Cloud Accounting – Is Your Business Ready?

Update: This article was last updated on 18th June 2019 to reflect the accuracy and up-to-date information on the page.
Cloud Accounting has become extremely popular in recent years due to its constant advancement and out-of-the-box solutions and is gradually taking the place of the traditional accounting solutions.

Many CPAs, accountants, and SMBs are adopting cloud technology and utilizing its core benefits to increase productivity and improve collaboration.

Cloud Accounting, also referred to as ‘Online Accounting’ is a way of accessing accounting software from Internet-enabled devices such as laptop, tablet, or a smartphone, instead of installing it. The programs or applications are hosted on remote cloud servers rather than on a local system.

With the help of cloud accounting solutions, the businesses free themselves from countless hassles of the IT and critical errors in data entry and financial reports.

Below are the benefits to consider while adopting cloud accounting for your business:

1. Business owners and bookkeepers can access their data anytime, anywhere from any device:

Cloud accounting enables the accountants and CPAs to access their financial data- account balances, invoices, cash flow statements, and much more remotely and at any time through internet-connected devices.

2. IT costs are lower when compared to traditional hardware setup:

Small business owners can concentrate on their core operational activities when using cloud accounting. There is no need for installation, maintenance, and hardware upgrades, which in turn leads to a reduction in operational and capital expenses.

3. Your accounting data is secure on the cloud:

Cloud accounting service providers offer multiple layers of protection (physical, network, and administrative) and regular backups to businesses securing the data integrity from viruses, data theft, and accidental deletion, which are quite common in the local desktop scenario.

4. Collaboration with clients and accountants simultaneously:

Cloud accounting enables CPAs, accountants, and business owners to collaborate with their respective clients and employees on the same files, eliminating the need for sending files through emails. As all the data and information is hosted on the cloud, users can log in the software wherever, whenever they want.

5. Flexibility and scalability with cloud accounting:

Cloud accounting service providers offer PAY-AS-YOU-USE pricing plans to their users where they can scale up/down their resources and add/remove users as per their business requirements. The businesses can modify their resources and choose the pricing model for their growing accounting operations.

Check out this infographic below for more information.

What about security in the cloud?

Security is critical for any organization and is particularly important when it involves accounting. Cloud is a more secure platform to store your data than the traditional system. For example, if your system is stolen, no one can access your data on the cloud without having details of the online account or web login-password.

Cloud services are run by trained professionals who prioritize data security and use state-of-art servers which are designed to ward off hackers. Data centers regularly undergo third-party certifications and various evaluations to ensure complete safety.

To Wrap It Up!

The number of advantages and possibilities that cloud accounting provides are endless in every context. Many CPAs, accountants, and bookkeepers are becoming mobile and can meet changing markets, which significantly increase business growth.

Recommended Reading: Things to Look Out for While Choosing A Cloud Service Provider

Choosing cloud accounting will lead to a reduction in management workload, time, and money, which will help the accountants to connect with their clients effectively, bringing more productivity and collaboration.

Therefore, with high security, reliability, and automation, a transition to cloud accounting will uplift the company’s cash flows and profits and simplifies all accounting complexities with lesser efforts.

Are you using cloud accounting? How are your results? or Are you still planning to move your business accounting to the cloud? We’d love to hear you all in the comments section.