What Are the Best Cloud Accounting Programs for SMBs?

As a small to medium sized business owner, how do you select the best cloud accounting programs to handle your business’ finances? You already know companies like Microsoft, Intuit, Sage and NetSuite offer solutions that can meet your needs, but are they truly the best cloud accounting programs just because they have brand power? It may be possible to find powerful and valuable platforms at a much lower price. Here, you’ll find some insight on a few that are worth further investigation.

Best Cloud Accounting Programs When Your Needs are Complex

One of this first things you need to do before trying the best cloud accounting programs is to determine your needs. If yours is a company with increased sophistication and complex accounting needs, you need to look in a different direction than the one-man shop. Intacct is one of the best cloud accounting programs when you have a dedicated accounting professional employed in-house to handle the complexities of your business. As a hosted solution, Intacct can be accessed from any device with an Internet connection.

Best Cloud Accounting Programs Beyond QuickBooks

It’s easy to assume that QuickBooks is your primary option as a company competing in the SMB space, yet Xero.com is an excellent offering without the same price tag. As one of the many cloud based accounting solutions available for SMBs, Xero.com offers higher sophistication than a standard spreadsheet application, yet is considered a step down from Intacct. Its features and capabilities still require the user to understand specific accounting principles, but the employee using this platform doesn’t have to be an accounting professional.

Getting Simpler with the Best Cloud Accounting Programs

The best cloud accounting programs for the smaller business will leave out those features and capabilities that aren’t really needed. You may only need to track your accounts receivables, payables and payroll, and don’t need all the other reporting and tracking capabilities. Lessaccouting.com, kashflow.com and waveaccounting.com are all viable options for the SMB with standard accounting needs. Companies like outright.com and indinero.com claim to be the best cloud accounting programs, but these offerings are really tools that help you gain better insight into your income and expenses. The key focus here is really basic expense and income tracking, but you don’t gain the deeper insight into managing your overall finances that you would expect from cloud based financial systems.

Best Cloud Accounting Programs Include Ease of Use

The makeup of your small business can contribute to determining the best cloud accounting programs for your environment. If you don’t have an accounting professional on staff and have to manage this platform on your own, you need it to be easy to integrate and easy to use. Don’t invest in capabilities you don’t need and always run a trial of the program before you buy so you don’t waste time implementing a solution that doesn’t work according to your expectations.

The best cloud accounting programs will also offer customization for your invoices, as well as reporting capabilities, so you can extend your brand and gain complete visibility into the finances of your SMB.