Manage Your Time & Tasks In The Cloud Now

It’s obvious that 2020 is going to be a historically challenging year for all of us. Those who have already made the move to flexible working, video conferencing and cloud technology might, however, find it a little less difficult than others.

With hindsight, the imposition of Making Tax Digital by HMRC was a blessing in disguise. It forced British businesses to address something that it would have been all too easy to keep putting off year after year.

After all, planning and implementing new systems can be disruptive. It’s invariably worth it, though, and it pains us to see people muddling through, year after year, with setups that only work with constant manual intervention or even bodges and ‘hacks’.

In the end, although there was some resistance and frustration at being put under pressure, the result was something of a cloud renaissance as SMEs tried cloud software and inevitably fell in love with it.

The comfort of the cloud

If, like us, you find yourself trying to get your work done with staff scattered in home offices, spare rooms and at kitchen tables all across town, you’ll be only too aware of the benefits of working in the cloud.

Wherever you and your colleagues might be physically, the work – be it your clients’ accounts or your own customer data – is all in one place, safe and sound, neat and tidy.

If one of you updates a client record, that’s it – job done. You all have access to the latest information on whichever device you happen to be using.

And managing staff time has never been easier, with task and deadline assignment; you can continue to run a streamlined and efficient Practice.

Or in these turbulent and uncertain times, set up new customised workflows and assign them to team members. Use this as an opportunity to introduce new communication management strategies via cloud-based Practice Management systems.

Others, meanwhile, are amending local copies of spreadsheets or reports. They’re attaching them to emails and sending them to ten people, who save their own local copies, amend them, send them…

It’s a version control nightmare, not to mention inefficient.

And if your business relies on specialist desktop software, how do you make sure your staff can access it from home? Do the terms of the licence cover its installation on machines off-premises? Does it require its own dedicated hardware? Are missing your dual screens to manage both sides of your business?

All of these problems just go away if people can access the tools they need via a standard web browser on phones, tablets, laptops or their own PCs. Cloud software, such as Capium, works anywhere and doesn’t work on the basis of per-user licences. Which means if you need to think about sharing flexible resources with industry peers then you aren’t paying for additional user licences.

And, finally, there’s the question of paper. Anyone still lugging filing cabinets about, with printed invoices and the old shoebox full of receipts is going to have a harder time than those of us who’ve got into the habit of scanning and digitising. Capium’s platform is well set up to assist in document collaboration and sharing via its business app which makes things like receipt scanning, for example, super easy,.

Taking control

If you’ve been reading the above wishing that you were a little further along in your adoption of cloud software, don’t worry – the right time to make the move is always now.

In uncertain times, it’s always best to focus on what you can control, such as your own systems and processes.

Take advantage of any extra time to look at what is working, and what isn’t. Draw up some requirements – what does your firm need to achieve its goals? Then scope the options. You might be surprised at just how flexible, comprehensive and powerful cloud software has come in just a few years.

And it goes without saying that we think you should make booking a demo with us part of that process. Get in touch to find out how we can make your business more resilient before the next crisis strikes.