Client satisfaction is a significant concern for accounting businesses as their clients expect supplementary services (such as tax management services, payroll services, and financial advice) apart from the primary book-keeping services from their accounting firms, and with the rise in competition, it is imperative for accounting businesses to thrive in the market by adapting to the changes.
Hence, many successful accounting firms and CPAs are moving to the cloud in order to stay relevant and to cater to client expectations.
Here are some of the reasons why moving their processes onto the cloud or using cloud-based accounting systems has helped accounting businesses in remaining popular among their clients and reach success.
1. Remote Access
Cloud is highly pliable for your accounting businesses to access critical data from any remote location, be it while you are working from home due to a deadly pandemic or going to a location on the other end of town to meet a client. You will have all the necessary files pertaining to your work at the click of a button.
If you are sticking to the manual processes or relying on the desktops or laptops containing the files on their local drive, you might be signing up for trouble as these systems might not be available at the reach of hand. Whereas, if your business data is stored on cloud infrastructure, you will have the flexibility of reaching it from any system.
2. Real-time Data
Updated data is any accounting team’s best friend as it helps in assuring the clients that you are on top of your game. Unlike a normal desktop-process, a cloud-based process, at regular intervals, saves your data and keeps it up-to-date, even while your employees are making changes to it.
Not only does it help you obtain real-time data for self-use, but it also allows you to share appropriate data with your clients for instant collaboration. It facilitates optimizing your time as the necessity to travel to the client location to have discussions with them will minimize.
3. Cost-effective
If you are storing your data on local systems or drives, you will have to invest a great deal in the IT infrastructure such as desktops, memory disks, and so on. It requires you to invest in the infrastructure and in their maintenance throughout the device’s life.
Cloud, in comparison to office systems, will be more cost-effective as the storage space available for storing the massive accounting data will cost lesser for the same amount of storage space on a local device and will add to the efficiency of the business. There will be no additional maintenance charges as well.
4. Data Security
Businesses such as accounting can’t afford any sort of data-leakage or hacking as that is one compromise that clients don’t forgive you for. A lot of an accounting firm’s success rides on their ability to keep the client data confidential. It gets tricky when one has to secure all the data manually.
While on the contrary, accounting on the cloud comes with multiple layers of encryption arranged by the Cloud service provider, which helps accounting businesses maintain their client’s data under tight wraps and thus, keep the client satisfied with their service.
5. Prevents Loss of Data
Many a time, even without the intervention of external elements such as hackers, there still persists a risk of data loss, which may occur due to any number of system and human errors. The ground rule for your accounting firm to keep any client engagement healthy is making sure that no data is lost.
It generally occurs when employees manipulate the data available on desktop systems without keeping a tab of the old data or when the hardware (which is the storage base of the data) crashes.
You, as an accounting firm, can prevent yourself from the trouble of data loss by opting to upload all your data on a Cloud, which in turn automatically backs up all the data even as changes are being made to it. You can use it as your primary source without the worry of any data slip.
6. Process Flow Control
When all your data is in one place, it gets very easy to streamline all your processes. Especially in accounting firms, it is necessary to check where and how the data is being accessed. A cloud system helps you keep a tab on when and by whom data is being accessed and allows you to authenticate part of the database system to be accessed by only those to whom the access is provided.
As an added help, some cloud systems even come with visualization facilities that help you project the inflow and outflow of data (with the help of inbuilt charts and tables which can be customized to the needs of your business). Thus, it helps you in coming up with a common process across all your clients, on the way, making your job easier and more optimal.
Wrap Up
For Accounting businesses, cloud computing has become highly crucial and profitable. It guarantees the advancement and profitability of accounting firms with several advantages and also helps the business refashion itself to the needs of the industry.
All of the factors mentioned above, along with many others, bring accounting firms on-to their track to success! It is always advisable for any accounting firm to choose a cloud system for their utilization, keeping the factors that serve their purpose in mind as the services of cloud systems differ from one to another.
