Tag: cloud-computing

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Better QuickBooks Access, Management and Security – QuickBooks Licensing and Hosting Models

Whether hosted in-house or offsite, licensing models for hosting QuickBooks can be very confusing.

driving1-ANIMATIONThe demand for solutions to address user mobility, better collaboration and improved information security is increasing as connectivity improves and cloud services and threats evolve. Server-based computing models and application hosting are increasingly popular as businesses seek to embrace teleworking and telecommuting models for their entrenched applications and systems, creating a foundation for improved productivity and work/life balancing (or integration).  On the technical side, the benefits of centralizing applications and data include improved efficiency in managing, maintaining and securing systems. For many small businesses, this means centralizing the installation and maintenance of core business applications like Intuit QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise.

Whether it be offsite with a commercial hosting provider or on a co-located server somewhere, or an onsite installation on the in-house server, hosting Intuit QuickBooks licenses can be straightforward or complicated depending on what you are trying to do with them. Because QuickBooks was designed as a standalone single-user application, there are a number of challenges when it comes to preparing it for server-based use.  The primary issue is often simply understanding the QuickBooks licensing model, which is not particularly INTUITive (sorry).

Licensing hosted QuickBooks applications comes with two different sets of implementation issues: the technical implementation (the installation and setup) and the logical allocation of licenses to users (the licensing rules).

When it comes to the technical implementation, many an experienced engineer has beaten their head against the wall trying to get QuickBooks to work properly in a workspace or session-based system (e.g., terminal server), all because they expect the product to implement like a “normal” client/server application. While QuickBooks may use the Sybase database manager guts to handle multi-user access to QuickBooks data files (I think it is still Sybase), the architecture required to properly service a networked QuickBooks installation does not necessarily mimic what would be used with, for example, a .NET desktop client application with an MS SQL back-end.   First, the QuickBooks data files cannot be remote to the application, meaning that both the client and the database manager (which is actually working as an adjunct to the client) must exist on the local network; it will not work over a WAN connection, which is why so many folks get frustrated when they put their server “in the cloud” and attempt to connect from a local client using a VPN.  It just won’t work that way with QuickBooks; it all has to be on the local network – client, server, data… all of it.

It is notable that many businesses use Dropbox and other file sync solutions because they want to be able to get to their data from multiple locations, but the data they’re getting must be “local” to the apps that use it.  It doesn’t allow for simultaneous multi-user access, but it can be an effective way to share a file.  The caveat is that the file (at least in the case of a QuickBooks file, or Outlook PST file, etc.) should not actually be used from the sync folder.  Sync folder should contain copies of data files that users wish to sync or share with other devices.  But I digress…

With a server-based implementation of QuickBooks, technicians will install the QuickBooks desktop software on the server, and will determine whether or not that same machine will also handle the company data files.  The QuickBooks DB manager is part of the installation of QuickBooks, and the file system and drive where the QB files are to be managed must be recognized as a local drive on the server running the QBDB manager.  The overhead used by the database manager isn’t huge, but it can impact the performance of users on the server.  For this reason, some techs will decide to implement a separate file server to manage the QB data files, taking that load off the app server.

  • The QuickBooks software uses the database manager to “host” access to company files.  This simply means that a single server with the data on it is providing managed access to remote-desktop-sessionsQuickBooks application users.
  • When QuickBooks application software and data is installed and centrally managed on a server (instead of QuickBooks being installed on individual PCs), that means QuickBooks application is being “hosted” on that server.
  • When a 3rd party provider supplies the server, the QuickBooks installation, data storage, and your way of connecting to it all,  that provider is a “host” providing hosting services for your QuickBooks.

In a dedicated hosting environment, the data is often stored on the same server as the applications, whereas in a shared hosting environment, the data is often stored on central file servers which serve multiple customers. This is why, in some shared hosting situations, one bad data file can take down the database manager services for all the customers using that same file server.

Users open the QuickBooks application on the server instead of having the application installed on individual PCs.  The single server-based installation of the software is able to be used concurrently by all users logging in to that computer. With the database manager running, the file is essentially “hosted” on that machine, and the file may then be opened in multi-user mode.  OK so far.  The problem generally comes about when a second user on the same computer/server wants to open the same QB data file as the first user.

Because the QB database manager is looking at the license of the client application accessing the data file, it will recognize when two different users/sessions with the same license key attempt to open the company data file.  If that license key is a single-user key, then the database manager knows it should allow only 1 concurrent user in the file.  QuickBooks doesn’t get installed for each user on a computer or server; it is installed one time on the machine and each user on that machine runs from that single shared installation. Any particular version of the QuickBooks application may be installed only once on a single computer, but it is possible to install multiple editions, year versions, and “flavors” of QuickBooks on a single machine (cannot be more than one installation of each unique product). There will be more than a few annoyances when running a variety of QBs on the same computer, but it is technically possible.

In order to allow multiple users to simultaneously access the same data file from a central installation of QuickBooks, the license key installed on the computer must be a multi-user key.  QuickBooks Pro, for example, can be keyed to 3 concurrent users, meaning that the license will allow up to 3 users with that same license key to simultaneously access the same company file.  Technically (but not lawfully) this installation of QuickBooks on the machine could allow a virtually unlimited number of users to launch the QuickBooks application simultaneously, limited only by machine resources.  This is where the logical allocation of licensing comes in.. the rule of licensing QuickBooks.

The logical allocation of unique licenses for each QuickBooks user is a little easier to understand than the technical implementation.  The rule is simply that each user of QuickBooks is required to have a valid registered/activated license. That valid license is a license purchased and activated for that business.

total-businessMaking QuickBooks desktop editions more useful by adding secure remote access and centralized management makes a lot of sense.  For companies who rely on the functionality and features of the desktop products (QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise), a hosted approach is the only way to really address mobility and multi-location requirements.  Remember that hosting doesn’t necessarily mean offsite, although that could make sense for the business, too.

Centrally-managing QuickBooks applications and data creates greater efficiency and improves overall IT management capability for the business.  At the same time, a centralized model introduces a better strategy for mobilizing the workforce and connecting remote users and offices. The struggles of understanding and implementing proper QuickBooks licensing begin to seem very small when compared to the benefits of deploying a centralized system that’s easier to access, manage and secure.

Make sense?

J

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The Cloud for Your Firm: 3 Initial Considerations for Cloud Enabling Accounting and Bookkeeping Firms Working With Small Businesses

The Cloud for Your Firm

3 Initial Considerations for Cloud Enabling Accounting and Bookkeeping Firms Working With Small Businesses

dscn0903.jpgThe potential benefits of a real-time, lean collaborative working model are too great to argue with.  Accounting professionals, bookkeepers and their small business clients are all hearing about the value of working together in the cloud, and how cloud technologies and solutions can reduce cost and improve efficiency.  There is a great deal of truth in these statements, just as there was a truth in the value of implementing computers, networks and other technologies in business.  What is not clear is exactly what businesses need “in the cloud”, and how they should approach this shift from local IT to outsourced managed service.  Initially, there are 3 issues which warrant consideration, if not deep discussion, prior to making any significant move to relocate internal IT and shift business applications to the cloud: internal use systems, client interaction, and operational support for both.

With all the discussion about cloud computing and remote access, it would seem that all the applications and solutions businesses need are now available online and paid for in low monthly subscription fees.  Anyone working with small businesses, however, comes to understand that the vast majority of these businesses are still using more traditional modes of information management and computing.   For the most part, these businesses are using PCs and local networks, possibly with a little hosted email thrown in.  Almost certainly they have a website and maybe even a fairly sophisticated e-commerce system that allows them to sell products online.  But when it comes to general office functions, and particularly back-office functions like bookkeeping and accounting, the software and the data generally reside on the office PC and server.

Accounting and bookkeeping professionals who work with small businesses are often in the same position as their business clients when it comes to information technology.  Since so much of the work involved requires the same programs and data formats as those used by the client, service providers find that they spend as much in management of software licensing and systems to support working with client data as they do on systems intended for internal use only – sometimes more.  Many of these service providers are also small businesses, and it becomes challenging to find a way to handle internal IT needs while at the same time trying to address those of the client. Where e-commerce solutions are readily available to handle operational aspects of product based businesses, the best tool set for a professional accounting firm or bookkeeping business working with small business clients may not be so easily defined.

The solution for many providers has been revealed through cloud computing and hosted application models.  With Cloud Servers, Remote Desktops, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure now widely available as affordable alternatives to capital-intensive implementations of locally installed products, businesses are finding new abilities to manage applications and data, provide mobility and enhance collaboration.  The additional benefit is in how accounting service providers may engage with their clients in more efficient and effective ways, without the burdens of replicating data or trying to share access to a single machine or application resource.

There are a number of elements to consider before taking the file server to the parking lot and running it over with a truck.  Moving to the cloud is not a one-step process, and it is important to do a little research and collect some important information before making the final decision on how to proceed.

Internal Use Systems

Among the first of the questions to ask when considering a change in IT management approaches is “which software do we need”?  Implementing an outsourced IT arrangement, which is really what “cloud” is about”, does not necessarily mean throwing away all the existing software and starting with new.  The software in use within the firm may be exactly what it needs right now and adding full IT management, fault tolerance, and remote or mobile access could be the main scope of the requirement.  Moving from locally installed solutions to hosted solutions provides quite a number of benefits while removing many of the direct costs and frustrations of IT management and administration. The greatest benefit of this type of approach is the ability to preserve the “body of knowledge” existing in the business, knowledge invested in the people and processes already developed.

On the other hand, there may be new tools or services only available as “cloud” service, and it makes sense to explore how they may benefit the business more than the in-use applications.  The important element is to remember that the solution must address real business problems, and whether it runs in the cloud or not isn’t the first or most important thing to ask.  For example, a discussion about whether QuickBooks Online might be a better choice than QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise should be focused on the functionality provided by the applications and not which servers they are running on.  With application hosting for QuickBooks now being an available option, there is a managed IT and remote access capability for both solutions, rendering the fact that QBO is a SaaS solution almost irrelevant in terms of being a differentiator.

Client Interaction

An important aspect of adopting new technologies or working models is the consideration of how the firm and the client businesses will work together, and whether or not there is (or could be) a standardized approach that might work for most clients.  Certainly, it makes sense to standardize as much as possible.  Treating every issue or engagement as a singular event – a one-off – is the least efficient way to do business.  The key to profitability is in the firm’s ability to produce high quality work consistently and in a timely fashion.  This requires that the business be well-structured in terms of the standard processes and methods which will be used to work with client information.  When the firm and the client can work seamlessly together as and when required, and when each is responsible for their own systems and data, it is a best-case scenario. The questions relating to client interactions focus on how the firm works with clients and which tools or solutions are required to improve that situation.

It is likely that the firm will need to be able to address working relationships with various client and engagement types – where clients do some of the work, where the bookkeeper does the work, or where the participants work collaboratively together in the same systems.  While it may seem that the best way to create a dependency on your services with the client is to keep them out of the systems, empowering the client is really the key to a close and long-standing engagement.  This means that the client needs to have their own solutions and approach to cloud-enabled IT, and the accounting or bookkeeping service provider should be able to access and work within that environment.

It is rare that a small business can effectively operate without computers and software to manage information and support operations, so it makes sense that the business should have its own accounting and financial systems, too.  For the accounting service provider, it is essential that a level of understanding be gained around the use of today’s available remote and mobile access technologies, as it is with these solutions and tools that participation in client systems will be enabled.  When the client accounting solution sits on their office PC, there are limited options for working together in any real collaborative form.  Connecting to their PC via remote control is a widely recognized means of gaining access to client systems, but if the bookkeeper is on the system when there is a problem of some sort, all eyes go directly to that remote user as the likely cause of the problem.

The considerations relating to remote access to client systems focus not just on enabling a collaborative working environment, but also on mitigating risk and improving client perception.  The risk issue comes in when the accounting service provider is exposed to systems and information not relevant to their task, and the perception issue becomes material when the accounting professional becomes the software or IT service provider.  It makes sense for the accounting professional to make recommendations or suggestions about software and IT service which might benefit the business, but not to necessarily be the reseller or direct provider of the product or service.  The moment the accounting professional attempts to sell the client a software product or IT service, the relationship is changed and the client is more likely to view their accounting pro as another vendor rather than a trusted advisor.  It’s also not necessarily a great move to start a new client engagement by telling the client they have to switch accounting products to allow the accountant to work closer.  Rather, professionals need to help their clients position those products for more efficient use, which may include enabling remote or mobile access granted via deployment in the cloud.

Operational Support

When businesses outsource their IT management and administration, there is often an initial belief that all responsibilities in these areas will be handled by the IT service provider.  What is often overlooked is the reality that the firm still needs to have people attending to IT related tasks, just doing different levels of work with the technology. It is important to recognize that someone in the firm will end up dealing with various IT and process support issues, and it still makes sense to have personnel dedicated to these tasks (*Note: here’s where I suggest that the cloud changes the focus of internal IT personnel, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for them).  The service provider and solution evaluation and selection process, as well as the actual deployment and administration of services, will take valuable time away from actually performing client accounting or bookkeeping work, and there should be people attending to these issues while the business continues operating.

Where an internal IT department or contract technicians may once have supported internal systems, an operational role within the business is still required to manage outsourced IT activities, including and particularly those where clients are involved with the firm systems.  Delivering new benefits with a minimum of business disruption is the goal, and can be achieved through proper planning and coordination with team members and clients alike.

Closing Thoughts

“The Cloud” is just another way to run software and implement computing resources.  It still takes servers and software, it uses processors and storage and networking, just like more “traditional” computing models.  The difference is in how these resources are purchased and provisioned, and the impact is a change in how businesses of all types can benefit from technologies which enable collaboration, lean process, and mobility.  The Cloud for Your Firm addresses your internal business requirements, lends itself to client collaboration, and has internal operational support to ensure the firm is fully leveraging the available benefits to improve business performance and profitability.

Make sense?

J

Read more about Accountants and Bookkeepers Working With QuickBooks Clients: App Hosting Approaches That Work

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Why Accountants and Bookkeepers Use the Cloud

When businesses do business, they generate a lot of information. In most cases, this information has a relationship to a financial transaction of some sort, like a bill from a vendor or an invoice or sales receipt for a customer. It can be difficult for a small business owner to find the best way to manage the information about customers and products and suppliers, and figuring out the best way to handle the bookkeeping and accounting is often a secondary issue. Sure, it’s important to know how much money is in the bank, but online banking helps with that. For a small business owner trying to keep their operation running, the biggest problems are the ones they face every day, like remembering which customer likes which products, or knowing which suppliers will deliver in a pinch. Bookkeeping just isn’t a huge focus other than during tax time because it doesn’t help them get business done.

It is this question of value in daily bookkeeping and accounting work that business owners and their accounting service providers alike struggle with. Certainly, most business owners recognize the necessity to get the books done, but it is generally for compliance purposes alone. Payroll taxes, sales and use taxes, personal property taxes, income taxes – these are the items that business owners think about when they think about accounting. If you see it through the eyes of the business owner, accounting = paying taxes. It’s a tough value proposition for the accountant, when you think about it. The business owner has to pay someone to figure out how much they have to pay someone else. Yeah, try to sell more of that, and good luck.

The cloud, on the other hand, is helping accounting and bookkeeping professionals change this perspective. It’s a relatively new working model for some even though the idea has been there for a long time. Better information helps business make better business decisions, and accounting professionals can help businesses implement the controls and processes which ensure that the information is complete and accurate; they can help make the information better and more meaningful.

Remotely accessed and hosted desktops and application models have been around for quite a while, too, but only recently has the market begun to realize the full potential of the hosted model. We have the investment in SaaS solutions to thank for this; they blazed the trail for online application adoption and created awareness of the possibilities around hosting and anytime/anywhere access. The SaaS and “true cloud” applications continue to gain in popularity and acceptance, yet the hosting model is providing businesses with the ability to retain use of their business applications and data yet benefit from the same managed service and remote access that other online solutions provide.

When you look at how public accountants and professional bookkeepers work with their clients, the concept of creating shared access to accounting applications and financial data makes a lot of sense. Time and distance are the real issues to be solved – the business owner and their accounting pros generally work from different locations, and likely need to access the information for different purposes at different times. If they aren’t in the same place and using the same tools, how efficient can the collaboration truly be? With the cloud, on the other hand, collaboration is fully enabled and allows each user to do what they need to regardless of the location and time.

As the accountant or bookkeeper is able to work more closely with their client (using the same tools and the same data in real time), information can be processed more regularly and with a higher degree of accuracy. Outsourced accounting and bookkeeping providers are then able to give their clients more timely and accurate financial information which supports making better business decisions all the time. Helping with the organization and processing of information as business happens, fewer gaps are found in the data and the improved controls protect against data loss or misclassification. The data becomes more useful in that it contains more details, is more accurate and complete.

For the accounting professional, the benefits are many. Not only is the professional in a better position to deliver tangible value to the client (much higher value than just a tax bill!), the value is delivered more frequently which increases the overall value perception of the service being provided. Note the word “value” is used a lot here; it is the basis for billing clients for the useful nature of services provided and not on the time it takes to provide them. Internally to the accounting or bookkeeping business, the increased efficiency introduced with real-time application and data access means that processing workflows and resources may be more streamlined and handled with a great level of efficiency, which drives improvement in profitability and the consistency of service delivery.

There are a lot of new and exciting products and services emerging: cloud application services, artificial intelligence and automation, and the Internet and Interfaces of Things.. and businesses are being encouraged to adopt these solutions for a variety of reasons. For accountants and bookkeepers working with small business clients, there is no doubt that the cloud, hosting and online collaboration are the keys to helping get more and better business done.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetJ

Read about Hosting All My Applications in the Cloud

or more about the Collaborative Online Model for Small Business Accounting Professionals

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Hosting All My Applications in the Cloud

Many business owners will recall when their first in-house computer networks were installed.  When the PCs were networked together in an office, it made file sharing and collaboration among team members easier and more efficient.  Installing additional applications on the PC was a relatively simple process, and when the new application came with the ability to integrate with another app already on the PC, it was often a fairly simple process to get the two “talking” together.  But installing and integrating applications on your personal computer is a bit different from getting multiple applications installed and integrated with a cloud hosting service provider.

In almost all cases, integrating multiple desktop software solutions requires installing those solutions on the same computer so that they can share certain program elements or, at least, share .ini or data files.  Application integration is important because it allows different software solutions to work together, communicating data from one application to the other so the information may be used in different ways or for different purposes.

An example of this might be a Microsoft Office integration with QuickBooks, which allows the user to perform a one-click export of QB financial data to an Excel spreadsheet.  Another example is the integration between QuickBooks and Fishbowl Inventory, which synchronizes information from the Fishbowl inventory system into the QuickBooks financial software.

In nearly every case where a software program has a software-based integration with another solution, the integration must be installed in the same system as the core solution.  In the QuickBooks world, this means that the programs which integrate with QuickBooks must be installed on the same computer as QuickBooks.

In a conventional PC network, the necessity of installing the various software solutions on the same machine is not a big problem as PC software and integrations have been implemented in this manner for years.  On the other hand, when the business is considering the option of moving desktop applications to the cloud, it is important to make sure the provider and service will allow all of your products to be hosted.  In most cases, this requirement highlights the main difference between a shared service versus a dedicated or server-based solution.

With shared services, the servers are generally configured to offer a strict and limited set of applications to be hosted.  The applications on the servers are used by subscribers of the service, and users are limited to accessing only those applications available in the environment.  The shared approach is popular with some application hosting providers as it creates an economy of scale which helps providers to earn more revenue on their infrastructure.    The trade-off is that a shared hosting solution only works well for businesses with a limited application requirement, and is generally fairly expensive when more users are added to the service.

The need for diversity in hosted application choices, coupled with the need for businesses to keep costs down even as the number of business users increases, are the primary drivers for adoption of dedicated and server-based cloud hosting solutions.  When the solution is managed as an entire environment rather than on an exclusively per-user basis, an economy of scale is developed within the organizational IT infrastructure.  As the business grows and adds more users and applications, the incremental costs to bring each user or application onto the platform is often far less than a user subscription in a shared solution.

For any business planning to migrate their server and systems to the cloud, the first step is to have a thorough understanding of the applications and integrations the business needs in the host environment, and then to find a hosting provider that can deliver the infrastructure and baseline system administration required.  It is unreasonable to expect a hosting provider to be an expert with every software product available, but skilled and experienced hosting providers understand how to generally install and implement most standard business applications and will rise to meet the customer demand.

While no business can guess what their future software needs may be, decisions can be reasonably made based on the solutions currently in use.  Finding a provider with a service to meet immediate needs is useful, but businesses change and therefore business requirements change, and it is good to know that the hosting infrastructure and IT services supporting the business can adjust to those changing needs.  After all, cloud hosting of applications and data just means the servers and infrastructure are with the service provider and not in the office, but it doesn’t mean businesses can’t have the feature-rich and functional applications their businesses have come to rely on.

Make sense?

J

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What Small Businesses Need To Know about QuickBooks and the Cloud

With all the talk of cloud computing and having remote access to business applications and data, many small business owners are finding themselves searching for the answer to cloud-ifying their tried-and-true QuickBooks desktop software.  At first view, most business owners get the impression that their only viable choices are to either move up or down the product line – downgrading to QuickBooks Online Edition, which lacks the features and functionality they’ve come to expect from QuickBooks, or upgrading to QuickBooks Enterprise Edition, the only version Intuit visibly supports on terminal servers and which is far more expensive than the Pro or Premier editions.

It is surprising how many accounting or even IT  professionals don’t understand the real options available to their small business customers wanting to move entirely to a cloud-based IT strategy, particularly when it comes to QuickBooks.  This is no fault of the IT guy or accountant – unless they’re specializing with QuickBooks, there are some options they are simply not being made aware of because it isn’t where Intuit is focusing its marketing efforts.  Intuit wants businesses to buy QuickBooks Online.  The market, on the other hand, likes the QuickBooks desktop products and wants them in the cloud.  The well-kept secret is that businesses can have their QuickBooks desktop editions in the cloud and it works the same way as it does on the desktop.

Hosted QuickBooks isn’t rocket science; it’s simply a method of installing QuickBooks desktop software on servers and making the solution available to users via the Internet.  Many business offices are already doing this type of thing without really recognizing it – accessing the office PC via a Remote Desktop connection so they can work on their QuickBooks or other applications from home.

A QuickBooks hosting solution is essentially the same thing: QuickBooks software and the company data exist on a computer in a data center, and the user connects to that computing environment, application and data via a remote connection.  Most providers use the same underlying technology (Remote Desktop) to deliver their hosting services that users deploy in their own offices – they just use “bigger” versions of it and sometimes a little extra technology with it to help out.  The point is that Remote Desktops and hosted applications are not new or bleeding edge technologies; they are a proven means to effectively and efficiently deliver seamless remote access to computing resources (environment, apps, data, etc.).

Perhaps the weirdness surrounding the QuickBooks licensing is part of the problem; I’ve seen this confusion prevent businesses from running their QuickBooks on remote systems simply because they could not figure out the right way to do it and still conform to licensing rules.  Consider that QuickBooks is essentially a single-user application, and it’s the database manager that really allows concurrent multi-user access to a data file.  The program was not designed to have multiple users of the PROGRAM all running from one computer concurrently (which wasn’t a problem when only one person at a time used a computer).

But these days, with terminal servers and remote desktop capabilities, a single computer is essentially turned into a box containing a bunch of user environments (call them desktops, sessions… whatever).  Each of these user environments (desktops/sessions) are running at the same time and on the same computer.  So, when a user goes to launch QuickBooks and then open a QuickBooks company file, the database manager looks at the computer running the QuickBooks license and says “ok, you have a license to allow QB to access a data file with one user”.  When the next user launches QuickBooks from that machine it will allow them to open the program, but if they try to connect to the same data file as the first user, guess what?  QuickBooks database manager looks at the computer and license and sees the same single-user license number coming from the same computer.

A single-user license means only 1 user can access the company file concurrently (at the same time).  So, if two or more people are on the same terminal server (remote desktop server), and are trying to access the same company data file concurrently, the QuickBooks license on their terminal server must be at a level that allows all of them to access the company file at the same time, e.g., a 2- or 3-user license.  This is not intuitive.

Another issue relating to QuickBooks licensing on a terminal server or remote desktop setup is the fact that it’s a really awesome method of giving more users access to QuickBooks than you legally should.  This is an unfortunate technical reality of the product, and is possibly an issue which influences Intuit’s lack of support of the product in this type of environment.  While the licensing language and the operation of the database manager indicate that each user running QuickBooks should have a license, the technical reality is a bit different.

The technical reality is that a single QuickBooks license installed on a terminal server could possibly be actively used by any number of people on that server – all at the same time – as long as those users don’t try to open the same company file at the same time.  Of course, this is in direct violation of the license agreement and is essentially a situation where a single QuickBooks license is being unlawfully accessed by more users than it is licensed for.  Intuit does not approve of this model as it falls into the category of software piracy, but I sure see a lot of accounting firms applying it for client QuickBooks access. (It’s often a statement about how, as a ProAdvisor, the accountant gets their license each year, installs it on the terminal server, and magically all clients now have access to the new edition!).  **Note to self: if your service provider or accountant gives you “free and automatic” upgrades to QuickBooks each year, you may want to look a bit further into whether or not the licensing is actually legitimate; the risk to your business books isn’t worth avoiding a $249 investment**

Another thing that often prevents businesses and their IT people from moving QuickBooks to a hosted solution is the lack of available support.  While Intuit says that they support QuickBooks Enterprise in a terminal server environment, there is no such offering for the Pro and Premier editions.  In reality, this doesn’t mean that the solutions won’t work, because they will.  It simply means that Intuit won’t support the installation directly.  Perhaps this is the best and most evident reason to work with an authorized QuickBooks hosting provider.  Particularly when it comes to your business accounting and financial data, it makes sense to make sure it is running in a supported environment.  There are few things as frustrating and potentially damaging to business than losing customer, vendor and accounting information.  Let us still be realistic about this, though.  QuickBooks was not designed to run on a terminal server, and its behavior and performance may not be flawless.  In most cases, however, any tradeoffs are easily weighted towards the benefits of mobility, security and IT management.  You get glitches with QuickBooks even on a local PC, so occasionally experiencing them with QuickBooks in the cloud should be expected.

Small businesses need help with their information technology, particularly as even simple to use solutions like QuickBooks continue to get more technically complex (simple to use often means there’s a lot going on behind the scenes).  And small businesses want worry-free IT, so they can focus on running the business and not on running computers.  For these reasons and more, the small business owner and the IT person serving small business should take a close look at hosting their QuickBooks desktop software – along with their other business applications – with a trusted cloud hosting provider.  Yes, you can have your QuickBooks in the cloud.  Today.

Make sense?

J

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The Collaborative Online Model for Small Business Accounting Professionals

Accountants and bookkeepers serving small business clients are facing a growing problem – how to provide services that are valuable to the client in a way that makes it profitable for the provider.  Part of the problem is that small business, while they need quality accounting and bookkeeping services, have a hard time paying for it unless the person doing the work is sitting in the office producing tangible reports and paperwork all day long (and maybe answering the phone while they’re at it).  Accountants and bookkeepers working with a variety of small business clients can’t be profitable when they have to travel to client offices to do the work or pick up and deliver files and paperwork, and they certainly aren’t expecting to be the office receptionist while they’re there.

The solution for both is an online working model, where the outsourced professional and their client can both login together.  Each accesses the applications and data to get their work done, and is able to access when and where they need to.  Online accounting approaches help service providers increase their profitability at the same time they increase their level or range of service provided to clients.  With a collaborative online accounting model, professionals and their clients can work from anywhere at any time, giving both the freedom to focus on what needs to get done.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the bookkeeping or accounting solution has to be an “online” service, per se.  Looking at the accounting product alone isn’t often the best way to solve the mobility and managed service problem for the client, which is really what “online” for the client is about.  The fact that their service providers (accountants, bookkeepers, etc.) can also work in the system is of secondary benefit to the client.  The worst thing an accounting pro can do is tell their client they have to switch accounting solutions just to make it easier for the accountant or bookkeeper.  It makes sense to improve that situation, but accounting/bookkeeping isn’t generally the entire IT requirement for the business client.

An online working model enables collaboration with team members and providers alike.  Reducing or eliminating the requirement for sophisticated technology solutions is the key element, providing everyone the ease-of-use and security of server-based computing.   The real benefits include centralization of business application management, protection data resources, and the ability to more fully streamline business processes.   For many businesses, the earned benefit is increasing the capacity to do business profitably simply by making the current working model much more efficient and effective.   The benefits are there for both the client is collaborators to experience, and this is where the focus should be – on the benefit to the small business.

Accounting professionals can also seamlessly increase their own opportunity and value by embracing a collaborative online working model.  Through the use of outsourced bookkeeping, payroll services and other providers, accountants can increase or expand the services they offer to clients by seamlessly incorporating them into the overall offering.  An online approach makes this possible, and can position these valuable services as the key to client business success. Working online together, professional service forms and their contractors or outsourcers can work closer than ever before, and the accounting professional is positioned to deliver far more value to the business client.

An online working model improves the profitability of the professional practice, too. The movement of information from one place to another, the restructuring of information from one form to another… these are processes that represent the cost and inefficiency in the professional accounting office.  By working online in client accounting solutions along with the client, firms can reduce or eliminate redundant and time-consuming work that is the bane of the practice. Bookkeeping, property tax compliance work, payroll, HR and benefits administration – these are areas where outsourcing may make the most sense for the practice while enabling accountants to increase the overall value of service provided.

Does your professional practice offer valuable business services like these for your clients? Profitably?

A collaborative online working model can enable your firm to deliver the range of services business clients need most while improving the bottom line for both.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetMake Sense?

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