SMPs have their heads in the cloud

Jeanne Viljoen, project director for practice at Saica

“The best way to think about cloud accounting is that we access it through an internet browser – it’s similar to internet banking, you control only your profile, but all the data in the backend is stored and managed by the service provider – it doesn’t sit on your personal computer,” Walter Thamaha, strategic accountants manager at Sage, told the Cloud in Practice Conference hosted by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants’ (Saica).

This means that businesses no longer need to be tied to a specific computer, or even to their office as information can be accessed anywhere. The cloud brings with it huge opportunities for collaboration, increased awareness and access to data, and better security for business information.

Cloud accounting platforms offer these benefits by taking the ledger online and creating opportunities for accountants to streamline processes, save time and avoid duplication of work.

Look for the pain points

Moving to a cloud-based accounting system is not as daunting as it may at first seem. There are multiple cloud-based accounting packages available. Finding the best solution for your business is half the battle.

“Start by looking at the biggest pain points in your business. For example, if it’s data collection or data processing that’s taking up huge amounts of your time, that’s where you should start. Find a cloud-based solution that will eradicate the time spent on this function,” Maria Lauring, country manager, Practice Ignition.

For SMPs and business owners, the concept of ‘the cloud’ can extend well beyond the accounting function itself. To maximise the benefits of digitising your business you should experiment with other cloud-based solutions. Some of these may be integrated with your cloud accounting software package, can be added on to it as a plug-in, or be used separately. These might include cloud-based customer relationship management software (CRM), time tracking software, or collaboration tools for team-based projects. All of these have the benefit of being cloud-based which means the information is always easily accessible, shareable and consolidated.

“The change to cloud accounting in South Africa is increasing. The proof lies in the success of this conference having seen more than 1500 SMPs, nation-wide, over the last couple of weeks,” says Jeanne Viljoen project director for practice at Saica.