Small Businesses Are Embracing the Cloud Increasingly
Doug Sleeter ‘Chunkified’
The newest developments in cloud, mobile, and connected applications are changing everything about how you will work in the future.
“Your clients will soon demand that your accounting and bookkeeping services be in the cloud,” says Doug Sleeter, a nationally recognized pundit in accounting-software consulting.
Sleeter, founder and president of The Sleeter Group, has built a network of accounting consultants that serves more than 300,000 small businesses across the country. Sleeter has also served as a development consultant for Intuit and other leading software companies. “My passion,” he says, “is to arm accountants and consultants serving the small- to medium-sized business market with the knowledge, skills, and tools that drive success.”
Doug Sleeter will be sharing his insights this summer during the Small Business Technology Road Show, sponsored in part by intuit. The show will take him and other accounting technology and consulting ‘gurus’ to nine U.S. cities in July and August to highlight new technologies that can help accountants and small businesses be more efficient, productive, collaborative, and competitive.
Emphasizing the importantace of educational events like the Small Biz Technology Road Show, Cloud9 Real Time founder and CEO Robert J. Chandler, author of the newly released ‘Together in the Cloud’ and one of the experts who has joined Sleeter on the tour, observes:
“I see the disconnect that business owners and accounting professionals experience trying to understand how the cloud will work for them. The advancements that this industry has made in recent years are astounding, and I truly believe that education is the first step to success in the cloud.”
What is emerging is a new world in which we keep our data in the cloud — on remote servers at a secure location — where, we’ll assert, it is otherwise more secure than on the desktop or a local server.
“We are shifting from desktops, servers, and local area networks toward cloud solutions and mobile applications to save time and make our businesses more efficient. The trend is away from all-in-one accounting systems and single-vendor solutions to cloud-based tools that handle separate chunks of the business process.” Sleeter call this “chunkification.”
See also: ‘Chunkified’ Cloud Accounting and the Future of Your Practice
In addition to “chunkification,” Sleeter uses the term “zero entry” to describe connecting the chunks, so to speak, where a single data entry goes all the way through the accounting system. This dramatically reduces time spent entering data. It will allow bookkeepers to move from being replaceable administrative workers to indispensable managers of data flows between chunks in the business process.
How should a business choose a cloud-based provider?
Choose a reputable vendor with solid security practices. Each business has different needs, but here are some general questions to ask:
- Is the interface easy to use?
- Does the program integrate easily into your current work flow?
- Has the vendor ever experienced any sort of security breach?
- Is all data transmitted and stored with at least 128-bit encryption?
- Is the data stored in an SAS 70– or SSAE 16-compliant data center (aka SOC Reports)?
- Does the provider perform regular third-party audits?
- Is the interface easy to use?
- Does the program integrate easily into your current work flow?
What advice does Sleeter offer businesses that resist change?
“You’re not going to attract people in their 20s and 30s today with systems that are old world. Customers want mobile solutions. Shifting to cloud-based solutions is inevitable. If you’re not building your business, you can stay in the old world, but if you are trying to grow your business for the future, it’s not really a choice.”
Sleeter’s Small Business Technology Road Show is scheduled for nine cities in July and August, full details and registration are found HERE
*Article sources: Kristin Ewald at Intuit and Corelytics
