To replace their in-house server most businesses purchase a Cloud, this gives them an online edition of a product that they can access any time and anywhere. The Accountants cloud also hosts the clients and is therefore a bit difficult It is a direct reflection of their firm and must perform for their clients as they themselves would. This presentation includes all of the details involved with the cloud product including ease of use, security, and of course performance. It is important to recognize these differences and see that if the Accountant is hosting their client's data on their Cloud and they go down for any reason, not only is the Accounting Firm down, but their clients are down as well. Purchasing a Cloud Computing provider is a serious decision, failing in this task is devastating for both the Accounting firm and its clientele.
Accountants differ from other businesses by using more than the traditional office suite. There are a number of things Accountants can use Cloud based services for. The list is endless to the type of programs and applications that Accountants, their employees and the clients use. Real-time data is essential to the end result.
One of the most important features that accountants take into consideration when choosing a Cloud provider is security. Cloud will host their client's financial information and confidential records without risk to security breach at any time. Be sure to find out where the actual servers are located and what they are doing to ensure your data is secure as well as their redundancies. It is obvious that an Accountant cannot re-create the physical or intellectual security that an enterprise level hosting company can, but the details in which that host rolls out their security protocols needs to be researched as well. A typical standard of any Cloud Computing provider is that they are at a SAS70 Type II data center that is highly secure as well as staffed with on-site security at all times. You can save money by outsourcing data storage to the Middle East or Asia.. Though it is perfectly acceptable to the Accountant, the IRS requires that the client notifies and sign a release to confirm that they too are comfortable with their data being sent outside the US. The technical support team may also be outsourced and this is something to be sure to ask about when researching the proper provider of Cloud services for an accounting firm.
Now that the Accountants Cloud has been distinguished as needing some specialization and is not cookie-cutter virtualization, let's discuss the benefits of the Cloud to the Accounting Professional and why a firm would want to take the leap. Business companies take to cloud for great many reasons, but the most compelling and common reasons for an accounting firm are mentioned here.
Cost Savings: Numerous firms fail to recognize their excessive, annual IT expenditures. When you add all of the costs up, using the cloud instead of having many other solutions can save up to 50% annually on IT.
Security: It is a misnomer that using the Cloud is less safe than using a normal client server setup. The cloud services providers have made a secure environment that one firm couldn't create without spending an extreme amount of money.
Convenience: The cloud offers anytime access. The accountant only needs internet access to get their files.
Scalability: You pay for what you use and use what you need, like a computing power grid. Nobody buys huge servers anymore. Virtualization has created an environment that is more cost effective than a traditional IT managed infrastructure.
Shift the Focus: Accountants need to focus on their skills and not IT management. By using the cloud, accountants can now focus on billable hours vs IT work.
Collaboration: Let's you work well with others. This provides real time numbers and financial data to help the client and the accountant to make important business decisions
Transforming IT: The new trend is to move away from a hardware set up to an IT where you pay as you go.
New Service Offerings: New and innovative service contributions enable Cloud services to proffer its accountants with additional sources of revenue and profits. They can charge their clients for "e-services" like an online portal, document management and storage, disaster recovery plan and much more.
In Conclusion: Its easy to throw the word Cloud around and there are a lot of companies that offer Cloud services. Meeting a client's specific need of give them a specialized product that brands their company as well as an all in one virtual office solution is often the most challenging problem. It's important for modern accounting firms to research their options when selecting a vendor; they should ensure that their vendor is secure, can adapt, and that it has accounting technology. The benefits of moving to the Cloud are evident, the timing and the selection of who to provide those services is more complex.
Accountants differ from other businesses by using more than the traditional office suite. There are a number of things Accountants can use Cloud based services for. The list is endless to the type of programs and applications that Accountants, their employees and the clients use. Real-time data is essential to the end result.
One of the most important features that accountants take into consideration when choosing a Cloud provider is security. Cloud will host their client's financial information and confidential records without risk to security breach at any time. Be sure to find out where the actual servers are located and what they are doing to ensure your data is secure as well as their redundancies. It is obvious that an Accountant cannot re-create the physical or intellectual security that an enterprise level hosting company can, but the details in which that host rolls out their security protocols needs to be researched as well. A typical standard of any Cloud Computing provider is that they are at a SAS70 Type II data center that is highly secure as well as staffed with on-site security at all times. You can save money by outsourcing data storage to the Middle East or Asia.. Though it is perfectly acceptable to the Accountant, the IRS requires that the client notifies and sign a release to confirm that they too are comfortable with their data being sent outside the US. The technical support team may also be outsourced and this is something to be sure to ask about when researching the proper provider of Cloud services for an accounting firm.
Now that the Accountants Cloud has been distinguished as needing some specialization and is not cookie-cutter virtualization, let's discuss the benefits of the Cloud to the Accounting Professional and why a firm would want to take the leap. Business companies take to cloud for great many reasons, but the most compelling and common reasons for an accounting firm are mentioned here.
Cost Savings: Numerous firms fail to recognize their excessive, annual IT expenditures. When you add all of the costs up, using the cloud instead of having many other solutions can save up to 50% annually on IT.
Security: It is a misnomer that using the Cloud is less safe than using a normal client server setup. The cloud services providers have made a secure environment that one firm couldn't create without spending an extreme amount of money.
Convenience: The cloud offers anytime access. The accountant only needs internet access to get their files.
Scalability: You pay for what you use and use what you need, like a computing power grid. Nobody buys huge servers anymore. Virtualization has created an environment that is more cost effective than a traditional IT managed infrastructure.
Shift the Focus: Accountants need to focus on their skills and not IT management. By using the cloud, accountants can now focus on billable hours vs IT work.
Collaboration: Let's you work well with others. This provides real time numbers and financial data to help the client and the accountant to make important business decisions
Transforming IT: The new trend is to move away from a hardware set up to an IT where you pay as you go.
New Service Offerings: New and innovative service contributions enable Cloud services to proffer its accountants with additional sources of revenue and profits. They can charge their clients for "e-services" like an online portal, document management and storage, disaster recovery plan and much more.
In Conclusion: Its easy to throw the word Cloud around and there are a lot of companies that offer Cloud services. Meeting a client's specific need of give them a specialized product that brands their company as well as an all in one virtual office solution is often the most challenging problem. It's important for modern accounting firms to research their options when selecting a vendor; they should ensure that their vendor is secure, can adapt, and that it has accounting technology. The benefits of moving to the Cloud are evident, the timing and the selection of who to provide those services is more complex.
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