Nowadays, cloud computing is almost everywhere, ranging from a small store to the big enterprises, making a positive impact in every aspect. The sources of the cloud can be different, however, the motif of using it is almost identical: to acquire a platform that is dynamic in nature, to get rid of local resource setup and management, to get rid of hiring IT professionals, and moreover, to move a step ahead towards the future. Like all other businesses, tax professionals have also started using cloud to employ all its benefits in their tax preparation process, since modern tax activities don’t only involve working with a tax software. It requires a systematic approach to complete a successful tax year and the process evolves with so many steps that work together to provide more efficiency and accuracy. Cloud computing makes definite contribution to almost every activity related to tax preparation if it is used with right setup.

Before subscribing cloud, it is really very important to find and evaluate the facts of different cloud delivery models so that we could find an appropriate template to get maximum out of whatever we spend. For a tax business, there are various needs and if a cloud setup is able to meet all those expectations, we must assume that as the best model for us. Let us analyze what are those major requirements:

1- Consolidated Platform:

For a complete tax practice, we need lots of other software and tools rather than just a tax software, and a common platform for all required applications is more than just mandatory.

A consolidated interface will make everything available at a single windows, making all the applications collaborating with each other to produce excellent results, without taking much time.

Security can be easily implemented to protect all our applications and associated data if we use a single platform. It also provides an easy way to manage upgrades and updates of either operating system or any of the application. Therefore, we must make sure that our cloud is providing us a consolidated platform for all our practices.

2- A setup that is scalable:

When we start using the cloud, our requirements might be limited but it is definitely going to grow bigger after spending some time in the market. After having more clients, we will need to stretch our platform to accommodate with new set of needs, and a scalable platform becomes really helpful by providing us an opportunity to expand the caliber of the cloud but without making any changes in current application and operating system. Scalable resource further helps us in operational expense customization as we only need to pay for whatever we use and no longer requirements of carrying the piece of infrastructure that we don’t need at some point.

3- Ability of total control:

Once it is subscribed, the cloud is definitely going to hold all our valuable information and confidential data. So, it is really very important to have total control of the infrastructure that we use. It will help us to analyze the security and backup management and if we don’t find them working as per our standard, we can immediately make changes to remove the flaws and implement the settings that we wish.

So, from above points, it appears that the cloud is almost a mandatory need for tax practitioners but it requires a deep analysis to find the accurate setup that is able of fulfilling our requirements.