QuickBooks users, is it better to maintain your own server computer or pay a third-party hosting company to do it for you? There are five main reasons it may be a good idea to use a third-party QuickBooks hosting solution:
Accessibility
If your server is only accessible by computers that are physically connected to it, then accessibility to the server is extremely limited. That doesn’t allow for working from home or any other location besides the office. If the power goes out at the office where your server is running, or something else happens to disrupt the flow of information, no one will be able to access the server.
A third-party hosting solution, on the other hand, can be accessed remotely and is much more likely to be up at all times. Depending on the quality of the solution you go with, you could enjoy an uptime as high as 99.98 percent. Plus, most hosting solutions have failsafe and backup systems in place in the event of an emergency or power outage that would otherwise cause a data disruption.
Technology Updates
Staying on top of the latest hardware and software updates is a big challenge for small businesses. Not only is it expensive to have to upgrade on a regular basis, but it takes your attention away from your core competency that your customers are most interested in.
Wouldn’t you rather have this challenge taken care of for you? With the right server hosting provider, you’ll always have access to the fastest server technology. You don’t have to pay for frequent technology upgrades. That is done for you by a third party so that you can focus on what you do best.
Security
Being in charge of your own cyber security means you personally need to always stay one step ahead of thieves who would break through and steal your information if given the chance. It’s all on you. Do you know software and hardware security protocols well enough to keep your QuickBooks file safe and secure? If not, you might want to consider leaving it to the experts.
You gain access to advanced encryption and other security measures by using a third-party hosting solution. Simple hosting solutions offer Intrusion Detection Systems that passively collect data on threats. More advanced solutions offer Intrusion Prevention Systems, which proactively seek out threats that might already be trying to get in, and they block those threats’ IP addresses and take other measures to prevent data breaches. With this security system in place, you have state-of-the-art security to keep your data safe at all times.
Data Backups
What would happen if you had a hardware malfunction that caused you to lose some or all of your QuickBooks data? Do you have a contingency plan in place? Avoiding data loss often requires painstaking preventative measures, such as manually saving your data on a daily or weekly basis on an external hard drive or other computer separate from your main server. That way, if you suffer a catastrophic failure, there’s still a chance to recover what was lost.
With a third-party hosting solution, you don’t have to worry about manually backing up files. That is done for you on a regular basis so that if you run into a problem and some essential data gets lost or corrupted, it’s not gone forever. There will likely be a backup that can be restored in short order. And this is all handled for you offsite and automatically. Can you imagine the time and stress this kind of system would eliminate?
Cost Savings
A full-time IT manager or a team of IT professionals are not exactly cheap to have on hand. Depending on the size of your business, you might not be able to justify the cost of having a complex IT system in your workplace.
What if you didn’t need to hire an IT manager full time, or you could free up your IT manager’s time to do more important tasks? A server hosting solution can take a lot of the IT work off your plate so that you don’t have to focus on server maintenance, security, accessibility, and everything else we’ve discussed above. By cutting out these costs, you can easily save far more money than you spend on the server hosting solution.
Get Started Today
Quarium is the best QuickBooks hosting solution on the market, offering all of the advantages listed above at a better value than any competitor. Sign up for a quick demo of Quarium to see how it can benefit your business specifically.