Accountants Head to the Cloud

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is pushing to accelerate adoption of cloud solutions among its 350,000 members, focusing especially on small and midmarket companies as well as CPA firms. The AICPA's first official endorsement of a cloud vendor, payroll-solutions provider Paychex, came several years ago but it has rolled out more such partnerships with increasing frequency, including with bill.com for invoice management and payment in 2008, financial management and accounting software maker Intacct a year ago, and tax-automation supplier Copanion at year-end 2009. The pitch is that the cloud offers a steep drop in information-technology costs, since applications are hosted by the vendors and provided on demand, rather than via physical installations or seat licenses. (Read the article "Accountants Head to the Cloud" at CFO Magazine online and review the white paper 10 Questions to ask about Cloud Computing.)