4 Challenges Faced By Accountants and How Cloud Solves Them

Accountants today face challenges which are much more formidable than those faced by previous generations. Constantly changing regulations, rising administration costs and new technologies continue to affect the accounting process.

Today, with ever-increasing competition, with clients having plenty of options, it is becoming difficult to cope up with the client requirement with no outside help.

Moreover, tax codes keep on changing with changing governments. Each government brings in its reforms which make the lives of the tax preparers difficult as the tax software on the desktop are not updated automatically forcing the accountants to update the software on their own. It takes up a lot of time and hampers productivity.

But there is one thing that solves all these problems. The answer is cloud hosting.

We did our bit of research on the main challenges faced by accountants in their day to day operations and the ways in which cloud hosting proves beneficial in facing these challenges.

Challenge #1: The humongous amount of tax data that must be managed and secured

The number one challenge that is faced by accountants in today’s time is the management and storage of critical tax data. With ever rising clientele and thus data, the tax data management is becoming a tedious task.

A major reason for this is the limited space in the local system which can get used up very quickly. In order to store more data, the physical storage devices have to be replaced manually adding to the efforts.

However, the problem does not stop there. Apart from having to store large amounts of tax data, another big issue that arises is its security. The tax data consists of private and confidential information of the clients.

Hence, data security is the top priority of every accountant. But the growing risk of tax-related scams and identity thefts have started giving accountants sleepless nights.

Solution:

The number one issue for accountants is the management and security of tax data. The cloud hosting providers offer you with scalable solutions that ensures the unlimited storage of data.

Also, the cloud hosting providers deploy advanced security features like end-to-end encryption, 2-factor authentication, firewall, etc. which makes sure that your data is safe with no potential for data leak.

Challenge #2: Collaboration with people

Accountants have to interact and collaborate with other users on a regular basis in order to finish their tasks. However, collaboration is another issue that accountants face on a daily basis.

It becomes tough to share files with business partners, colleagues, employees, etc. regularly and sometimes simultaneously and that too in a safe manner. It becomes more troublesome during hectic tax seasons.

Solution:

Cloud enables all the users subject to the accountant’s approval to access the same files at the same time from anywhere. This helps the users to work collectively which not only boosts productivity but also helps the tasks to get finished faster.

Challenge #3: High operational costs

Accounting firms face huge expenses because of IT infrastructure. The needs of the business keep on changing on a regular basis. This results in expansion of IT infrastructure, it’s maintenance, security, etc. and add to that the expenses of having an IT team to look after which becomes a huge burden on the budget.

The operational costs are becoming a significant factor in hampering the productivity of the accountants.

Solution:

With the cloud, there are no hardware-related issues as there is no need to install any IT infrastructure. Everything is taken care of by the cloud hosting provider. They maintain the cloud server from their end, so another inconvenience is taken care of. Thus, accountants can focus more on their work eliminating all the problems.

Challenge #4: Constant revision of tax codes and outdated software

Each government brings a new set of tax codes with it which are not constant and keep on changing on a regular basis. It becomes a headache for the accountants as they have to update all their software manually.

It takes up a lot of their valuable time which can be used to complete some other task.

Also, as time passes, some software becomes slow and outdated. It consumes away a lot of their productive time. With no other option, they have to shell out money to buy new software or the updated versions of the software regularly. It becomes frustrating for the accountants as they are not able to focus on their work.

Solution:

However, the cloud hosting providers solve the problem by automatically updating the software according to the latest tax codes and guidelines provided by the government and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

As a result, the accountant do not have to worry about updating their software.

To bring it all together!

Cloud is the one-word solution to all the problems faced by accountants. It not only provides the freedom to access the accounting process from anywhere but also offers multi-user accessibility which enables many users to work on the same document.

Also, there are no additional IT costs, thus saving a lot of revenue for the accountants which otherwise would have been wasted on IT installation and maintenance. Automatic updates are another feature which solves many problems of the accountants.