Clemmer & Associates is a full-service accounting and consulting firm that’s serviced the Greater St. Louis area for 30+ years. We offer tax planning services and tax preparation for individuals and businesses, consulting services for businesses, accounting work, fully outsourced payroll services, estates and trusts, and even new business start-ups.
Before working with Computerease, the state of our technology was horrendous! We were working on a 10+ year old server, a mix of old desktops Windows 7 and Windows 10 desktops, and a hodgepodge of different versions of important software. Overall, things were slow and inefficient and I was worried about our backups and cybersecurity.
A Technology And Business Advisor Who Listens & Delivers
After reaching out to Computerease, Ryan Haislar, CISSP met with me and took the time to understand my technology and my business needs. He thoroughly assessed what technology we already had and identified the critical areas that needed to be addressed. Ryan’s input was very valuable and most importantly, he listened to what I needed. When he put together an Action Plan to bring our technology up to date, he did not, as many IT companies do, over promise and under deliver, hide gotchas in the proposal or deliver crummy service. Ryan and the Computerease Team did a tremendous job and they’re very thorough.
Easing My Security And Backup Worries With Affordable & Effective IT Services
Before working with Computerease, the system we used for backing up our server was a cause of great worry. We paid a monthly fee which was pretty high, I honestly don’t know if it had ever been tested or whether it routinely backed up my files. Even when it did run a successful backup, the amount of data being backed up was never consistent. Now, with Computerease’s back-up solutions, our critical data is backed up to the cloud, every hour, on the hour, which is crucially important in our business.
John Burns, owner of Clemmer & Associates shared his thoughts about Computerease, “I’ve been CFO for a banking company before, I’ve been out in industry, I’ve seen pretty much everything over the past 60 years. And, this is not a sales pitch, nobody paid me to say this, I would never use anybody but Computerease because they are that thorough, that easy to work with, and they are that good!”
In addition to having data integrity with enterprise-grade backups, we also upgraded the overall security for our network and our data. I think that smaller businesses are easier prey for people hacking in because they know that the smaller firms don’t have the staffing or the technology or the systems in place to keep people from hacking into your system, so they’re easier prey. For example, look at a smaller accounting firm with 1,000 to 2,000 tax clients. I think for people looking to mine tax ID numbers and information, that could be a pretty easy mark for them. In some respects, smaller firms are much more at risk than bigger firms. Bigger firms have huge IT staffs, they have huge controls in place, smaller firms, you’ve got to get with a partner that can help you lock that down, and I think Computerease did that for us with their multi-layered cyber security strategy. The best part is that I didn’t have to spend a fortune for enterprise level security and backups, everything is very affordable.
Exceeding Expectations With Knowledgeable And Friendly IT Support
Everyone on the Computerease Team is very technically competent, but you expect that. Initially, they were met with a tough job. Change and new technology are scary for people and there was some pushback from employees. I was even on vacation at the time, intentionally, because I didn’t want to deal with the stress.
The Computerease Team not only got everything installed and working, but they just put everybody at ease by being friendly and speaking in a language that everybody could understand. My employees loved one of the technicians so much that they would love for him to come back and just have lunch with them. Overall, Computerease has exceeded all of my expectations.
