Henley said that the practice applications should be about time billing. As to the full-fledged practice management applications? "They try to be too much. I think that tool should be separated and not combined with all these other elements," he said.

One reason for pulling the database out of the system relates to the strictures that CCH places on the application. It does not allow others to write to the database, although that is changing and for the moment Clark Nuber has to key an important report into ProSystem.

The process of building the database within Dynamics CRM changes a basic way data is handled.

"It will be the central repository for client information like a company address book," he said. When users need information and fill out a form "that form feeds into Microsoft CRM instead of our time and billing system."

Bob Scott

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Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind