Why Uptime Matters In QuickBooks Hosting?

If you are even remotely associated with the accounting industry, you must have surely heard of the QuickBooks Desktop accounting software. It is the most widely used accounting software in the world with versatile features and versions, catering to all factions of the industry, be it startups, SMBs, or multi-national conglomerates.

However, in the last decade, the accounting industry has seen a rapid transformation with advanced technologies like cloud taking center stage. Cloud accounting has become the new norm now, with most businesses moving their QuickBooks Desktop on the cloud.

This is due to the fact that cloud technology offers them perks that were never before imaginable by accounting professionals.Compared to the legacy hardware setup still used in some offices, cloud provides a more flexible and mobile environment for the accountants.

Firstly, the accountants can work on their QuickBooks (QB), from anywhere at any time with their smartphones, laptops, or tablets, by just logging in to the cloud. This improved mobility helps them achieve a work-life balance like never before.

Also, they do not need to purchase or maintain expensive hardware equipment like servers or PCs for their office. They can simply implement BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy in their offices, reducing capital costs, and minimizing office space.

However, the most pivotal factor when QuickBooks cloud hosting is concerned is the uptime. Uptime is simply the time your QuickBooks software is up and running on a system, server, or the cloud. It is generally calculated in percentages, that is –

Uptime = (Total number of hours your QuickBooks is functional/ Total number of hours in a year) * 100

To understand why uptime is so critical to your business, you must first understand what causes downtime.

The Peril That Is Downtime

Downtime is the root cause of your business productivity taking a fall. Moreover, it costs the company more than money when they are not able to deliver the promised tasks on time.

But what causes a server/system to be inaccessible or non-functional?

There can be a number of reasons for it.

Firstly, the local IT setup is not immune to hardware failures. Every piece of hardware has a lifetime and is bound to malfunction at some time. The rigidity of the local IT setup means that if something happens to the system (like the hard drive crashes), it has to the replaced manually. The time taken to do so is instant downtime for the company as QuickBooks is inaccessible at that time.

Secondly,the QuickBooks setup is subject to several minor and major issues.To identify and resolve these problems, you need a dedicated IT team. If there is a slight delay in the response from your IT professionals, you are left with significant downtime. Moreover, they must be available 24*7 to respond as quickly as possible.

Last but not least, there is the grave danger of cyberthreats such as Ransomware. With the types of cyberthreats increasing multi-fold in the past few years, your local IT team needs to be on their toes, on the lookoutfor any security vulnerabilities. Still, the cyberattacks are unavoidable and cause unimaginable downtime for the company.

What QuickBooks Hosting Brings To The Table

QuickBooks Hosting offers the businesses a robust solution to encounter all these IT-related issues and maximize the uptime. Since your QuickBooks software and all the critical accounting data is hosted on the cloud setup of the service provider, all the hardware maintenance and upgrade tasks are their responsibility.

Also, the cloud architecture is such that the malfunction of a piece of hardware does not hamper your uptime, even the slightest. This is because cloud architecture comprises a cluster of connected servers, such that even if a server fails, the QuickBooks can function without any effect.

Secondly, the main USP of most cloud service providers is their customer support. For that, they offer round the clock support, so that you can call them day or night with your issues. They guarantee a fast response and even faster resolution time, which leads to negligible downtime.

Choosing The Right QuickBooks Hosting Provider

Cloud technologyis a robust platform for QuickBooks. But if the service provider offering you that platform is not competent, you will not be able to experience the full capabilities of the cloud.

The providers that ensure a high uptime value like 99.99% in their SLA do so because of their advanced cloud architecture and customer service levels.

Firstly, the data centers in which the QuickBooks software and data are hosted are Tier3+/Tier 4 data centers with infrastructural redundancy.It means that every piece of equipment like power, cooling, and cabling has a backup. If one piece of equipment fails, there is a backup to take its place immediately. Therefore, at the user end, you face no downtime whatsoever.

Secondly, the hardware setup used for building the cloud architecture consists of High-Performance Computing (HPC) servers. The parallel processing capabilities of HPC servers allow multiple users to work simultaneously on as many applications as required.These high-capacity servers optimize the performance of QuickBooks. Hence, there is no chance of the server crashing due to overload.

Additionally, the security issues are taken care of by the providerby implementing advanced security safeguards like two-factor authentication, strong password policy, and data encryption, ensuring safe access to the cloud. The incoming and outgoing traffic is monitored continuously for any suspicious behavior.

These are some of the noteworthy parameters that make a cloud service provider capable of offering a high uptime value.

Final Note

Some businesses choose a cloud service provider solely on their affordable pricing plans and do not pay much heed to the uptime. However, when choosing a cloud provider for your QuickBooks, uptime is the most significant factor that you should look for. A high uptime value ultimately leads to high productivity, which means better ROI.

If you want to know more about the benefits of QuickBooks hosting, call our Solutions Consultant at +1-855-223-4887.