Experiences on moving your practice to the cloud

Experiences on moving your practice to the cloud

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We are at a point where our IT infrastructure is due for renewal, Iris have suggested their cloud based solution - Iris Open Hosting whereby we longer need our servers as all our data will be hosted by Iris including all our software etc - which is mainly Iris.

Looking for experiences/ideas from practitioners that have done something like this.

Thanks 

Replies (19)

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
04th Jun 2015 11:00

Unless it's changed Iris too expensive

I went through exactly the same experience with our washing machine (which is what we called our server) 5 years ago.

I'm a rabid Iris user however when considering it's hosting facility it was a non-starter not only on price but in the (hidden at the time) 3 year contract.

I, like many others, (especially Iris users) have been using Hosted Desktop UK ever since.  The switch-over was painless and extremely cheap (but don't tell them) and their service and support is excellent, within a few weeks I'd wished I'd done it years before.

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Replying to northernmonkey:
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By gulrajmankoo
04th Jun 2015 11:49

Thanks for the pointers Paul, I think Iris have partnered with Hosted Accountants not sure if this is an arm of Hosted Desktop. I will get more info from Iris regarding the contract term.

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
04th Jun 2015 12:15

Good Luck

BTW Hosted Accountants is different to HDT UK.

As it happens I spoke to them a few times after I'd moved to HDT UK, nice people so will be interesting to see how they compare.

As I did with HDT UK it's essential you have a chat with existing users who match your size and software needs.

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By leicsred
04th Jun 2015 13:21

Sage payroll

We have moved to a hosted solution and generally all is well done, the service is good, the support is very responsive and helpful. The only issue we have is with Sage (particularly payroll) they are extremely slow especially when printing. Support have spent a long while on the issue but all to no avail. It would be worth talking to other users of the same programs as you use to see if there is a general issue.

As an aside I wonder if anyone else using a remote desktop provider has an issue with Sage and whether anyone managed to fix it? (Other than telling me not to use Sage!)

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By peter.wood100
04th Jun 2015 14:41

Sage and Hosted Desktop

We moved everything to Hosted Desktop UK several years ago.  Highly recommended - superb support team.  Nothing is too much trouble

We don't use Iris, but Sage 50 accounts and payroll works a lot faster than it did our old 'washing machine'.....   as does all of our other applications.

But the real value to us is security and flexibility.  If someone breaks into our offices and takes our computers tonight we've not lost any data.  We can just log on with another PC.  And adding new users is a doddle, no matter where they are located.

 

 

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By Maslins
04th Jun 2015 15:40

Depends what you mean by "moving your practice to the cloud".

We don't use any kind of hosted desktop, so all our computers are just working locally in terms of running Windows etc.

However, well over half the software we use now is cloud based.  FreeAgent for bookkeeping, Capsule as a CRM/database, and our files are all hosted in the cloud.

Because of the way we've done things, there have perhaps been lots of small points of slight upheaval, rather than one massive change.

What are you worried about?

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By ChrisMartin
04th Jun 2015 16:07

Hosted Desktop

We use IRIS, Sage, Quickbooks etc. We moved to HDUK a couple of months ago (he won't know this but I was heavily influenced by Paul Scholes's regular endorsements). It was a pretty much pain-free process to move everything over and I can only echo Peter's comments - phenomenal support (issues sorted within minutes), everything works fine, access from anywhere, no hardware worries, software updates done for us, peace of mind etc. 

On the assumption one is not [***] about data security, the big issue for most of us is broadband speed/availability. We have what is probably no more than an average speed and I can honestly say that the working experience is exactly the same as when we were using our server (just without the breakdowns). In the event the broadband connection disappears altogether, I guess we'll be stuck but that isn't a big problem here. I can't recommend them enough; I should have done this years ago. 

 

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By leicsred
04th Jun 2015 17:11

Sage

All these people using Sage and hosting solutions - at present we can literally have a 60 or more second delay between pressing print and some payslips coming out, I presume that this isn't normal and we aren't just expecting the moon on a stick?

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By Simon Harris
04th Jun 2015 18:01

Cloud

I don't usually comment on these things but I would share some experience.

We work mainly with Global corporate companies but also with some smaller companies based in a single country.  In fact, one of our clients is a branch of a UK datacentre / Telco where many companies house their cloud.   Many of these companies jumped on the cloud bandwagon many years ago and have since been quietly reversing it.

One of our largest clients were having issues renewing our contract and we had no idea what the issue could be.  We have a fantastic, dare I say, even, unique relationship across all of our practice areas.

No official reason was ever given but over dinner, I was asked about our trial of cloud based hosting services.  This was a Google mail and server hosting trial we had been piloting and we had no idea most clients were even aware of it.

We were told that they had been gradually, filtering out all companies using cloud based services from their vendor base.  As they pointed out, these companies were perfectly entitled to do what they were doing so they were not informing vendors of the implications, they were just being retired in favour of another vendor as soon as possible.

Since then I have spoke to more of our clients and found this seems to be more common than I realised.  Giving the high profile security breaches of companies like Apple and Google, some companies now regard cloud based services as providing data to unauthorised third parties.

Certainly, not all companies are this sensitive.  However, a growing number are. One of the things I liked about IRIS is the ability to avoid sharing client data.  Agree with a previous post expressing the view that it is  expensive though.

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By Steve McQueen
04th Jun 2015 18:31

Another vote for hosted desktops...

Again, moved within the last few months (from another supplier of similar services) and again influenced by Paul Scholes (who also wouldn't know about me) 

 

Seamless, excellent service, no regrets.

 

Steve

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By gulrajmankoo
05th Jun 2015 11:30

Thank you all for your comments.

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By davegibson00
05th Jun 2015 12:53

And another Hosted Desktop Uk fan

Gosh, 2 years now I'd reckon. Excellent facility,excellent customer service.  Highly satisfied.

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By Moonbeam
05th Jun 2015 13:01

Just about to go over to Hosted Desktop

Paul Scholes and many other positive commentators persuaded me to look at Hosted Desktop last year. I decided against it then as I thought their charges for a part-time extra login were a bit too high.

I've had a year to think about it and this afternoon at 4.00 pm my computer's contents and my email contents will disappear to them. I am inevitably feeling nervous, but HDUK are looking after me in a way that most IT people don't, so that backs up what others have said.

For someone working more or less on their own, it seems to me imperative that you can get access to the data from anywhere. Should illness strike my alterative person can just login and get cracking.

It's nice to see all the recent comments and maybe I won't have to take up smoking to get through the weekend!

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By gulrajmankoo
05th Jun 2015 14:48

It looks like there are not many punters for Iris hosted solution here.

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By ColinNibbs
11th Jun 2015 11:54

And what if...?

And what if any of these hosting companies go bust? Do you lose all your data?

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By Gone Sailing
11th Jun 2015 12:19

Internet Access ?

Then there's no guarantee of 100% access either at work or on the move.

Sticking with PC/laptop with online backup (Dropbox)

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By Gone Sailing
11th Jun 2015 13:29

QuickBooks Online Accountant

The new QuickBooks Online Accountant claims:

"REVIEW the status of all
your clients, whether or not
they use QuickBooks."

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By Charlie Carne
11th Jun 2015 13:34

@Maslins re file storage

I have been using a hosted desktop solution for years. It's not one of the providers listed above (both of whom have excellent reputations), but a company whose original MD I knew well. I see three key services provided by such a host: (i) Exchange server for emails, calendar and contacts, (ii) hosting a Windows desktop on which to run desktop software and (iii) prime repository of all of my data files. The hosting company has since been sold a few times and the service quality of their Exchange server deteriorated to the point where I was about to move to either HDUK or Hosted Accountants. Earlier this year, my provider was sold on again and this time the new owner migrated the Exchange server to Office 365, which has been superb. Consequently, I don’t need another host to handle Exchange.

As more of my work is done via cloud software, I have less of a need of a service to run my desktop software remotely, as I can set up the very few programs I use on my one or two PC’s (although a fast, remotely hosted desktop does still have some advantages to running it locally, it is becoming less critical). My main need, therefore, is for a repository of my data files that can be accessed from anywhere. Office 365 includes OneDrive, but the business version of this (which is built on a completely different platform from the ‘home’ and ‘personal’ versions of OneDrive) limits the number of files to 20,000 and appears not to be as stable as the personal version of OneDrive. Maslins says “our files are all hosted in the cloud”. I’m not a fan of DropBox for confidential documents, so I’d be interested to know what Maslins (and others) use for this.

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By SimonLever
11th Jun 2015 14:31

Another HDUK

Moved in November last year and had no trouble at all. Linked it to a move in premises as well and everything went fine.

Hosted services are only as good as your broadband connection. However when the power goes out it is easy to send staff home to work. We actually operate a hot desking solution with staff working from home a number of days a week. Saves expensive property overheads.

If you go bespoke, with someone like Iris, you are tied in to the provider and it makes it more difficult to change if you want to.

Also HDUK do all my software updates out of office hours saving time and hassle. Combined with office move going to the cloud is about the best business decision I have made.

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