Many small business owners already know the benefits of bookkeeping; they also know just how time consuming it can be! Bookkeeping is purely for the benefit of running a business; it is essential for business owners to keep up to date with their revenue and expenditure.
Although there are numerous accounting software packages available off the shelf, with some being industry standards, and some being more specialised, there is an increasing trend to choose software which operates ‘in the cloud’. This essentially means that the bookkeeping processes occur online, rather than localised to an individual computer or network.
One of the first concerns business owners have with accounting online, is confidentiality and security. This needn’t be a concern; access is only granted to those with permission from the account owner. Large accounting software companies invest a large amount of capital in security and backups. This means that by storing your data on their servers, it may actually be safer than if it was stored locally. Data is liable to be lost through theft of hardware failure when stored locally, but this risk is minimised when stored in the cloud.
Conventional accounting processes involve accessing the office, computer or network where your data is stored. This can be very inconvenient when you need to refer to data quickly, on the fly. Online accounting allows you to access your books anywhere, at any time, as long as you have access to the internet. This can be from your office, from a laptop on a train, or even from a smartphone whilst you’re on a beach! If you need someone to access data on your behalf, they can do so, without having to log on to your personal computer. Simply grant them login details, and they can access the data with their own computer, without the need to install any software.
Cloud accounting systems utilise intuitive “dashboards”. This allows you to tell the interface exactly what data you’d like to be displayed, when you log in. This allows for more advanced book keepers to have instant access to the more technical data, as opposed to novice users, who may simply want to see very top-line data (which is also an option). Dashboards are customisable to only display what each user would like to see.
Accounting in the cloud seems as though it is the next step in the evolution of bookkeeping. With so many pros, and so few cons, it’s wise for business owners to investigate whether online accounting could help make their accounting processes much more convenient.
Pearson Buchholz are a firm of respected chartered accountants, based in Oxfordshire. Whether you’d like to find out how Cloud Accounting can help your business, or if you’re simply in the market for Oxfordshire accountants, please don’t hesitate to visit their website.
