Peachtree in the cloud

A client of mine uses Peachtree Complete Accounting. They needed a solution for the following set of circumstances:

• The bulk of their accounting and bookkeeping work is done by an independent accountant, who generally works from home.
• Historically, the accountant would come into the client’s office on weekends to work on the computer that had Peachtree installed.
• The accountant no longer wants to work on weekends.
• The computer that was traditionally reserved for the accountant needs to be used occasionally by other office staff. So giving the accountant remote access to this computer from home would not be a sufficient resolution. We could not guarantee remote access whenever the accountant needed it.
• The manager of the business occasionally needed access to the accounting system from her laptop, which she travels with frequently.

I checked with Sage Software to see what options were available. As it turns out, there is an entirely cloud-based version of Peachtree, called ePeachtree. However, the cloud-based product has some limitations, and unfortunately those limitations are only hinted at on the web site. Furthermore, there is a custom conversion process for businesses trying to migrate from the desktop version to ePeachtree. It sounded too risky.

Peachtree offers a hybrid solution as well, called Peachtree Web Accounting. This service requires the traditional desktop product to be installed first. It then synchronizes the data between the desktop and the cloud and allows remote users to work on the data through a web interface. The remote users won’t get 100% of the functionality of the desktop product, but the idea is to include enough functionality for the typical remote user, including an independent accountant.

My client is going to give Peachtree Web Accounting a shot. I’ll let you know how it works out.