If you want to increase your accounting department’s abilities and lower costs, consider joining the many businesses that are turning to cloud-based solutions. Like other types of software-as-a-service (SaaS), benefits of accounting in the cloud outperform conventional accounting for businesses in numerous ways.
What are the problems associated with conventional accounting software?
There are many issues with the way businesses have handled accounting for years. They include:
- The program only working on one computer, as data is taken from place to place on USB drives or similar means. This is not reliable or secure.
- The software in your company system is not up to date and neither is the data.
- User access is limited. Key team members can’t access customer and financial details.
- Customer support is slow and expensive.
- It is time-consuming, expensive and difficult to upgrade your software.
- It’s complicated and costly to keep backups, if you do it at all.
Benefits of Cloud-based Accounting
24/7 Accessibility
Using conventional accounting methods, you had only limited access to your company’s financial information. You had to wait until your accounting professional was on-site, when you could get to your desktop PC that held the information, or when you could drive to your office to review records still on paper.
Accessibility to accounting records – and records from other departments – is one of the most important benefits of working in the cloud. As long as you have an internet connection, you can use anything, even your phone, to access your company’s accounting records. In minutes, the information you need is right at your fingertips.
Lower Cost
While we’ve covered the topic on cost savings quite extensively (read more), we haven’t discussed the details of cost savings in relationship to the cost required for:
- Management Accounts
- Financial Statements
- Waiting time (between your accountant and you before information is accessible)
It’s true, cloud accounting outscores conventional accounting by being much more cost-effective than the old methods. More importantly, by default, it eliminates the bulk of the time (and associated cost) required for all the above.
In fact, you invest in cloud accounting, you don’t need to make a large purchase of an accounting program, or buy and then set up a server on which to host it.
This also lowers IT consultation fees and allows you to avoid installation fees. As tax regulations and accounting rules change, you won’t need to buy or install updates. Rather, your annual or monthly subscription fees cover updating of your applications, and your provider (including SmartB) will complete them for you.
Automatic Data Restoration and Back-Up
Accounting in the cloud allows for automatic backing up of data, which removes the chance for forgetting to back up data. This reduces the chances for human error. Rather, accounting data is saved to a location off-site and automatically backed up.
This adds more security to your data, in case of fire, flood or break-in at your company location. Your cloud based accounting provider can restore data, which gets your business back up and running in a minimal amount of time. This will minimize the inconvenience and impact to you and your company’s business.
Immediate Fixes
The first computer accounting packages were improvements over paper-based systems, but if your program had problems, your users had to wait for a new version to fix the bugs. With cloud-based accounting, software issues can be immediately fixed.
Real-Time Updating
One problem shared by most conventional accounting systems was related to updating information. If one figure needed change, it had to be manually recorded in every location where it appeared, including ledgers, forms and other accounting documents.
Using cloud accounting, if you enter new data, it populates every location where it occurs. This saves money, time and any potential headaches that might arise if any data locations were missed.
If you want to simplify the accounting aspects of your company, and save time and money as you do it, consider the many benefits of cloud accounting.