It is generally accepted that few consumers really read terms of service agreements from beginning to end. Only 15% of customers read terms of service agreements completely, according to a 2015 poll by the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and another 15% said they only skimmed them. The other 70% of respondents claimed they had never read them.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that terms of service agreements can be extensive and complicated, and many users might not completely comprehend the ramifications of the terms they are committing to. Because of this, several businesses have written their Terms of Service in simple terms.
Not reading terms of service agreements can have both positive and negative effects. Some of the positive effects include, you can start using the service right away. The most common and dangerous benefit is, “Ignorance is bliss.”
Failure to read the Terms of Service will have the greatest effect on your understanding of your rights and obligations. Users that fail to read these agreements knowingly consent to terms that are inappropriate for their business system plan, which frequently has unanticipated repercussions.
My favorite cloud accounting company is Xero, not just for its efficiency and ease of use but for its straightforward communication. Xero’s terms of service are not written in the usual legalese that would either put you to sleep or leave you wondering why you didn’t pay more attention in law class.
Here’s how Xero lets you know about one of your responsibilities.
“Data loss is an unavoidable risk when using any technology. You’re responsible for maintaining copies of your data entered into our services.”
Every company, including Xero, QBO, MYOB, and Sage, stipulates in their Terms of Service that you must at a minimum, pay the invoice, abide by local regulations, and back up the data you enter onto their platform. It’s worthwhile to study Xero’s Terms of Service, which, according to a word search, specify eleven “responsibilities.”
We all know what happens when you don’t pay your bill but what happens when you don’t maintain backup copies of your data? A conversation between you and Xero might go like this.
You: Hi Xero, I see you had some downtime in the payroll module yesterday, when will it be back up and running?
Xero: Oh it’s back running right now, you’re free to use it right away, we apologize for any inconvenience.
You: That’s great but when I log in none of my employee’s information is there, I can see the payment history but not who was paid.
Xero: No problem, just load the employee information into the system from your backups. I have a simple video you can watch to see how to do it, can I send it to you?
You: But I didn’t make a backup, what can I do?
Xero: I can put you on our list to see if we can recover your information but it could take some time and there is no guarantee we can, or you can re-enter the information yourself. What would you prefer?
You: how long is the list?
Xero: it’s at 6524 and growing…
I know what you’re thinking, “this never happens.” In fact, it happens frequently, Xero even maintains a website specifically to let you know when there is a problem. https://status.xero.com/history
Maybe you’re also thinking that the other cloud providers don’t have this problem, think again. QBO also has a service outage page https://status.quickbooks.intuit.com/
You might be thinking, “cloud accounting might not be such a great idea,” hold that thought and let me quickly remind you of the simple benefits that mean time and money to your business. Accessibility, collaboration, automation, scalable, integration with other apps, and the big one…cost, it eliminates the need for expensive hardware IT support and software upgrades.
One last discussion before you go do your backups, all cloud accounting companies promise reasonable efforts to recover your data. So they make backups, without exception, every company backs up the platform, (now that’s a relief). You also are required to make reasonable efforts to protect and back up your data, it’s the law for any business holding personal private information, and it’s most likely a clause in your insurance policy.
What is reasonable? In cloud accounting platforms, “best efforts” depends on the complexity of the task and the resources available. So don’t worry, you can wait a few weeks to get your data back right?
In conclusion, what can you do to eliminate the dangerous secret of cloud accounting? Back up your Data! There are many ways to do it. Xero has a tutorial on how you can download the data and store it on your own computer or elsewhere in the cloud, (this takes between 12 and 18 minutes per file) or subscribe to an app partner and let them automate the process for you. That’s what we did, in fact, we built our own. Learn more about it and try it for free at https://wowzerbackupandrestore.com
