Bye, bye pocket protector – Hello SaaS

Most of you have heard about the Abacus, one of the first calculating tools. And some of you may have used tape calculators on a daily basis. Remember the tedious amount of work trying to balance and finding your mistakes? Then came the computer; no more paper ledgers, tape calculators, and hand writing invoices to name a few laborious accounting practices. In 1978, Visicalc was introduced to upgrade businesses from manually calculating spreadsheets to automatically updating cells from many sources. But, by nature, we still wanted more. Simple accounting spreadsheet programs were not enough. Time to say goodbye to pocket protectors!

Introducing a cloud revolution

The current revolution to cloud-based accounting systems would not be possible if it were not for the Internet. As little as 10 years ago Small to Medium Size Businesses (SMB’s) primarily implemented accounting software on-premise. The implementations involved lots of moving parts; hardware, software and installation services. It could take months to get everything setup. Each software application had its own user interface, its own platform requirements which often led to accounting software having to be installed on its own servers. More cost and more complexity.

Thanks to the internet, the hardest part of installing new cloud accounting software is entering your credit card information. It’s that simple. This web-based service is known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). No hardware to buy, no installation services, and more importantly almost immediate availability for instant gratification. Updates are non-events. Most cloud providers will automatically update the application with new features and fixes without the users even knowing. Cloud solutions allows team members to easily collaborate on the same information. Your data is stored in secure data centers and shared by other users which reduces your IT expenses.