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What Does Managed IT Look Like for Accounting and Financial Firms?

IRS and FTC obligations, seasonal peaks and client trust. What accounting IT has to cover.

Managed IT for an accounting or financial firm has to cover three things at once: security and compliance obligations that come with handling client financial data, systems that stay fast and available through tax season and month-end, and the client trust that a single breach would destroy. The technology is standard; the stakes and the calendar are not.

The obligations

  • FTC Safeguards Rule. Tax preparers and many financial firms must maintain a written information security plan (WISP) with specific administrative and technical controls. The IRS reinforces this in Publication 4557. See what is a WISP.
  • FINRA and SEC cybersecurity expectations for broker-dealers and advisers, including incident reporting and vendor oversight.
  • Client contracts and, for firms handling card payments, PCI DSS.
  • Retention. Email and document retention that is defensible. See what is email archiving.

The threats

Accounting firms are targeted for the data they hold and the payments they influence. Business email compromise (a "client" or "partner" redirecting a payment or requesting W-2s), credential phishing during busy season, and ransomware timed for April are the common patterns.

What the IT program covers

  • MFA enforced on email, remote access, tax and accounting software portals and admin accounts. See what is MFA.
  • Endpoint detection and response, email security with authentication records, and encryption on every laptop.
  • Secure file exchange with clients instead of email attachments.
  • Tested backups and a recovery plan sized for a tax-season outage.
  • Support for tax, accounting and hosted application platforms, and vendor management with them.
  • Capacity and change freezes planned around the calendar: no upgrades in March.
  • Security awareness training with finance-specific scenarios.
  • A WISP, an incident response plan and cyber insurance readiness.
  • A vCIO who plans the year around your peaks.

Mentis Group serves financial and accounting firms across Dallas-Fort Worth with Fully Managed IT and co-managed options, delivering proactive support, IT management, data security and regulatory compliance support. See the industries we serve for more.

Have a question about your own environment? Schedule a consultation with Mentis Group or call (866) 901-7808.