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Accountex poll: Cloud goes mainstream

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12th May 2016
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Within the practice community, cloud accounting has achieved mainstream acceptance according to an informal poll conducted on AccountingWEB’s stand at Accountex.

Out of 168 participants in the survey, 48% placed a counter in our bowl to indicate that they were supporting 25-100% of their client base on cloud accounting systems. A majority representing 52% of respondents chose blue counters indicating that 0-24% of their client base used the cloud.

Several of the respondents told us that they keen to use the cloud more, but found it slow going to convert clients. New clients and younger, start-up businesses were much more likely to embrace online accounting.

It may be a rough and ready, unscientific sample but the Accountex poll sponsored by Sage tallies with other AccountingWEB survey signals that a majority of member firms are now using cloud tools.

“I’ve been watching cloud adoption patterns among members since 2005,” commented AccountingWEB editor John Stokdyk. “While British accountants were slower on the uptake compared to northern Europe and Australia, they’ve made up for lost time.

“The UK is an international cross-road for accounting software developers, so we have an incredibly competitive market that peaked at more than 50 cloud accounting products at one point. All the marketing and education that vendors have put behind their software has had a visible effect.

“What I’m partricularly interested in now is seeing how leading edge firms are innovating with these tools to deliver new services rather than just doing the books in the cloud.”

If you’re at Accountex on Thursday 12 May, John Stokdyk will be presenting a talk on Inside the cloud accounting revolution at noon.

AccountingWEB Accountex cloud poll - in association with Sage
AccountingWEB/Sage

Replies (2)

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Jonathan@Aiteo
By Jonathan@Aiteo
17th May 2016 15:42

My rough and ready estimate is that out of 5.5m UK buisnesses, only around 0.5m have their accounts on cloud software - probably less than that.

So while cloud may have mainstream acceptance, we are still some way off seeing it replacing desktop, Excel and shoeboxes.

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Elliott Chandler Picture
By elliottchandler
04th Jun 2016 21:58

I think that the term 'the cloud' is often used in many different contexts making it difficult for business owners to fully understand what is involved. There are many ways to take advantage of what is in 'the cloud' however I believe it is important to seek advice from a specialist just as I would seek advice from my accountant on Tax or accounting topics.

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