I’ve been moving clients to the cloud over the past year because of the great benefits we are realizing with real-time information and little-to-no data entry. I will tout some of those benefits in my next post. The experience that is on the forefront of my mind right now is the events of the past week with Hurricane Sandy. I was right in the center of the storm here in NJ. I was fortunate to only experience a week long power outage. I really can’t complain.
Power loss to a business owner is a serious thing. Some of my clients lost power, and thankfully many did not. Regardless, I needed to keep things going for them. Because my clients’ accounting systems are in the cloud, their business transactions kept flowing into their online software waiting for me to address. I was able to move myself to a new location with internet access and get back to work quickly. I didn’t even need my own computer. No one skipped a beat. When power came back for me, there was no catch up work.
Even if I never found an alternate place to work, I would have been able to get caught up very quickly. The software and the online connections take away the need to manually enter information, e-mail files back and forth, or visit anyone’s office. My clients’ transactions for the week would have just been waiting for me to process from their accounts.
I believe in constant communication with my clients and the importance of real-time information. Hurricane Sandy did not prevent me from performing these services. This ability was 100% due to the cloud. When I speak to new clients or I am working to find better solutions for existing clients, I will always use this experience to illustrate yet another benefit of the cloud.