Cloud Accounting Software: 11 Reasons Businesses Move to the Cloud

Why Cloud Accounting Software & Reporting is Attractive to More Businesses

A growing trend in ERP software the move to the cloud. When it comes to financial management and reporting, cloud ERP software options are attractive mainly because the model of deployment makes it affordable for growing businesses. With cloud solutions you can leverage a single instance of software across a large group of users – this is referred to as “multi-tenancy.” It’s more economical for the software publishers of cloud solutions to only manage one instance of code and deploy it over the Web. As a customer, you get the advantage of the buying power of 1000’s of users who collectively pay for that single system to grow and develop over time. The traditional ERP software model is referred to as on-premise systems or “single-tenancy.” This model is not as economical because each business is responsible for installing, hosting and networking their own software, and the updates. The Cloud relieves the burden and expense of managing software in-house. 

Let’s explore 11 important ways businesses benefit from cloud accounting software solutions.

1. Secure – Aggregates the requirements and buying power of huge user groups to establish data, report, and application security. The use of world-class data centers, permissions, and audit trails are among the means of control. Your business data and applications are safe, and your business risk is significantly reduced.       
2. Transparent – Cloud financial vendors provide real-time reporting of system status, and service level agreements, to reflect accountability of their stated purposes for uptime and security.  Trusted third-parties have reviewed these claims, and provided their endorsement.  Translated, your business isn’t taken down by your business system.
3. Scalable – Cloud infrastructure, and vendor foresight in the architecture of applications, allow a virtually unlimited scaling of transactions, data, and accounting methods.  Your business can grow without concern of an arbitrary ceiling, or the cost of switching systems later.  
4. Global – Cloud architecture gives global and distributed businesses the power to establish concurrent use, and collaboration, for multi-entities and locations.  Real-time consolidation of business divisions, book methods, and results follow.  Quick results give you time to adjust your business tactics.   
5. Custom – Enables finance, independent of the IT department, to focus on making their own improvements to data collection, reporting, and workflows.  This puts finance in charge of customization, and the driver of change.  Custom workflows improve processing speed, and reduce staff workload. 
6. Enabling – Allows you to streamline data capture, attribution, and reporting for quicker and more accurate decision-making.  
7. Integrated – Offers choices for add-ons, addressing the proposition that no system will provide 100% of the functionality you need or want. This allows you to add applications as needed, and still keep data within a single system.   
8. Manageable – Implementation and changes to the system are more rapidly completed, tested, and deployed.  Finance is no longer held back by IT constraints on new initiatives, including those to segment and report on results. 
9. Automated – Built to automate workflows and reduce staff time, errors, and admin focus. They also allow reduction of risk. 
10. Evolving – Market share gains by cloud financial Co.’s allow the economics of developing new products and relationships to be realized. This means their rapid release of updates (quarterly) are available for features that make you more efficient.   
11. Profitable – The ROI from cloud financials should be obvious and remarkable for the outsourcing of IT infrastructure, and current IT staff expense. The reduction of risk, and improved visibility, are also factors that drive returns for prospective subscribers.