Cloud accounting is your friend

Writes Matthew Farrant, partner, Haines Watts ...

Chartered accountants Haines Watts presents a series of articles based on its blogs. It offers analysis, reviews and comments and welcomes your feedback at hwca.com/blog

Although the concept of the cloud has been around since at least the 1970s, it has become mainstream over the past decade. New jobs are being created as old ones are increasingly being done by machines, so where will the accounting function be in 10 years’ time and how will its relationship with business change?

Due to intelligent learning, document recognition software and cloud accounting systems such as Xero and QuickBooks, our roles as accountants are evolving because computers can do the mundane, routine tasks, leaving us to provide a value-added service.

It’s important that businesses understand how this software can help them and we’ve provided a number of our clients with additional guidance and advice on the subject. For example, both parties can now look at the same dashboard at the same time if there is a query to be resolved. It’s easy to retrieve the source documentation as it’s all electronically stored. Also, key management information can be at your fingertips 24/7 for a slicker decision-making process. 

For companies trying to assess the viability of future work and projects, software can enable the collation of historical information for easy analysis. The main human involvement then becomes the emotional and intellectual assessment needed to decide what to do.

Accounting technology can detect fraud more efficiently and storing data in the cloud can serve as a good back-up. It’s absolutely vital though to protect your data and your systems from attack and you should have a business continuity plan in place.

The future looks bright. I can provide my clients with the higher-level strategic and commercial advice that they find valuable and we are there when we’re needed, wherever the client happens to be.

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