Hosted Quickbooks

A major challenge for bookkeepers, accountants and tax professionals has always been finding a workable solution for sharing a client’s Quickbooks company file. There are a few options, namely:

• Physically exchanging the file
• Emailing or using a portal
• Accessing the file remotely
• Using an accountant’s copy

Each of these methods has its own disadvantages and limitations. The company file may be too large to email. Accessing the file remotely can only be done with Quickbooks Premier and only one user can take control over one remote computer. It requires a user to be physically present at each computer in order to setup a session. Physically exchanging the file is a time consuming and inconvenient. Using an Accountant Copy is just as frustrating. The process of exporting and importing the Accountant Copy is labor intensive and the risk of the file becoming corrupt is relatively high.

What about Quickbooks Online?

By now, you are probably familiar with SAAS (Software as a Service). It refers to any application that can be hosted remotely and accessed through a web browser. Intuit released Quickbooks Online in 2001, giving small businesses access to their Quickbooks software application via the internet. It hasn’t been a popular choice for bookkeepers and accountants because it’s far from the quality of the desktop version of Quickbooks. There are many features available in Quickbooks that are not available in Quickbooks Online e.g. Quickbooks Online does not provide purchase orders, inventory tracking, job costing, forecasts, sales order tracking, online bill payment, payroll input and more. Report customization is limited too.

Advantages of Quickbooks Hosting

Fortunately, there is a way of getting the full Quickbooks experience online without having to use Quickbooks Online.  How does it work? The full desktop version of Quickbooks is hosted on a server and it is accessed via the internet using either a Remote Desktop or Citrix application. Clients have access to their Quickbooks file anywhere they have an internet connection and it appears to be running on their PC. Of course, the beauty of this solution means that you are not limited to accessing your Quickbooks file using a laptop or PC. Your Quickbooks data can be accessed from any internet enabled device like a smart phone or iPAD.

What does this mean for our clients?

• Our clients have 24/7 access to their up-to-date Quickbooks file from anywhere in the world (provided they have access to the internet).
• Multiple users can have access to the same Quickbooks file at anytime.
• Our client’s data is secure. We use a third party Citrix application hosting provider with a SAS 70, Type 2 data center. They back up all our data every hour and once daily. In addition, all data is encrypted using 128 bit encryption technology.
• Our client’s don’t have to worry about Quickbooks updates or maintenance. Our hosting provider takes care of all that.

BKSC Business Bookkeeping offers hosted Quickbooks to all their clients. We think it’s a win-win solution all around. It’s a solution that ensures everyone is working on the most up-to-date information. Our clients can make important business decisions anywhere, anytime knowing they have the most current information at their fingertips.

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