5 Reasons Why Your Accounting Firm Should Transition to Private Cloud

To adopt private cloud or not. That is the question. Or perhaps it’s not! The answer is quite simple. There are numerous benefits that the private cloud can bring to the accounting firms. When companies consider moving their resources to the cloud, they usually think of public cloud, like the ones offered by Amazon or Google, with resources shared by many clients worldwide.

Cloud technology has proven to be a good alternative for small firms as it provides flexibility and reduces cost. However, security and availability remain a concern, especially for accounting firms. It is the reason more accounting firms are choosing private cloud.

What is a private cloud?

A private cloud is a type of cloud architecture which is dedicated solely to a single organization. It also provides many benefits of a public cloud – including scalability and rapid deployment – along with additional customization and greater control available from dedicated resources.

Additionally, a private cloud provides a high level of security to make sure that the sensitive data and operations are not accessible to third-party providers.

Why would accounting firms opt for a private cloud solution?

Here are five reasons why accounting firms might choose to have a private server:

1. Security and privacy

For accounting firms, security and privacy are understandably the foremost concern. According to a statistic, 22% of companies rated security as the main driver behind the adoption of private cloud.

Security of your private cloud is dependant on various factors. However, if there are proper physical security, firewalls, and anti-virus software in place, you are assured that all your data is as safe as it would be sitting right next to your desk. All data is managed on servers to which no one has access, which significantly improves privacy.

2. Take control – if you want it

With the private cloud, you have full control over how to manage and configure it to develop a network which correctly serves your accounting firm. While this applies to resources, but it also relates to cost. There are limited resources which allow you to avoid unexpected costs which usually arise with public cloud which are not managed well.

You can build and configure your private cloud the way you want to. For example, you have the freedom to the operating system you want to use or allocate resources they way you see fit for your accounting firm.

3. Performance and scalability

The resources remain completely at the owner’s disposal with the private server, thus eliminating the risk of capacity or resource contention. You can allocate resources with more certainty. At virtual layer, scaling becomes simple as configuring and installing new servers.

Apart from storage and servers, the flexibility to do what you want is always an option. You can tailor the infrastructure to meet your performance needs without worrying if the servers can handle your workloads.

4. Easy customization

Another critical benefit of private cloud is the level of customization they offer. Each business has different technical and business needs which mostly vary according to the size of the company, their business objective, and sector type.

Private cloud allows you to select an infrastructure with particular storage and networking characteristics, thus allowing the system to meet your requirements perfectly.

5. Ensuring business continuity

Ensuring business continuity can be tricky with the public cloud. You may have long-term plans to stay business and so does your public cloud provider. But what if these plans face setbacks? In the constantly changing accounting and evolving technology, there is no assurance that your service provider would stay longer in business than you will.

If your cloud provider unexpectedly faces a crisis or disaster, it will be difficult for you to migrate all your accounting applications and data to a new server. So, why take such risks? With the private cloud, you have better control, security and privacy to ensure your business continuity.

Should your accounting firm choose private cloud?

At this point, you should have a good idea if the private cloud is the right choice for your company. If security, privacy, and control are the most important factors for your accounting firm, a private cloud is a strong contender.