Accounting Services for Small Business

[Kruncha]

I am really looking for feedback in this forum on getting bookkeeping help for small businesses. There are a lot of cloud accounting services available where you can sign up and have your bank transactions automatically upload to a cloud accountant. The nice part is that you don't have to scramble come tax time since your accountant has your business transactions but I am always concerned about security since it is in the cloud. Does anyone have any feedback on this?

[vangogh]

I understand your concern. I have similar questions. At the same time, I think it's inevitable that more and more services will move online.

I don't know the specific services you're looking at. Are there ways to contact people behind the service and talk to them? You might talk to a few to get a sense of how trustworthy they are. As for being on the cloud in general, your bank information is online through the bank so it is in the cloud. Your bank is probably just as large a target as any of these services, if not more.

If you really concerned about the security you can always hire a bookkeeper or an accountant. You can get them your information so they have it at tax time too. Another option is purchasing accounting software. As long as you use regularly and enter your information, it'll be there when you need it as well.

[SKUlabs]

I am always concerned about security since it is in the cloud.

It's good to be cautious about this, but with reputable services you won't have to worry too much about "the cloud." Any online service worth your money will be hosting their software and content on secure servers with firewalls, port obscurity, and permission restrictions to thwart attacks. They'll also use strong SSL encryption on the front end so that any information you send to them will be protected.

You can check with your browser to see if the sites you're considering are using SSL (HTTPS) encryption.