As part of the City of Sydney Let’s Talk Business program, we’ve put together a list of some of the more popular uses of cloud computing for the small business.
Cloud services offer a lot to all business, particularly small and start up enterprises that need to move fast and are often cash strapped.
There’s a massive range of services available on the cloud and here are a few that are worth exploring to help your business.
Electronic mail is the cornerstone of every business, in the past it’s been a nuisance sharing the email account or keeping track of users and passwords. Today most cloud email services are free and offer as much, if not more than the computer based alternatives.
Google’s Gmail
Windows Live Hotmail
MailChimp (for newsletters)
Accounting services
One of the greatest challenges for small business is doing their books and accounting software is a must have for every commercial operation. Online services reduce costs and increase flexibility for businesses of all sizes.
Saasu
Xero
MYOB Your Business Cloud
Customer Relationship Management
CRM software helps you monitor and understand who your customers are and what you’re doing for them.
Salesforce
Sugar CRM
Capsule CRM
Backups
Backing up is critical for your business. Having an online automated backup helps you ensure essential data is safe.
Carbonite
Crashplan
AVG Live Kive
Shared storage
Sharing files with others helps your business be more efficient as teams can get work done without using the same computer.
Communications
Voice over IP, or VoIP, is a massive cost saver and most of them are cloud services.
Office applications
One of the biggest costs for business is the software for writing letters and working on spreadsheet. There’s free and paid for services that you can use on the cloud that cut your costs and increase your office productivity.
Evernote
Google Docs
Zoho Docs
Microsoft Office Live
Project management
Running and managing projects is a complex task made much easier with a good project management program to keep track of tasks and time.
Blogging platforms
Web Logs, or blogs, are becoming the platform of choice for getting small business websites up and running due to their flexibility and ease of use.
Outsourcing
Cloud computing and online services are making outsourcing possible for small businesses. With a browser and a credit card, you too can be in the outsourcing business.
These are just a small sample of the cloud computing services available for business, we’d love to hear your experiences and suggestions for other online products. Please add your suggestions and comments below.
Great tips Paul – Good overview @ lets talk biz event – but no mention of the risk of
‘cloud” in North Africa when the govt closes down the internet.
Love the irony of the CRT screen and the “non smart” phone in the pic above in reference to businesses using the cloud – Peter
Thanks Peter, we did cover that in, obliquely, in the “reliability” and “terms of service” parts of my presentation.
Being cut off from the net, whether it’s by natural disasters, ISP incompetence or government shutting services down, is the weak link of cloud services. It’s one of the risk factors we have to consider when using these tools.
thank you for this article – I am just wondering why in the section on accounting software you made no mention of QuickBooks Online – this has been in the cloud for 18 months now and is very robust in that it uses the Enterprise version of QuickBooks which is the most functionality rich version – functionality wise it is streets ahead of Xero and is a very cost competitove offering.
That would be because it takes at least 8 clicks just to login – every single time – and the login usually doesn’t work. QB customer service don’t return calls and you will be on hold for at least 5 minutes when you try to call them. Avoid at all costs. Either Xero or MYOB are excellent.
I would like to recommend something far better than all of the above mentioned accounting products. It can be accessed from any Windows PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android device or Windows Mobile. It’s exactly the same as the desktop product which means the data is inter-useuable as both online and offline. The product is Quickbooks Online. Look it up at http://www.quickbooksonline.com.au !
Problem is quickbooks dont buy me dinner when they bend me over on pricing
At $295 per year to have access to the top version of QuickBooks with all the features for payroll, accounting, inventory, etc built in with no add on required, how could you look past it???
Maybe i’m missing something here, since when does Quickbooks online work (properly) on Ipad, Iphone, Android? MAC access has only just been released.
I suppose the difference here is in the definition of Cloud Versus a hosted solution such as QB Online.
My understanding is that you can only use on your desktop if only if you pay for for an enterprise licence
Don’t get me wrong – i love Quickbooks and have a number of clients using it and it certainly has functionality and pricing advantages over Xero, unless you need multiple concurrent users.
However different clients have different needs and as service providors/users we have to come up with the right product for the business, that may be Quickbooks Subscription/outright/online, Xero, freshbooks or any number of other products out there.
QuickBooks online is exactly the same as the desktop? You must be using a different meaning of the phrase “exactly the same” than I am familiar with. Reports don’t work, 1099s don’t work, credit card import doesn’t work, payroll certainly doesn’t work …And whenever I call to ask about why something doesn’t work, after waiting on hold, the answer is always “That isn’t supported yet”.
I am an accountant and Xero online beats QB online hands down as far as functionality, ease of use, and actually working.
I agree Mariette, Xero is fantastic. Quickbooks online have multiple problems.
We use Capsule CRM (http://capsulecrm.com/) which is also a great cloud CRM software, with good google apps, xero, and mailchimp integration.
Capsule CRM looks good. Thanks for the recommendation.
So pleased you left off Quickbooks. They are the most difficult system to use and their customer support is a joke. Xero are fantastic.
I hear constant feedback how QuickBooks is user friendly and so easy to use. And how you do not need to be an Accountant to understand the terminology and features. Reckon is also an Australian owned company and Xero is from New Zealand. So profits remain in Australia, not overseas! Which is really important for me to support my own country.
I’d add FreeAgentCentral and Harvest to the accounting-related stuff.
Agreed with your comments on how backwards, painful, pricey QBO is; gave up after fighting with it and finally settled on FAC after comparing to Xero, just a better fit, easy to use, does what I need.
For backups, been *very* happy with CrashPlan. Unlimited backup data, invisible operation, fair pricing. Haven’t tried Carbonite to compare, however.
Thanks for the tips on those services, Chris, I’ve added Crashplan to the list.
Appreciate your comments on Quick Books Online.
I am disappointed by the nagative posts in relation to QuickBooks here. QuickBooks by Reckon Online is as fantastic a product as the desktop Version of QuickBooks. QuickBooks Hosted by Reckon Online, can interechange between a desktop Version and the Hosted Version, is accessable on a Windows or Mac Computer or iPhone and iPad. QuickBooks Hosted by Reckon Online has all the main features of QuickBooks Enterprise, the top version of QuickBooks Desktop Version, including Inventory, Payroll and many other features. The 2011/12 Version due to be realsed this month, has an excellent company snapshot that provides excellent overview of your business, will include Reckon Gov Connect, the first Standard Business Reporting Tool (SBR) tool to be released by any of these softwares and an excellent search tool in both Customers and Suppliers allow users to locate customers or suppliers based on any data entered.
Overall I would give QuickBooks Hosted by Reckon Online a FIVE STAR rating due to the overall features it has above its main rivals!!
Looks like there are a lot of people that would like to or need Quickbooks training.
And regarding the price comment above, how is $25 per month for Enterprise cloud software with Payroll, Inventory, Job Costing, BAS, Vehicle Management and more, expensive?
Regarding the comment about 8 mouse clicks to get in, well, it takes me one.
Tell me, how do import my .myo file into Live Accounts? What are my options if Zero or Live Accounts are down?
At least with QuickBooks I can just load up my backup into my Desktop software and keep working.
anything thoughts on cloud based DMS. I have four offices and 35 staff and looking at Sharepoint and HyperOffice – anything else you’d reccommend?
By DMS, I’m assuming you mean Document Management Systems. That’s one area we haven’t looked at so we’d be delighted to hear your experiences.