As an accountant, you need the capability to work from different locations — sometimes, it could be from client premises, or it could be from your home office. The capability to work remotely is a critical part of your profession. To enable smooth remote work, you need the right technology in place. And hosted desktop solutions constitute a robust technology solution to create a disruption-free remote work environment.
Hosted desktops are a cloud solution that can transform the way you work by giving you remote access to your desktop via any device. The best part is you can work faster anytime, anywhere with hosted desktops for accountants.
From artificial intelligence to cloud-hosted desktops, technology has come a long way. Undoubtedly, the accounting industry has also welcomed these innovations. As per a survey conducted by Forbes, 67% of CPAs prefer cloud accounting as it reduces front head costs by up to 50 percent. The market size will be worth $4.25 billion by 2023 — representing roughly doubling of the market size over nine years.
This will be mainly due to cloud adoption and mobile integration of the software. As of 2022, we can see that accountants are benefiting from cloud technologies including cloud-hosted virtual desktop solutions.
Here are seven challenges that accountants face and how cloud-hosted desktops help solve the challenges:
Table of Contents
1. Vulnerable Endpoints
For CPAs, keeping the firm’s financial statements secure is a priority at all times. Accountants’ desktops host a plethora of sensitive financial information. These endpoint devices are prone to cybersecurity breaches. Hence, depending on such vulnerable endpoints can prove to be a misstep or mistake. No firm would want to countenance any security breaches of their data. In a world of proliferating cyber threats, it’s better to stay prepared to fend off the inevitable cyberattack.
This is why opting for cloud desktop solutions is essential for accountants. You can store the company data in the cloud with guaranteed security and privacy.
Also, the security protocols of hosted desktops such as on-demand multi-factor authentication, Minimum Recovery Time Objective (RTO), endpoint firewall, and more prevent data from falling into wrong hands.
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2. Potential Loss of Sensitive Information
Accountants obviously would want their clients’ financial data to be regularly backed up to prevent data loss. Cloud backup is the best solution when it comes to tax preparation and other kinds of documentation as that is a foolproof measure to guard against any calamity. This backup feature assures that you will not lose any data especially since the data is backed up at regular intervals daily and at multiple, physically separated data center locations.
Suggested Reading: Remote Working: Should Your Accounting Firm Still Have An Office?
3. Collaboration Challenges
Remember the time when accountants were only responsible for making entries and performing other core accounting activities? And now they have to perform various other tasks — from extracting data insights to suggesting plans for the future. The rise of hosted desktops has made the life of accounting professionals way easier. Real-time collaboration through cloud-hosted desktops helps CPAs restructure their internal and external communications. They get optimal collaboration as multiple users can work within the same network. Moreover, real-time data sharing facilitates collaboration among team members and clients.
4. Management of Customer Relationships
Hosting a desktop on the cloud helps accountants to manage client communications. Delivering the data on any device, even outside business hours, benefits both accounting firms and clients. Mobile devices are rapidly becoming more omnipresent than laptops. Thus, multi-device access on smartphones and tablets ensures that the work is done without lag. This makes it more convenient for clients as most of the time accounting professionals operate remotely.
Once CPAs adopt or implement cloud-based desktop technology, they can connect with clients and share files even from their home offices. CPAs can access tax information, examine and approve tax returns and share files with clients securely. The advantage of accessing data anytime and anywhere can be achieved with cloud-hosted desktops for accountants while working from remote locations.
5. Flexibility
Flexible work gives a boost to your business. Using cloud-hosted desktops gives accountants access to the data and the applications from any location. Whether you are working in your client’s place or your own office, you can work seamlessly. Hosting on the cloud offers flexibility to the users to maintain a work-life balance. Additionally, you don’t have to wait for the following day to catch up on any invoice entries or updates as you have everything on your device.
6. High Cost of Scaling Resources
While you need to scale up or down resources, it’s pretty easy with cloud-hosted desktops. You can get it done from the service provider. This means that you don’t need an in-house IT team to configure the server whenever you hire freelancers or remote workers. With a few clicks, the providers will meet your scaling needs. This helps you save money as you only pay for what you use. With the expanding business, you can alter the resources and not worry about updating the hardware.
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7. Lack Of User Experience
A CPA firm can’t survive even minutes of downtime when their primary task is to create contemporary advisory services and manage client engagement profitability. Accountants work on heavy files and financial tasks; therefore, performance can’t be an excuse for lowered productivity. Hosted desktops offer you dedicated storage and vCPUs to ensure you can work on complex applications.
For instance, you can get 4 vCPU and 8GB of RAM with 50 GB storage to work on large data sets. Moreover, you can get a few required applications integrated into your virtual desktops, such as QuickBooks or MargERP 9+, to work with ease.
So, as an accountant, you won’t have to worry about performance and having productive experience. You can get personalized experience and work on any accounting-related application of your choice without any performance lags.
How Is the Accounting Industry Embracing Hosted Desktop Solutions?
Many industry verticals are adopting hosted desktops and accounting is no exception. But the question is: are hosted desktops easing the workloads of accounting professionals? Hosted desktops certainly offer you peace of mind by addressing the above-mentioned challenges.
For any CPA, tax filing professional, or bookkeeping expert who works from multiple locations and needs round-the-clock access to resources globally, hosted desktop for accountants is a game-changer. Every feature of hosted desktops showcases how beneficial the technology is, from offering real-time collaboration possibilities to personalized user experiences.
Unlike the other virtual options, hosted desktops create a secure environment for the users, irrespective of the geographical location. If you are still on the fence about whether the hosted desktop solution will work for your accounting firm or not, get in touch with us. Schedule a demo with our professional experts and get your business specific hosting solution requirements.
