The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt CPA offices all over the world, but some firms have fared better than others. When the pandemic struck quickly and mostly unexpectedly in March, accounting firms had to deal with the same challenges every business faced: sudden lockdowns and a rapid transition to a work-at-home scenario for employees.
Some firms struggled with key aspects of the transition: giving employees simultaneous and secure access to critical business applications, including QuickBooks Desktop, from anywhere; offering digital services to clients; maintaining client relationships in a virtual environment. Others managed to meet those challenges with relative ease and keep their businesses running efficiently.
The difference the cloud made for accounting firms
What were the differentiators between the two? Culture and leadership obviously played a role, but one recent survey by SmartVault revealed another key element: the cloud. Overall, firms that were already running apps in the cloud adjusted much more easily, efficiently and quickly to shutdowns—and kept levels of client service high with little to no interruption.
With COVID-19 still a major public health issue in much of the US, some offices are reopening slowly, while others remain largely shuddered with employees working at home. There is still uncertainty as to how and when the pandemic will subside, and there’s no predicting what the next major disruptive crisis will be. The one thing all accounting-firm leaders should know is that when the run their firms in the cloud, they’re prepared to adapt to just about any situation quickly, efficiently and without losing client confidence.
Download this infographic to discover more numbers that prove that the cloud helped keep accounting firms up and running during COVID-related office closures.