As we find ourselves in a “new normal” created by the pandemic, accounting and CPA firms have had to adjust everything about the way they conduct business and today, let’s address five reasons accounting firms switch to the cloud.
As we move from the corporate office to home offices or a mix of them, the biggest question remains, how to make sure data and applications are accessible to the firm and its employees but also secure from hackers and cyberthreats. As a CPA firm, your line of business applications are of critical importance when it comes to automating your business. Applications like Tax Preparation, Audit, Write Up, Time and Billing and Firm Management are critical to the success of your entire organization. Moving these applications to the cloud will further increase the efficiency of your accounting firm.
Here’s five reasons accounting firms switch to the cloud:
Accessibility
With some or most of your staff working from home, moving all your companies’ line of business applications to the cloud will eliminate cross-network barriers and accessibility issues when it comes with working together, even when you’re physically apart. Your employees can easily collaborate with you and each other from multiple locations securely and accurately, no need for too-long email strings or lost edits.
Security
We know that when it comes to your clients’ accounting information, security is a top priority both for them and your company.
Almost half of all cyberattacks happen to small to mid-size companies and in 2017, only 35% of small companies said they could remain profitable past three months after being hacked. That’s the bad news. But the good news is most cloud solutions are set up with their own firewalls, data encryption tools, and intrusion detection and prevention systems, which means you don’t have to rely on multiple different security sources, all of them are in one place, directly protecting the data you store there. You can rest easy knowing your company’s and your clients’ information is all stored and protected efficiently and securely.
Recovery
You’re in the middle of using QuickBooks and your laptop runs out of battery or your age-old processor finally stops working, or maybe it’s just time to get a new computer, using the cloud for your line of business applications is going to make all of those situations a lot less stressful!
With your line of business application data saved automatically on the cloud, you can cut time when it comes to accessing, saving, and/or transferring important data because it’s all in one place. And when it comes to saving your data, most cloud applications are set up to automatically save everything within seconds of you recording it, giving you ease of mind and eliminating that “did I save that?” panic.
Cost-efficient
By having all your data in the cloud, you can scale back on the amount of local hardware infrastructure you need in order to keep your data and information backed up and secure. Switch out the cost of hardware cluttering up your on-site or home office that may or may not break down for the cloud, that only requires a monthly rental fee, that will not only keep all your data safe and backed up but won’t take up any valuable space or time and money for installation.
Single-point deployment
The cloud serves as standardized point of deployment with a unified monitoring system giving it an ease of access to the people who you want to have access to it while protecting against the people you don’t. With this single-point of deployment, it’s much easier for support providers to get in, fix your IT problem, and get out quickly, getting you back to using the line of business applications you need most for the success of your business.
Have a question about how accounting firms switch to the cloud? Let us know – we are always here to help.
