Leverage Cloud Accounting to Thrive in a Recession

The pandemic proved the importance of cloud accounting. Companies that prioritize adopting the cloud have the ability to seamlessly shift to remote work and keep their accounting function running perfectly even when employees aren’t in the office.

The same advantages apply to recessions. Cloud accounting makes it easier to adapt to unknowns on the fly – not to mention the fact that cloud-based services tend to cost less than yesterday’s on-premises solutions and drive more value, too. For everything that companies strive to do during recessions – cut costs, stay agile, get innovative – cloud-based software serves the agenda.

Let’s take a look at four different cloud softwares your company should consider to help you thrive through a recession.

1. Office and Email Software

Office365 is the cloud remake of the decades popular OfficeSuite. Starting at $4/month per user and going up to $22/month per user, these plans have a number of interesting options. Not only does this service act as your email server, several of the plans even come with desktop versions alongside the cloud version of the ever-needed Microsoft Office software.

Google Apps for Businesses, starting at $5/month per user or $50/year per user, has become the main alternative to Microsoft's traditional enterprise empire of Word, Excel, and Outlook. For those who are used to using the consumer versions of Gmail, Google Docs, and Sheets, this is a natural extension at the office. The Google email (with your company domain) is fast becoming the preferred email infrastructure for startups and rapidly growing companies. Google Docs and sheets have improved vastly in recent years and can go toe to toe with their Office counterparts in most ways.

2. Accounting and Invoicing Software

Quickbooks

Starting from the bottom up, Quickbooks online is a modern upgrade to the classic Quickbooks desktop. It’s cheap and easy to set up, it gives you basic accounting capabilities, including, inventory, bill payment, and payroll. It’s a good option for small and medium sized businesses, but any business with more than few million per year in revenue–or planning to scale to that size soon–is probably better off exploring one of the following ERP options.

NetSuite and Sage Intacct

Intacct and Netsuite are two of the premiere cloud-based ERP systems. In both ERPs, users can find all their financial data as well as complete ERP toolkits housed in a secure and carefully-managed cloud. They also both integrate seamlessly with dozens of other leading business tools, including Salesforce and Paystand. Equipped with cloud accounting, users can handle whatever the recession requires of them. That might include adopting remote work to save on office costs, optimizing accounts receivable to collect more revenue, or scaling capabilities up or down at a moment’s notice. All these things (and much more) are possible with cloud accounting in ways that would be impossible with more traditional, on-site systems.

3. Contract and Digital Signature

DocuSign is an amazing service that allows a business to send a document that requires a signature digitally. As any good sales staff will tell you, the easier a business makes the approval process on a client, the better. Beyond improved sales through ease of signing, this service also helps store these important documents in a central location. This makes finding these documents much easier later.

4. CRM Software

Tracking sales activities can often be troublesome. SalesForce practically invented cloud business software and has helped many businesses reduce the time and capital spent installing complex systems.

Alternatively, if consolidating software solutions is a priority for you, Hubspot is an excellent all-in-one CRM, marketing, and hosting solution. Hubspot ensures that sales, marketing, and customer support are all integrated and work together effortlessly.

Recession-proof your revenue with integrated AR and payment automation

Paystand provides a self-driving AR solution that enables customers to achieve fast, efficient, and profitable payments. With Paystand on your side, you can stand strong in a turbulent economic environment and scale your business without your fees and manual tasks scaling too.

Read our ebook to learn how you can leverage Paystand and Sage Intacct to thrive during a recession.