As a business owner, one of the most important things to take care of is your company finances; bookkeeping and accounts. Keeping track of your income and expenditure is not only vital for managing your business successfully but also to ensure that you comply with legal obligations.
The way in which you manage your bookkeeping and accounts ultimately comes down to you and there are a lot of choices out there, from using a simple spreadsheet to a full blown bespoke accounting system.
Here, I discuss the benefits of using one of the cloud based accounting software options, to help you narrow down your choice.
Cloud based computing is becoming ever more popular for businesses large or small; and for good reason.
First of all, for those of you who don’t know – Cloud based computing is the delivery of computing services – including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and intelligence – over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources and economies of scale. Typically, you only pay for cloud services you use, helping you lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently and scale as your business needs change.
Accounting software is just part of what is available on the cloud and here are some top reasons why you should be looking at cloud based software:
Work from any device from anywhere
One of the biggest benefits of cloud based accounting software is that it enables you to access and work on your bookkeeping and accounts from almost anywhere.
You can use any device and log on to your account wherever and whenever you like, without being tied to a particular piece of hardware. Should the worst happen and your desktop PC is not functioning, you don’t have to worry about getting access to your files. All data will be safely and securely stored in the cloud.
Direct links for your accountants & bookkeepers
Because the software and data is stored on the cloud, you can enable remote access to authorised users such as your accountant or bookkeeper. This shared access function means that those permitted can carry on vital tasks for your business without the need to transport paperwork in person or email information backwards and forwards.
You will have live access to all your financial information
One major advantage of cloud accounting software is its ability to link directly to your company’s bank feeds.
By linking up with your bank, your transactions can be pulled directly from your bank account and straight into your accounting software. You will be able to see in real time what is coming in and what is going out of your account, giving you a greater level of control.
Access to reports and analytics
All good cloud accounting software providers have a wide range of reporting features available. You are able to set up reports to give you figures and analytics on live data, no more waiting for figures to be emailed over or someone to work it out for you.
Many cloud accounting software providers will also feature a dashboard overview, where you can see a snapshot of your accounts at a glance.
Taking the hassle away
Utilising good cloud based accounting software makes things much easier for any business owner if set up well.
With the benefit of the direct links to your bank, easy access to reports, plus digital document uploads, using cloud based accounting can free up much of a business owners time and takes a lot of the hassle away.
Keeping up to date
Using any kind of cloud computing, companies don’t necessarily have to buy or maintain their own computing infrastructure. For some, this may eliminate the need to buy servers, update applications or operating systems. Decommissioning and disposing of hardware or software when it is out of date may become one less thing to worry about!
Storing data on the cloud is safe
With cloud computing a good provider will ensure you have end to end encryption so your data security is taken care of. How secure you consider cloud computing to be will largely depend on how secure your existing systems are. In-house systems managed by a team with many other things to worry about and physical risks to information – like a computer crashing, being stolen or having coffee spilt over it – are eliminated. Your in-house systems are more likely to be ‘leaky’ than systems monitored by a cloud provider’s engineers, dedicated to protecting that infrastructure.
Something else to consider is that data stored on the cloud does not corrupt like it can in off-line versions of desktop software.
Easy to work with an outsourced bookkeeper
Last but not least, using cloud based accounting software makes it easier for you to work with you chosen outsourced bookkeeper. Your bookkeeper can have full access to update your bookkeeping at a schedule agreed with you, saving you valuable time and leaving the bookkeeping to them. All you have to do is view your reports when you are ready. You also get the added benefit of needing less office space the more you can reduce officeless you need people in the office. Less office space means less office costs.
At Rosemary Bookkeeping, we work with several different types of cloud accounting software. If you don’t have anything in place yet, we can recommend something suitable or if you do, we can work on your chosen software.
If you would like to find out about how Rosemary Bookkeeping can help you choose the right cloud based accounting software and assess your business finances during these difficult times, contact your local Rosemary Bookkeeper today.
