For non-profits, staying compliant with their tax status and meeting reporting requirements are key to maintaining their 501(c)(3) status. However, many organizations, both for-profit and non-profit, are still hosting accounting or bookkeeping software locally. This means they are missing out on the latest advancements in cloud-based products that include increased functionality and security. In this blog post, we will discuss why you should move your software into the cloud.
Unlike businesses, non-profits do not sell products or services for profit; instead, they focus on activities meant to benefit the public, the organizations’ members, or a specific group. All the money that is generated by a nonprofit organization has to be used for its intended purposes. This makes it important for nonprofits to carefully manage their income and expenses, which often means managing accounting software locally on computers or servers in-house.
In addition to being required to maintain detailed records of financial operations as part of their tax status, organizations have to demonstrate that their accounting and financial data is both secure and available based on strict retention policies. Often, this means that hosting your own accounting and bookkeeping software can be more trouble than it’s worth.
Here are 7 reasons why you should move your accounting and bookkeeping software to the cloud:
Updates – you don’t have to worry about upgrading or maintaining your software – this is all handled by the provider. You get access to backups but if you need to restore a backup or make a change, you simply work with your accounting software host to get these things done.
Paperless – this is one of the most significant reasons to use cloud-based accounting and bookkeeping software. You do not need to worry about filing, storing, or retrieving records because everything you need is right there in your account.
Organization – knowing all of your data is in the cloud and easy to access means that your organization can be more streamlined and organized. You don’t have to worry about losing data or having it scattered all over the place.
Security – with cloud-based software, you get enhanced security features because your provider is responsible for safeguarding your data. This typically includes end-to-end encryption, a firewall, and virus protection.
Lower Costs – those who are hosting locally or on servers in their own office space have to pay the costs of maintaining hardware as well as paying someone else to perform backups. In addition, with cloud-based products, there is typically no software licensing fees because you only pay based on how many users you have or how many features you need.
Ease of Compliance – by producing accurate financial statements, both private and public companies can avoid fines. This is why it’s important to make sure that your accounting or bookkeeping software has the ability to produce accurate financial reporting and meet current reporting standards, no matter where you are located.
Scalability – As your business grows, attempting to manage finances from a spreadsheet quickly gets out of hand. By using cloud accounting, you can easily add users, licenses, or products as your company expands.
Are you ready to migrate your self-hosted accounting data to the cloud? Reach out to us to learn how we can help you preserve your data and transition to cloud accounting.
