Case Study

Piedmont Tax & Accounting — Securing Client Data and Moving Off a Dying Server

Client
Piedmont Tax & Accounting
Location
Concord, NC
Industry
Accounting / Professional Services
The Challenge

Running a CPA Firm on Infrastructure That Should Have Been Replaced Years Ago

Piedmont Tax & Accounting is a six-person firm in Concord. For years they'd been running everything off an in-office server — shared drives, local backups, the works. It was holding together, but just barely. The server was aging, nobody had MFA on their accounts, and client tax documents were being emailed back and forth without any real security controls. The owner knew it wasn't right but hadn't found the time to deal with it. Then the server started throwing errors during tax season, and that conversation couldn't wait anymore.

How Bitek Helped

Microsoft 365 Migration, MFA Enforcement, and a Setup That Actually Makes Sense

We started with a full assessment of what they had, then built a migration plan that wouldn't blow up their tax season. The goal was simple: get them off the server, onto M365, and locked down — without a two-week transition that paralyzed the firm.

Microsoft 365 Business Premium Deployment

Migrated shared drives to SharePoint, set up OneDrive for individual staff, and configured email security policies including anti-phishing rules and DKIM/DMARC signing.

MFA Enforcement Across Every Account

Enabled Conditional Access policies so every login — staff, admin, and the owner's personal device — requires a second factor. No exceptions.

Intune Device Enrollment

Enrolled firm devices in Intune so the owner can see what's connected to their environment and wipe a device if someone leaves or a laptop goes missing.

Tested Backup and Recovery

Set up automated backups with documented recovery steps. We ran a test restore before calling it done — something that hadn't been done with the old setup in years.

Results

Off the Old Server, Properly Secured, and Ready for the Next Tax Season

Files Accessible Anywhere

Staff can work from home or the office without VPN issues. SharePoint replaced the shared drive with something that actually works remotely.

Client Data Secured

Tax documents live in controlled SharePoint folders now — not in individual inboxes. Access is tracked and MFA protects every account.

Backup That's Been Tested

Automated backups run nightly. We verified the restore process actually works — which is something the old setup never had.

Services Used

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