Going public is an important milestone for any growing organization, but it is a large undertaking. Before an Initial Public Offering (IPO), business leaders have to consider the benefits, risks and costs of going public. They also have to consider the added complexity of financial management, reporting and compliance that operating in the public trading arena brings with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). Homegrown and entry level accounting software are not up to the task, but upgrading your software systems could interrupt business at a time when everything needs to be running smoothly. Using cloud software for publicly traded companies can help business move into an enterprise level accounting system with less down time and interruption to operations, for a more successful IPO.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software implementations are not known for being swift. In fact, they are better known for blowing deadlines and budgets. With a cloud based solution like hosted Microsoft Dynamics ERP, cloud software for publicly traded companies can be up and running in hours, and because its interface is the friendly Microsoft user experience we are already used to, employees need les training and get moving on the system more quickly.
The cloud is attractive because it can help streamline an ERP project and limit interruption to the business, but is staying compliant possible while going public in the cloud?
While many people remain skeptical about cloud security and compliance, finding a cloud ERP provider that focuses on serving highly regulated industries and publicly traded companies will ensure you get compliance friendly software and services for SOX compliance and any other regulatory requirements.
Intuitively we want to believe that the cloud is less secure than on premise systems because they are not physically locked in our building where we can see them. And of course recent breaches in the personal cloud storage space have not done much to assuage cloud doubt, but for enterprise systems the reality is that homegrown on-premises systems are shown to be much less secure than most cloud hosting operations. With state of the art protection, and round the clock security monitoring, enteprise cloud datacenters generally have better security than the Pentagon.
What’s more, cloud software for publicly traded companies does not have to stay in the cloud. When you host your ERP system through a trusted local technology partner, the partenr can help you seamlessly move from the cloud to on-premises as your organization’s needs change.
Once the system is in place, a leading software solution like Microsoft Dynamics ERP will offer industry leading audit trails, compliant workflows, user access limitations and user accountability to support any variety of compliance requirements. Plus rapid implementation, easy setup and hundreds of standard reports and predefined charts of accounts, makes it easy to hit the ground running with Dynamics ERP.
