Hosted desktop (also known as virtual desktop) has been a dominant technology within accountancy practices, for over a decade now.
Firms have come to enjoy the many benefits the cloud-based service provides them, and even as some practice applications have gone fully web-based, hosted desktop continues to be a pillar of the accountant’s IT platform.
In fact, in our 10 years+ of supplying hosted desktop services, we’re still seeing firms only now migrating from their legacy on-premise servers, to hosted desktop.
Straight from 70’s
The concept of hosted desktop (the centralisation of business applications and data), resembles the age-old hub and spoke design (remember the mainframes of the 70’s anyone?).
But it’s an engineering design that is just too appealing, for engineers and business owners alike – even in today’s modern age!
Needless to say, we’re likely to see hosted desktop remain within the accounting industry for many years yet (thankfully for us server surfers!).
What are accounting firms demanding today?
Whilst the industry is seeing increased demand for this kind of service, we’re also seeing accounting firms being more selective and looking for more competent and qualified hosted desktop suppliers.
These are accountancy practices that have already been using hosting for a number of years, but have drawn the conclusions that they require a provider that is;
- A specialist in the accounting industry
- A specialist hosted desktop provider.
You only have to google “hosted desktop” and you’ll see many providers that will happily take your money and provide you with a service.
Furthermore, perhaps your generalist local IT provider will resell you something from Microsoft Azure.
But these generalised providers, are they heavily invested within the accounting industry? Are they an absolute expert on hosted desktop? Often, they’re neither.
Speaking directly from distressed customers, let’s take a deeper look into why this matters;
When a provider isn’t an accounting sector specialist:
- Complex application updates from the likes of IRIS, CCH Central, Digita, Virtual Cabinet, TaxCalc and others, often go wrong.
- When issues arise with key practice software, knowledge from the hosted desktop provider is very limited.
- They do not have established relationships with these key software vendors, for prompt support.
- They do not appreciate the seriousness and time-sensitivity of tax season. It’s an abysmal time for service outages or creaking performance, yet it’s a common theme. One competitor that we know of, had three multi-hour outages in January 2024.
- Their unwillingness to perform application updates, off of peak hours. The impact this has on a ‘workforce on pause’ is huge.
- General workflows of an accounting practice; from printing and scanning, Microsoft 365 setup, client data and permissions.
When a provider isn’t a hosted desktop specialist
- Frequent outages and downtime to the service – when these hit, a large portion or all staff, are rendered offline.
- Poor performance of applications and general server response – put the delays together and it vastly erodes practice efficiency.
- Security breaches. (ransomware viruses or mailbox hi-jacks) – both awful in different ways and a cause of reputation damage for the firm.
- Poor technical support standards – when staff require prompt and efficient technical support, they’re speaking into an echo chamber.
- When you’re resold a Microsoft Azure-based service – spiralling costs due to a lack of general understanding by the provider, become unsustainable.
We have lost count of the number of firms for whom we’ve onboarded, owing to any number of these issues.
Of course, when you first subscribed to your current hosted desktop provider, the above issues might not have been a consideration or were covered by a polished sales team.
But like anything, it’s not until you become familiar with a service, that you further hone exactly what you require from it. That is to further poise your IT service provision, for your accounting practice.
An accountancy focussed, hosted desktop provider
So what is the answer here, do away with servers and hosted desktop altogether and exclusively use SaaS solutions? Well, that may be possible if you’re a small firm, but much more challenging for practices with over 15 staff using complicated practice management software. Plus you would lose all of the other benefits that come with hosted desktop.
In summary, the main reason accountancy practices struggle with their existing hosted desktop providers is that they are either:
- Not a hosted desktop specialist
- Not an accounting sector specialist
So imagine then if you could find a provider that is this niche within a niche…
How Cloud2Me can help your practice
We provide hosted desktop services specialising in just one sector, accounting. And we’ve been doing this for over a decade now and support over 500 firms throughout the UK.
You may not have heard of us before, but we’re like that little local restaurant which is a well-kept secret. To date, we’ve grown almost exclusively through word of mouth, primarily because:
- We’ve not suffered from any platform downtime, for 5+ years now.
- We’re frequently told by new customers, our server performance is blistering, compared to what they’ve been used to.
- Our close relationships with key accounting software vendors like TaxCalc, IRIS and Virtual Cabinet, is unparalleled.
- Our customer onboarding and migrations, are unbeaten, for smoothness and thoroughness. #nodowntime
- We’ve always stayed true to our word, not least on simple and transparent pricing.
But the overarching feedback we receive, time and again, is that it’s our technical support and close customer relationships which we build and nurture, that impresses our customers. And after a decade of providing our hosted desktop services, we’re proud to say we’ve never lost a customer due to service issues.
As you can probably tell, we are deeply passionate about both the accounting industry and technology. Fusing these two ingredients together has served us and our customers well over the past decade and we’re confident that it will for another.
Do you need to switch your hosted desktop provider?
So how well is your current hosted desktop provider, serving your accounting practice?
Are you receiving the service and support, which is enabling your practice to thrive? Or are you battling frustrations and the walking target of low staff morale? If the latter of these are true, drop us a line. Let us show you how we’ve quietly become the UK leader, for providing hosted desktop services to the accounting sector.
Written by Jack Twomey, Director at Cloud2Me
