Well, cloud accounting is really a combination of two ideas and has gained quite a bit of traction and interest in the last couple of years. Many small businesses are now turning to online applications to handle their business accounting needs.
First of all, accounting software, which is any computer application that helps you with any form of accounting procedure. This can be as simple as a small sales accounting application to a full enterprise-grade accounting package.
The second concept is cloud computing. Wikipedia lists cloud computing as “Cloud Computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, such as the electrical grid.
So cloud accounting software is basically a way to manage your small business accounts completely online without the need for offline storage or apps. So there is no native installation on your own computer and you can access your accounts from anywhere with an internet connection. This even means accessing your accounting data through your smartphone, such as iPhone or Blackberry.
Many people believe that ‘cloud accounting’ will completely replace locally installed copies of accounting software in the not too distant future. The reasons behind this can be summed up as better data access and sharing and faster and cheaper software development. The advantages of cloud accounting are not limited to small or large companies, but can apply to both.
It is always important to remember if you are thinking of choosing accounting software applications what is the level of data security, how easy can you export your data to another platform and of course always consider price and ease of use as factors. to make your decision.