Growing Accountancy Practice Opts for Hosted Digital Dictation

James & Co selects nFlow solution for flexibility, mobility and customer service

nFlow, a leading supplier of digital dictation and voice productivity solutions to the accountancy sector, today announced that James & Co, a Kent-based accountancy practice, has implemented nFlowLive.com, a Cloud-based Dictation-as-a-Service (DaaS) solution. nFlowLive.com has replaced the incumbent analogue tape-based dictation system at the firm. James & Co chose nFlowLive.com for its superior Cloud-based Digital Dictation technology, ease of deployment, intuitive use and customer support. The firm undertook a rigorous trial of the solution prior to selecting nFlowLive.com.

Today, fee-earners and administrative staff at the firm are able to access transcriptions and dictations from any geographic location, greatly facilitating flexible and mobile working. The fee-earners are also able to use nFlowLive.com as an instructional messaging tool. For instance, dictations can be accompanied with express guidance on a variety of client deliverables. This, combined with the better workload sharing and work management capability offered by the solution, is contributing towards an enhanced customer service. Previously, all dictation tapes had to be brought in to the office for transcription and a single tape often carried dictations pertaining to more than one client, making prioritisation of work difficult. The possibility of inadvertently deleting recordings along with deterioration in the quality of tapes overtime meant that the firm ran the risk of losing important client records.

James Halligan, Accountant and Tax Specialist at James & Co, commented, “Cloud Computing-based Digital Dictation makes business sense for us. We now have a second generation, enterprise-class Digital Dictation solution, which has required practically no investment to implement. We simply needed a PC and an internet connection to deploy the solution firm-wide. More importantly, it is available to us at a very cost-effective monthly subscription, and we have the opportunity to easily scale the solution in tune with business requirements.

“nFlowLive.com has delivered almost immediate efficiency gains and overall operational flexibility to the business. We are very impressed by nFlow’s exceptional approach to customer service. nFlow treats all its customers alike, irrespective of size, which is refreshing.” Rob Lancashire, Managing Director, nFlow, added, “The accountancy sector has awakened to the benefits of Digital Dictation and opting for the hosted route is perhaps the fastest and most economical implementation for growing practices. nFlowLive.com can be up and running within 24 hours. Especially for fixed-fee businesses, the increased efficiency that it delivers almost instantaneously, positively impacts on their profitability. In addition, we are extending this offering by introducing a Speech Recognition solution within nFlowLive.com, later this year. This will give customers a very advanced Cloud-based Voice Productivity solutions suite, requiring minimal investment.”

Through nFlowLive.com, customers have access to nFlow DDS Version 5.0, the second generation enterprise-class digital dictation system. It offers industry benchmark 99% service availability, a rich client install, secure data backup, disaster recovery and free online user training. Further, customers can designate nFlow to undertake the complete system administration for them on a day-to-day basis.

nFlow Launches ‘nFlowLive.com’, Innovative New Dictation-as-a-Service Solution

Makes digital dictation technology more accessible; offers flexible pricing and free disaster recovery

nFlow, a leading supplier of digital dictation solutions, today announced that it is launching nFlowLive.com, a Cloud-based Dictation-as-a-Service (DaaS) solution. The company has developed this solution directly in response to demand from organisations that recognise the business need to deploy digital dictation technology, but are unable to incur capital expenditure on installing such a solution in the current economic climate. Adoption of digital dictation technology is driven by the operational efficiency and productivity gains it delivers to firms. With nFlowLive.com, this technology will be easily available to organisations with minimal investment and setup costs.

nFlowLive.com will be available from July 2009. Through this service, customers will have access to nFlow’s market leading, second generation enterprise-class Digital Dictation System (DDS) Version 5.0, based on the future-proof Microsoft .NET technology platform. With industry benchmark 99% service availability, fully supported nFlowLive.com offers a rich client install; secure data backup; disaster recovery; free online user training; and an option to entrust nFlow with the complete administration of users, drivers and updates. In addition, customers will be able to opt for automatic updates, eliminating the need to incur additional deployment costs. This will ensure that customers are able to take advantage of all new functionality added to nFlowLive.com instantaneously.

A range of flexible pricing options will be available to customers including monthly or yearly contracts for the service. Additionally, the cost of nFlowLive.com can be directly aligned with practices’ fee income, further enabling organisations to minimise their costs.

Rob Lancashire, Sales and Marketing Director at nFlow, commented, “Through nFlowLive.com, we are driving down the cost of deploying a DDS further and making the significant efficiency gains from digital dictation workflow more accessible to all firms during these difficult economic times. Also, we are adding value to our offering by enhancing the remote working and disaster recovery capabilities, for both existing customers and prospects.

“Within just eight months since the successful launch of nFlow DDS Version 5.0, the launch of nFlowLive.com is yet another demonstration of our commitment to technological leadership and customer service. nFlowLive.com leverages the Service Oriented Architecture, crucial to any modern Cloud-based application. Rather than simply writing a separate application to deliver our DDS in a browser alongside a legacy client technology, we have developed a rich client solution built on a single core of code. This allows the solution to be delivered to users anywhere via multiple channels – be it in the Cloud or through customers’ internal infrastructure.”

nFlowLive.com will support hardware from all major vendors such as Philips and Olympus. For instance, customers upgrading from other digital dictation packages to nFlowLive.com will be able to continue using their existing USB microphones, digital pocket memos, foot pedals and headsets, eliminating the need to incur additional equipment purchase costs.

It will also support all existing integrations with applications such as case management, practice management and document management systems.

Lancashire, concluded, “nFlowLive.com in its current form represents the first phase of our Cloud-based DaaS solution. We will be adding more functionality, flexibility and services to the solution over the coming months.”

nFlow DDS Version 5.0 is the only enterprise-class digital dictation solution of its kind on the market today. It has been completely re-designed from the ground up based on the Microsoft .NET framework, to deliver low cost of ownership, exceptional functionality and benefits to users and customers alike.