When you are moving your QuickBooks Enterprise solution to cloud hosting, it is obvious that you are looking for remote access and secure execution. However, this is only possible when you select the right cloud hosting provider.
Using the wrong provider for your QuickBooks Enterprise hosting only means that you are paying to keep your software on a server, which hackers can penetrate. So, it is not really safer than your office PC.
To fully extract the benefits of the cloud and select the right QuickBooks hosting provider, you need to ask the following questions. Find a series of QuickBooks providers, shortlist a few based on user reviews, and then ask them these questions. Fully understand what you are getting into to comprehensively improve your QuickBooks performance with this hosting.
Let’s see what these questions are.
Top 10 Questions for your QuickBooks Enterprise Provider
QuickBooks Enterprise is one of the most important applications for businesses. Without the feasibility of accessing this application remotely and securely accessing its data, business efficiency can decrease. For this reason, enterprises move their QuickBooks applications to the cloud.
Here are a few questions that you should ask your provider before making a decision.
1. How Do You Manage Your Data Security Services?
The most important aspect of your QuickBooks hosting is data security. Hence, this is the first thing you need to clarify. You should look for the following:
- Server security controls, such as automated bots for intrusion detection.
- Other controls like firewall and multi-factor authentication.
- The regime for regular data audits.
You need to know how well your QuickBooks hosting provider manages your data. They should do so in a reliable manner to ensure security. For example, no outsider should be allowed to peek into your data at any cost.
Apart from the above factors, it is necessary to consider physical security. The servers should be securely placed, the actual hardware servers of the provider.
2. What Are The Availability Pricing Plans?
Who wouldn’t love a cost-effective deal? We all do!
QuickBooks is a robust software for small and medium businesses. Considering the size of your business, you may not be able to spend too much money on hosting or its management. Therefore, you need to weigh your choices before making a decision.
- Ideally, your provider should be flexible in offering you a custom package; according to your business needs.
- Your bill should not include additional charges that you have never discussed in person.
- Your bill should not include hidden charges or ambiguous charges, which are not in the contract.
- Lastly, you should get a package that contains pricing for the services you are acquiring.
3. What Is Your Promised Uptime?
Every QuickBooks provider promises a certain uptime to the user. This uptime is generally 99.999% for most of the providers.
You should get it. It is the standard uptime trend today.
If you are getting any less than that, then you should not choose this provider. Compromising on this front will only increase your hassle, which will lead to work discontinuity and a decrease in your performance.
4. Can You Offer Downtime History?
Every hosting provider has sufficient data on their downtime history. Of course, they promise 99.99% uptime, as discussed above, but there’s no avoiding this situation.
As a result, at some point, your provider is expected to experience downtime. But how frequently this happens matters?
You need to look at the past history of downtime to analyze how frequently the server is down and how much potential damage it can cause to you in terms of hours wasted.
Once you have analyzed this, understand what is an acceptable bar here.
5. Do You Have Customer Support?
When you are moving to the cloud, support should be your major consideration. It is because if you are going to access your data on the cloud for the first time, support is more important than ever.
Your provider should offer you optimum services and support related to software, hardware, architecture, uptime, backup, etc.
- 24/7 availability
- Technical support
- Weekend support
- Quick turnaround time
6. Which Versions Do You Host?
Your QuickBooks hosting provider should have experience in managing every QuickBooks version, such as QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Accountant, and Enterprise. They should have a compatible structure to handle all types of QuickBooks software.
If your provider doesn’t have this expertise, you may have to change your provider when you upgrade your QuickBooks Enterprise software.
7. Do You Regularly Back Up Data?
Your provider is supposed to regularly back up your data on all servers that are storing your data. This is a crucial task, which saves you from unwanted events—for example, system failure.
Fortunately, this is generally included in your package. Almost every QuickBooks hosting provider automatically backs up your data to remote servers without any notice. You should get this service for a feasible recovery in the future.
Check if this requirement is included in your SLA or contract.
8. Do You Offer Access Control?
With cloud, you should get to choose who can view which data file. For example, the access of managers can be different from the access of marketing employees. You should be able to control this access through QuickBooks Enterprise cloud hosting service. Access control is necessary to conduct business seamlessly. There’s no compromising in this factor.
9. What’s Your Plan for Disaster Recovery?
Another thing that you should clarify with your provider is their disaster recovery plan.
When unwanted events happen, what will your provider do to ensure you have access to your data?
For example, a natural disaster has hampered the server you were accessing.
In this case, how will you get access to your data?
Clarify the process lifecycle in this case. You should know the procedure, how long it will take, and what measures you need to take in these cases.
10. Do You Offer Free Trial?
When you have clarified every requirement, and checked the services, ask them for a trial. You can never know the actual feasibility of using the cloud until you use it.
Hence, ask for a trial to understand if this is the right package for you.
Here’s what you can consider:
- How much they stand up to their promises.
- If they are actually offering what is included in an SLA.
- The efficiency of accessing data.
- Security of data.
- Support and guidance that are offered.
Conclusion
Think about it, you are going to hand over your important data to the QuickBooks hosting provider. This would contain details of your clients and their sensitive information.
Are you really willing to compromise this information?
Of course not, right?
So, make the right decision by closely scrutinizing your hosting provider. Use the above questions to understand the services and efficiency of your provider.