Samuel AballaIf your company still uses desktop software or spreadsheets for accounting, it may be time to consider upgrading to a cloud-based accounting system. Cloud-based software offers many benefits over on-premises solutions, including allowing users to work from anywhere, at any time, automation of time-consuming manual processes, improves accuracy and compliance and the ability to accelerate financial close processes with less effort
As a ‘Finance Partner’ of Zoho, we obviously believe that this cloud accounting software is the best on the market, but there are others available and some of our clients do choose to use them. Regardless of which one you prefer; the advantages are exactly the same.
The 10 great cloud accounting benefits
1. Paperless
Traditional accounting often entails paperwork — lots of it. In today’s digitized world, it’s both inefficient and unnecessary to physically store archived paper records or manually distribute paper reports to investors, lenders and other parties. Ask vendors to send invoices electronically so they can be imported directly into the Zoho Books accounting system. You can declutter the office by scanning paper bills and receipts for processing with Zoho Expense. Emailing your invoices to clients eliminates printing and postage costs and fast-tracks payment turnarounds. Cutting down on paper also reduces your environmental impact.
2. Automation
Getting an accurate, up-to-date view of business performance is difficult if you use spreadsheets or any physical type of paper process to manage your accounts. What’s worse, this can cause errors or issues to go unnoticed until they have grown into larger problems. Managing accounts through Zoho Books accounting platform eliminates this issue by giving a real-time view of your business and all of its financial components with an intuitive dashboard. You will always have the most current view of their financial position.
3. Security
The conventional ways of using onsite accounting systems and spreadsheets can be vulnerable when it comes to security. Backup systems can be problematic with several versions of the same file, and storage for these can be expensive. Data can also be lost and unable to be recovered. With Zoho Books accounting, however, your data is constantly backed up and stored securely offsite. Even if you lose your IT hardware due to viruses, theft, accidents or obsolescence, all of your data will still be secured and accessible via your cloud system.
4. Convenience
With Zoho Books accounting, you can access your accounts and key financial figures at any time, from anywhere. When you use desktop-based system, you are effectively tied to the office. Your software, your data and your accounts are all sat on a local drive. And that limits the access you can have to your financial information.
Cloud-based accounting frees you up from this restriction. Your data and records are all safely encrypted and stored on a cloud server, and there is no software application for you to download – you log in and work from your web browser, wherever you have Wi-Fi and an Internet connection. So, wherever you are, you can always check on the status of your business.
5. Customization
It’s difficult to find a traditional accounting system that delivers everything your business needs. Cloud-based accounting solutions allow you to connect and integrate with other apps and add-ons to be a part of your entire business ecosystem. This allows you to customize your accounting solution so you have access to your invoices, sales, marketing, customer support, inventory and customer engagement needs, all in one place.
6. Scalability
One of the cloud’s most appealing features is scalability. Managing finances with spreadsheets quickly becomes unmanageable as a business expands, and desktop-based accounting systems typically offer limited functionality, which can hamper a growing business. If you’re a startup with expansion plans, for example, you don’t want to be stuck with a system you’ll outgrow in a year. Comprehensive cloud-based accounting software can scale and flex to match your business needs; you can start with basic accounting functions and add features and users as your business grows.
7. Cost Effective
Working online reduces your IT costs and saves you time by keeping you constantly connected to the business. Desktop-based systems require an investment in IT hardware, plus the maintenance of that hardware. You require a server to house the application software and the related data. And you will need to pay an IT expert to maintain both the server and the office network – that can be an expensive overhead.
Online accounting is carried out entirely from the cloud. There is no costly IT infrastructure for you to maintain, and you can access the software whether you are in the office, working from your kitchen table or out at a customer meeting. Rather than waiting until you are back at the office, you can immediately approve payments, or send out invoices to customers, saving you time and making your financial processes far more effective.
8. Collaboration
The idea of a remote workspace had never become so important as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic. When companies run their accounting on the cloud, firms and clients can collaborate in real-time – essentially removing the boundaries that time and distance normally put on productivity.
Productivity is increased as employees do not need to incur added costs and time from commuting to and from the workplace. Employees have a better work-life balance as a result and can spend more time doing what actually matters. Collaborating through cloud accounting also allows employees to have a stronger sense of teamwork. Seeing what others on their team are doing in real-time gives a stronger sense of collaboration and allows members to work as a collective unit, increasing creativity as a result.
9. Accuracy
Cloud-based accounting software improves accuracy by eliminating many of the error-prone manual steps that are required when using spreadsheets. In addition to automatically categorizing transactions and calculating taxes, cloud software can match received invoices to payments and shipments and even automate reconciliation processes, matching internal transactions to bank records and flagging errors.
10. Real-time reporting
When the business manages accounting using spreadsheets or paper-based processes, it’s difficult to get a quick, accurate, up-to-date of view of business performance. As a result, leaders may not spot issues early enough to prevent them from developing into bigger problems. Cloud accounting systems can solve this problem by providing real-time access to centralized financial data. Instead of waiting for historical reports that are weeks or months out of date, users always have an up-to-date view of the company’s current financial position. Dashboards and other built-in analytics tools translate complex data into easy-to-understand charts and key performance indicators. Visualizing data enables the team to gain new insights and quickly identify trends that impact the business, and it costs significantly less with cloud software.
Talk to us about moving to cloud accounting
Finlanza leverages cloud accounting, automation and workflow tools that automate the most manual and time-consuming bookkeeping work, simplifying your workload and giving you back your most precious resource – TIME to focus on your business.
Book a free discovery call and we’ll help you modernize your accounting & bookkeeping systems to get consistent and accurate reports. And we’ll show you how to use those reports to make smarter decisions for your business.
