. Normal people, in this case, refers to clients.

Inside firms, a certain lingo is used. I remember one time when I was inside a firm, we played tax form bingo – simply using the tax form numbers. What was amazing is that everyone knew them so well – 1120, 1040, 1065, 990, 1096 and so on.

To clients this would be extremely puzzling (and probably weird).

The reason for this rambling (and there is more to follow – just wait until I get to the Shakespeare part), is that CPAs call their client sign-in link or client access link a PORTAL. To clients that might seem like something mysterious or science fiction-like (Beam me up, Scottie!).*See note below.

I notice that many firms are still using the term client portal on their site. The experts are telling us to use Client Log-in or something similar that is descriptive. Here’s an example on Fluence’s website – click on the Clients tab and see how it is displayed. You can also see Client Login used on Lynn & Associates site.

So your client portal might need to be known by …… any other name. “A Rose By Any Other Name…” comes via Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet – a few lines follow:

‘Tis but they name that is my enemy;

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet

*By the way, the actor who played Scottie on Star Trek had his ashes released in space in May.