IT directors from the top 30 accountancy firms have banded together to form the Accounting IT Directors Forum to improve information sharing.

Spearheaded by Jim Greenfield, national IT director for PKF, the forum will let IT directors meet face to face to discuss technology topics affecting the accountancy profession.

The forum is born of IT directors’ frustration with the lack of knowledge sharing in the industry.

‘The legal sector, which has been doing this for some time, has made strides. We are evaluating independently and repeating each other’s mistakes,’ said Greenfield.

After discussing the idea with peers, Greenfield set up the independent forum, whose first meeting was attended by IT directors from Baker Tilly, Tenon and Grant Thornton, among others.

‘They [legal industry] get together and swap ideas, but there hasn’t been any forum of that nature for the larger accountancy firms for a number of years.’

‘The objective is to learn from our collective experiences of what we have been doing independently,’ Greenfield said. ‘Together we can save time and money by collaborating on that information.’

The forum is currently only open to IT professionals, although there is scope for inviting suppliers to attend. They will have to be recommended, but could then attend discussions on a particular topic.

Subjects to be discussed at future forums include IT security in the accountancy industry.

‘Security is a very big subject,’ said Greenfield. ‘If all the firms had good security, it would benefit us all. If one firm had weak security, that could affect us too.’

Although the May meeting was attended by the top 30 firms and the next meeting in July has attracted interest among the top 50, the Big Four firms have been notable only by their absence.

‘The problem with the Big Four is identifying the right people in the right department to attend,’ he said.

All senior partners, IT directors and managers of accounting practices are welcome to attend sessions of the forum, which is setting up a website to publicise its activities.

For more information, contact Jim.greenfield@aituk.co.uk