You start working on a spreadsheet from your home office. Later, on the train you open it up with your phone to check out a few of your calculations. When you get to work, you open up your laptop, and continue working on it. You’re not carrying the document around on a flash drive. You’re simply taking advantage of the convenience of cloud storage. It may be time to move forward, and treat your accounting the same way.
Using cloud based accounting solutions is certainly not bleeding edge technology either. As of 2014, 69% of accounting firms were using cloud based financial solutions. More than 25% of the small to mid sized businesses that were surveyed indicated that they were using cloud based accounting solutions specifically.
Whether you’re a small business owner handling your own financials or a dedicated accounting pro, there are plenty of reasons to consider cloud software. It’s certainly a technology that’s growing in population overall. Keep reading to learn more about the growth of cloud solutions for accounting, and why it should be a viable option for you.
Access And Collaboration For Team Members
Cloud based accounting solutions are highly regarded because they don’t keep people pinned to their desks. You also don’t have to rely on emails or file sharing to share accounting data with other team members. Instead, those with authority and connection can simply access the accounting system from any connected device.
Cloud based accounting systems also enable collaboration. Files can be accessed, modified, and created by multiple team members. This ensures that everyone has the latest version of each document.
It Takes The Heat Off of Your Systems
In addition to financials, your home-based systems handle a lot. You likely store customer and employee data. You may process transactions. There’s also emails, data related to other systems, security and antivirus software, and more. That’s a lot of processing and storage. This doesn’t come for free.
By moving your accounting to the cloud, you can take a load off of your networks, servers, and peripherals. This can lead to better performance, and more room for the data you do choose to keep in house.
Cloud Accounting Solutions Are Often Less Expensive
In all likelihood, running your accounting solution is the cloud will result in lower out of pocket costs. First of all, if you purchase an in house solution, not only do you have to cover licensing fees, you’ll also have to cover the cost of any hardware upgrades required to host the solution. Also, you may be able to break your payment into a series of monthly payments thus defraying your upfront costs even further.
You’ll also pay less for hardware maintenance and other resources. This is especially beneficial for smaller businesses. Rather than hiring an IT person, or bringing in a consultant to deal with maintenance and upgrades, you can simply leave that to your solution provider. This is much less expensive than paying for an IT pro or consultant that you may only need part time.
Cost of storage is another thing to consider. With cloud based solutions, you only pay for what you use. And, in many cases your subscription options will likely give you plenty of room to grow before you move up to a higher, pricing tier.
Finally, keep in mind that as in house solutions grow, you also have to consider the physical space you have to store servers and other hardware. It’s not much of a stretch to go from having some equipment in a well vented utility closet to needing a fully realized computer room with raised flooring and other bells and whistles.
High Security Protocols And Standards
Unfortunately, some very publicized events relating to cloud storage has put people off the idea of using cloud as an accounting solution. They believe that their information won’t be secure. However, in most cases that’s simply not true. A reputable host is going to have exceptionally high security standards and protocols. They’re also going to have the manpower and knowledge to maintain a much more secure system than most businesses.
Truth be told, unless you’re a large company with a data security team, the right cloud provider is very likely to outdo you when it comes to data security and access control. However, this is important enough of an issue that you should ask questions about data security when you’re exploring cloud accounting solutions.
Flexibility And Scalability
If you select a cloud based ERP solution, or even a standalone accounting solution, it’s quite likely that you will be able to customize it to the needs of your organization and clients. This can often be done by selecting apps that are created by your vendors. Another option is to customize cloud based accounting systems yourself. This is one of the advantages of cloud computing that actually stretches beyond accounting and financials. You can do this in house, or bring in a software development contractor. This option is popular enough that many vendors offer development platforms, and open source products.
Cloud based solutions are also scalable. If you’re operation is growing, the cloud simply grows with it. You don’t have to calculate how much server space you may need in six months or how much you will need a year from now. Instead, you can spend those resources focusing on providing clients with great service and earning profit.
Cloud to Cloud Integration is Now a Possibility
If you’re already using cloud based solutions for other business applications, let your accounting solution provider know. It’s relatively, but the truth is cloud to cloud integration is absolutely a possibility. In all likelihood, all of your cloud based applications can share data amongst themselves in order to truly provide you with rich, enterprise solutions.
Automation Leads to Accuracy
Many cloud based accounting solutions are largely automated. That means there is less human intervention. That leads to less error,and more quality control. Fraud, duplicate entries, and other issues can be flagged and dealt with, often with limited human intervention.
Ease of Maintenance
In order to keep your in house systems working, you have to constantly concern yourself with upgrades and maintenance. Servers must be updated as your company grows. You’ve also got security patches and other upgrades to stay on top of. Even for a small accounting firm, the job of ensuring your servers, devices, and networks stay up and running can quickly become a full time task for at least one of your team members.
That’s not the case with the cloud. You don’t have to concern yourself with maintenance at all. These tasks fall under the responsibility of the software provider. Don’t forget the cost of server downtime. Depending on the solution you choose, a cloud based accounting system may mean you’ve got as little as 45 minutes down time each month.
Not only have cloud based solution providers gone a long way in allaying concerns about security and privacy, they’ve taken steps to ensure that their solutions are more secure than most other options. In addition to this, cloud solutions can be less expensive as well as using up fewer resources. Any accounting firm or small business in need of an accounting solution should strongly consider looking to the cloud. There’s a very good chance that there’s something in the cloud that will meet your needs.