Accounting

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It simply makes poor business sense to have your valuable client data at risk of loss through outdated or inadequate servers and no retrieval plan in case of loss.
At HostUs we have worked in the financial sector and have the experience and expertise to give you sound, cost-efficient advice that will safeguard your data and allow your systems to grow with your practice.

CASE STUDY: NOT FOR PROFIT ACCOUNTING SERVICES

The Client

Not For Profit Accounting Services is exactly what it sounds like – they provide accounting services to not-for-profit companies and organizations (which do require a certain amount of specialized accounting knowledge and expertise.) The company is based out of Adelaide, and services clients all over Australia.

The Need

The company’s biggest need was to offer their employees the ability to work from home. This was paramount, as the nature of the accounting work they do does not necessarily require a strict 9-5 timeframe (and, in fact, many times required after hours work). By offering the ability to log in and work from home, the company could work better and smarter, and would also save on office space, utilities, and other expenses that are associated with having a larger physical office.

In addition, uptime and reliability was paramount. Due to the sensitive nature of their work, and also tax filing deadlines, the company had to be assured that any system they chose was not only reliable, but redundant – that any hardware problem on the provider’s end did not result in a problem on their end. So a professional, experienced solution was sought.

The Wish List

The service the company chose had to be affordable. And because the company had vague (at the time) plans to change locations, it had to be easy to relocate and setup again (and the less complicated hardware, the better.)

Of course, security was of the utmost importance, as the company routinely worked with the financials of client organizations. Backups were mission critical as well – backups should be frequently scheduled, seamless, offsite, and very secure.

One of the other important aspects for the company was the freedom from having to make large, complicated decisions regarding their IT in the future. Too much time was already spent debating the merits of upgrading, whether a new setup could handle the accounting software, whether something like MS Server 2012 R2 was worth it, and more – they wanted to be freed of these, and just have the system work all the time, with a company they trusted.

Not For Profit Accounting Services also had the common problem of different employees having different versions of MS Word and other software. This led to difficulties in sharing documents and similar. It would be good if all licensing could be handled at once, so everyone could have the same updated / current version.

Our Service

Our cloud server solution was ideal for what they required. With the server, operating system and all productivity software handled remotely, anyone logging in securely from anywhere was able to instantly be in a familiar environment, with software they knew, and their own files easily retrievable.

Initially, this was all the company needed, but scalability was always our middle name, as the company quickly found out.

End Result

Once implemented, the company’s employees no longer had to physically be in the building to do their jobs – they could securely log in remotely, and everything was familiar, just as if they were at their desks in their office.

All backups were handled automatically and securely, with the data stored offsite (and replaceable at a moment’s notice.) The cloud server was also faster, and allowed for seamless upgrading without any effort by the company – to their eyes, it just worked all the time.

Equally important was the fact that everyone now had the same updated version of all productivity software, and sharing documents became seamless.

An interesting aspect to this is the talent pool from which the company hires workers markedly increased due to being able to hire single parents who wanted to telecommute, and similar.

The Future Came Quickly

The company was so impressed with the service that they quickly engaged us to do more. The company did indeed change locations, and in the new location, wanted an affordable, upgraded VoIP phone service with full PBX capabilities. We seamlessly installed that, right alongside an even faster server setup with a more robust internet connection. The whole system was prioritized to their business needs, meaning data packets for voice have precedence, then data to the server, then general non-business web traffic was the last priority (yet still at a very usable level.) This allowed them to have a robust business system at a very reasonable cost. It also allowed for temporary expansion of capabilities and pipeline traffic for busy tax seasons.

Further, the company saw how advantageous hiring “outside the box” was, and they wanted to expand that beyond Australia’s borders. We enabled their system to accept certain outside logins, but on a limited-access basis (meaning that outside logins do not have the ability to see anything further than what is allowed them.)

The company is very happy with HostUs’ services, and the scalability offered