0Cloud Accounting:
Have you ever thought technology can replace the accountant also? Yes, You heard it right!
Cloud Accounting is new form of accounting which is trending these days. Lets take a brief about the cloud accounting.
What is Cloud Accounting?
Before going into details lets first understand the Cloud Computing:
According to one of Wikipedia article cloud computing provides the computing services like servers, storage, databases, software and more over the Internet (the Cloud). Companies which offer these services are known as Cloud providers and typically charges for these services on basis of usage.
So cloud accounting is also like this only. Cloud accounting is online accounting, which means that, accounting to be done on internet. In Cloud accounting there is no need to install accounting software in your computer or server. The only thing you require for cloud accounting is Computer and Internet.
There are cloud accounting service providers in the market, which provides you with online access to their cloud accounting software after paying the fees. As said above cloud service providers charges the fees on the basis of usage and database. There is very less difference between the traditional accounting and cloud accounting. The only thing which differentiate between the two is that the former is performed on the computer server and later is performed on remote server through interenet.
Benefits of Cloud Accounting
- Cost Effective: Cloud accounting eliminates the need of paying huge software installation charges, installation of hardware and servers to store the database, charges for up gradation of software etc. The cloud accounting is very cost effective as compared to traditional accounting software. It doesn’t require installing the hardware and servers for storage, software gets updated automatically so users don’t have to pay extra for that.
- Real Time access: As cloud accounting is performed on the browser, it can be used at anytime, and anywhere. You can access your cloud accounting software on Mobiles, Laptops also.
- Friendly User Interface: Most of the cloud accounting software is designed in such way that it has very friendly user interface. User can easily access various reports on their own.
- Subscription model: In Desktop model users have to pay the 12 months subscription in one shot, which makes it expensive. But in Cloud Accounting, users have to pay the subscription on monthly basis. Also, Cloud accounting service providers allows users to have free trial month which allows users to decide whether software is useful for them or not.
- Data Safety: Cloud accounting is highly secured. It also ensures the data safety by taking data backups on timely intervals.
Cloud Accounting Softwares in the market are Quickbooks, Xero
