in the cloud

Just got a new tech guy.

He wants to put all of my tax returns, quickbooks, excel, word etc in the cloud.

I work out of the office 1 day per week
and i have a per diem come in during tax season

seems like could be nice to have this set up.

Downside seems if the internet crashes on April 14th and i'm locked out of doing returns.

Anyone else in the cloud with all their data and thoughts/expieriences appreciated.

I would not want to be dependent on the internet being up to do my job. A few years ago, in their infinite wisdom, ATnT, turned off my DSL. For almost three weeks, I was on the phone with them on a daily basis. I called Comcast and they had me up before ATnT could send someone out. A bought a laptop during that time and walked to Panera or drove to the library for the internet.

Just got a new tech guy.

He wants to put all of my tax returns, quickbooks, excel, word etc in the cloud.

I work out of the office 1 day per week
and i have a per diem come in during tax season

seems like could be nice to have this set up.

Downside seems if the internet crashes on April 14th and i'm locked out of doing returns.

Anyone else in the cloud with all their data and thoughts/expieriences appreciated.

We are totally on the cloud. If im not mistaken, Pro Series (Intuit) now authenticates across the net and we are, whether we like it or not, dependent on the net. So for me, it works great. I have an office at my house and the desk top is exactly the same in my real office. I never work from home BUT I can check things, send a copy of a return to a client etc.

Got me thinking. I cannot imagine trying to work from a laptop...but that said, if everything is installed on one and your internet goes down, pretty easy to just go somewhere else to grab a wifi and you're back to work. That said, you need external monitor, keyboard and mouse to actually work....might be smart move when I have to replace my pc.....I wonder if anyone else is using a setup like that?

Got me thinking. I cannot imagine trying to work from a laptop...but that said, if everything is installed on one and your internet goes down, pretty easy to just go somewhere else to grab a wifi and you're back to work. That said, you need external monitor, keyboard and mouse to actually work....might be smart move when I have to replace my pc.....I wonder if anyone else is using a setup like that?

The laptop is my backup. I can quickly access my backup files on Carbonite and get my laptop up to speed in thirty minutes. The last time I had to do this was when my hard drive crashed. I also have a smaller, portable laser printer. I can go mobile if I have to.

Yeah, I guess we can redownload and install all our ProSeries as long as we have license info...that's the lifeline in crunch time...connecting to email....

At our firm, we all have laptops and docking stations. Added benefit,when the power goes out,no need to be concerned about a battery backup. The laptop holds data that you can save right to that drive and be assured nothing is lost.

I don't like working directly from the laptop, but it works in a pinch.

We rarely work from home. But when we do we use GoToMyPC. I am not sure what additional benefits having our stuff in the cloud would provide.

Having stuff in the cloud saves on the cost of network servers and storage. The cost of servers can be substantial.

Having stuff in the cloud saves on the cost of network servers and storage. The cost of servers can be substantial.

Agreed with this 100%. We have been hosting our own servers for years and even made the jump to virtual server, enterprise VPN and remote apps. Saves a ton of time in upgrades and makes remote office and work from home much more efficient.

However, we will our data and applications to a entire cloud hosted solution. There are to many risk, to much time and way to much in IT cost to host your own. Not to mention trying to find IT providers which actually understand CPA firms and terminal services. We have been burned twice by so called IT experts and will be moving to a provider which host CPA firms only!

IMHO running stuff on machines in house only works for extremely small operations. For those using "consumer grade" remote access products you are PLAYING WITH FIRE! They are not secure enough for the type of information you have on your office machines. Good lucky with PR when you get hacked and all your clients information is on the dark web.

The cost of servers can be substantial.

The monthly subscription cost for the "cloud" can be substantial.

True. We save the upfront cost of the servers and eventually make it up in monthly cloud fees

We jumped to a cloud-based server a few years ago, with all client files in Box syncing to desktops. It's great since we can access anything anywhere.

As for people nervous about losing internet, you could always go to another office (I would go home) and continue working. Don't forget, you have a chance of losing a computer or server like I did 10 years ago and it took two weeks to get it back and running.

Phone hot spot could be an option if you lost internet as well. Saved me on a road trip recently. I had it turned on for one month and then back off. Nice in a pinch.