When endowed with the task of choosing a QB hosting provider for your business, making the right decision is your absolute aim. Brand hunting at this stage is less likely to yield the desired results. The path to choosing the best QB hosting provider can be simplified by creating a checklist of the below mentioned characteristics and then selecting the perfect fit for your business.
Security
Security is one of the major concerns for business organizations when they consider keeping their confidential data over the cloud. Being suspicious over the services of providers is quite common. Compliance with security standards such as SAS 70 should be considered as obligatory. It is better to enquire in detail about the physical and virtual security measures that these service providers have implemented in their data centers. If the security constraints claimed by them are tight enough, sieve out the famous brands for further decision.
Reliability
Server performance and reliability of operations are the most critical factors in determining which QB hosting provider will be better for your business. Setup of redundant array of independent disks for fault-tolerance should be considered as an add-on. Make sure that the location of the servers is in areas that are free from the harmful effects of natural calamities. Server speed and uptime are essential to perform accounting operations seamlessly. Slow servers consume a lot of time and effort while updating transactional information and thus become the cause of frustration amongst the users.
Rolling Data Backup
While choosing your online QB hosting provider, make sure that your data is backed up at regular durations. Checkpoints in the database are introduced to make sure that the most recent update is committed to the database. Whenever data is lost due to any natural calamity or system failure, the records can be recovered till the time of last checkpoint. Most of the hosted service providers maintain consistent copies of client data at remote servers. Thus, in case of any problems, the data can be easily recovered from the backup copies of the remote servers.
Cost Efficiency
Hosting services reduce the expenditure in many ways. With hosted servers, the expenses incurred in setting up and maintaining the servers is eliminated. Where servers are maintained, setting up security measures is also an essential. Security implementation with CCTV cameras, biometric access, antivirus and intrusion detection systems also add up to considerable expenses. The cooling environment that is provided for server setup in data centers requires HVAC systems. Power consumption is also involved in premise-based systems. All these expenses are nullified in the case of hosted servers.
Scalability
Business accounting demands may suddenly rise by the end of financial year. There are many QB hosting providers that can lease licenses for a certain period of time. These licenses can be taken at the time when work load is too much and thus, multiple users can work on the same file consistently. Scalable plans offered by QB hosting providers allow the users to manage as many licenses as they want. Besides, they can opt for any number of hosted accounts depending on the business requirements.
Accessibility
QB hosting providers project data over remote servers. These services are independent of the time, place and device. The remote servers and QuickBooks application can be seamlessly accessed from any mobile media that supports 3G or Wi-Fi internet connectivity. There may be some service providers whose servers are difficult to be opened from mobile devices like iPad and iPhone. Make sure that the server speed and uptime are thoroughly checked during the trial period.
24x7 Support Services
Customer support is quite essential when using a hosted service. Since cloud is widespread and you may seek services from providers that are overseas, the need of 24x7 services is an essential. The time zones may vary since this service can be from anywhere all over the world. You should thus check the quality of support that the QB hosting providers' teams extend. If they fulfill the promise of round-the-clock support and deal with your issues or queries in a timely and satisfactory manner, then you may shortlist their services for final review.