Cloud Accounting — Myth vs Reality

As the curiosity around cloud-based accounting platforms increase, so does the confusion around it. Today, let’s separate the fact from fiction.

In this day and age, large numbers of small and mid-sized businesses find themselves working on the cloud, without having any idea about the fact*.* From the streaming of music, internet banking, people’s lives are being managed by the cloud technology.

Nevertheless, when offered the choice to switch to cloud accounting, not every entrepreneur is excited. Here are a few rumors surrounding the safety and efficiency of cloud accounting services which can be easily busted to explain how cloud accounting solutions can benefit your business.

Myth: Jumping to the cloud will be a time-consuimg process.

The Truth:

Itwould be misleading to suggest that changing your practice’s internal systems and processes doesn’t take time, but this has to be considered alongside the consequent time that will be saved once you automate the process of sending invoices to customers, bill tracking, and other manual business processes.

Thanks to cloud accounting’s plug and play nature, all you need to start surfing on the wave of cloud is just connect your laptop or PC to the internet, log-in to your cloud-based accounting solution and voila, you can start crunching your numbers and manage your business.

If you have worked on and used offline accounting software Tally and have your accounting data on that platform, you can bring that data on cloud software like Giddh.

Myth: Small business have no need for a cloud accounting solution.

The Truth:

Let me tell you if you are a small business owner, there are already a lot of your competitors who have switched to cloud-based accounting even earlier than a few larger-sized businesses.

Today, more than 40% of SMMs have started using online accounting solutions. In case you are doubtful, just think about simple cloud applications you have been using all along — Gmail, Google Drive, Skype, OneDrive etc. All these are cloud-based services. And a small business owner would benefit more from a cloud accounting solution since it is easily scalable as a business grows.

Now that you have an answer to that, let’s move to the third myth..

Myth: Cloud Accounting solutions are expensive and not-cost effective compared to offline ones.

The Truth:

While there may be an upfront cost involved when you first make the transition, cloud-based applications actually reduce costs significantly.

With an offline accounting software, you have to pay for software licenses, installation fee, maintenance, storage, support personnel, and even for extra features you may need in future.

With a cloud application, all you pay for is a subscription fee based on the features and number of users for that billing period.

On top of that, a default subscription plan includes updates, backups, bug fixes, and accounting support. This implies no problems, headaches or additional costs on your head.

Myth: Cloud Accounting is Less Secured and can be easily hacked.

The Truth:

It’s normal if a business owner is anxious about sharing their data or financial information in the cloud. However, security and data protection is what makes the cloud-based solutions so different and better than other offline solutions.

When a business owner or an accountant uses offline accounting software, it leaves them vulnerable to unethical network hampering such as phishing and hacking.

Cloud-based service providers come fully equipped with bank-level encryption. This means the financial data will be unreadable to anyone else other than you. Even the government and authorities do not have the ability to decrypt and access that data without the consent of all the parties involved.

To conclude, cloud accounting provides businesses of all sizes, especially the smaller ones, more strength by enabling them to manage their accounts from any place, any device and at any time. Yes, there may be some frustration during the transition phase, but it will be well worth it.

What are your thoughts on cloud accounting? Just comment below or read this space for more informative stuff.