With too much work, and not enough time, more and more finance and accounting professionals are finding that working at home is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
Among CPAs and financial advisors, almost half put in as many hours at home or on-the-go as in the office, according to preliminary results from a Bay Street Group survey, "Home Office Trends and Issues"
Outfitting a home office might seem simple—just go down to the nearest "Big Box" store and buy whatever PC is on sale. Sometimes this approach works, sometimes it results in a PC that's impossible to fit in the space available, and winds up going unused or under-used.
With just a little bit of homework, you can zero in on the best PC for your space and needs, and get the most out of your purchase.
Here's what you need to consider:
1.
Notebook or desktop PC? The first decision that needs to be made is whether to buy a Notebook PC or a desktop model. If you are severely space constrained at home, a Notebook PC has the advantage of being able to be relocated into drawer when it's not actually being used. And you can easily set up on the kitchen table, the sofa, or outside on the deck or patio when the weather is good. A Notebook PC is also a good choice if you travel to clients and your firm doesn't provide you with a travel PC.
Assuming that you have the room, a desktop is probably a better choice for your home office PC. These are available in small formats, not much larger than a stack of books, and have the advantage of being fairly easy to upgrade if you decide that you need more RAM or disk memory in the future.
2.
CPU and video cards. Most accountants don't need to transcode video or play the latest games, so a very high-end video card is unnecessary. So is the very fastest CPU. Not going for these options can save you a lot of money, some of which you should probably invest in other options.
3.
Display. One option that you should definitely invest the money in is a large high-quality display. Forget CRT displays, they are old technology, take up a lot of room on your desk, and eat electricity like a hungry teenager scarfs down pizza. This PC is for work, which means that a lot of the time you will be using it, you will be staring at numbers or words. A 17-inch LCD display is much better than a 15-inch model and a 19-inch LCD panel is even better. Displays larger than 19-inches are probably unnecessary unless you tend to leave a lot of windows open while you work.
4.
Memory. Other important upgrades are in memory, both of the RAM and hard disk varieties. Sure, you can always upgrade these later, but getting a lot of RAM up front lets you run large spreadsheets faster, or work in several open applications simultaneously. Two gigabytes is a useful amount of RAM to shoot for, though you can get by with a gigabyte if necessary. Don't buy a PC with less RAM than 1GB; you won't be happy with its performance.
5.
Disk drive. Finally, go for as large a hard disk drive as the vendor offers in the model that you are interested in. Hard disk space always gets used up faster than anyone expects, and a larger drive will let you put off an upgrade in this area for a longer time.
Rick Telberg CEO of Bay Street Group Research, is the most widely-followed analyst for the finance and accounting profession. He has helped launch and develop a host of leading products and services for accountants and financial advisors, including Accounting Today, Accounting Technology and Practical Accountant magazines, WebCPA.com, and e-commerce portals SmartPros and CPA2Biz. He serves as Editor At Large for the AICPA Insider family of e-newsletters and blogs at www.cpatrendlines.com
Any views or comments expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and not necessarily those of any other organization. No person quoted or cited has any known connection to or interest in Hewlett Packard, and their appearance here should not be construed as an endorsement.
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