Productivity is the name of the game. The more productive you are, the more you earn. Or stated another way: Time is money. Right, we acknowledge that the use of email has brought about a revolution in the way we work. But…
we still have to produce documents, reports, payments, contracts, in fact-reams of paper. We still have to enter the information, numbers, names, addresses, transactions which produces the documents, reports, payments etc. And once the information has been entered, we need to access it, consider it and take action on the basis thereof. Where does all of this take place? At the office of course where we are anywhere between 8 and 5 every day.
We could be more productive if there is no pressing need to be at the office to do our work. It would be nice if we could work at any time and at any place. This is now possible and at super speeds.
There are already about 100 attorney firms working online in what is known as “cloud computing” and using our systems. They like it very much All staff members can work at any time and in any place. This is especially useful to female staff members who also have the burden of running a household. And how about all those freelance bookkeepers who want to avoid travelling and want to do their work at irregular hours?
There is one drawback. Our cloud server is in Randburg and if the Internet is slow, and even a reasonably fast server does not help. The results are usually slow on a 3G connection. The possibilities are: Speed up the Internet at increased cost, or install a SSD (Solid State Drive) hard drive on the server (at a once off higher cost). We did the latter for one of our customer firms. The improvement in speed was phenomenal, even on a 3G connection. The ladies report that responses are immediate and not even seconds are wasted. They are able to work at home, at school (in the car waiting for the children), in the waiting room of the doctor, advocate, the airport and even while talking to mother on the phone.
And if they print a document, the printouts are waiting in the printer when she gets to the office at a time that is convenient to her.
Our numbers show a substantial increase in productivity. Turnover and profit is up. The backlog of work is less. Stress is non-existent or reduced. Cloud computing combined with a SSD hard drive is a great leap forward.
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