By Nick Ismail on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Cloud and SaaS accounting systems are becoming ever-more sophisticated and more widely used. In essence, they are web-based software programmes which users rent or subscribe to. The advent of such services means businesses no longer own the software downloaded on a disk or computer. Instead, subscribers can use the internet to access their financial information.

Small business accounting can be a challenge, but it needn’t be. Below, are five advantages of using an cloud-based and SaaS (software-as-a-service) accounting system for your business:

1. Time saving

One of the benefits of internet-based accounting software is its ease of use. You can set up an account so that information about your finances — including sales, income, purchases and transactions — can flow straight from your business account to your books.

Using desktop-based softwares, from the advanced to the Excels of the world, can be clunky and mean small business owners must manually input bookkeeping data. This can waste time and prove expensive for a streamlined team. With the cloud, entrepreneurs can essentially go ‘hands free’, which means spending less time on repetitive accounting tasks and more time on growing the business.

2. Easy access

The beauty

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