You are employers, stakeholders, risk-takers and jacks of all trades–and you wear a variety of hats.
These days, there’s even more pressure on business owners to manage it all. The last three years have been wrought with challenges and unforeseen, unprecedented circumstances.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Rightworks started hearing from more businesses forced to work remotely. Business owners were hearing that a cloud hosting service helped businesses become more flexible, collaborative and efficient before the pandemic—but in March 2020, a host of new challenges emerged—as we are all well aware. (In 2020 alone, 61% of businesses migrated their workloads to cloud solutions!)¹
Small businesses didn’t want to implement cloud technology merely to make working remotely possible—they needed it. And for so many reasons beyond its remote access features.
In this post, we share why businesses need cloud-hosting technology today. Click the linked text to jump to the section you’re most interested in learning more about.
5 Reasons Why Moving Your Business to the Cloud is the Right Move
- To gain remote access
- To eliminate the hassle of IT
- To minimize risk
- To grow business
- To connect their accountant
1. To Gain Remote Access
Cloud hosting technology is a more secure way for employees to work from anywhere.
Looking back, employees used the cloud when traveling to clients’ offices, working from home, from the office and anywhere else work took them. QuickBooks® Desktop became mobile—so no matter where they worked or on what device (phone, laptop, tablet), staff could still access the QuickBooks Desktop program and its familiar and powerful features.
Today, total mobility is still possible, but accessing applications from anywhere has taken on a different importance. Cloud-hosted users gain continuity. Even if you don’t know where you’re going to work from one day to the next, you can pick up your laptop (or phone or tablet) and log into your cloud environment.
While there are a few cloud-hosting providers to choose from, Rightworks is the only hosting solution provider working with your most essential tax and accounting applications—such as Intuit QuickBooks, Lacerte, ProSeries and Drake Tax.
2. To Eliminate the Hassle of IT
Cloud hosting providers manage the hardware where your data and applications run.
Depending on the size of your business, you may have to employ IT staff internally or use an outside-managed IT provider. If you work for a small business, it’s most likely the latter. And, chances are, the outsourced technology provider appears once in a while to fix something. That may have been an OK approach to IT service 20 years ago—but not today.
The world of networking, hardware and software support has become vastly more complicated. Even a single server needs continuous maintenance and upgrades to work effectively. Devices are now used to run different operating systems and software applications.
Why move your business to the cloud? After moving to the cloud, the applications and data you access are now in the cloud provider’s environment. When you harness the power of the cloud, you no longer have to install or maintain software on local machines and servers. Cloud hosting providers have experts to handle your security, updates, backups and maintenance—leaving you more time to focus on your business.
“Accounting firms that stay rooted in pure on-premises technology approaches are almost certain to fall behind their cloud-enabled competitors.” (2022 State of Accounting Firms Trends Report, CaseWare®)
3. To Minimize Risk
Regardless of where they’re located, businesses are often exposed to events that could cause data loss.
From minor mishaps like spilling your coffee on your computer to natural disasters and security risks, there’s a lot to protect against when it comes to your business.
For this reason, businesses must secure their internet access, provide firewall security for internet connections, protect information, computers and networks from cyberattacks, and make backups of critical business data and information. Doing so ensures data will stay available if accidental loss or deletion does occur.
If you’re maintaining data in your office—particularly if the data is essential to you and your clients—you’re exposing yourself to the risk that this data might also be lost. Storing this data in the cloud mitigates this risk.
A reputable cloud provider stores data in multiple, secure offsite data center facilities built to withstand natural disasters.
4. To Grow Business
Moving your internal infrastructure to the cloud cuts overhead costs—plain and simple.
After moving to the cloud:
- You don’t have to worry about buying new servers and updating operating systems.
- You can forget about upgrading your networks, installing the latest wiring or maintaining software that enables remote data access.
- You’re no longer the victim of failed hard drives, overheated processors, bad memory chips or fried motherboards.
Your cloud service provider owns these problems. And their job is to take care of them behind the scenes—without you knowing it and for a fee that is likely much lower than costs incurred for replacement, services and downtime.
While you may feel like an IT professional some days, you ultimately started your business because you’re passionate about what you do (not IT). Cloud hosting technology eliminates IT hassles and provides businesses with anytime-anywhere access. This allows you to focus on what matters, growing your business.
5. To Connect Their Accountant
Lastly, one of the most popular features of the cloud—and a major reason why moving your business to the cloud is a good idea—is that it allows them to collaborate with their accountant in real time.
Accountants don’t need to wait for files and businesses can work with their accounting team in tandem.
What does this mean to businesses and firms?
- Faster flow of information
- Quicker answers
- One portal to access all business data
And it means business owners and employees don’t have to lug physical documents around to and from their accounting firm. This gives owners back time to do what they need to do—run their business.
Prepare for the Future with Cloud Hosting Technology
The professional world has embraced the cloud—as evidenced by this staggering statistic from CaseWare’s 2022 State of Accounting Firms Trends Report:
65% of all surveyed accounting firms plan on adopting cloud technologies within the next 12 to 24 months.
Your clients and customers demand that their data remains safe and in the hands of professionals that know how to maintain, deliver and secure it. They expect you to recognize the cost benefits of cloud computing and reflect those savings. They expect that you’re current with technology and not operating your business the same way you did a decade ago.
Cloud applications, hosted systems, managed servers and providers are the norm today. To remain competitive, you must ensure your technology infrastructure is up to date.
Why move your business to the cloud? Because the cloud is your future workspace.