Last week on Tuesday, September 10th 2019, SAGE hosted a conference on SAGE Cloud Services where they showcased products such as the SAGE Business Cloud Accounting, SAGE Cloud Payroll, SAGE X3, and others. In one of the presentations the SAGE team demonstrated SAGE Cloud Accounting, and provided guidelines of how Startups, SMEs and Enterprises can get ready to utilize the SAGE Business Cloud Accounting. Before I share the tips on how to get ready for SAGE Business Cloud Accounting, it would be wise to first of all let you know just why it is important to consider migrating to SAGE Business Cloud Accounting. For general considerations why using cloud applications, see this article.
Going by the review done by Business.com, SAGE Business Cloud Accounting offers a number of neat features useful for all businesses ranging from startups to multinational enterprises. The useability extends from interesting easy to use dashboards, affordability, ability to track items such as inventory, manually adjust stock quantities, run multiple reports, and analyze data on the go. Most importability, SAGE Business Cloud Accounting allows remote accounts management.
Other reasons why SAGE Business Cloud Accounting is a powerful applications include:
- Almost 40 integrations for SAGE business Cloud Accounting are available through SAGE Marketplace, meaning businesses can connect to other business software like POS and CRM Systems.
- Instant online help is available through phone calls, online chat, or support tickets where most of the queries are resolved within 24 hours. Other forms of support systems such as SAGE Community forum, blog posts, and how-to videos are available through the SAGE Website. Additional training courses can be purchased through the Sage University portal.
- Real time report generation and data analysis tools that might come in handy when a quick decision needs to be made.
- Ability to enter data and manage accounts remotely (which is the core essence of cloud computing anyway) through mobile and laptop devices. An executive or even ordinary accountant doesn’t have to be in the office in order to be at work.
If the above reasons are compelling enough to let you want to try out the power of SAGE Business Cloud Accounting, the question now is, how do you prepare to migrate to SAGE Business Cloud Accounting in your financial management?
Getting ready for SAGE Business Cloud Accounting is no different from getting ready for most cloud computing services. Just as you would get ready for cloud computing, the checklist you need to consider includes:
- Company culture
- Connectivity
- The cloud platform
- Privacy and Security
Company Culture
Company Culture is the most important consideration when deciding on whether or not to adopt any cloud computing solutions. If the culture is tied to brick and mortar mindset, no amount of migration to the cloud will help push the company forward. This is because company culture informs the willingness of the company to train staff on cloud computing, enable them to be flexible to work from anywhere, and adopt other dynamic work cultures including but not limited to doing away with the 8 AM to 5 PM reporting culture.
Company culture will help the company staff and executives easily appreciate the constant changes that come with cloud computing, adaptability to the dynamic technological environment, and ability to easily appreciate future technologies. Any policies that needs to be set up, guidelines, and even hiring criteria, must be based on a company culture that wants to reside on the cloud. Once company culture is aligned to the cloud, the other considerations become easy to implement.
Connectivity
A company that doesn’t up top end connectivity probably doesn’t already value cloud computing. After deciding that cloud is the way to go, the first thing you must have in mind is whether you have the connectivity that is able to provide the Internet speed needed to instantly connect to your data every single time you need to access that data.
On connectivity, even before considering high bandwidth, Internet reliability is key. You do not want to have an Internet that has way to much downtime. Just like servers that provide web hosting services, which are typically rated at more than 99.9% uptime.
After reliability of the Internet connection is sorted, it is wise to think of bandwidth. High bandwidth typically 5 Mbps and more per terminal means you will be able to access your data fast, without having to wait for the cloud application to load, generate reports, or perform online analysis if needed. If you are on a slow network therefore, then getting ready for SAGE Business Cloud Accounting might require you to foremost change your Internet provider.
The Cloud Platform
This would have been a consideration if you hadn’t already decided on whether or not it is the SAGE Business Cloud Accounting you wanted to use for your cloud accounting services. Given that I have already mentioned why choosing SAGE Business Cloud Accounting is important, I will only add one thing; when choosing a cloud platform for any cloud solutions, ask, “does the provider understand my business needs?” If the answer is no then you better hit the road to look for an alternative provider.
When it comes to accounting, there is no one better placed to understand any needs of any business may have accounting wise. SAGE Business Cloud Accounting is therefore the best bet for any firm’s cloud accounting requirements.
Privacy and Security
There is no sensitive information for a company than financial information. If a company’s financial information can leak to the public, then competitors and others may have an easy way to run that company down. When therefore deciding to give your financial data to a third party for hosting, you must be very careful on who you decide to trust with your financial data. Some questions you must ask yourself is:
Is the data you are storing on their servers encrypted such that in any event they are hacked the hacker won’t be able to decipher your financial data?
How likely are they to be hacked?
Can they trade with your data?
Once the above have been put in place, including understanding the legal requirements for running their applications, then you will be ready to migrate to the cloud.