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What is Cloud Accounting and why is it awesome? - YouTube
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what is cloud accounting and why is it
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awesome so the cloud is like this
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mystical thing right you know we keep
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hearing about it it's in pop culture
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what exactly is the cloud well it's not
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a mystical thing and I'm going to show
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you that in just a couple minutes so my
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name is Chris Harvey Sean with soar a
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better way CPA by all means if you have
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any questions during this presentation
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please ask if you're watching this on
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recording please go back add your
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questions to the comments I'm always
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happy to go back and answer questions
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from folks who have viewed my videos so
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let's start what is the cloud I pulled
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this definition straight from the
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Microsoft Azure website and I will read
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it because I think it's important but
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essentially it's a term used to describe
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a global network of servers each with a
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unique function these servers are
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designed to either store and manage data
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run applications or deliver content or a
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service such as streaming videos web
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mail office productivity software or
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social media instead of accessing files
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and data from a local or personal
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computer you are accessing them online
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from any internet capable device now
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what I think about when I read this
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definition is the first accounting firm
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that I worked at out of college we had a
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server sitting in the closet literally
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and that kind of fed the the internet
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and all of our applications internally
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in the firm now when we move to the
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cloud what you have is are these things
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called server farms or data centers
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where basically you've got a bunch of
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servers located in one location and
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those servers are being shared by tons
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of different people different companies
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things like that so that's kind of what
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I think about it's a difference of
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yesterday and today right all right so
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what is cloud accounting and I wrote my
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own definition and again I think it's
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important to go ahead and read this to
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just kind of convey it this but my
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definition of cloud accounting and it's
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if you're going to Google it you're
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gonna find different definitions but
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here is my definition this is the way
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that soar operates we operate based off
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of this exact definition this is how I
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deliver services to Mike
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clients but here it goes the
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simultaneous leveraging of an
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internet-based
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general ledger in other words accounting
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software application and internet-based
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business applications for the seamless
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collection combination and processing of
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financial data cloud accounting is the
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development and use of an internet-based
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ecosystem for a company's financial data
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cloud accounting is not the use of a
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software accessed via a remote desktop
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or screen sharing software nor is it the
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storage of financial data online without
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the connection of and use by other
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internet-based financial applications
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what does this mean so what this means
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is the difference of in cloud accounting
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is using quickbooks online versus
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QuickBooks desktop that's one piece of
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it the next effort the next piece of
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this is hey you know I go well let me
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backtrack here but I go to these
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accounting conferences firms talk about
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oh yeah we're on the cloud yeah we've
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got access to cloud yada yada yeah
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sometimes the definitions for what what
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those firms are saying varies widely
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so some firms will think that their
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cloud-based accounting firms just
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because they've got remote desktop
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software that can they can remote into
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the their clients desktop application
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some of them think it's as simple as
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having Dropbox which is that that's not
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it
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it's not it at all so my definition of
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cloud accounting is the delivery of
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service or delivery of services or of an
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accounting function with a within an
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ecosystem so various different apps all
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connected all talking to each other in
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order to deliver your company's
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financial product ok and I'm gonna talk
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a little bit more about that so one of
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the questions I got when I was preparing
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these slides X actually I was talking to
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a friend of mine and the question was
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well like where where is the cloud and
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this is it the answer is it's everywhere
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it's an advice I was saying a couple
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minutes ago it's in these data centers
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right and so here is the map from Amazon
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Amazon Web Services is probably one of
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the biggest suppliers of the cloud
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they're huge
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right they even supply the the service
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for the US government and so this is
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their map from their website on and it's
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linked in the
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in the shownotes of their global
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infrastructure so as you can see it's
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everywhere and there are pockets of
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concentrations in Europe America Asia
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but you know all over the place so this
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these are their data centers and these
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data centers I think it's safe to say
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are providing a very significant chunk
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of the Internet
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to the citizens of the world okay so the
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next question is well can AWS be
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deployed locally so these applications
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are using AWS right as their back-end
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you know cloud provider and you know
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you're probably wondering well you know
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if you're developing this application is
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that going to be hosted in your using
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AWS is gonna be hosted everywhere is
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gonna be hosted locally can you decide
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Wow here is Amazon subscription cut and
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copied from their website and their
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answer to that question so what it says
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here and I highlighted it customers can
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share their interest for local region
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delivery request service roadmap
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information or gain insight on service
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independently and you got a sign an NDA
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of course right but what this says
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basically is if you're going to deploy
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AWS free application then you can
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request that your deployment is deployed
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locally so if you have a us-based
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application you can theoretically based
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on this language request that AWS only
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use us-based services so your data is
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not going and you know over yonder
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somewhere so back to cloud accounting
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how popular is cloud accounting and this
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is a quarter post that I did a couple
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months ago I basically just pulled the
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figure straight out of the Intuit
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quarterly report I believe is what it
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was based on the date and it shows that
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cloud accounting is really really
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popular now I think the best use case or
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best example here is to compare
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quickbooks online to QuickBooks desktop
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everybody knows quickbooks we've got the
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data for both products this is a simple
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comparison so as of the fall or late
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fall early winter of 2018 quickbooks
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online had 3.6 million users QuickBooks
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desktop 500,000 users okay that's that's
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a huge difference the vast majority of
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QuickBooks users are
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in fact online so cloud accounting I
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would venture to say is gaining traction
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it is the way of the future so again
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when we think about cloud accounting
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remember I talked about the ecosystem
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well the ecosystem means apps other apps
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is so quickbooks plus whatever so this
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is an article I believe this is also
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from November but quickbooks past
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quickbooks online they're after they've
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got to afterwards one online one desktop
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and again i think this is the best kind
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of use case as far as showing the
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contrast between desktop and online
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because they've got two separate app
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stores two separate applications okay
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this is a great this is a great example
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so there's over 600 apps sitting in the
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quickbooks online app store 600 ok
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business applications 600 of them what
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about desktop well if you go and you
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actually go to the QuickBooks desktop
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app store it shows you there on the Left
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how many different apps are in each of
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these categories right it's about 200 so
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the online app store is about 3x the
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size of the desktop app store so we've
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got 3.6 million users on online plus 600
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apps 500 thousand users on desktop plus
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200 apps that's pretty powerful
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now cloud accounting why it's awesome
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this is the part that I love and talk
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about the ecosystem right because it
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allows for automation now this is a
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screenshot directly from zapier if you
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go and you search for QuickBooks you
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will see the only result that you get is
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quickbooks online you do not get
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QuickBooks desktop so if you think about
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the thousands and thousands of apps on
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zapier and if you're not using zapier i
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it'll change your world I promise go
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check it out it's cheap and it's a great
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way to automate workflows in your
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business but you'll notice there's no
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QuickBooks desktop here so if you got
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any of these number of app these
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thousands of apps are using in your
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business or even personally and you want
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to automate workflows this is one of the
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best places to start it's similar to
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Microsoft flow it's another good one
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automate that IO it's another good one
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but all of these different automation
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services and that's what zapier is can
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connect to QuickBooks Online and then
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you can connect these various apps
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together without code no code
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and that's important drag-and-drop
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drop-down type boxes super easy now if
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you are a coder if you do know how to
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code QuickBooks Online has an API the
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various cloud applications a lot of them
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have api's you can connect them yourself
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so if these integrations aren't built
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you can go build one yourself feel free
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knock yourself out but you know if
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you're using some of the more commonly
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used applications in your business and
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you have a cloud accounting software as
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kind of the hub think about a think of
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it think about it as a hub-and-spoke
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type deal the hub is going to be your
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cloud accounting software and the spokes
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are going to be your different business
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applications that kind of circle around
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that and talk to your accounting
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software so you can combine data ok I
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think that's a pretty good visual and
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you know you can really only accomplish
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that online not so much desktop like
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it's definitely not in the in the robust
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way that you can online so cloud
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accounting allows for automation as I
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said if Xavier being the best example
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these are a bunch of different apps I
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pulled this slide from a YouTube live
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that I did a few months back where I
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showed a use case of how cloud
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accounting works how I'm using it in my
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business and by cloud accounting I do
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mean accounting software plus different
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business applications ok and user this
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is stuff that I'm sure that a lot of you
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use all the time
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formstack Evernote Google Forms Google
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sheets and in that video I connect a
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couple of the hub spots on here and in
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that video I connect a couple of those
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straight to QuickBooks I'll show you how
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the workflow goes there you go this is
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the video that I did a couple of months
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back is embedded inside of the slide
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deck the slide deck is going to be
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available on Google slides and also on
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SlideShare so it's also on this video
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obviously is also on my youtube channel
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so feel free to go take a look at that
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but it'll show you an actual example and
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I walk through how to put it together of
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how you can connect these various apps
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with QuickBooks and you know do
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something similar in your business it's
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basically meant as a thought exercise I
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thought expansion exercise so this is
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what I do think about you know what I do
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and then the
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context of your business okay that's
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basically without videos trying to say
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so again the bet in the best use case
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quickbooks online because it's so widely
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used as far as accounting software goes
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but where is the quickbooks online cloud
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and this is copied straight out of the
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into it into its the parent company of
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quickbooks annual report and i will read
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this because again i think it's really
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important but says we continue to
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execute on a multi-year plan to
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transition the system's networks and
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databases required to operate these
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online offerings to Amazon Web Services
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so quickbooks online the biggest
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probably most widely use small business
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accounting software packages Amazon Web
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Services we already talked about Amazon
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Web Services where they service where
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their servers are yada yada yada
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so I continue currently several of our
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core online offerings are using AWS the
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remaining online offerings are housed in
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data centers located in geographically
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diverse locations so into it and there's
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are portions of the animal report we're
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into it talks about they've got some
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data centers that they operate
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themselves one of them I believe is in
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Texas and they just sold one in
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Washington but a lot of their a lot of
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their offerings were sitting on AWS so
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that's why that Amazon piece is
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important that I talked about a couple
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minutes ago so I know this has probably
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been on your mind since you tuned into
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this but how secure is the cloud and the
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actual answer is well depends right the
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best piece of advice that I would give
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is if you were gonna implement
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cloud-based applications into your
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business you should do your research so
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a lot of these applications of your on
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their website they'll tell you about
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their security measures or
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certifications yada yada yada
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I think that's important to read and
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it's important understand so the
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questions that I would ask are what
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level of encryption are you using in
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your application what different
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certifications do you have how what
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back-end data center you are using are
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using AWS how how are those centers
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secured if they're not AWS even if they
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are AWS I think maybe go research and
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see how they're secured I know something
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I was reading about either it was either
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on the AWS website or is on the Intuit
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report I don't recall but says the
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data centers are secured by you know
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like physical security so what does that
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mean these are all important questions
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to ask me I think you have to consider
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it on a application by application basis
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I would say do your research reach out
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to the reps ask questions but get
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comfortable with it and the other thing
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that I'll say is when you move to the
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cloud basically what you're doing is
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you're outsourcing your security right
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now if you're sitting in your office and
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you've got QuickBooks desktop sitting on
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either a server that's in your office or
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sitting on your desk top of your
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computer
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well that can get hacked too right
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there's people everywhere trying to hack
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everything so you what you're doing in
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that scenario is you're on loading the
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data security of your firm or your
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company and so you know I think you need
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to ask the question look these
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applications that I'm using or want to
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use they're taking these measures to
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secure my data here are the measures
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that I'm taking to secure my data who's
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better good question but you've got to
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consider that for yourself all right
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so user my Jack Handey final deep
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thoughts I did realize when I was
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putting together this slide that the
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Jack Handey things that probably dates
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me it's S&L a reference but those skits
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are awesome anyway go check him out on
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YouTube anyway so the first point cloud
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accounting is the way of the present and
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the future present meaning look at the
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number of users who are on the cloud
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look at the number of users who you're
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using desktop the cloud accounting is
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much much larger okay it's the way of
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the future we're not putting the genie
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back in the bottle it's not happening so
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it's inevitable and all accounting
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software and service providers move to
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the cloud that's that's absolutely gonna
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happen you know when we think about
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machine learning AI yada yada yada those
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things are all mended by the use of the
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cloud remember I talked about how we can
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connect these different applications and
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things like that access to data 24/7
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access yada yada yada well box that -
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those things are all made easier and
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more robust by the use of the cloud and
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so that Genie is absolutely positively
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not going back in the bottle and you'll
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see you'll see that
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topics in the news all the time they're
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all interrelated so number two the cloud
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rule of the cloud allows for increased
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automation and data connectivity I just
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talked about that API is the use of
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zapier different automation software's
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things like that and number three so
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this is my final point but generally
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cloud software is secure but do your due
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diligence do your own due diligence read
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the security terms on the websites I've
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included the one for QuickBooks Online
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in this slide deck you'll see that on
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the next slide it's gonna be also it's
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also going to be in the show notes so
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it's important to read it's interesting
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quite frankly but then that allows you
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to compare quickbooks online to
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different apps different apps to each
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other yeah yeah a yachtie
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but educate yourself you want to be
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asking what level of encryption is the
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software provide where the data centers
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are they using ATO USA now using AWS so
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using Microsoft cloud this is a
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different service provider who knows but
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ask the question it's important to
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understand because then you can
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understand the security and then does
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the company have any sort of
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certifications talked about that as well
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and then remember your desktop computer
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and your homebrew server can be hacked
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as well so do you want to end source for
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your data security you want to outsource
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today's security who's going to do a
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better job you have the resources to
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insource it and do as well do it as well
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as a cloud provider account you gotta
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answer that for yourself so here are the
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resources for today's show the link to
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the YouTube live presentation will be in
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here because I'm gonna post these slides
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out to SlideShare and Google slides
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it's my website and then these are the
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various articles that I referenced in
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this presentation as well and so let's
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connect Chris better way CPA com eight
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four three six oh eight oh two nine
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eight that's the phone number you can
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find me on Facebook Linked in Twitter
[1033]
croire
[1034]
Instagram Pinterest so basically every
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we're happy to connect answer questions
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if you like this video please like it
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and share it that helps me to build my
[1043]
audience and also to build my business
[1045]
and I really appreciate it and also
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helps me to figure out what kind of
[1047]
content that y'all want I want to see
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going forward so I really appreciate it
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thanks for watching and I will see you
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next time
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