As various issues of traditional on-site software crop up, many businesses prefer the benefits of the cloud platform for accounting. Cloud accounting is an innovative and cost-effective way of financial management that can enable the transformation of growth-oriented organizations.
The survey “The Practice of Now” by Sage shows some crucial statistics relating to cloud accounting:
- 39% of accountants are early adopter of technology because of improved time, efficiency, and service quality
- 67% of accountants prefer cloud accounting
- 58% of large corporations have resorted to cloud accounting
- 83% clients are asking their accountants for business advice and not mere number crunching
64% of small businesses in the US spend $1,000+ on tax preparations
Further, we see small and medium businesses spend a substantial amount of time on tax preparation each year. For example, 64% of small businesses in the US spend at least $1,000 on tax preparations. Moreover, in the UK 66% of businesses are at risk for mismanaging paperwork. With numbers like that, cloud accounting could be the answer to these various accounting challenges.
Accessibility and Real-Time Updates: One of the major benefits of cloud accounting is that it provides the flexibility to access data anytime, anywhere and on any device. Due to this easy accessibility employees can work remotely from multiple office locations or home offices. This makes businesses truly dynamic as decision making is possible based on real-time information.
Tracking Cash Flow and Expenses: Many organizations are stuck in the conventional methods of paper-based bank statements and records to track their inflow and outflow of money. When tracking accounts receivable, accounts payable, income, expenses, assets and liabilities, it ends up being a lot of manual work and headaches. Cloud accounting allows for precious time to be used on revenue-generating activities instead.
Maintain Financial Records: Without a comprehensive accounting solution, organizations spend hours finding and sorting bank statements, paper bills, and invoices for year-end taxes. All these efforts result in wasting valuable time and manpower every year. Rather, companies can focus on improving customer service or doing billable work with a solution that provides centralized, easily accessible records.
Managing Reconciliation: Manual reconciliations are cumbersome, inefficient, and error-prone. With the right accounting solution, you can link your online business account to the cloud accounting platform, and your accounting records will be updated automatically daily. Essentially, cloud accounting simplifies the reconciliation process where you can reconcile every few days, or even daily, instead of going through the hassle of monthly reconciliation.
Avoid Hardware Damage:Unlike traditional accounting, business data stored on the cloud is encrypted and located on remote servers. In turn, data is always backed up and easily accessible online. This eliminates the possibility of losing data due to hard drive failure and saves companies from the cost of data retrieval in these scenarios. This is one of the most significant benefits of cloud accounting.
What about integration with other business platforms?
Cloud accounting can often integrate with other cloud-based business software. These secure data links can minimize duplicate reporting and provide an end-to-end view of essential business data. Also, some cloud-based solutions are even designed to integrate with just about any type of cloud-based software through flexible programming interfaces called ‘Application Programming Interfaces’ (APIs).
Are you seeking assistance to have a high-quality and efficient accounting process in place? Get in touch with our consultants or learn more about our accounting services, HR technology, or talent acquisition solutions.
