How Your CPA Firm Can Attract Millennial Women



Has your firm found it difficult to attract and retain millennial women employees? There could be a reason for that. Millennial women have their own requirements which not all CPA firms are able to meet.

In a recent report based on a survey conducted by major consulting group PwC, titled “The Female Millennial: A New Era of Talent”, millennial women discussed their reasons for leaving a CPA firm that they were working with. 43 percent left the firm for a job that paid better – which is about the same reason as men or older women.

37 percent left the CPA firm because they found the work to be very hard and taxing, and it threw their personal life out of balance. They said that they wanted a job that provided them with greater flexibility.

36 percent of young women in their 20s and early 30s felt that there wasn’t a fair balance between the work they did, and the compensation received. Some of them have even complained about a glass ceiling, and how male employees get preferred by the management when it came to promotions and advancement at the firms.

32 percent of the women felt that there weren’t enough opportunities left for them for career progression. They said that they felt they were going nowhere at the firm despite their best efforts and so were forced to look elsewhere for a better opportunity.
28 percent felt that the work at their CPA firm was boring and not as interesting and meaningful as they would want it to be.

So what are millennial women looking for? What do they want in a CPA firm that they are considering joining? 

 53 percent of millennial women said that they were looking for opportunities for rapid career progression. Over 52 percent said that they wanted competitive wages and other financial incentives, which they felt were given to many make employees, but were denied to them for some reason.

35 percent of women said that they wanted more flexible working arrangements. This is especially true of young mothers, who need to spend more time with their growing children.  

33 percent of women wanted better packages for health care, pension and other financial benefits. For 27 percent of the millennial women in the survey, training and development programs were very important and they wanted the accounting firms to focus on that.

Women said that the gender politics in organizations is getting better and with the success of the feminist movement, conditions for women at the workplace have improved tremendously. Yet, they felt that things still could get better.

While the junior and middle-level staff in most accounting companies in the USA is comprised of a large number of women, when it comes to the senior management, it is dominated by men. Women now want a measure of equality in the upper echelons of management.

Our Cervices Hosting and Cloud Services provides Lacerte TaxSoftware Hosting,  QuickBooks Hosting, Drake Tax Hosting, Quicken Hosting, ATX Tax Software Hosting and ProSeries Taxsoftware Hosting. Do contact us for a free consultation on how we can help you. 


How Accountants Can Help Clients Plan Their Finances After a Divorce




One of the biggest challenges faced by accountants is to help a client with their finances through their divorce proceedings. CPAs are always at a loss when it comes to offering financial advice or guidance to clients who are on the verge of divorce.

It’s very difficult, for example, to offer financial advice to a woman who has been divorced by her husband after 25 years of marriage and has no way of returning back to the workforce or earning an income after so many years as a homemaker.

As accountants, you will want the best for your clients, and you will want to avoid conflict of interest if you were advising both the husband and wife prior to the split. You may require a disclosure or a waiver. Divorce is always very complicated, with legal, emotional and financial ramifications. Let’s talk about the right way for CPAs to handle a divorce proceeding.

#1: Address the legal issues related to the divorce first. The first thing you should tell your client is to hire a lawyer, to handle the legal complexities related to the divorce. A lawyer’s help is needed if the estate is very complex. Discuss the pros and cons of hiring a divorce lawyer with your client and offer a recommendation.

#2: The next step is to handle the emotional issues pertaining to the divorce. Divorce is the most stressful event in any individual’s life. If your client has been struggling very badly with the divorce, ask him or her to seek counseling from a trained therapist. Offer a recommendation as well.

#3: Next, it’s time to address the financial issues related to the divorce. Your technical background as an accountant is very important here and it can make all the difference to how much your client will get following the divorce. How successful you are at getting an agreeable outcome will depend on the willingness of both sides to collaborate. If the other side to the dispute is being deceitful or withholding information, then you will have to take recourse to other means, such as hiring a forensic specialist or a private investigator.

Your role will consist of the following

Identifying all the assets – This could be cash and bank accounts, real estate and retirement accounts.

Mapping out the living expenses – You will have to map out the client’s living expenses by taking into consideration their one to three year history and then projecting those numbers into the future.
You will need to consider expenses such as having to buy a new residence, buying a new car or being able to fund for the children’s educational expenses. Also, you will need to consider the healthcare coverage and provide for any increase in insurance premiums. Finally, you will need to help your client set up an emergency fund.

Mapping out real estate - Finally, you will need to map out the real estate division. The specific issues related to the asset division are left to the client, but it’s your job to help them through the crisis and guide them with the right information.



Our Hosting and Cloud Services provides cloud accounting solutions such as Drake Tax Hosting, QuickBooks Hosting, ATX TaxSoftware Hosting, Quicken Hosting, ProSeries Tax software Hosting and LacerteTax Software Hosting. Contact us to know more about our Hosting plans.

How to send an invoice through QuickBooks online



If you are a business owner who is trying to figure out how to send an invoice through QuickBooks Online, then this article is for you. It will guide you on how to create and send a QuickBooks invoice online. After reading you will be sending invoices fast and swift.
QuickBooks online is an easy-to-use invoicing application that will have you sending invoices and receiving payment in no time. 

Before you start, it is important to go to the “taxes” tab on your online QuickBooks account to make sure you have set up your tax rate correctly. A tax option is then automatically added to your invoices which you can then select and charge.

The following steps will guide you on how to send invoices online.

Step 1: Login to your QuickBooks Online and then click the + sign on the top of your homepage.

Step 2: A window will pop up, click on the “invoice” button. QuickBooks will automatically create an invoice number for you.
You can also click on the “customize” button on the bottom of the page, click on the “more” tab and create your own invoice number.

Step 3: Add your customer’s name to the invoice. Click on the up/down arrow next to the “choose a customer” tab. Click on the “Add New” button.

Step 4: Put in your customer’s name and click on the “+ details” button. A page will pop up. Add other information for your customer such as address, business name, and billing/shipping address. It will automatically save your customer info and automatically fill in the appropriate information into your invoice.

Step 5: Pick your invoice terms, invoice date and due date.

Step 6: Add your product/service description, quantity, rate and amount. If you need to factor in any discounts, simply select “ discount” in the product/service drop down menu and add the discount total in the amount section with a “-“ in front of it and it will be deduced automatically.

Tax is automatically included as an option if you have set up your tax rate as explained in the introduction above. Simply select the tax box next to your product/service amount and it is automatically calculated and added to your invoice total.

Step 7:  If you need to add more payment lines, you can just click the “Add Line” button.

Step 8: If you want to add a message, statement memo or an attachment to the invoice, you can do that in the three boxes in the bottom left hand corner of the page. If you need to add in a custom P.O number you can do that in the “message displayed on invoice” box.

Step 9:  If you want to customize your invoice template, font or color you can click on the customize option at the bottom of the screen.

Step 10: If you would like to print or preview your invoice, there is a button for that at the bottom of the screen as well.

Step 11: Once you have verified all your information you can then click on the “save and send” button on the bottom right of your invoice and you are all done.

Books Every CPA Firm Should Read to Improve Their Customer Service



Your most important role, whether as an accountant or as a bookkeeper is not just to crunch numbers, but to guide your client through critical financial decisions and build trust with them. The best way to sharpen your skills as an accountant is to read more often.

At Our Hosting and Cloud Services, we love books and on our blog, we have plenty of recommendations for accountants, small business owners and other professionals. We also provide LacerteTax Software Hosting, Drake Tax Hosting, ATX Tax Software Hosting, QuickBooks Hosting, ProSeries Tax software Hosting and Quicken Hosting services.

Customer service is critical to accounting firms and small businesses.  It can make all the difference between getting more business from clients, or losing business. Accounting is after all about one-to-one interaction between clients and an accounting professional.

Here are 3 great books you should read that can help you improve your customer service.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh (2010)

Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, is famous for creating great customer experiences. This led to the massive success of Zappos, which grew from $1.6 million to $1 billion during the time he was there. Hsieh had an unrelenting focus on creating a customer service based organization that delivered first rate services.

Hsieh did not make Zappos into a great company by being just like anyone else. He wanted to create a business that prioritized customer service over anything else.  He wanted his staff to care deeply about customers and built a customer-centric culture, the likes of which was never seen before.

He knew that great customer service begins with happy employees and created a healthy experience for all employees at the firm. He made his employee’s happiness his top priority. Read this book to find out how he did it.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936)

Dale Carnegie is one of the greatest non-fiction writers of the 20th century and his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, which was published in 1936 as a self-help book, is still a bestseller even today.

Some of the greatest men and women of our times such as Lee Iacocca, Warren Buffett and Mary Kay Ash have been influenced by this book. Carnegie talks about building an excellent foundation with clients based on relationships. 

Carnegie’s philosophies on improving relationships are just as relevant today as they were in the past. It shows you how to make prospects and clients eager to do business with you and is simply must read for all accountants.

The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk (2011)

Gary Vaynerchuk is the leading social media marketer and new age entrepreneur in the world and his book focuses on how to make customer interactions happen, as well as on how businesses operate.

He shows how businesses or service providers such as CPA firms can adapt to the changing needs of the marketplace. Gary’s biggest point is that business today is as much about the interaction between the company and the client or customer, as it is about the product or service. We completely agree with that. 


4 Major Trends in Accounting in 2017



The world we live in is a fast changing one. The rate of innovation is faster than it has been than at any point in the past. There are new trends that shape industries that can be seen everywhere you look. One industry that has been at the forefront of changes is actually a very traditional – accounting.

Accounting of today is virtually unrecognizable from how it was practiced only a decade or two back. Accounting for one, has gone completely digital, and has switched to the cloud. It is one industry that is on the cusp of change, and nothing will ever be the same again.

Accountants and bookkeepers have identified this change and have been working hard to change the way they operate their business. It’s a whole new era of automation today, and this has been largely brought about by cloud accounting.

As providers of QuickBooks Hosting, Quicken Hosting, ATX TaxSoftware Hosting, ProSeries Tax software Hosting, Lacerte Tax Software Hosting, and Drake Tax Hosting, it gives us great pride and joy to be at the forefront of this change.

Here are the four major trends that are changing accounting the way we know it…

 #1: Businesses have more control than ever before.

Cloud accounting has given more power to businesses than before. It allows them to outsource much of the work that accountants generally hate to do or consider beneath them such as data entry of bills or having to personally pick up documents from clients.

They can now use the latest software to do this work for them. This allows business owners to have a better control over their time and create greater value for their clients. They are able to interpret financials more effectively and grow at a much faster pace.

 #2: Outsourcing is bigger than before.

Outsourcing is today an integral part of accounting. Anything that can be outsourced is being outsourced to firms halfway across the world. Geographic distance is no longer a factor.

The only thing that matters is the value added by outsourcing tasks to an outside firm. The net effect of outsourcing is that accounting firms are going to become more competitive and with a clearly focused growth strategy.

#3: Client relationships are now all important

 One of the biggest changes seen recently is the renewed focus on building better client relationships by all accounting firms. There’s been a change from the transactional style advisor-client relationship to a new system in which value-driven interactions are given the utmost importance. Such positive interactions are expected to change the way businesses relate to their accountants and bookkeepers.

#4: From Hourly pricing to value-based pricing


The new trend in accounting is the switch from hourly pricing to a value based pricing. Accounting firms prefer to be charged on a flat rate pricing model rather than on the old hourly pricing system. This allows them to deliver better quality work and have more control over their time. 


Reasons why businesses should utilize cloud storage




What is cloud storage? Cloud storage is an easily accessible space that provides your business with an easy method to store and backup files. This article will focus on reasons why it would be beneficial for your business to invest in cloud storage and how you can benefit from doing so. Having a huge IT department that maintains your backup servers and systems will end up being a thing of the past. There are various controversies around cloud storage that will be considered as ungrounded seeing that it is nothing but a revolutionary way to make sure all your important documents and files are kept safely. Take a look at a couple of reasons why you should open your mind to new technology.

Do your part for the environment with cloud storage

Preserving energy is important and believe it or not by backing up your files on cloud storage you will make a difference. Not only will you save a fair bit on your utility bills, you will also help the environment by using less energy by not running servers. Make your green footprint.

Protect important information against disasters

If all your important documents and files are only kept on local servers you are at risk of losing everything to a storm or natural disaster. This could include a fire or flood. With all your important information stored on the cloud you can rest assured that everything will be accessible all the time.

Save a lot on infrastructure

New servers cost a fortune to purchase and maintain. With technology today you would know that you constantly need to upgrade your hardware and software. By using a cloud storage service you eliminate these costs and save a lot.

Cut down on IT costs

A lot of companies are too small to have their own IT department and end up hiring external contractors to maintain their information and assist with backup servers. This can amount to a great expense which can be eliminated by investing in cloud storage space.

Accessibility has never been easier

You can access all documents and files from any location, using any device. It is incredibly convenient to be able to do this especially considering that you may be travelling and it is just a nuisance to wait for files to be sent to you or to cart around memory sticks.

Need more space? No problem

With the cloud space options are infinite. There is no need to purchase additional physical equipment. Just buy more space. It is convenient and simple and you wouldn’t have to worry about running out of storage space for your many important files and documents which can include financial statements.


QuickBooks on the cloud
Safely and securely upload your QuickBooks information on the cloud. With confidential and important information like all completed QuickBooks such as Quickbooks Hosting, Quickbooks Cloud Hosting, Quickbooks Pro Hosting you can rest assured that there are companies that offer you a secure method of backing up your financial work. 

Why you should become a qualified CPA




When you are faced with a decision about your future and your chosen career path there are a lot of factors to consider. If you are leaning toward becoming a CPA a great future is awaiting you. This article’s main focus will be on why you will be making a fantastic choice by completing the examination to become a CPA. First of all we will look at the definition of a CPA certification and secondly we will be covering the benefits of a choosing to become a CPA. With so many options available in the financial field of study you will be joining a very exclusive group of professionals. By adding the three letters CPA to your name, good things are sure to happen for you professionally. The definition of a CPA is a certified public accountant, and to add this nifty title to your name you would have to complete and pass the Uniform CPA examination and meet certain State certification and practical requirements. What is in store for you as a CPA?

Diversity

As a qualified CPA you will have the opportunity to work in any industry, anywhere in the world. This means your career will be diverse and you will have the option to choose exactly where you would like to settle down. You could work as a CPA in the fashion, engineering, film or music industry. The choice is yours. This will also give you the opportunity to learn more about any industry you might also be interested in.

Independence

With a CPA qualification you don’t necessarily have to work for someone else for the rest of your working life. You can start your own practice. In other words be an independent CPA, working for a variety of clients. There is truly nothing more self-satisfying than being selfemployed.

Lucrative remuneration

As a CPA you will have the opportunity to increase your earning potential. This position offers you more than a regular accountancy position would without the CPA qualification.

Exclusivity

As mentioned before you would form part of a group of individuals that are specialists in their field. As a CPA you will have doors open to you simply because of your professional qualification. Not every qualified accountant has the CPA qualification.

Professional growth

If you are a go-getter you will have the opportunity to gain more knowledge and skill as you work which will allow you to grow with the company that you are working at. You could also further your studies and make your area of specialty even greater. The more you learn the better your chances are at building a reputation and growing professionally.


In demand and indispensable

With financial crisis and economic recession it is a career choice that will always keep you in demand and indispensable. As long as you conduct your work in an ethical and correct manner you will be able to build a reputation which will always give you the opportunity to get potential clients on board.


The Easy Way to Organize Your Company’s Finances



Organizing a company’s finances is a critically important task and is usually done by the CFO. This is all the more important during the tax season, when even the smallest mistakes can prove expensive.
 You will have to deal with deadlines, changes in regulations and other critically important things, besides managing teams of accountants, bookkeepers and other accounting and finance professionals. But there’s no reason why this cannot be done perfectly, provided you get the help you need.

Follow the advice given here to organize your company’s finances better.

#1: Use Cloud Accounting to Your Advantage - As the CFO of your company you must use the latest technologies to arrange your finances, with a particular focus on preparing your taxes. There are a number of accounting applications and tax preparation software that you should take advantage of, such as QuickBooks Hosting, Sage 50 Hosting and Quicken Hosting. But the best way to maximize the benefit from these technologies is to take use cloud hosting. Cloud accounting is something that can save you a lot of money over the long run. QuickBooks hosting, for example, ensures that your financial reports are prepared in real-time, so that they can be viewed and analyzed anywhere, anytime from a number of different devices by multiple users. QuickBookshosting comes with a number of add-ons that serve your specific business requirements and ensure better access to and greater control over your accounting data.

#2: Make Sure Everything is Done On Time – One of the biggest mistakes made by many companies is to ignore their financial tasks and take them up only at the last minute. This is not the smartest thing to do. You must make sure that your company’s accounting tasks are done on time, well before the start of the tax season. The earlier you get started with your accounting related tasks, the more money you will save in the long run as you will have identified inaccuracies, if any, in your financial statements in time. This would save you a lot of trouble with the authorities.

#3: Don’t Hesitate to Hire Accounting Professionals – Many small businesses attempt to manage their accounting tasks on their own instead of hiring professional accountants or CPAs to save money. This is not a smart thing to do. Accounting operations can get exceedingly complicated and it may not be possible for an in-house team to handle all the details. Don’t hesitate to hire a reputable accounting company that can do the job for you. When hiring accountants and bookkeepers, you should always look for those with the right amount of experience and an ability to perform under pressure. Hiring the right accountant is one of the best investments you will make.

#4: Separate Your Personal Finances from Your Company’s Finances – It is very important to separate your personal finance from your company’s finances for tax filing purposes. Many business owners struggle to do this. It is an absolute must to have a separate bank account for your business, as well as separate business credit cards.  This can save your accountant a lot of work later.

Follow the tips given here to manage your company’s finances more effectively. If you have any suggestions or queries, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.


What Every Accountant Should Know About Crowdfunding



As an accountant it is very important that you should be knowledgeable about crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is one of the best ways for a business to get the capital they need in quick time. Usually in crowdfunding, a number of people invest small amounts of money in a business or a project collectively.

There are a number of online crowdfunding sites that connect investors – who are ordinary people around the world – with businesses that need help. In many crowdfunding projects, investors have little idea of the businesses involved – they invest only because they are excited by the business idea. Crowdfunding has lots of benefits for business owners, but there are few important things about crowdfunding that every accountant or CPA should know about.

CPAs usually get involved in a crowdfunding project when there is a huge investment made in a business, not just from the traditional funders such as private equity, angel investors and financial institutions, but from a multitude of small investors brought together by the crowdfunding platform. But this is not as simple as it appears at first glance; there are a few important things CPAs should know about.

Regulations Related to Crowdfunding

The SEC has issued certain important guidelines on crowdfunding which every accountant should know about. The changes made by the SEC are according to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. The new regulations are expected to make it easier for crowdfunding sites to raise capital.  They require a much higher level of financial disclosure from the part of the businesses that seek funds through this method.  The new regulations have also thrown a lot of responsibilities in the way of CPAS and accountants.

Let’s have a quick look at some of the important changes.

 1. Regulation CF (Title III Crowdfunding)

All offerings that are higher than $100,000 must be reviewed by a CPA. Crowdfunding offerings that are higher than $500,000 should be audited by a CPA.

 2. Regulation A+ (Title IV) Crowdfunding

All tier 2 offerings made at a crowdfunding site have to be audited by a CPA firm.

 3. New Auditing Standards  

The new rules require CPAs to prepare a full set of financial statements that are in accordance with the United States Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS).  Also, from now on, for higher crowdfunding offerings, SEC rules apply with respect to crowdfunding projects rather than that of the AICPA.

What Does This Mean for Accounting Professionals?

The new regulations are expected to bring a plenty of new opportunities for CPAs, as they are going to be trusted with critical tasks such as preparation of financial statements and consulted on a range of issues related to taxation.

 CPAs would now be responsible to guide businesses through their crowdfunding projects and make sure that the business owners are fully cognizant of the SEC regulations.


CPAS are required to make businesses aware of the increased business risks associated with the new financial disclosures needed to be made and guide them through the challenges and opportunities that the crowdfunding offerings are likely to throw up.

3 Reasons to Choose Cloud Accounting Over Desktop




So why should you choose cloud accounting over desktop applications? Why not just use the desktop version of QuickBooks, Drake or Sage? Why go for QuickBooks hosting, Drake hosting or Sage hosting? Why go for cloud-based solutions?
Indeed. There are 3 big reasons why you should choose cloud accounting services such as QuickBooks hosting over the desktop version of the same software. Let’s have a quick look at them.

Reason #1: Cost Advantages– The problem with maintaining a desktop version of accounting software is that, you will need to pay for the hardware infrastructure needed to maintain it. You will have to pay for the software upgrades and hire a dedicated IT team to manage the whole system.

This is not the case with cloud accounting. You don’t have to worry about the software upgrades or the IT support – that’s taken care by the cloud computing company. You don’t have to buy any hardware, servers or IT infrastructure. All you need is a laptop on which to launch the application which would grant to access to a remote server. All of this is available for a relatively minor monthly fee. You can scale up or scale down your plans as needed and go for a pay-as-you-go model.

Reason #2: Speed and Performance – The problem with the desktop version of accounting software such as QuickBooks is that the speed and performance of the application is directly dependent on the configuration of the local system. So if you have powerful servers, that will certainly deliver the speed and performance that you expect. But there will be a number of people working in your firm, providing them all with powerful systems would be prohibitively expensive. Also, sharing files can be a problem and email communications are often messy.

What about cloud accounting? With Cloud accounting, the speed and performance of the accounting depends squarely on the cloud computing company, or the hosting provider. If the hosting service is one with a reputation for delivering high performance services with a high guaranteed up time, then you have nothing to worry about the speed of the application.

However, if you sign up with a hosting provider that is not up to the mark, then the performance delivered will not be good enough. So as long as you sign up with a fast and reliable hosting provider, your accounting needs and those of your team members will be met easily.

Reason #3: Future Proof – The problem with the desktop version of accounting software is that you will need to keep updating it constantly. Eventually, the hardware will not be able to keep up with the new software upgrades, so you are forced to change the hardware as well.

Cloud accounting, on the other hand, is future proof. The hosting provider takes care of all software upgrades and delivers them to you at no extra cost. This ensures that all of your accounting requirements will be met, now, and in the future as well.

For the three reasons stated above – cost advantages, speed and performance and free software upgrades, cloud accounting is a much better solution than the desktop version of accounting applications. 

Preparing for the Next Tax Season







April 15 is long gone, as is the tax season. But the thing about taxes is that you are never quite done with them. The tax season will come back soon enough and you will find yourself struggling with deadlines. The best way to avoid feeling the stress during the tax season is to start preparing for it well in advance.
There are certain things about the tax filing process that does not change with time and remains the same year after year. Here are some of the tips you should follow to prepare for the next tax season.
1. Prepare an Income Projection Statement
Salaried professionals generally find it easier to estimate the salary hike for the forthcoming year, as their salaries follow a fixed pattern. This may not be so easy for self-employed professionals and business owners.  Nevertheless, you should make it a point to calculate your income and prepare an income project statement for the rest of the year. It is important that you are well informed about the tax structure. Being well informed allows you to plan tax savings and deductions more efficiently, without leaving it all for the last minute.
2. Pick a Tax Software for Finance Tracking
Have you considered investing in a tax software? If you haven’t already, then you should. You should track the financial transactions for the entire year and be ready with the invoices for each of them. Tax andaccounting software such as QuickBooks record all transactions and ensure that by the time the tax season comes along and you’re required to file your tax return, you will have all the data at your disposal.  You shouldn’t wait for the last moment to invest in an accounting and tax software, you should do so at the earliest. In fact, the best way to get access to the latest tax software is to invest in QuickBooks hosting. QuickBooks hosting is cheap, accurate and efficient and prepares you well in time for the tax season ahead.
 3. Interact with Your CPA
You should have a running conversation with your CPA. You shouldn’t leave communication with your CPA to the last minute. In fact, calling up a CPA just when there are just a few days to go to the end of the tax deadline is something a lot of people do, and this is often to their detriment. CPAs are under a lot of pressure in the closing days of the tax season, so make it a point to call them up as early as possible. This way they will be able to dedicate themselves to the task at hand without worrying about the looming deadlines.
 4. Stay Up To Date with the Latest Tax News and Trends
As a taxpayer, you should be knowledgeable about the latest tax news. You should subscribe to a number of online and offline resources and catch up on the latest tax trends on popular websites. You should be conversant about the latest accounting and tax preparation techniques and technologies such as cloud accounting. You should be aware of the looming deadlines and the various tax penalties imposed by the IRS.
We hope you found this blog post informative. Follow the tips given here to prepare for next year’s tax season and leverage the power of QuickBooks hosting for maximum benefit.

The Right Way to Switch to the Cloud





Cloud technology has today become accepted as the best way to streamline accounting operations and to take advantage of features such as anytime/anywhere access, more effective collaboration, enhanced data security, protection against data loss and lower costs of operations.

Many accounting firms and SMBs that have switched to the cloud already have benefited greatly from having to spend next to nothing on setting up an IT infrastructure, latest software upgrades and the maintenance of the system. Almost every business is today on the cloud and cloud computing has become an integral part of the industry. It’s no longer a matter of “if” a business would want to get on the cloud, but “when” it would get on it.

If your business is not on the cloud already and you are considering your options before signing up for cloud hosting, it is important that you should do your research first on all the cloud hosting providers before signing up with any of them. It is often a frustrating task to choose the right cloud hosting company, especially for QuickBooks hosting, given that there are so many of them in the industry.

That’s why is it important that you should exercise due diligence and switch to the cloud in a methodical manner. Let’s quickly look at how to choose the right way to move to the cloud. Here are the three factors to consider before signing up with any cloud accounting provider.


1.Data Security
There is nothing more important than the security of your data. Your data is your most valuable asset. An accounting firm or a smallbusiness deals with complex financial transactions, where the sanctity of the data is paramount. Data theft can put your entire business at risk and put an end to your operations. Does the cloud accounting company value your data as much as you do?  The only way to find out is to ask for a demo and sign up for a trial offer. Also, check the background of the cloud hosting provider and decide for yourself if you would be comfortable with them handling your data, which is so critical to your business. 

2. Affordability
When choosing a cloud hosting service, you will want to know about the financial benefits of signing up with them. Would you be achieving any cost savings by signing up with the cloud hosting company? What about the processes used by the hosting service? Do they have processes in place to ensure that you get a high quality of service at minimum cost? Do they offer flexible plans and allow you to scale up your plans or scale down, depending on the current requirements of your business? Do they allow you to pay your fees on a pay-as-you-go basis? These are some of the things to consider before signing up with a cloud computing company for QuickBooks hosting.

 3. Understanding of the Business
How well does the cloud hosting service provider truly understand your business? It is not enough to sign up with any cloud computing company. You should sign up with one that truly understands accounting and the accounting requirements of CPA firms and small and medium sized-businesses.

4. Wrap Up
There is no point in signing up with a company that has no idea of the complexity of your accounting needs. The only way to find out if the cloud hosting service meets your requirements is to ask to talk with one of their top executives and address your concerns to them.