The true meaning of cloud: cost and customer experience

There’s no shortage of buzzwords in accounting: Advisory services, AI, fintech — and, of course, ‘cloud’, or more specifically ‘cloud accounting’.

The term ‘cloud’ has been bandied around for the last 5 years. The trend made its mark in the profession a while ago, but in the last few years, something changed. You may have heard of it: Making Tax Digital. As many industry experts have pointed out when MTD was announced, the quarterly filing requirement and expense updates with HMRC triggered a second boom in cloud adoption among practitioners.

But what happened after this second boom is telling. While accountants drove the cloud boom, businesses lagged behind in cloud accounting software adoption. In other words, once the initial MTD panic fizzled after MTD for income tax was delayed, cloud adoption waned, too.

This cycle of cloud boom and bust shows that, for too long, the real benefits of cloud software, both from a customer experience and cost perspective, have remained elusive. Cloud was a feature, something tacked on to make the software more marketable rather than more effective.

To extract the real benefits of cloud – whether that’s improved security, the elimination of annoying, repetitive task or good old-fashioned value for money – it needs to bind every corner of your practice’s work together.

That is what sets Capium apart; it has been a true cloud system from day one. It offers the decentralisation you expect from the cloud, but it goes so much deeper than that. As much as it liberates your accounting software from the desktop, it consolidates your workflow into one place.

That means a clear overview of all your work in one place, increased efficiency, reduced cost and clear accountability and resource management. True cloud accounting will filter into every corner of your practice.

You could finally offer sustainable, flexible working and deliver amazing, always on customer service from anywhere. This is a different vision of cloud accounting: No longer a buzzword or an added-on feature — but the central pillar of your practice and customer experience.

Software for everyone: Capium is designed with accountants in mind

Capium is designed for everyone. In other words, our users aren’t just business owners, but the legion of agents that represent them.

That’s an important distinction to make because accounting, more so than ever, is a collaborative enterprise. It doesn’t happen in steps and stages anymore, bouncing back and forth between client and accountant.

Instead, it’s a continuous, iterative process involving both stakeholders. Making Tax Digital is deepening this dynamic. With quarterly filing requirements, MTD is a logistical challenge as much as it is a technical one.

The era of digital tax means accountants need better communication, more fluid workflows and secure data capture all through one, centralised and simple-to-use software. Both the accountant and client will work side-by-side under MTD. Endless, time-consuming emails just won’t do. The touch points between you and the client need to happen effortlessly in one centralised place. That’s where your accounting software comes in. Technology is the infrastructure that supports this new era of effective collaboration.

This creates a challenge for accounting software providers: it has to be intuitive and straightforward for non-technical users and simultaneously empower accountants to do their best work, all while linking these two needs together.

Some software suppliers will need to adapt, but it’s no substitute for the real thing. Collaboration is at the heart of Capium. We’ve built our software from the ground up with accountants (and their clients) in mind, improving every part of the practice and client relationship.

Capium is an end-to-end software, including practice management (along with a CRM) and SME data capture tools, all of which connect seamlessly with our core tax software. And best of all, it all just works from day one.

There are no hacks or workarounds required on your part. All of the heavy technical lifting is done by Capium in the background, letting you get on with the day job. All you need to add is your expertise.