Date: Fri Feb 19 09:55 2016

McGreen

Rather than attempt to troll the thread (posting history: nothing before your post above), why not reveal your credentials, and actually attempt to counter some of the valid points I've made?

That *is* what John originally wanted: A debate on the pros and cons, as well as voices of experience from those using cloud solutions.

 

Date: Fri Feb 19 11:01 2016

 

MGreen wrote:

---

Had a chuckle reading this thread.

It reminded me of the CEO of Blackberry's reaction when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone (not to dissimilar to some of the reaction to cloud accounting here) . The rest as they say is history.

But is the Cloud an Iphone or a Sinclair C5? If you read the debate here its not about trashing cloud based solutions but rather fixing them before people start to think that the way that they work is acceptable (where the data is kept, holding data to randsom, not being able to work offline, speed of input, etc.).

Nobody is saying that the cloud could not provide advantages for some businesses espechially in the micro / SME market which is where many here find most of their work.

What we are saying that is that the current offerings need to be fixed to be fit for purpose.

That said, what this creates is an excellent opportunity for new tech savvy Bookkeepers to grow their business by converting clients to 22nd century who have dinosaur accountants and bookkeepers who think Excel is state of the art accounting tool (VT comes to mind).

Interesting that you choose VT there where many accountants (myself included) extract the data from cloud solutions into VT (via Excel) in order to produce the accounts... Tell me that you have not looked at the balance sheet within Xero and thought "They cannot be serious!".

I think that you are talking about VT accounts anyway as the VT bookkeeping packages do not use Excel. They are stand alone packages exactly the same as Sage 50 and Quickbooks pro.

Using words like Dinosaur indicates that the way that people such as myself work is heading towards extinction. Thats a known sales approach to make people feel that they are being left behind (the old "do you remember when.." approach to advertising to make people feel that they had been left behind if they are still using the thing that is being ridiculed).

If the cloud offerings were better than what I currently use then I would change.

Until they embrace Windows based PC technology properly, make themselves available offline, give local copies of data that is accessible forever via a spreadsheet program and guarantee where the data will be stored by themselves then I feel that it would be iresponsible for me to adopt them.

---

There's a film out at the moment called "The big short" about a handfull of people who saw what nobody else seemed able to with the 2008 bubble. The issues with the cloud are hardly on the same scale as that but just thought of it being a good example of where the few were right and majority couldn't see the Tsunami that was coming.

So, less bandying poorly attempted insults at those who have systems that work well and more constructive discussion in attempt to let cloud providers know that their target market is a little more intelligent than they believe that it is and we want answers / fixes to quite legitimate concerns.

Date: Fri Feb 19 16:54 2016

Shamus wrote:

---

MGreen wrote:

---

Had a chuckle reading this thread.

It reminded me of the CEO of Blackberry's reaction when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone (not to dissimilar to some of the reaction to cloud accounting here) . The rest as they say is history.

But is the Cloud an Iphone or a Sinclair C5? If you read the debate here its not about trashing cloud based solutions but rather fixing them before people start to think that the way that they work is acceptable (where the data is kept, holding data to randsom, not being able to work offline, speed of input, etc.).

Trying to compare the cloud to Sinclair C5 - that's too funny. The cloud is Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Xero, Intuit... need I go on, try living without the cloud, see how you get on.

With regards to concerns:

Where the data is kept:

Let's just say i would be more concerned for my data to be lying around on a disk/PC in someone's home office that is so concerned about price that they do not even have an alarm system.  Who's PC is more suseciptable to virus than a secure data center (there are more Excel based viruses than any other kind - see clicking on attachement thread on this site). Who takes backups but never really tries to see if the restore actually works, and blisfully continue to do backups until such time they actually need to restore, only finding that the back up disk is actually toast or the back-up failed and they did not know it.

Cloud based accounting systems (at leaste the good ones) take security seriously, as you would expect from a global organisation hosting hundreds of thousands of customers data. Security is an ongoing process, continually audited and tested for potential breaches and comprises Internet Banking levels of encryption, biometric systems based restricted access and 24/7 onsite security guards at the hosting locations. Multiple copies of customer data is held at multiple locations for real-time protection and as a further safeguard, data is backed up daily. This compares favourably to desktop software, where your data is at risk from hardware failure, theft or data corruption from power surges. Furthermore, Cloud data is securely available for sharing online with individuals you invite to share your data.

I noted someone citing safe harbour, well unless you are running your own server (which I doubt), your email would be in the cloud, I would argue that there is probably more sensitive data in your email than in any accounting package (cloud or desktop), safe harbour seems not be a concern there, or else they would not be using email at all.

Holding Data to ransom:

What a complete load of tosh, there are ample companies that will happliy convert your Xero, Quickbooks Online and Sage One data to another cloud based appliaction and or desktop. In the case of Quickbooks Online you can convert to Quickbooks Destop straignt from the online app. So this is a red herring, and scaremongering. Indeed in Xero you can export pretty much everything to your favourite Excel.

Not Being able to Work Offline:

Why would you want to even work off-line unless internet is down? If the internet is down, you are these days pretty much at a standstill - no email and for many no telephone. That said if you are serious about business you would have broadband provider that guarantees up time - unless you skimp and use Talk Talk, similarly if your Desktop crashes you would need support and you would be down anyway - its no different. Again a red herring.

Speed of input:

That will vary depending on how familiar you are with the system (any system Desk-top or cloud, if you are one finger typist - need I say more). I actually find cloud based accounting system quicker to navigate and more intuitative for my clients than VT or such like. Happy client is more important to me than speed of inputing a transcation.

Some of the things you failed to mention:

Bug Fixes:

Bug fixes for cloud based accounting systems can be 1) Frequent and 2) available to all simultaneously. Unlike Desktop systems - where the real ransom is "Take out a Service Contract" and we can then give you fixes, and these are rolled either Quaterly or half yearly, so if you have a critical bug, you will have to wait until next update and only if you have subscribed to our support package. Furthermore, sometimes there may be a fix but unless you manually apply it, you would never know. What is even more important, bug fixes work better in cloud based systems beacuse they have to make sure it works otherwise it has an impact on a huge client base - so testing is much more vigorosus and robust, they can't get away with just doing a hash job.

Product Updates:

Similar to bug fixes, more frequent product updates/enhancements and available to all simutaneoulsy, no ransom service contracts.

Future:

Now this is even more important, and whether one likes it or not, it is coming and I will cite one example:

A bank might in future decide only to lend to a SME if they have real-time access to the companies accounts and continously monitor the account to ensure their loan is secure and used for purpose intended and not for the yacht. The only way to achive this is through cloud - VT is not going to cut it. The banks will start forcing customers to use a cloud based accounting system, if they want money. Scary as this sounds, it is actually happening in Australia with Xero and a Bank - where Xero is mandatory if one wants a loan.

 

Nobody is saying that the cloud could not provide advantages for some businesses espechially in the micro / SME market which is where many here find most of their work.

Could not agree more. For the SME market it's ideal.

What we are saying that is that the current offerings need to be fixed to be fit for purpose.

See above.

That said, what this creates is an excellent opportunity for new tech savvy Bookkeepers to grow their business by converting clients to 22nd century who have dinosaur accountants and bookkeepers who think Excel is state of the art accounting tool (VT comes to mind).

Interesting that you choose VT there where many accountants (myself included) extract the data from cloud solutions into VT (via Excel) in order to produce the accounts... Tell me that you have not looked at the balance sheet within Xero and thought "They cannot be serious!".

I disagree. There are 600,000 companies in the world using Xero, if the balance sheet is not to your liking, it is fine for 600,000 businesses world wide. Deal with it.

I think that you are talking about VT accounts anyway as the VT bookkeeping packages do not use Excel. They are stand alone packages exactly the same as Sage 50 and Quickbooks pro.

Using words like Dinosaur indicates that the way that people such as myself work is heading towards extinction. Thats a known sales approach to make people feel that they are being left behind (the old "do you remember when.." approach to advertising to make people feel that they had been left behind if they are still using the thing that is being ridiculed).

Shaun, Model T Ford was a perfectly fine motor car - did not need fixing, served its purpose, took you from A to B. Why innovate? Why do things differently?

I will also leave with the following thought "9 out of 10 people would rather die than change" a known fact.

Its not a sales pitch, or scaremogering, its what is happening in reality, you may not like it or join in, but it is happeneing.

If the cloud offerings were better than what I currently use then I would change.

I respect that, but change you will beacuse you will be forced to, because your clients will force you.

Until they embrace Windows based PC technology properly, make themselves available offline, give local copies of data that is accessible forever via a spreadsheet program and guarantee where the data will be stored by themselves then I feel that it would be iresponsible for me to adopt them.

You really need to get with the times. The Desktop PC market is dying as we speak (you read computer weekly - have a look). It is all about mobile, whether you or I like it or not. Even Microsoft, owners of windows want their key products Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint to be used using a browser, the desktop versions will be dodo's soon, that's Windows Based PC technoloy of the future - cloud based not Desktop based. Try getting a copy of windows on a Disk and see how far you get.

---

There's a film out at the moment called "The big short" about a handfull of people who saw what nobody else seemed able to with the 2008 bubble. The issues with the cloud are hardly on the same scale as that but just thought of it being a good example of where the few were right and majority couldn't see the Tsunami that was coming.

Hindsight is a great thing, if they were so sure, they should have bet theri houses on it on hedging bets - they would have been multi-billionaires, but the did not and they speculated and were right - its like flipping a coin, you are always right 50% of the time on any event. Regardless, we can all site examples either way on this one. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft etal are not going away anytime soon.

So, less bandying poorly attempted insults at those who have systems that work well and more constructive discussion in attempt to let cloud providers know that their target market is a little more intelligent than they believe that it is and we want answers / fixes to quite legitimate concerns.

That was a cheap shot Shaun. I actually think most Bookkeeprs are very intelligent, The BKN 2015 Award for best software provide was Xero, I think they get it don't you.

---

 

Finally

Vince - thank you for the warm welcome.

I do not work for a software provider, I am actually an accountant/bookkeeper and last year I converted 50 new clients from VT/Sage?Quickbooks to Xero from other accountants/bookkeepers, it was like taking candy from a baby.

Date: Fri Feb 19 17:44 2016

You'll have to forgive me not responding straight away to your message fully.

I'm currently fixing yet another complete cloudy, anyone can do bookkeeping with the right software, c**k up by moving it all to VT (the software concerned is not one of those that has been mentioned so far in this thread. It would be unfair of me to mention which software it is).

I will say though as a taster for when I do reply that numbers alone (you single out 600k Xero users) do not make something right. If that was the case then there would be a lot of very cocky lemmings around.

The other thing before I disappear is thast you seem to be confusing the internet and the cloud. The cloud exists on the internet, it does not make it the same thing.

We are quite specifically talking about software and data that do not exist on your own machine. I've mentioned on here many times before that I use dropbox which is a cloud product BUT the data exists on my machines as well as in the ether .

Fingers crossed I'll have time to come back on and answer all of your misconceptions about the cloud later (unless Vince beats me to it of course).

Oh, on the bottom bit, they did bet their houses and they did all become multi billionaires.

I think that I'm recognising your writing style... As Vince said, would you like to introduce yourself as I do not for one moment think that the name that you are using is your real one?

 

Date: Fri Feb 19 18:04 2016

Hi Jo,

hate it when it loses colour. I hink that its because the posts too big so can't really be quoted in a reply.

I'm toying with moving M's posts and the responses to them to another thread as to leave them here they are spoiling a really good rationally argued constructive debate.

The M debate is just going to turn into a mud slinging argument that could undermine this thread.

All the best.

Shaun.

 

Date: Fri Feb 19 21:21 2016

Good idea to move them Shaun, as you suggest.

Agree about not deleting, some of the best discussions have been when matters have gone completely off the original thread.

The are the occasional insults on here, but thankfully we aren't as bad as Aweb Johnny. (Now I'm having to do a double take to make sure I spell Johnny right, lol)

Date: Sat Feb 20 10:46 2016

Mike
No comments are edited or deleted on here. Shaun was merely suggesting moving some of the posts. (In fact Shaun......don't waste any of your precious time on that!). You cannot counter all my views, as they are very valid ones and ones that have been raised on many other forum and in the press etc, so you can only state your views of those concerns, there is no way you can counter them, as you are not speaking with any authority having the inside track from any particular organisation.

I asked about your background just as I do many many other newbies, borne out by my previous posts, for the reason just stated, but also because we are actually a very friendly bunch on here and it helps ensure we don't dumb down answers or talk above people. Oh and it also helps to keep out the insults. Despite what you think and said just now, your post contained the first insult. That needs to stop, from everyone. So should the sarcasm in your latest response, there is no need for it.

This is a site for bookkeepers and Accountants, not for anyone else and yes they wander in and may get the odd bit of help. I for one am not bothered in what they see on here as the good thing about this forum is that generally the ridiculousness that goes on via other forums is nipped in the bud a lot sooner, so everyone can get back to the issues at hand. Even with the ridiculousness of some of this post, if it stops one member of the public blindly buying a cloud based product then great.

If you don't want to give your background, that's your perogative, (but what have you got to hide?) it's just that those who interact more seem to get more out of this forum, so that was why I was attempting to extend the 'hand' of friendship. 

I wonder why you pick out Shaun to respond with your last couple of paragraphs when a few others on here have made the same comments!! I think it quite arrogant that you consider you have addressed all of the concerns! You absolutely have not, and to my mind clearly are just following the rest of the crowd and accepting the inevitable without challenging the parts that are so clearly unacceptable., whilst in your words, taking candy of a baby. Reminds me of smokers in the earlier part of the last century believing all they did that cigarettes were the next best thing and good for them!!! It being forced on us doesn't make it right nor should we put up and shut up.

Mr Trump would not be welcome on this site, is my view.

John, might be worth considering a new thread for any new questions on this front

M,

I'm not going to call you Mike as I think that I already know who you are from your writing style.

I do not redact/edit/delete peoples posts unless the person themselves makes a valid request for their own post to be amended or where there is some legal reason to alter, such as publishing a clients financial information (only happened on this site once and was taken care of very quickly).

Unless there is actual publication of personal details I do not even amend posts that attack myself as that would be misuse of my position here by treating myself differently to how I would treat others. For example, there was a very unprofessional and I believe unprovoked rant against me by someone on the site a month or so back which still remains, unedited, for anyone to view as people are entitled to their opinions even when such are wrong.

Leaving peoples posts there when they are so completely wrong in general does the poster more harm in the eye's of the readership than the one being attacked.

As with Joanne I think that it is a very silly individual who does not confirm their backups. And the same with people who blindly click on attachments and links. (which is why I try to investigate all links posted on this site before allowing them to stand).

All of your arguments have large holes in them covered throughout the other thread which you should read in a less blinkered manner. For example, do you miss the part where we talk about Dropbox which gives the advantages that you mention for the cloud without any of the issues. Namely dropbox automatically stores a local copy of the data and you do not need to be online to access your data.

The banks are not going to force anyone to use a specific peice of third party software. Its not how proper banks work. Can you imagine the uproar if a bank turned around and said that it was restricting clients access to funds if they did not pay £x per month to a third party software provider? To suggest such is simply attempting to scare monger people into enacting a self fulfilling prophecy.

The PC is going nowhere.

Can you imagine businesses being filled with people using tablets? Thats as ridiculous as the idea of corporate offices being filled with Apple machines.

Excel is going nowhere the same as Windows did not go the way that some people at Microsoft thought that things were heading when with Windows 8 the PC seemed to morph into a large mobile phone... And they very much needed to back paddle a lot towards Windows 7 with Windows 10.

Have you tried the online version of Excel? it's not impressive. Just as a quick example how do you automatically lock cells? You have to physically put a $ sign in rather than using F4 to page through the options. That is a pretty basic ommission. Then look at the menu's... Where are all of the commands?

Excel online seems as close to the real Excel as a Wooden Spoon to a Kenwood Chef. Both will do the same job but you're going to do it an awful lot more slowly with the cloud version which I feel is a good analogy for the cloud generally.

It looks pretty, it does all of the basic things that you want it to but because it needs so much constant line traffic it will only ever be the desktop softwares less powerful cousin as it needs to trade off power for speed (I won't go into the complexities over psuedoconversational processing and sequential attention but just understand that the more users there are at any one time the slower things may potentially become... Not an issue with the desktop).

So, Excel is going nowhere, PC's are going nowhere (either in corporate or gaming, both of which help drive peoples home and small business choices).

The above said, there will also always be an Apple market, a smart phone market and a Tablet market. Choice is good and people should make their decisions as to what they want based upon their preferences and budget. We should not have a situation where people with one preference are attempting to dictate what is available to the market.

I think a good analogy for this is to look at the gaming market.

Microsoft and Sony felt that they could change the market by removing peoples options. It became increasingly difficult to buy PC games so the feeling was that people would naturally migrate to what the market offered which were consoles with PC gamers being told that they were dinosaurs (how many times have we heard that old line!).

Rather than die out that simply created opportunity for the likes of Steam to offer PC games directly rather than via retail outlets. PC gamers have gone nowhere and indeed some of the largest games are released PC only (i.e. Star Citizen which has acquired $108,000,000 in crowd funding).

What does this have to do with the debate in this thread? Well, its because there is a lesson to be learned by cloud companies that it is the consumer that ultimately dictates the market, not the other way around.

If the cloud was better and gave people everything that they wanted, safely, with no risk of denial of service and with similar performance to the desktop then if it was cheaper people would migrate to it.

That though is not the case. The desktop is a supperior solution in almost all respects and people will not abandon that.

Another example is Cheques. The banks stated point blank that cheques would be phased out.... Do you see them going anywhere?

The moral of the tale is that people will only change if you give them something that makes their lives better / easier / safer. As discussed at length in many threads the cloud is not achieving those goals and the aspects of it that are improvements could just as easily be built into peoples current desktop solutions without all of the fundamental revolutionary change that cloud companies are pushing for.

Change should come in small incremental agile steps. Waterfall approaches do not work in this type of scenario.

Its quite often the case John that people disguise rehashing existing processing methods as new ideas.

You probably spotted it within my post that I referred to Psuedoconversational processing which is the basic premise behind the CICS based system that your client was probably using to interface with the mainframe (or possibly a Mini, the box at the other end of the line wasn't that important to your client).

basic premise is that the program on the remote terminal interacts with the mainframe / mini and then pages out retaining everything that it needs to in memory and sending down the line only the bare minimum that it needs to. The end user believes that they are interacting with a live program but until they hit an attention identifier key (PF keys, PA keys, Enter or Clear) the program is dormant allowing other users of the system to interact with the mainframe without the line being too cluttered waiting for responses which allows everyone to believe that they are the only one using the same program at the same time where the reality is that there is one program (actually, a compiled load module) but many (one per user) versions of working storage which holds the data to interact with the program.

Certainly advances in technology will have improved the process but at its core the interactions between PC's and the cloud cannot be so different in theory to the interactions between remote terminals and mainframes.

I am not saying that everything that can be invented has already been invented but certainly there are a lot fewer new ideas around than people seem to believe that there are. It feels more that old ideas are being improved upon... Or in some cases just renamed... And then put accross as new (that approach has worked well for financial theorists for decades!)

Working fine here Vince....

Good old fashioned social engineering.

A very pertinent point Vince!

Totally agree. Social engineering is Soooo easy. All it can take is one call. For most people all you need is their email address, you can research a person online for answering lost password answers. Few use incorrect DOB / Maiden names as their account details. A worrying story ATM is the apple case - what a precedent would set. Encryption would be worthless, forget Web based logins. Data is seemingly only relatively safe if it's not connected to the net. I always feel black is always in front of grey and white. It isn't scaremongering either.

Hi Shaun,

I think much of the 'social engineering' term now, is in relation to how much detail people give away on social media - Years ago, you might let slip down the pub, or to the wrong person that you're going on holiday and your house will be empty. How times have changed!!!

Folk need to be really careful - one false comment on FB / Twitter or the like and boom! If an email address is known, and as we know, forgotten password links are sent to email addresses -

Couple of tips for the average Joe - Never use your real DOB, Don't stick your real school as your first school - use incorrect maiden names etc, and most definitely, not only buy a shredder, but use the thing!!

People also don't always think of ID fraud - They think they would notice. If we ran through the bin of average Joe, got my hands on a recent bank statement- you could take over his life for approximately £30.

I won't go into exact details - but all is needed is Royal Mail.

You don't always need to know how to code to do damage.

-- Edited by abacus12345 on Wednesday 2nd of March 2016 03:17:04 PM

-- Edited by abacus12345 on Wednesday 2nd of March 2016 03:17:36 PM