Future of Accounting:- Cloud based solutions
A couple of times, we have heard desktop based accounting is good and it will give more control over accounts and secrecy of data. Well, this blog aims at debunking the above statement. In fact, cloud accounting has made accounting super efficient and useful for business owners. I believe it is not wrong to say that both accountant and business owner can work hand in hand; smoother, better and faster with the use of the ultimate tool which is cloud accounting.
Bringing out ways cloud accounting can be beneficial as makes it easy way of keeping books and handling financial matters. This way, everyone is happy and getting paid. It’s pretty a win-win situation for both accountant and business owner.
Let us have a look at the ways cloud accounting can be beneficial:
Flexibility, Convenience and Efficiency
Cloud technology grants easy access data; accounting data, anywhere, anytime. It enables them collaborate accountant with their clients working in multiple locations. When you use an old-fashioned, desktop-based system, you are effectively tied to the office. Your software, your data and your accounts are all sat on a local drive. And that limits the access you can have to your financial information.
Automated bank and credit card reconciliation
Why in this information age, when all transaction data is readily available in your banking system, should you have to manually re-enter it into your accounting software? What a waste of time and money. Cloud-based accounting systems allow you to upload or automatically bring ‘live feeds’ of your bank account and credit card transaction data into your accounting stream. Speedy download of real-time data and working smoothly in intuitive software allow you to spend less time on administration and more time focusing on business growth.
Reduce Paperwork
With an online accounting system, you can significantly reduce your reliance on paperwork. Invoices can be emailed out directly to clients, removing the costs of printing and postage – and speeding up the payment process. Incoming bills and receipts can be scanned and saved directly with the associated transactions in your accounting software.
And because your documents are all digitised and stored in the cloud, there is no need to keep the paper originals – saving on filing space and storage costs.
World Class Security
With cloud accounting, no one can access your data unless they have the login to your cloud account and you can even invite other users to view the data with limited access. As your data is saved on a secure cloud server and is constantly backed up, you don’t need to worry about your data being hacked or compromised. Even if your computer crashes, everything is still saved in the cloud.
Better Real Time Business Decisions
As stated earlier, traditional business methods require you to do accounting manually, hence your accounting data lags behind reality. Cloud makes accounting in real time and up to date. How? You are keeping tabs on your clients’ financial status via an accounting software, have an overview of the business and can offer advice for the growth of the business based on real time data.
It is important that we continually evolve our methodologies as time changes; to suit time, so that we will not be left behind and then left wonder: how did it all move so fast. In the same light, business owners /accountants should adopt this cloud technology as the world has moved past the traditional accounting phase.
Interesting Trends/Survey:
- The global cloud accounting market share is projected to increase up to $4.25 billion by 2023. (AB Newswire, 2018)
- Companies that rely solely on cloud accounting has 5 times the number of customers than businesses that do not. (Xero, 2017)
- Businesses that utilize cloud-based accounting have a 15% year-over-year growth in revenue. (Xero, 2017)
- 90% of accountants say that cloud accounting and digital business processes can be the key differentiator among companies in the near future. (Journal of Accountancy, 2015)
- 67% of accounting professionals prefer cloud accounting. (Sage Practice of Now 2018 report)
- 58% of large companies utilize cloud accounting for their operations. (Accounting Today, 2018)
- 78% of SMBs will rely exclusively on cloud accounting software by 2020. (Accountancy Age)
