'Cloud' computing is all silver lining for small businesses (and their accountants, too)

It's been a 30-plus-year technology evolution from the accounting machines made popular by such companies as NCR and Burroughs, to the debut of the PC and, ultimately, to this decade's rising popularity of remotely hosted applications.

That approach goes by a number of acronyms, including ASP (application service provider), SaaS (software as a service) and, most recently, cloud computing. While all three involve using an application remotely, there are subtle, but real, differences.

Cloud-based computing is an extension of SaaS. Rather than hosting the client and their data on a specific fixed server, the application provider often has multiple servers in multiple locations, and a user can be actually operating on different computers every time they call.

According to Dr. Chandra Bhansali, chief executive of Hauppauge, N.Y.-based AccountantsWorld, one of the earliest providers of Web-based accountant-oriented applications, "This is the time where accountants are starting to see the promise of cloud computing. The most important benefit the Internet brings is collaboration. There is no other profession where the client works so closely with the service provider."

A FIT FOR SMALL BIZ

The burgeoning remote trend has become especially appealing to small businesses that often lack the IT resources of their larger counterparts.

For Penny Banker-Mertz, EA, proprietor of Penny Banker Tax & Financial in Bay City, Texas, being able to work remotely, and with clients that also sometimes need the same remote capability, is a big plus. She uses AccountantsWorld's Accounting Relief product. "I can review accounting from anywhere I have a high-speed connection. I don't have to be tied to my office. Some of my clients who are also self-employed like this feature as well."

Randy Johnston, executive vice president at technology consultancy K2 Enterprises, described computing in the cloud as essentially running the application on a virtual machine. "It doesn't much matter exactly where the computer is located." he explained. "It could be running on an in-house server or on one located half-way across the planet. To the person using the accounting application, there's no way to tell; the application runs exactly the same."

This accessibility is important to many small business users. For example, Phil Phifer, president and chief executive of fast-growing TireVan, a tire installer in Sterling, Va., has a staff that needs to access their accounting system from multiple locations. One of the reasons that TireVan went with NetSuite was that ability. "It has just made it so much easier for us, that we can access [NetSuite] from many different places."

Gil Cabrera, Esq., of San Diego-based The Cabrera Firm, also likes the freedom of not having to be in the office to perform accounting functions. "The biggest benefit is being able to access all of my books from any location. That is a huge time-saver and I can input expenses or deposits immediately."

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