Growing Your Business

Our Experts Weigh in: Which Cloud Accounting Software Do They Recommend to Their Own Clients?

by
Lee Reams II
on
10/3/2018
Our Experts Weigh in: Which Cloud Accounting Software Do They Recommend to Their Own Clients?

Even at a cursory glance, it’s easy to see that cloud-based accounting software brings with it a host of unique advantages and opportunities that most people won’t be able to find anywhere else. Not only does it give you a crystal-clear overview of your business’s current financial position in real time, but that insight is also available from any device on planet earth with an active internet connection.

Most solutions have the types of multi-user access controls that make collaboration an absolute breeze between team members and advisors, and automatic updates mean that you don’t have to spend time worrying about a piece of technology that suddenly fell out of date when you weren’t paying attention.

But, more than anything, it’s all run right from the internet — meaning that you have nothing to install, you don’t have to work hard to remember to back everything up, and all of your upfront business costs to that end are significantly reduced across the board.

Once you acknowledge that cloud accounting software is something you should be looking at, however, the next most obvious question becomes, “Which particular solution in a sea of options is the right choice for me to make at the right time?”

The answer to that question, of course, requires you to keep a few key things in mind.

Which Cloud Accounting Software Is Best? Our Experts Sound Off

When asked about the types of solutions that they recommend to their own clients, a group of varied professionals had a (largely) uniform answer. “I recommend QuickBooks Online to my clients,” said Paul Belshaw of Belshaw Accounting & Tax Services. “I work with attorneys, and many of them utilize CLIO to manage their practices, and [QuickBooks] supports them more than any other online accounting program.”

Kristie Lovelace of PayrollBooking agreed, saying that QuickBooks is “designed from the perspective of individuals who are not bookkeepers or accountants and provides a flowchart to follow.” She continued, saying that it is also “cost effective and offers both desktop and online cloud versions, so it’s great for new businesses or businesses who just can’t afford to spend a lot on bookkeeping software.”

Alexis Gallati of Gallati Professional Services also lent her voice to the cheers for QuickBooks Online, saying that it “allows me to easily review [my client’s] accounting and answer their questions. Also, my clients love the convenience of having everything online and saving their receipts right in the solution.”

But it was Luba Milgram of StarLite Tax Solutions who perhaps said it best when she said that QuickBooks Online is “a very convenient tool to access information — for the client and our firm — from anywhere.”

Now, none of this is to say that QuickBooks Online is the ONLY solution out there. As always, even expert advice only goes so far — oftentimes, this type of decision is one that only the individual can make, as nobody knows their own unique needs and requirements better than they do.

Case in point: Ara Haddadian, CPA, was a dissenting voice in this particular discussion, saying that he uses “Xero personally, and I also recommend it to all of my clients over QuickBooks or QuickBooks Online.”

His larger point isn’t that QuickBooks Online is bad, necessarily. It’s just that for his situation and the situation of his clients, Xero offers certain advantages that its counterpart simply doesn’t.

He said that his experience using Xero was that it was “very user-friendly, very intuitive, and had a wonderful open source API for easy-to-use third-party apps like Receipt Bank, Bill.com, Float, Insightly and more.” He also liked the fact that “Xero offers very competitive monthly service rates, and it’s very easy to convert legacy, outdated QuickBooks files into Xero.” He concluded his thoughts by saying that “we have had so much success in training clients to use Xero, and they have not been shy to express their gratitude for that particular introduction.”

Regardless of which particular cloud accounting software you end up choosing, one thing is for sure: Not only will it streamline and simplify your own bookkeeping processes, but it’s also a decision that will absolutely change the way you think about your finances — for the better and for all time. If you’re looking for a way to allow your business to work faster, smarter and more efficiently in the long-term, cloud accounting software of any type is one of the smartest investments that you can make. 

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Lee Reams II

Lee Reams II

CEO

I am a tax and business news junkie who has spent the last 20 years developing and executing "best in class" word-of-mouth marketing campaigns for tax and accounting professionals. With TaxBuzz and CountingWorks we have taken that same commitment to quality content directly to the consumer. Keeping you up-to-date with the latest tax law changes, business growth tips and planning strategies to help you reach your best financial outcome.

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