4 Things to Consider Before Moving to QuickBooks Hosting

So, you’ve made the decision to move away from the traditional QuickBooks Desktop service or QuickBooks Online and switch to QuickBooks cloud hosting? Congratulations! This is a huge step for you, your employees and your business. After all, cloud hosting offers numerous benefits including remote access to QuickBooks and other managed applications, improved productivity, more opportunities for company growth and less overhead costs.

In addition to the benefits of QuickBooks hosting, here are four things to consider before you begin a QuickBooks migration into the cloud... That is after you have done your research, asked questions and worked toward finding the best cloud hosting provider.

1. Have You Clearly Communicated Your Business Goals?

Before you sign up with a hosting provider and begin your QuickBooks migration, it’s important to double-check to make sure you’ve clearly expressed your business goals and what you need in a hosting environment.

Questions to Consider Before Committing to a Hosting Provider

• Is the hosting product flexible enough to change direction as your business pivots or grows?
• Would a shared server work or do you need a dedicated environment?
• Do they also have the capacity to host and integrate additional applications like PrintBoss, TSheets or Webgility?
• Is there a limit to how many users can access your server?
• Can you buy QuickBooks licenses through the cloud hosting provider?
• Will you have admin rights to your server?
• Where is their support team-based, and when are they available?

2. Have You Discussed Migrating to the Cloud with Your Employees?

Change can be uncomfortable, especially when it affects internal processes or day-to-day routine tasks. It’s always important to keep employees and/or clients in the know before a shift happens so you can lessen discomfort.

Have you communicated the extended functionalities of the cloud for accountants and discussed your planned QuickBooks migration to your future cloud users? Have you scheduled employee training sessions of how to access QuickBooks from a cloud-hosted server?

3. Are You Happy with Your Internet Service Provider?

It’s important to keep in mind that you need to have a good, reliable internet connection before switching to cloud hosting. Why? Because you access the cloud via the internet (or using a cellular hotspot in certain cases).

If you have a slow or unstable internet connection, you may experience connectivity issues or a lag in loading speed. So, be sure you’re happy with your ISP or consider upgrading to a more powerful internet package before your migration to ensure you have a positive experience while working from anywhere.

4. Do you Understand the QuickBooks Cloud Migration Process?

Before your scheduled QuickBooks migration takes place, make sure you understand what your hosting provider’s process looks like.

Questions to Consider Before Migrating QuickBooks

• What are the costs?
• What do they need from you?
• How long will it take to get your account set up?
• Do they offer QuickBooks training for their cloud interface or will you need to work with a QuickBooks consultant/cloud advisor?

An Example of a Cloud Migration

We can't speak for what the process of moving QuickBooks or other managed applications to the cloud looks like, but we can use our migration steps at Summit Hosting as an example.

Our process is simple after you gather the information you need from a Summit Hosting cloud consultant and sign-up:

• Speak with one of our migration specialists to transfer your company files using a secure platform
• Tell us if you would like additional resources added to your dedicated servers such as additional storage or applications.
• Wait 2 - 4 days while the Summit Hosting engineering team builds out your server, installs your applications, and uploads your files.
• Install the RDP file attached to your 'Welcome to Summit Hosting Letter' to your chosen device - this will let you access your applications from anywhere so you can work remotely.

Move Your Business to the Cloud with Summit Hosting

Our structure for your business's digital transformation makes moving QuickBooks, Sage or other applications into the cloud easy. Once you're up and running within our environment, using your software and accessing your files from anywhere will be a seamless experience.

When you choose Summit Hosting as your cloud provider, you'll have better functionality plus all of the extended benefits we offer like 24/7/365 US-based support, data centers in the US and Canada for data sovereignty, dedicated servers with admin rights, and top quality data security.

Learn more about our QuickBooks cloud hosting solutions or call us today: 888-244-6559.