The software market has developed significantly in advance of new regulations mandating the need for all businesses and landlords to maintain their accounting records on a digital platform. Small businesses will be the biggest beneficiaries of cloud accounting and they are now moving to embrace this new technology and migrate their accounting systems onto these platforms. Those small businesses who have already embraced the move to cloud accounting are noting the benefits of up to date financial records.

Summary of the benefits:

· Access to your financial data where ever you have access to the internet.
· Direct links to your bank to enable regular bank feeds to populate your software.
· Integration with other apps.
· Software is constantly updated by the vendor (no downloading of upgrades or bug fixes).
· Higher levels of data security.
· It allows the small business owner to easily track cashflow, invoice payment, profit and loss, tax and VAT.
· Your accountant will have access to your accounting data through a dashboard to assist throughout the year in real time.
· Low cost monthly payment plans with further discounts available if purchased through your accountant.

For small businesses, some of the key providers are:

· Kashflow
· Sage Business Cloud Accounting
· FreeAgent (currently free for RBS business customers)
· QuickBooks online
· Xero