Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/599790
10 November 2015 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com HOSTING PROVIDERS Reviews h o s t i n g Hosting Options Offer Many Benefits for Accounting Firms By Mary Girsch-Bock N ot so long ago, buying software meant receiving a CD that needed to be installed. Installation was always the tricky part. Some products could be installed in minutes, while others required a dedicated IT staff that could configure the product correctly. In recent years, many of these products have designed a more user-friendly approach; offering soware-as-a service, where users simply purchase a subscription to the soware on a monthly basis. Other soware vendors, following that trend began to create online or hosted versions of that soware. Unfortunately, many times the online versions of the soware were not created equal to the traditional desktop model. Enter application hosting. A terrific idea for businesses for a lot of reasons, application hosting allowed users to have online access to desktop versions of their soware from any location – a win-win in the business world, where more and more employees are working from remote locations, whether that be in their home office, at the neighborhood coffee shop, or from a hotel room. at great idea was then taken a step further with the creation of virtual private servers. is provided business owners with the opportunity to create a custom server much as they would in-house, but have that server, and all of the applications they needed, installed and managed on that server by a hosting provider. Users would have access to that server and applications online, allowing users to not only access popular applications such as QuickBooks, but Microso Office, Sage products, and in many cases, any soware application needed. e benefits of a hosted soware solution are many, including system reliability. is is of particular impor- tance to smaller firms without an IT staff. No more worries about maintaining a server 24/7. Someone else is now on the line to provide that service. H a r d w a r e e x p e n s e i s r e d u c e d t r e m e n d o u s l y. Instead of building a mam- m o t h I T d e p a r t m e n t , r e s o u r c e s c a n n o w b e deployed to areas where they are needed most. Same goes for maintenance issues, such as product upgrades and patches. All of this is handled by the hosting company. Hosted applications also of fer more f lex ibilit y for accounting professionals. Ramping up office staff can frequently require additional hardware and other IT tools. By having soware and other applications hosted, firms will simply need to add an addi- tional user to their subscription. Everything else remains the same. Help options are also frequently more abundant from hosting providers, with most offering extended or 24/7 support year round. In this issue of the magazine, we looked at five popular hosting products, with their services ranging from standard QuickBooks hosting, to custom server creation with the opportunity to add an unlimited number of applications to your menu. So whether your accounting firm is in the market to have a single application hosted or is looking for custom options with multiple applications, these products are a great place to start looking. 10 November 2015 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com Mary Girsch-Bock Mary Girsch-Bock began her career as an accountant in the property management and healthcare industries. She is now a eelance writer special- izing in business and technology issues and is the author of her first book, several HR handbooks, training manuals, and other in-house publications. She can be reached at mary.girsch- bock@cpapracticeadvisor.com. BEST FIT Cloud9 is a good fit for both accounting firms as well as other business industries, including law firms, and general businesses that wish to expand internal capacity without the need to add expensive internal IT support and hardware. Cloud9 offers product hosting in both the U.S. and Canada. STRENGTHS • Cloud9 offers more than 750 applications that are commonly used by a variety of businesses, with more applications added regularly • A standard app hosting plan is available, or users can choose to create a custom plan that suits their needs • Bundled options are available to choose from POTENTIAL LIMITATIONS • System implementation may be chal- lenging for smaller firms with limited IT resources SUMMARY & PRICING Cloud9 offers two pricing levels for stan- dard QuickBooks/Sage product hosting. e Basic plan runs $39.99 per user per month, and the Plus plan option is $49.99 per user per month. Intuit hosting fees of $5.00 per user per month are also required and are not included in the pricing. Users will receive two months free if paying annually. ere are also a variety of private virtual ser ver options available, Sage Applications hosting, and Exchange Ser- vice hosting available. All plans are custom- ized to suit the needs of the firm, with pricing based accordingly. www.Cloud9RealTime.com Cloud9 Real Time Read the full review and see expanded ratings for this product online at: www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com/12129803