Tax Software On Cloud Or Not This Tax Season?

Cloud computing has made a significant impact on everyday business processes. Many industries are leveraging technology by moving their operations on the cloud. It has offered various benefits such as mobility, flexibility, scalability, and more to streamline the workflow.

The same can be said about the tax industry. Especially during the tax season, adopting cloud technology makes the whole process hassle-free for accounting and tax professionals. One of the effective approaches to harness the power of the cloud is tax software hosting.

Even though the use of tax software has simplified the filing process, installing the application on a local system has some limitations that can limit the full potential of the software. Some of them include restricted access to the tax process, managing large amounts of data, higher operation costs, and more.

Here are some factors that will help you decide whether to host tax software on the cloud this tax season or not.

1. Mobility

Tax season brings immense stress for accountants and tax professionals. With the use of desktop-based tax software, they have to sit for long hours in front of their office desktops to meet their deadlines.

Tax software hosting gives them the freedom to access information and work from anywhere at any time by logging in from internet-connected devices like laptops, smartphones, or tablets.

This remote access enables tax firms to implement work-from-home strategies, which, in turn, helps tax preparers maintain a work-life balance, as well as achieve their targets on time.

2. Security

It is crucial to ensure that financial data is safeguarded from various tax scams and attacks that are on the rise during the tax season. Tax software on the local IT infrastructurelacks the security required for business and client data.

However, most reliable tax software hosting providers implement enhanced security measures to protect the business data. These practices include:

• Multi-factor authentication
• End-to-end encryption
• Multiple firewalls
• Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDS/IPS)
• Password protection
• Antivirus and anti-malware

Moreover, the hosting providers also take responsibility for the on-site security of the cloud infrastructure, 24/7. This gives peace of mind to the accounting and tax professionals for them to focus on their core tasks.

3. Collaboration

The whole team of CPAs, accountants, tax professionals, and other stakeholders have to coordinate with each other in order to accomplish various tax filing tasks. It is not feasible to collaborate on a single file simultaneously using the desktop version of tax software.

Tax software cloud hosting aids professionals during the busy season by enabling multi-user access to the application. Cloud provides a common platform to access, share, and edit information simultaneously and in real-time. This ensures that the data is up to date, which, in turn, reduces the chances of errors.

4. Scalability

In a growing business, the demand for infrastructural and other hardware resources keeps on fluctuating. It becomes challenging to customize resources according to the requirements with on-premise infrastructure.

Hosting tax software on the cloud allows businesses to easily upscale or downscale different resources such as storage, RAM, number of users, etc. as per the business needs. Therefore, even when there is a need to outsource some of the services during tax season, businesses can quickly increase their number of users, and similarly, decrease it when the demand drops.

Hence, it eliminates the tech-hassles for accountants and tax professionals, which improves their productivity.

5. Backup

Maintaining data backup is crucial so that in case of any loss, information can be easily retrieved, and there isn’t any disruption in the workflow. Hosting confidential client data on local servers might not be the best option as it is susceptible to various accidents such as fire, natural disaster, or hardware malfunction.

In the case of tax software hosting, all the financial and tax data is stored at off-site data centers. This helps to prevent data loss and ensures safety from on-premise accidents. The backups are automated and carried out regularly.

Furthermore, the competent cloud hosting providers ensure redundancy of data by replicatingit at multiple data centers, isolated geographically. Therefore, the information is available even in the case of any natural disaster.

6. Integration

Most tax software solutions integrate with different third-party add-ons to enhance their functionality. For example, Drake Software integrates with SmartVault to streamline the data management process. The integration with several add-ons can affect the performance of the tax software due to the exhaustion of resources.

Tax software on cloud offers flexibility and scalability benefits for seamless integration with any number of add-ons. It helps to implement a full-featured environment for the filing of returns that can improve efficiency during the tax season.

7. Uptime

The business efficiency and productivity depend on the time the servers are up and running. However, the hardware crashes and maintenance time can cause interruptions in the tax filing process. Especially during the tax season, hosting tax software on local servers take in additional efforts to maintain the uptime and overcome the disruptive challenges.

When tax software is hosted on the cloud, it becomes the responsibility of the service provider to troubleshoot any IT-related issues for maximum availability of servers. The competent cloud hosting providers guarantee an uptime value of 99.99% for its users in the SLA (Service Level Agreement).

8. Cost

Controlling operational and capital expenses are one of the major concerns for any business. Expensive hardware and dedicated IT team must be deployed to house the desktop-based tax software.

Moving tax software on the cloud provides budget-friendly solutions for professionals. It helps to reduce the amount of money invested in deploying hardware infrastructure, in-house servers, and other local utilities. Moreover, most of the hosting providers offer flexible and customizable pricing plans, wherein businesses need to pay for only what they’re using.

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Furthermore, remote accessibility of the servers also helps to cut transportation expenses incurredduring commuting from office. This also reduces greenhouse gas emissions that further contributes to the environment.

In Conclusion

Tax software on cloud is a one-stop solution to ensure a seamless workflow this tax season. It not only boosts the productivity of tax and accounting professionals but also saves their time and money.

Do you want to know more benefits of hosting tax software on cloud? Get in touch with our Solutions Consultant at +1-855-223-4887.