The Future of Accounting

​Accounting is a very traditional business, which is slow to latch on to the latest trends. The reason for this is, accountants take on huge responsibilities and cannot afford to make mistakes. More than anything else, clients expect accountants to be stable and consistent. 

Mistakes cannot be tolerated in this profession as they can prove to be costly for clients. Even so, the last few years have seen accounting take massive steps forward. The way accounting is done today is virtually unrecognizable from how it was done 10-15 years ago. So what does the future of accounting hold for us? Let’s find out! 

Cloud Accounting – Yes, that’s the Future of Accounting!

​A lot of businesses have already taken to cloud technology in a big way. Businesses depend on cloud computing for data storage, faster connectivity, SaaS (Software as a Service) and many other reasons. Accounting, because of its traditional nature, has been slower to get to the cloud than other industries, but today, cloud accounting is everywhere and cloud accounting is without a shadow of doubt, the future of accounting.
Today, services such as QuickBooks Hosting, Quicken Hosting, ATX Hosting, Sage 50 Hosting, etc. allow you to use the best accounting and tax preparation software remotely, offering a 24/7 access to your accounting data, no matter where you are in the world. Because of cloud computing, members of your workforce can work together on the same files no matter where they are in the world.
With Cloud Accounting services such QuickBooks Hosting, you will get access to the desktop version of QuickBooks at a fraction of the price and don’t have to pay for any upgrades or hardware changes – all of these are included in the fee charged by the hosting service.
 You can pay on a pay-as-you-go basis, and scale up or scale down the service as you like. With cloud accounting, there is no risk of data loss or data breach as your data is saved on remote servers in state-of-the-art data centers and backed up daily.

Outsourcing – It’s Going to Get Even Bigger! 

​Outsourcing of business processes is a trend that began in the late 1980s and caught up in the late 1990 and early 2000s because of the availability of fast and reliable internet broadband. Today, with cloud computing, we expect the outsourcing of accounting processes to be the norm and used more frequently. For long, accounting was one of the few professions that many thought couldn’t be outsourced because of the worry over the privacy and security of data. But now, with advanced data security and encryption technologies, this is no longer a worry. Outsourcing is safe and allows businesses and accounting firms to slash their costs in a big way. It also makes their business processes more efficient and saves time as well. 

Using Technology and Performance Metrics to Identify Talent

​One of the hardest things in the accounting business has been to identity the right talent. Today, there are a number of tools based on statistics and performance metrics that allow you to evaluate your employees objectively. This allows you to separate the performers from the laggards in your organisation and weed out those who are a bad influence. With the use of data analysis tools, you will be able to list the scope of talent in your business to great precision and will be able to execute your hiring plans better, with much greater efficiency. 

Wrap Up

​The future of accounting has never been brighter than it is today. Accountants are fortunate to work in a very prestigious profession which places a premium on talent and experience. But it is no longer enough for accountants to do business the old way. Cloud accounting is the way of the future and those who haven’t already latched on to it are in danger of being replaced by younger and nimbler businesses.