According to this data, the CAGR of the VDI market is expected at the rate of 15.8% from 2021-2027.   

Are you willing to explore how VDI for small businesses fits your industry? Here’s an overview of the technology and some valuable examples of initiatives that can benefit from it.   

What is VDI Architecture?  

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is a technology for desktop virtualization which helps access desktops remotely. With the help of this technology, virtual machines are hosted on a centralized server, and we get remote access over a network.  

Like creating virtual machines on a computer, we can create many more VMs on a centralized server—using a hypervisor, connection broker, load balancer, etc.   

The infrastructure is a large-scale implementation containing storage, virtualization, networking, load balancing, security, and other vital components.   

When we use hosted VDI, it is called Desktop as a Service (DaaS). The cloud provider manages the entire infrastructure that we discussed above (and will discuss further). Employees can use thin clients over the Internet to access their virtual desktops.   

Undoubtedly, DaaS is feasible because it adds cloud features like scalability, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility to VDI benefits.   

VDI Components  

There are two main components present in every Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.   

Connection Broker  

With the help of a connection broker, your end device can use the VDI network and access virtual desktops (via thin clients).   

• Connection broker offers a connection point to end-users to help them access the inside network for remote access.  

• This technology also validates the users’ credentials and helps ensure that the person accessing the virtual desktop is allowed to do so.  
• It reroutes users to different remote servers or virtual machines.   
• It manages desktops and virtual machines for efficient use.   

Hypervisor  

With the hypervisor, we generate and deploy virtual machines. The key role of a hypervisor is to divide the hardware we have and create virtual machines with this vision. This includes dividing configuration, storage, and applications. Ideally, every virtual machine on a centralized server is nothing but one virtual desktop.   

In most cases, the hypervisor used for VDI solutions is Type 1, which we can install directly on our physical server. The admin support doesn’t need to execute any intermediate function, which gives high performance and stability to the entire infrastructure.   

The Type 1 hypervisor has an entire operating system, which allows the device to run various virtual machines or guest OSs. With the help of the physical machine on which the hypervisor is running, we are only getting virtualization power. The hypervisor achieves the rest.  

This hypervisor type typically allows us to deploy many virtual machines and run all of them simultaneously.   

Process For Desktop Virtualization  

Combining virtual machines, connection brokers, and hypervisors can make desktop virtualization a reality. Here’s how:  

• Firstly, we start creating virtual machines using the hypervisor. We can also replicate these VMs on various servers for better balance and availability. When some virtual desktops are not in use, they are automatically turned off for extra space.   

• With the help of a VDI management unit, we manage and configure virtual desktops via set policies and shared images.   

• Once this setup is complete, the employees can log in to their relevant virtual desktops. The connection broker approves these requests and allows employees to access resources and data of the virtual desktops.   

Examples Of VDI Solutions In Different Industries  

After reading the working of VDI for small businesses, you may be wondering whether it is suitable for your organization or not. For this reason, we have explained a few examples of how different industries can use VDI solutions.   

Call Centers  

Call centers have thousands of employees working in different shifts and roles to serve the customers. But is the infrastructure of using other PCs for every employee feasible?  

With VDI, small businesses and call centers can drastically reduce maintenance, security, scalability, and administration challenges. Not only can you control the costs but also manage data workflows. It is possible to use one PC for multiple employees with different virtual machines, which reduces the overall cost of operations.   

Healthcare  

Another essential implementation for VDI solutions is in healthcare. Doctors are constantly working on the go. They never rest or stop. However, it is not logical to expect these professionals to carry laptops everywhere. You can easily use VDI or cloud VDI solutions in the healthcare industry to offer multi-device access, even while on the go. This way, the doctors can evaluate the entire medical history of a patient with just their mobile phones.   

Financial Services  

Like the above use cases, financial services also require a complex working environment. More than anything, security is a prime concern for the accounting and finance industry. With a centralized server or DaaS implementation, the security of financial services can be improved.  

From multi-factor authentication to Intrusion Detection and Prevention, DaaS providers offer advanced security features to make it a foolproof solution. Any damage to the end device is also improbable to hamper the virtual machine.  

Education  

Education is going through a complicated structure currently. With poor access to infrastructure and data, teachers and school authorities face issues in managing online classroom learning.  

With VDI implementation, you can mitigate these issues. A common folder for a class can be created to collaborate and study. Students can extract data and submit assignments, and teachers can upload relevant information and check the class’s progress.   

**VDI solutions can be utilized in multiple workflows. VDI equips us with better performance and high operational efficiency from accounting support to end-to-end cyber office creation.   

Conclusion  

It is safe to deduce that VDI solutions are feasible and efficient for a multitude of business setups across different industries. You can implement VDI for small businesses with the proper configuration and analysis. Only remember to find an optimum DaaS provider if you are planning for DaaS to receive comprehensive support in deployment, infrastructure maintenance, scalability, and security.   

The post What Is VDI? Examples of VDI for Small Businesses appeared first on Tech Web Space.

QuickBooks hosting has been a game-changer in the accounting industry that eliminates the limitations of locally-installed QuickBooks Desktop. It offers businesses, firms, accountants, and CPAs features such as remote access, enhanced data security, high-performance computing, better collaboration, and the like.

But there is another thing that it offers. QuickBooks hosting opens the gates for you to integrate it with other multiple third-party applications to improve productivity. And the best part is that it allows you to integrate as many add-ons as you need without impacting your performance with superfast data processing speeds (which is not the case if you use QuickBooks Desktop).

You can easily automate your tasks, simplify business operations, transfer data seamlessly, and improve your firm’s productivity. Here are the top 5 add-ons that you need to try to improve your productivity.

Avalara

When it comes to establishing your business, a successful sales profile plays a critical role. You have to identify your customer base, deploy a sales management team, and manage your taxes correctly. However, sales tax management is something that continues to be challenging for various industries. There is a solution – Avalara.

Using an add-on like Avalara for your sales tax management helps you streamline multiple business operations and manage your taxes precisely. It assists you with all the tricky Sales Tax collections, filings, and remittances. It also helps determine sales tax liability in accordance with your physical presence in that state. Another crucial area where it helps you is in the determination of sales tax rate. The states have different tax slabs, which can be quite different and can hinder your tax management process if not managed properly. But when you use Avalara with QuickBooks, you can easily process your taxes and avoid making any tax-related mistakes.

QuickBooks Advanced Inventory

For industries like retail and manufacturing, inventory is a cornerstone of their business processes. While a well-managed inventory system can enable a business to save up their resources and make better profits significantly, the opposite can dramatically affect their finances and cause considerable losses. This calls for a solution that addresses all their accounting-related needs and helps manage their inventory simultaneously.

QuickBooks Advanced Inventory feature enables a smoother inventory management experience. It allows you to track your inventory via serial numbers, lot numbers, or track quantities by means of bins, rows, or shelves. It offers different costing methods like Average Cost, FIFO and estimates the COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold) accurately. Another stunning feature that comes with the QuickBooks Advanced Inventory is item cataloging via the barcode scanning method. You can use a wireless barcode scanner to manage your inventory and quickly update the information in QB.

TSheets

When someone said ‘time is money’, they must probably be talking about the accounting business. The working hours in an accounting firm are segregated into billable hours and non-billable hours. The more billable hours they can convert, the better is their revenue. However, using conventional methods for tracking billable hours is both tedious and unproductive. It results in numerous time-tracking discrepancies and significantly affects your firm’s cost-efficiency. And this is where TSheets’ integration with QB could be a revolutionary solution for all your time-tracking needs.

TSheets is one of the most popular time-tracking software available out there. It gets easily integrated with QB, enabling your employees to record their hours accurately. Apart from tracking regular time, you can record time spent for breaks, create schedules, and even calculate overtime and vacations. Also, you can track your employees via their GPS location, monitor their work progress, and assign tasks accordingly. And since it can be easily integrated with QB, all you need is a click, and all your details would be synced in no time.

FishBowl Inventory

When it comes to running a chain of retail stores or establishing a manufacturing unit, perfect inventory management is a deciding factor for success. One such add-on which can revolutionize your inventory management is the Fishbowl Inventory. It is a robust inventory management tool embedded with a wide range of features.

With Fishbowl inventory, you can easily create BOM (Bill of Materials), supervise advanced-level assembly jobs, and generate work orders. It has an additional Return Merchandise Authorization for replacing, returning, or repaying purchase amounts. It also has versatile cost calculating methods like FIFO, LIFO, and Standard Cost method to estimate inventory costs accurately. And when you want to process things quickly, it allows you to generate and print barcodes as well.

Business Importer

Accountancy is a data-exhaustive business, with much of its accuracy and preciseness depending upon the information stored. Apart from performing complex calculations and devising fiscal strategies, an accountant also needs to manage all the client-related data skillfully. They must accurately import/export their client information into their QB and also record other financial transactions. With Business Importer, you can easily manage all your work-related data tasks, that too, with minimal effort.

You don’t need to manually re-type your data as everything is done automatically. All you need is to integrate this add-on with your QB solution, and it will do the rest for you. You can also export data whenever necessary, review the stored data, and easily delete bulk transactions without experiencing any redundancy. You can even run multiple imports simultaneously or set an automatic import schedule for your data. You don’t even need to worry about your data’s safety as everything is secured on safe cloud servers.

Conclusion

There is no doubt in the fact that QuickBooks hosting has done wonders to companies and businesses. But, it becomes even better when you decide to integrate your QB hosting solution with the desired add-ons on the cloud. The overall solution improves your productivity and streamlines your business operations, resulting in better revenue generation.

The post QuickBooks Hosting: Improve Your Productivity With Add-Ons appeared first on Tech Web Space.

Hence, many successful accounting firms and CPAs are moving to the cloud in order to stay relevant and to cater to client expectations.

Here are some of the reasons why moving their processes onto the cloud or using cloud-based accounting systems has helped accounting businesses in remaining popular among their clients and reach success.

1. Remote Access

Cloud is highly pliable for your accounting businesses to access critical data from any remote location, be it while you are working from home due to a deadly pandemic or going to a location on the other end of town to meet a client. You will have all the necessary files pertaining to your work at the click of a button.

If you are sticking to the manual processes or relying on the desktops or laptops containing the files on their local drive, you might be signing up for trouble as these systems might not be available at the reach of hand. Whereas, if your business data is stored on cloud infrastructure, you will have the flexibility of reaching it from any system.

2. Real-time Data

Updated data is any accounting team’s best friend as it helps in assuring the clients that you are on top of your game. Unlike a normal desktop-process, a cloud-based process, at regular intervals, saves your data and keeps it up-to-date, even while your employees are making changes to it.

Not only does it help you obtain real-time data for self-use, but it also allows you to share appropriate data with your clients for instant collaboration. It facilitates optimizing your time as the necessity to travel to the client location to have discussions with them will minimize.

3. Cost-effective

If you are storing your data on local systems or drives, you will have to invest a great deal in the IT infrastructure such as desktops, memory disks, and so on. It requires you to invest in the infrastructure and in their maintenance throughout the device’s life.

Cloud, in comparison to office systems, will be more cost-effective as the storage space available for storing the massive accounting data will cost lesser for the same amount of storage space on a local device and will add to the efficiency of the business. There will be no additional maintenance charges as well.

4. Data Security

Businesses such as accounting can’t afford any sort of data-leakage or hacking as that is one compromise that clients don’t forgive you for. A lot of an accounting firm’s success rides on their ability to keep the client data confidential. It gets tricky when one has to secure all the data manually.

While on the contrary, accounting on the cloud comes with multiple layers of encryption arranged by the Cloud service provider, which helps accounting businesses maintain their client’s data under tight wraps and thus, keep the client satisfied with their service.

5. Prevents Loss of Data

Many a time, even without the intervention of external elements such as hackers, there still persists a risk of data loss, which may occur due to any number of system and human errors. The ground rule for your accounting firm to keep any client engagement healthy is making sure that no data is lost.

It generally occurs when employees manipulate the data available on desktop systems without keeping a tab of the old data or when the hardware (which is the storage base of the data) crashes.

You, as an accounting firm, can prevent yourself from the trouble of data loss by opting to upload all your data on a Cloud, which in turn automatically backs up all the data even as changes are being made to it. You can use it as your primary source without the worry of any data slip.

6. Process Flow Control

When all your data is in one place, it gets very easy to streamline all your processes. Especially in accounting firms, it is necessary to check where and how the data is being accessed. A cloud system helps you keep a tab on when and by whom data is being accessed and allows you to authenticate part of the database system to be accessed by only those to whom the access is provided.

As an added help, some cloud systems even come with visualization facilities that help you project the inflow and outflow of data (with the help of inbuilt charts and tables which can be customized to the needs of your business). Thus, it helps you in coming up with a common process across all your clients, on the way, making your job easier and more optimal.

Wrap Up

For Accounting businesses, cloud computing has become highly crucial and profitable. It guarantees the advancement and profitability of accounting firms with several advantages and also helps the business refashion itself to the needs of the industry.

All of the factors mentioned above, along with many others, bring accounting firms on-to their track to success! It is always advisable for any accounting firm to choose a cloud system for their utilization, keeping the factors that serve their purpose in mind as the services of cloud systems differ from one to another.

The post 6 Reasons Why Successful Accounting Businesses Use Cloud appeared first on Tech Web Space.

It is not hard to gauge the extent of unprotected data risk that any accounting firm can fall into. This may lead to severe data loss and financial crises at any time.

However, this doesn’t have to be your case.

Earlier, of course, we never had so many tools and easy-to-use technologies that could have helped us reduce cyberattacks. But, today, we have that luxury.

Take the cloud, for example. It is a simple technology tool. Almost every common user is utilizing the cloud to store data. Did you know that if you host your accounting applications on the cloud, you can instantly improve your security structure?

It is challenging to have impenetrable and robust security architecture. But, these following tips can make it simpler. Let’s see why you need cybersecurity and how you can implement it.

Cybersecurity Strategy for 2021

You can always reduce the damage caused to your data by preventing an attack. A preventive cybersecurity strategy aims at reducing security loopholes to eliminate the chances of an attack. Below are a few factors that contribute to your cybersecurity strategy.

1. Securing Sensitive Data

The internet is always filled with potential threats, even when not visible. As per the risk level of an accounting firm, the topmost priority should be given to your financial data, including transfer routing data, bank accounts, and usernames and passwords for your credit cards, debit cards, and net banking.

This data is sensitive and mission-critical. Therefore, you need to secure this information with high-level measures and automated controls.  

The easiest way of achieving this is storing every data-set in a separate place. So, if you collect employer ID numbers, social security numbers, and other personally identifiable information, create separate data-sets to reduce and divide risk in case of a data breach.

2. Modifying Business Processes

When you ensure that your sensitive data is correctly stored, the next step is to find out how business processes are accessing data. The entire lifecycle of how your data is transported between your clients and team members is the key to eliminating faulty workflows.

Does your client have a secure portal?

Are you sending encrypted files to reduce the risk of information theft?

For this, you need to implement a structure for differential access. Every request sent by an employee should be checked and validated. The access to certain sensitive files should be restricted through a hierarchy – not everyone should be allowed to see every information. If you fail to control this, then the hacker may easily manipulate your staff to gain unauthorized access.

With that being said, it is also vital to train your staff correctly. You need to offer proper training to make your users understand how they can keep sensitive information secure.

3. Using Due Diligence

It is not uncommon for CPA firms or accounting organizations to outsource work when the peak season arrives. But, before you do that, check the security structure of the third-party. Run due diligence to understand whether the platform used by the third-party is secure or not.

It is necessary to look into the secure structure’s strength before outsourcing any work deeply. This is a significant step to secure your sensitive data.

4. Using the Cloud

One of the simplest methods to improve your security is to implement the cloud. You can host your important applications like the QuickBooks software on the cloud for secure access. It is common to think that cloud hosting would leave every security task on you. But that is not true. With remote access, you get the feasibility of managing your data securely.

Here’s how:

• The hosting provider has various servers, all of which have in-built automated bots to check intrusion. Even a human operator can’t catch disruptions like a bot. With this bot, you get antivirus, antimalware, intrusion detection, and theft protection support.

• Every single file of data is replicated on multiple servers and updated as you make changes. This makes disaster recovery more straightforward and hassle-free. You can retrieve any file on another server within minutes.

• The cloud hosting provider also offers you multi-factor authentication to ensure that your data is safely accessed. This means that you need to authorize yourself at multiple stages every time you want to access your data.  

• The backups in the cloud are automated. This saves you time and money. You can securely access and backup critical and sensitive information without spending additional time on it.

The cloud alone can improve your security structure exponentially. If you use the cloud, you only need to take care of a few other things to ensure that your sensitive files are safe.  

5. Implement Correct Remote Working Protocols 

The coronavirus pandemic brought a major digital transformation. This means that a large number of organizations have moved to remote working. Organizations that already had the infrastructure for remote work are thriving. However, organizations that shifted to the virtual world during the pandemic need to improve their security.

The remote world is fantastic, but it increases your vulnerability to cyberattacks. For instance, if you communicate highly confidential information to your clients over the email without encryption, you can easily compromise this data.

There are so many organizations communicating online. It would help if you created a secure channel to access data and information and share it with clients and team members safely. Using a common medium can compromise your information even sooner than you would realize. Hence, use encryption or the cloud to share data without highly risking it.  

Conclusion

Consistently making efforts to build a healthy security structure helps in reducing the chances of phishing attacks and other cyberattacks. Hence, check the above important cybersecurity tips and start modifying your security structure for a better outcome in 2021. Utilize emerging technologies and move towards a preventive security structure in place of corrective security actions.

The post Protecting Firm From Cyber Threats: Your Strategy? appeared first on Tech Web Space.

What is a Digital Workplace?

Digital Workplace is an umbrella term for all the tools and solutions that create a virtual space for users to connect, communicate, and work. It is a modernized evolving environment that eliminates any constraints faced due to the physical boundaries of the traditional office.

Digital Workplace is created with the combination of modern-day technologies like cloud computing and AI with necessary hardware resources that include laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, etc.

According to the reports in 2017 CMSwire, 95% of organizations agree that the Digital Workplace is essential for success.

The adoption of digital platforms offers automation, mobility, and flexibility benefits, increasing the productivity and efficiency of the businesses. Here is how a Digital Workplace is a step forward for businesses to achieve success:

1.     Remote Working

With the clients’ growing demands, more and more organizations are working towards expanding their range worldwide. This further calls for the implementation of a global team. However, every geographically-isolated workforce needs to stay connected in order to achieve success in the business.

Digital Workplace enables the same by providing collaborative tools that are implemented using modern-day technology. It has blurred the line between physical and virtual environments. The invention of communication tools like emails, instant messaging apps, virtual meeting tools, and even HR applications offers immediate access to any sort of work-related information. 

Additionally, cloud-based digital workspaces improve connectivity and accessibility. It eliminates the need to be tied to a single office desktop to accomplish any task as data can be accessed from anywhere, at any given time, and from any internet-connected device, such as laptops, smartphones, or tablets.

2.     Task Automation

Every business requires solutions to increase the efficiency and productivity of employees. However, everyday tedious tasks can impact the tendency of the workforce to focus on its core tasks.

To overcome this problem, the Digital Workplace incorporates automation-based tools. The time consumed per task is reduced by manifolds by automating manual tasks. It is possible due to the implementation of solutions like Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the automation of day-to-day tasks, such as data entry, file search, invoice creation, and more. It further reduces the chances of errors due to human mistakes. 

Automation tools also have the capability to learn and adopt the desired changes within the system to offer a more enhanced user experience.

3.     Optimized Insights

Every decision impacts the growth and success of a company. Therefore, every business owner requires real-time updates and insights into the work process. 

Adopting Digital Workplace by integrating cloud technology and AI into the system ensures that the users get access to most recent updates and a centralized dashboard to track all the changes in the workflow. The enhanced monitoring system provides better control and appropriate governance for seamless data flow within the system.

Moreover, businesses can derive analytics and insights by collecting and evaluating facts around the provided information. It helps to predict possible outcomes for better managerial decisions. 

4.     Better Connectivity

Employees need to work together to create a progressive workplace. However, lack of communication and connection can cause disruptions in business operations. There is a need to build a system that creates a bridge to connect everyone globally.

A digital workplace incorporates a network for better communication between the workforce. Various tools and solutions like cloud computing offer a shared platform for multiple users to access, edit, or share files and documents in real-time. It enables teams to work cohesively and improve productivity. 

The use of different collaboration applications ensures transparency within the system. As the data is updated in real-time, the chances of creating multiple versions of the same are reduced; hence, improving the accuracy rate of the tasks.

5.     Enhanced Security

Business data holds all the crucial information that is critical to run a business. Any threat to the data can hamper the privacy of any organization. So, a proper system must be implemented to secure it from any accidental or malicious attacks like cyberattacks, fires, floods, data theft, and more.

As the Digital Workplace offers a virtual environment to work in, the data is secured from any loss due to hardware theft. Various security measures can also be executed through the implementation of cybersecurity. Most of the protective measures include end-to-end encryption, multiple firewalls, authentication at various levels, anti-virus, and anti-malware systems.

In addition to it, data backups can also be taken so that information can be retrieved easily in case of an accident or loss.

6.     Cost-Efficient

Beginning from the initial setup cost to operational cost, a business requires massive investment to function seamlessly. Every competent business takes various measures to operate in a budget-friendly way.

Leveraging digital platforms and tools reduce the operational and capital cost of a business dramatically. It is because the mobility benefits allow employees to work from anywhere and at any time without spending money on transportation costs. So, companies can easily implement a work-from-home policy without compromising the performance of their workforce. 

Also, the use of cloud computing can enable employees to work from any internet-connected device. Therefore, there is no need to invest in any in-house hardware infrastructure as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) can be executed to save costs further.

7.     Improved Customer Engagement

Customer experience is considered as an essential factor for the success of a business. The way business employees interact with their clients says a lot about the organization.

The creation of a Digital Workplace adds value to the business. It completely changes the day-to-day work of an employee. It helps them to focus more on their core competencies rather than the routine tasks. It helps organizations form a “Digital Workforce” that is much more skilled and provides better solutions to its customers.

Additionally, clients can have real-time updates of the workflow and easily track the status of their projects. It helps build trust between the business and the client. They can also conveniently share the required information and documents with professionals over a common platform that doesn’t take a toll on their privacy.

In Conclusion

Developing a Digital Workplace is a one-stop solution that provides effective collaboration, analysis, cost-effectiveness to businesses. Therefore, it is a must to gain a competitive edge in the market and achieve success in this fast-moving global and digitized business world in the long-run.

The post How Does Digital Workplace Help Businesses To Achieve Success? appeared first on Tech Web Space.

Organizations across the globe are using cloud-based solutions to drive more revenue and decrease their overall costs. Regardless of the fact that businesses were new to this technology, they’re embracing cloud platforms by modernizing their operations using business continuity and disaster recovery platforms.

So, how does cloud empower businesses? Let’s find out:

1. Team Collaboration

We’re all in the same boat. To be able to meet our teammates and workforce, face-to-face isn’t an option for most of us right now. But, powerful technologies like the cloud have made it possible to interact with each other over platforms like video conferencing.

Moreover, one of the best features offered by the cloud is the ability to be able to work remotely.

Regardless of the location or device, you can collaborate with your team on projects in real-time. By investing in cloud computing, employees can share, access, and edit documents and coordinate with each other.

Therefore, most organizations use efficient collaboration tools such as Slack, MS Teams, Zoom, and more. By doing so, your organization can stay more connected and, thus, be more productive.

2. Top-Notch Security

Safeguarding the critical data is a company’s utmost priority. However, a sudden increase in the transition to the cloud has increased the opportunities for cybercrimes against organizations.

The cloud solution providers offer multiple layers of security to protect your data while transferring your on-premise setup to cloud and afterward. Measures such as multi-factor authentication, antivirus, firewalls, and network securities using Intrusion Detection and Protection System ensure that your application and data remain secure. 

3. High Availability

As an organization, you have to make sure your employees have access to business-specific applications and data at all times to deliver projects with maximum productivity. However, a non-premise setup is not immune to hardware failures. This means that issues such as the crashing of a hard drive may lead to downtime of the applications, thereby decreasing productivity.

But with your applications hosted on the cloud, this isn’t the case. Hosting your application on High-Performance Computing (HPC) cloud servers allows multiple users to work on multiple applications simultaneously without any chance of overloading.

Moreover, the cloud service providers also guarantee a high uptime value by deploying multi-redundant infrastructure in their data centers.

4. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Your on-premise IT setup is prone to attacks such as theft, hardware crashes, ransomware, and more. Even natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods can lead to the unavailability of business data, especially when your workforce is spread all over the globe while working remotely.

Amongst the benefits offered by cloud platforms, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) is on the top of the list. The cloud service providers deploy robust BCDR plans as a part of their services, ensuring that your applications and data are recovered quickly and without any loss in case of a disaster.

The redundant infrastructure provided by the cloud ensures your business faces minimal downtime throughout the year.

5. Scalability

On-premise systems are restricted by limited physical storage. Adding extra servers would require someone to install the additional hardware, leading to more maintenance costs and server space.

By adopting cloud computing, organizations can simply scale up or down their business process easily as per the requirements. Most importantly, the cloud can allow you to accommodate as many remote employees as you need, provided they have the valid credentials to login to your cloud setup.

Thus, you can keep hiring new talent, and they can access any information from the ease of their homes.

6. Cost-efficiency

Until recently, we all worked in the office. But organizations have started to realize that working remotely can lead to significant cost savings on real estate, operational costs, hardware costs, and more. From air conditioners to office supplies such as coffee machines and copy machines, organizations around the globe are saving a significant amount of money by enabling the remote workforce.

Cloud adoption for better communication and collaboration not only reduces overall costs but increases productivity. Moreover, with a wide range of pricing plans available, businesses can choose to pay only for what they use and upgrade their plans as their business expands.

Wrapping Up

Cloud offers numerous benefits, which is why many organizations have already switched to cloud-based solutions and plan to work remotely even after the pandemic is over. Clearly, it is essential to pick a cloud solution provider wisely to enjoy the endless benefits offered by the cloud, from cost-savings to uptime and flexibility.

By choosing the right cloud adoption strategy and solutions provider, you can streamline business communications and achieve higher productivity.

The post Harness Power Of Cloud For Remote Working appeared first on Tech Web Space.

If so, then your accounting department is not working with full efficiency. When the accounting department is not able to function smoothly, everything else goes downhill. Multiple other business functions, including new project budgets get affected.

For this reason, the accounting department carries a major responsibility for managing finances and accounts of the business with accuracy. If this working starts lagging, you can push your accounting team to achieve maximum productivity. Below we have discussed 8 useful steps to achieve optimum productivity levels in accounting.

Here’s How You Can Build A Productive Team

What does productivity mean for the accounting department?

In accounting, team productivity indicates clear accounts and proper finance management. This means that if the manager needs to check finances to make a business decision, he should get the accurate details immediately in real-time. This communication of financial data can be flawless only when the accounting team is working with the utmost efficiency and using the right tool for the task.

Let’s see the steps that can help you build a productive accounting team:

1.    Strong Policies

Failure in maintaining discipline in the accounting processes is one of the major reasons why the accounting department becomes less productive. There are two ways in which this can happen:

• There are no clear policies for accounting and finance management.
• There is no clear policy management structure for policy adherence.

To streamline both the issues, creating clear policies, deadlines, and structure is the right route to manage finances. You need to have a clear guideline for how expenses should be managed and when payments should be released.

For instance, you should have a policy of when the invoices should be raised to a customer. There should be related rules to check when the payment is overdue.

These policies are necessary to maintain compliance and manage the cash flow of the business, both of which help in creating accurate financial statements and improving productivity.

2.    Stress on Accuracy

When we talk about accounting, accuracy is added to it without saying. So, this is another major milestone that every small or big business should achieve.

You can improve accuracy in your system by gathering accurate data. In a way, accurate data is the foundation of business success, whether it is related to accounting or any other activity. Without precise data, the overall efficiency of decision-making is hampered in the business.

Think about it, if you are making important decisions according to the inaccurate or outdated data, the results can be extremely dreadful. You can over or underestimate your cash flow easily.

To mitigate this loophole in your accounting, establish a system for consistent reporting and data management. Your accountants should have the right tools and knowledge to avoid human errors in the system. Here, it is necessary to ensure that you focus on various review points or automation points to receive accurate and updated data.

3.    Automate

Accounting is an activity that requires repetitive tasks and creativity through which smart decisions are made. However, to allow your accounting team to focus on smart decisions, you need to automate tasks that computers can handle.

All the mundane activities such as data entry of invoices can be overtaken by machines such as automatic extracting of data from invoices and inputting it in the system. This will allow a window to your employees for strategic work.

Of course, you may not be able to bring yourself to trust machines completely. However, there’s a difference in rechecking working and doing it. Rechecking will still consume much lesser time than actually entering every piece of data manually. 

With the help of automation, your staff can create reports, evaluate profit and loss, record transactions, and manage taxes in very few clicks.

4.    Provide Training

If your accounting team is not well-equipped to handle responsibilities, it is highly unlikely to manage finances accurately; even after using every tip present in this discussion. You need to properly guide and train your staff to become proficient in accounting.

This means you need to offer training to help them understand financial procedures and complete accounting tasks with accuracy.

Here are multiple ways in which this can be achieved:

• You can check the performance of your team and evaluate the individual team member’s performance as well. Once you have achieved this, either decide if every member needs training or a few needs training. Based on this data, offer the right guidance.
• You can offer training and guidance whenever a new regulation or internal policy is launched. This will help the team adjust to the new scenario. In fact, even when you change your accounting software, prefer offering training to your employees.
• Consider cross-training between departments to empower the entire office to work in synchronization and improve productivity. This is necessary during sudden circumstances such as when the accountant is not available for a few days.

5.    Improve Communication

One thing that can infect every business activity is poor communication. If your accounting team is dependent on manual transactions of data and time-consuming manual collaboration activities, their productivity can’t improve.

You need to have a proper workflow to manage data and make data available easily to your finance department.

Further, the finance department should have the liberty to communicate with other departments of the business for cross-functional and collaborative working. Restricting this department with time-consuming hierarchical workflows can reduce their working efficiency.

Hence, maintaining a flawless communication and collaboration across departments and cross-functional teams is necessary.

6.    Create a Positive Culture

The culture of the workplace impacts the productivity of every individual and team. This means that your work culture also influences the efficiency of the accounting team.

You can promote your work culture and make it engaging through retention activities, rewards, and recognition. You can also improve the culture by enhancing the communication workflows of the business, which will make the flow of information simpler and hassle-free.

7.    Use Batch Processes

If you have 10 client invoices and 10 employee reimbursements, how would you like to manage them?

The best way is to have one date to receive all these invoices and expenses and process them together in a batch. Standalone processing can eat up a lot of time of the accounting team by keeping them engrossed in this one task for the whole week. Therefore, it is best to batch process invoices and other expenses.

8.    Use the Right Tool

Having the correct tool by your side can improve your accounting team’s productivity to a great extent. This is because an accounting tool can help you with all of the above things. It can improve communication, automate processes, ensure accuracy, and maintain policies.

One such tool that can be utilized for accounting is QuickBooks. It is designed to streamline your accounting and bookkeeping activities.

• Manage clients through QuickBooks.
• Set deadlines and reminders to improve efficiency.
• Access your books at any time with an internet connection.
• Receive advanced insights to analyze data.
• Automate invoice generation to avoid manual entry.
• Easily generate tax data and documents.

Conclusion

There’s no business without accurate accounting, we already know that. To achieve accurate accounting and finances, you need to have a 360-degree view of every operational activity of the business. This is only achievable with a productive and efficient team. For building that, use the above 8 creative tips and improve the productivity of your accounting department.

The post How To Build A Productive Accounting Team? appeared first on Tech Web Space.

Managing a team of accountants and bookkeepers requires the implementation of a system that gives full visibility over the ongoing processes. In order to do so, managers must come up with some work from home policies to track the remote team, learn from the mistakes, and increase the firm’s productivity. It is essential to determine the factors on which managers will judge their employees from now on.

To start, let’s understand the challenges that the employees face at home:

1. Lack of F2F Supervision and Guidance

Most of the employees in your organization are new to this norm and will take some time to adjust themselves in this practice. While managers worry about their employee’s productivity, the employees struggle to attain managerial support and communication.

2. Distractions at Home

Remote working is a whole new paradigm for everyone. People tend to multi-task in order to pay equal attention to their homes and work, but the fact is, it doesn’t work. There’ll be times when your employees will tend to attend a conference call and entertain their children at the same time.

As a manager, it’s your responsibility to guide them that, yes, you can do it all at the same time, but you cannot do it all well. Guide your team to press pause and re-evaluate where the tasks stand in their priority list, and the ideal managers will respect their decision.

3. Lack of Information or Access

This goes without saying that your team needs to see you, and you need to see your teammates. Using online tools such as Zoom, Slack, and MS Teams can make this task relatively easy.

Every individual doesn’t have the equipment and devices that they need and often feel left out while working remotely. This can lead to the social, economic, or psychological impact on their minds.

Insufficient access to the right organization tools may often lead to so many things piling up on the plate that would have a direct impact on business productivity. Thus, managers must equip their teams with the right tools and devices.

Here are some steps that managers should take to help their employees overcome these challenges, increase the overall productivity, and improve the engagement of the remote employees.

1. Daily Stand-Ups

It’s essential to realize that virtual meetings or video conferences can be as effective as face-to-face meetings. In fact, global employees have been doing that even before this unprecedented crisis.

But managers must ensure that they don’t just jump into discussing work. The first 5-6 minutes of the meeting should be utilized as a regular check-in, so that, all the employees feel acknowledged. Also, including brainstorming sessions by thoughtfully raising 1-2 challenging issues can be an effective way to make sure that the team interacts with each other.

2. Leverage the Technology

Managing a team remotely has its own complications. How do you get to know who’s doing what? How will your team collaborate? How do you make sure that no work falls beneath the cracks and gets completed before the deadline?

The trick is simple, to follow a plan with carefully chosen technology. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to make sure your team is equipped with the right technology to get the tasks done in time. Integrate third-party applications with your accounting software such as QuickBooks Desktop and easily collaborate with the team so that the rhythm of the work doesn’t break.

3. Trust your Employees

Not able to meet deadlines, or complete the exact amount of work hours, or reach a particular activity percentage can weigh down your employees.

Help your team understand how you will manage success. It’s not practically possible to measure your team of accountants and bookkeepers on every aspect while working remotely, therefore, measure them by deliverables, not activity percentage or work hours. Remind yourself that you’ve hired and trained a highly competent team of accountants, so it’s important to trust them with it even while working remotely. Your teams’ personal, physical, and mental health must be the top priority right now.

4. Reinforce Organizational Values

While everyone is working from remote locations, at different times, it becomes challenging to keep track of who’s doing what.

During these uncertain times, your team of accountants want leadership with the right combination of automation, patience, and planning that they can remember for years. So, you must standardize some critical practices such as knowledge transfer and documenting a checklist, and more that everyone must abide by in their daily routine.

5. Offer Emotional Support

One of the biggest challenges that managers are going to face during this period is a sense of isolation. Managers must create a psychological oneness amongst the team. Distance is no excuse for this not to happen.

It’s crucial to observe the signs and coach your team on how to do well. As a manager, you should teach your team to be able to fill the gap between work and personal life that would create value for the organization.

Final Thoughts

The world of work has changed in the past few months, and many organizations are adapting to the new challenges, one of them being managing remote teams. The good news is that the accounting industry is well-suited for remote work. So, set a new baseline for success, quickly integrate the current best practices, and apply them to the new work norm to allow your organization to thrive.

The post 5 Tips for Organizing and Managing Remote Accounting Teams appeared first on Tech Web Space.

With more than 3.3M positive cases of the coronavirus and a downfall in the global economy, the survival of startups and small businesses is on edge. The concern is to work remotely and generate sufficient revenue so that the business can run smoothly. 

The cloud has instantly made available all the necessary IT resources. It has connected everyone on a global scale, easing the operations and working of startups, and helping them survive this pandemic.

Source: Shutterstock

At such challenging times, it is hard to imagine a world without cloud technology. Everyone is using the cloud in some way or the other, even if you’re not working from home but using streaming services such as Netflix (Netflix also uses cloud computing). According to MarketsandMarkets, COVID-19 is a game-changer for the cloud market, and it will grow to USD 295 billion by 2021. 

Let’s see how cloud computing can benefit startups during this situation.

Remote Access

People from every industry cannot work from home; cloud computing is helpful for industries that can. Accounting, bookkeeping, online marketing, teaching, programming, and writing are some examples of jobs that can be done remotely. 

Cloud-based applications can be accessed from any place by using any device with an internet connection. This allows you to access the data seamlessly, making operations easy during this pandemic. The only requirement is a compatible device with a stable internet connection. 

This is a massive advantage as we are required to maintain a social distance from each other to contain the spread of the virus. 

Minimize Expenses

Cloud computing aims to simplify businesses and their operations. Thus, it does not need specialized resources or a huge investment. You pay for what you use and increase its capabilities with time. Also, it decreases the load on the company’s IT infrastructure and does not require any physical space. The physical infrastructure is expensive and is likely to become obsolete in the near future.

All these features offer a considerable advantage to startups as they need to save as much as possible. 

Hassle-Free Data Backup

Manual Saving and backing up of data is a tedious task and impacts the productivity of the employees. They also feel frustrated when they have to create backups of large amounts of data. 

With cloud computing, the data is backed up automatically. This proves to be a game-changer in industries where information is the primary asset, such as healthcare and accounting. 

Scalability

The markets have become unpredictable because of the global pandemic; a scalable solution is necessary for organizations, especially for startups. Cloud computing allows businesses to scale up or down according to their needs, making their operations flexible. 

For instance, if there is a sudden growth in demand, business owners can accommodate new resources. Also, if the demand decreases, and there is a need to scale down the storage capacity, cloud computing does it smoothly. This allows startups to be ready for project-specific requirements and pay only for what they use. 

Better Resource Management

As everyone is working remotely right now, teams face difficulties in collaborating with each other. With cloud computing, everyone can contribute to the documents without going through email threads. They can easily share data, see changes in real-time, and multiple users can work on the same file simultaneously. 

Also, you need fewer IT resources. It is the responsibility of the company providing cloud computing services to handle the IT needs. This means that you won’t need to hire IT professionals to manage your servers. 

Such small advantages have enabled startups to react to changing business needs quickly. 

Better Data Security

Cloud computing comes with an automatic data backup feature so that the businesses can focus on their operations. Moreover, the data is stored with multiple security layers offering protection from virtual and physical data threats. 

Conclusion

Cloud computing has become a lifeline for startups during the COVID-19 pandemic. It allows the employees to work remotely in an efficient manner by remote access, better data security, and smooth information sharing. 

Think we missed something? Please mention in the comments below. 

The post Cloud Technology Can Be A Life Saviour – Startups In The COVID-19 Crisis appeared first on Tech Web Space.

As per the forecast published in Forbes, 83% of enterprise workload will be in the cloud by 2020.

Cloud has redefined the way various businesses operate, and the accounting industry is no different. Accounting businesses that use cloud technology are more focused on their core competencies rather than the management of IT resources. This has helped accounting professionals in serving their clients better.

Here are some points explaining how cloud technology can be a crucial factor to improve the productivity of the professionals in an accounting business –

1. Anytime, Anywhere Access

Accounting professionals have to work under pressure to meet their deadlines. Being tied to a local desktop reduces the productivity of accountants as they might need access to the business data even when they are not in the office. 

Cloud technology makes it possible for accountants and CPAs to access business data at any time from any part of the world. All one needs is a device (laptop, smartphone, or tablet) and access to the Internet.

This mobility factor enables professionals to do more in less time and hence, improve productivity. Moreover, the cloud allows a business to implement various strategies like work-from-home that results in increased client satisfaction rate.

2. Easy Collaboration

Most of the time, the team of accountants, CPAs, tax professionals, and other stakeholders need to work on the same file to accomplish various tasks in the accounting business. Sending emails back and forth is time-consuming and may cause data mismanagement.

Adopting cloud technology enables the workforce to access, edit, and share data on a common platform. It further creates a streamlined communication system and develops the agility to complete each task. Furthermore, it also eliminates redundancy of information as a single file is shared throughout the process. This increases the accuracy of the accounting tasks.

3. Real-Time Metrics

Accounting firms often need to outsource some of the services which can cause privacy threats. Therefore, it is vital to monitor the workflow and performance of the employees to maintain a controlled environment.

Migrating accounting services to the cloud helps to get real-time metrics of the cash flow, tax statements, and other critical files at any time. It further aids business owners to analyze the scenario and make better decisions accordingly. Also, it helps to improve transparency within the system and eliminate privacy issues during the outsourcing of services, which, in turn, builds trust among clients and help to serve them better.

4. Scalable Resources

The business requirements keep on changing as per the circumstances. For instance, an accounting firm needs to upscale most of the resources such as RAM, number of users, and storage space during the tax season to meet the growing demands of the business. It might not be feasible with on-site IT infrastructure.

Cloud technology enables businesses to quickly scale up the resources as the requirements of accounting business rises. Users can also downscale the same resources easily if the demand drops. Moreover, users can integrate any number of add-ons with the accounting software hosted on the cloud without compromising with the performance.

5. Enhanced Security

Security is one of the biggest concerns for an accounting business. Therefore, there is a need to have robust security measures in place to safeguard business data.

Most of the cloud hosting providers protect data from malicious attacks and other threats by implementing various methods. This includes end-to-end encryption, user authentication system, antivirus and anti-malware, multiple firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention system (IDS/IPS), DDoS attack prevention, and much more. Moreover, data is stored at off-site data centers that have 24/7 on-site security staff, fire alarms, CCTV surveillance, raised flooring, etc. that ensure complete protection.

6. Disaster Recovery

Data loss can occur at any instant due to accidents like hardware theft, power failure, natural disasters, and fire. Therefore, businesses need to backup data regularly to avoid any mishap. However, storing data on local devices do not solve the problem.

Moving the accounting practice to the cloud ensures data is backed up regularly at an off-site data center. Moreover, competent cloud vendors deploy multi-level redundancy by replicating the applications and data at multiple locations that are geographically isolated from each other.

Hence, in case of any natural disaster, if one data center is down, data can be recovered from other locations. Therefore, accountants don’t have to worry about any disruptions due to data loss and can shift their focus to other critical matters.

7. Budget-Friendly

Accounting firms look for ways to cut their operational expenses in order to maximize profits. However, managing IT infrastructure, investing in hardware and software resources, and hiring staff to manage them can be expensive.

Adopting cloud technology offers an economical solution by eliminating operational and capital costs. There is no need to invest in heavy infrastructure as the mobility benefits of the cloud enables the firms to promote policies like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

Also, accounting businesses don’t have to deploy an in-house server and build infrastructure such as a separate cooling system or implement various security measures to maintain the same. It also eliminates the need to hire additional IT staff to manage the resources as the cloud service provider takes care of the same.

Moreover, cloud hosting providers offer pay-as-per-usage plans wherein the users have to pay only for what they are using.

8. Reduced Carbon Footprints

Many businesses find it challenging to implement eco-friendly methods in their system without compromising their business growth. However, due to limited resources, one has to find a solution to execute green computing.

Cloud technology is a great initiative that helps to reduce carbon footprints as it limits the power consumption and hardware emissions. Furthermore, scalable options encourage efficient usage of the resources. This helps to contribute to the environment as well as improve the productivity of the employees.

Wrapping Up

Adopting cloud technology has become a necessity rather than a choice for accounting businesses. The undeniable benefits, like remote access, seamless collaboration, scalability, and flexibility, have contributed to the efficiency and productivity of accounting professionals. Hence, migrating accounting practices to the cloud can help the accounting business succeed in the long-run

The post How Can Cloud Technology Improve Productivity For Accounting Business? appeared first on Tech Web Space.