This past weekend we were notified by our building security that our office alarm went off.Instantly our thoughts were consumed by the physical assets we had in the office; our computers, printer, iPads and other hardware.But I was immediately put at ease when I thought about the most important piece to our business - our data.
Our data is backed up in the cloud. Many accounting firms are traditional in a sense that records, files and accounts are stored in filing cabinets and on local servers in the office. What would happen to your business if any of this proprietary information was breached?
So, how do we keep our accounting and mail data secure?
Xero - Offsite backups are run every 10 minutes, with data stored in secure spaces around the world & bank lelvel SSL security employed, just to name a few.
Google Apps Mail - Interactive Accounting uses the cloud based mail provided by Google, a server/iPad/Laptop breaking in house has no affect on access for our mail. We have Postini in place as our mail back up service for our google hosted mail server as a last resort.
Mozy Pro - Online, Offsite, Backups of local server stored data. This service is still in use as a backup to all data in our tax returns and has the highest security rating available.
Is this more secure then physical data kept in house?
People often view physical security as tighter than digital security. However, fire, sledgehammers and lockpickers are not able to get into your cloud. To be on par with the digital measures, you need, backups every 24 hours (at the least), multiple copies of this information stored offsite in different countries (at least 2 usually) and the ease of gaining a backed up copy of your data in sub 15 minutes (give or take).
Having worked at many other traditional accounting firms, I'm still yet to see an example of this being done anywhere near as effectively as the above.
Small Business Example
Just the other day we had an inquiry from a business owner in Sydney's CBD, who kept all the businesses financial data on his laptop. Whilst serving a customer, this was stolen. As the tax year has only just ended, they have lost a full years worth of accounting data (not to mention personal data, copies of contracts etc. etc.).
Interactive Accounting is coming to the rescue along with Cloud Adapt to get this small business re established in the cloud and get them back on track.
Conclusion
Is the cloud more secure? The small business owner above now thinks so. What do you think?
