First in a series about Cloud Accounting
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I started my business in a haze of excitement and enthusiasm, unprepared but having no choice but to make it work. There was no cloud then, other than the type in the sky. Living in the Pacific Northwest, we had more than a few of those, and personally, I had a few dark clouds as well.
To take care of my clients, I traveled. I drove from one client to the next, often bringing back boxes of statements and receipts to my office, where I would attempt to put them in some kind of order and enter them into my QB Desktop software. Sometimes clients wanted me to work at their office, such as the weird guy out in the country who I eventually fired for inappropriate behavior. Sometimes clients wanted to stand over me and watch what I was doing instead of tending to their own business. After a series of increasingly responsible corporate jobs I found this both insulting and time consuming – I can work so much faster when I’m not being surveilled.
Sometimes clients wanted me in their office, in a separate room, where I would use generous amounts of Red Bull and chocolate to keep myself awake while I tried to figure out why the CPA changed my ending bank balances. (Has anyone else experienced this? CPA’s who change the bank amounts to coincide with their year-end ideas? And then never reversed their entries?)
Not only was this method of working annoying, it was time consuming. Clients weren’t always right around the corner from me, and since I was starting out and needed the money, I took every job that came along, whether it was a good fit or not. So I drove, a lot. I drove into downtown Seattle, where at least the client paid for my parking, and I drove down the 405 to Bellevue at rush hour, and I drove to Gold Bar, which is rather like driving from Earth to Mars.
Sometimes I would pull over to the side of the road and take a nap.
And then I started hearing about online applications that would do everything we could do with the desktop. A NetSuite rep met with me, and wanted me to promote their software. But I didn’t understand how it worked, and I didn’t have time to learn anything new, so I let it pass by.
I kept working like I had been.
Then I became accounting manager for a web-based accounting firm, and I found I never had to go anywhere. Eight hours a day, every day, I sat at my desk and directed activities, opened and closed numerous QB and Peachtree files we hosted, even a few programs I’d never heard of, and hoped never to again. My staff was spread out across the U.S., and so were our clients. We could be anywhere we were needed. Our clients were given scanners so they could easily upload documents, and I was sold.
It wasn’t perfect, partly because I was a manager and glued to my desk for the work day, but it was definitely an improvement. There was no traffic, no wasted time, no watching the cost of gas creep up until I wondered if it was worth it. There was just the work, available at all times.
And there’s one of the problems with working in the cloud: the work is always there, and, if you’re anything like me, sometimes you can’t resist logging in and doing it, even when I should be doing other things, things that would indicate I’m a well-rounded person, and not a workaholic.
I’m not a particularly well-rounded person, but neither am I a workaholic.
NEXT: What is the Cloud?
I started my business in a haze of excitement and enthusiasm, unprepared but having no choice but to make it work. There was no cloud then, other than the type in the sky. Living in the Pacific Northwest, we had more than a few of those, and personally, I had a few dark clouds as well.
To take care of my clients, I traveled. I drove from one client to the next, often bringing back boxes of statements and receipts to my office, where I would attempt to put them in some kind of order and enter them into my QB Desktop software. Sometimes clients wanted me to work at their office, such as the weird guy out in the country who I eventually fired for inappropriate behavior. Sometimes clients wanted to stand over me and watch what I was doing instead of tending to their own business. After a series of increasingly responsible corporate jobs I found this both insulting and time consuming – I can work so much faster when I’m not being surveilled.
Sometimes clients wanted me in their office, in a separate room, where I would use generous amounts of Red Bull and chocolate to keep myself awake while I tried to figure out why the CPA changed my ending bank balances. (Has anyone else experienced this? CPA’s who change the bank amounts to coincide with their year-end ideas? And then never reversed their entries?)
Not only was this method of working annoying, it was time consuming. Clients weren’t always right around the corner from me, and since I was starting out and needed the money, I took every job that came along, whether it was a good fit or not. So I drove, a lot. I drove into downtown Seattle, where at least the client paid for my parking, and I drove down the 405 to Bellevue at rush hour, and I drove to Gold Bar, which is rather like driving from Earth to Mars.
Sometimes I would pull over to the side of the road and take a nap.
And then I started hearing about online applications that would do everything we could do with the desktop. A NetSuite rep met with me, and wanted me to promote their software. But I didn’t understand how it worked, and I didn’t have time to learn anything new, so I let it pass by.
I kept working like I had been.
Then I became accounting manager for a web-based accounting firm, and I found I never had to go anywhere. Eight hours a day, every day, I sat at my desk and directed activities, opened and closed numerous QB and Peachtree files we hosted, even a few programs I’d never heard of, and hoped never to again. My staff was spread out across the U.S., and so were our clients. We could be anywhere we were needed. Our clients were given scanners so they could easily upload documents, and I was sold.
It wasn’t perfect, partly because I was a manager and glued to my desk for the work day, but it was definitely an improvement. There was no traffic, no wasted time, no watching the cost of gas creep up until I wondered if it was worth it. There was just the work, available at all times.
And there’s one of the problems with working in the cloud: the work is always there, and, if you’re anything like me, sometimes you can’t resist logging in and doing it, even when I should be doing other things, things that would indicate I’m a well-rounded person, and not a workaholic.
I’m not a particularly well-rounded person, but neither am I a workaholic.
NEXT: What is the Cloud?
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