Secure public cloud solutions – Allworths Chartered Accountants

Allworths Charted Accountants is a leading accounting, audit and wealth advisory group based in Sydney. Operating for over 120 years, they are a firm that have been on the cutting edge of technology for a long time, with their first foray into the cloud happening over a decade ago.

Change leaders

Allworths have always been a firm who are ahead of the curve and can see the value of staying ahead of current trends in the accounting industry.

After seeing the benefits for their firm, Allworths decided to move their practice management software from MYOB AE to Xero. With this move this meant that all of their applications were now cloud based, but historic data still needed to be stored and protected somewhere.

Strategic Group and Allworths worked together to come up with a strategic technology roadmap that would enable Allworths to securely manage their data and move to a public cloud solution.

Secure public cloud

Moving to a public cloud platform comes with many options for application integrations that create powerful workflows and processes but it does come with a higher security risk if not managed correctly.

We implemented a security application called Okta to allow Allworths to not only connect securely to their public cloud but to also manage all their staff logins and permissions to different applications.

One of the big security issues with public cloud, is the threat of staff retaining access to applications when they leave employment. This can happen if they have created their own logins or have their login details saved to password managers that remember and apply those login details automatically.

Okta allows Allworths to manage their staff’s login details for all their applications through one login portal, which means staff only need to remember one password and Allworths can turn off their access to all applications as soon as they cease employment with the flick of a switch.

Single sign on is not only a great security initiative for Allworths but it also means staff can login to their applications in one step, don’t have to waste time resetting forgotten passwords and have all their applications ready to go for the day.

Continuing support

Moving to a public cloud solution for Allworths was based around finding the most efficient and productive solutions for their firm. It’s important to remember that moving away from private cloud or on-site servers does not necessarily ensure a more cost effective solution.

For Allworths this meant an increase in support costs but a decrease in the cost of managing hosting. As they had moved their practice management software from MYOB AE to Xero this had a further reduction on costs.

To move to a public cloud environment, Allworths needed to invest in updating their devices and replacing thin clients with laptops.

Life in public (cloud)

For Allworths moving to a public cloud platform has allowed them to stay ahead of the curve and continue to be an early adopter of technology in the accounting industry.

Cyber security is one of the main risk factors for public cloud and being able to implement Okta as a security solution has allowed Allworths to retain the benefits of public cloud while remaining secure.