For accounting firms

Cloud for accounting firms.

Two reasons a firm calls. The partners are merging or retiring and the client files have to stay reachable. Or the server closet is due and nobody wants to buy another one. Both start with the same question: which workload goes where.

Book a 30-minute discovery call

Which one are you?

Most firms are clearly one or the other. The work, the timeline, and the cost are different, so we ask first.

We’re merging or retiring

For firms whose systems need a dated ending, not an upgrade.

What has to stay true

  • Working papers and archives stay reachable for the whole retention period your regulator and the CRA require
  • Someone holds the keys after the last partner leaves
  • Each system is wound down or handed over on a date, not left running
  • Renewals are stopped, not quietly auto-renewed
  • A written record of where every client file lives

What we do

  • Inventory of systems, data, and who depends on them
  • Retention map: what must be kept, for how long, in what form
  • Handover or wind-down plan, agreed with the successor firm where there is one
  • Execution alongside your MSP, then a closure record you keep

We’re ready to leave the server closet

For firms that will keep practising and want the server gone.

The per-workload decision

  • Caseware Cloud where it fits the engagement mix
  • Hosted desktop only where a workload still needs Windows — TaxCycle, older line-of-business tools
  • Microsoft 365 and SharePoint for files, email, and collaboration
  • Retire the server rather than move it to a VM and call it cloud

What we do

  • Workload inventory and one decision per workload, written down
  • Sequencing around tax season
  • Cutover with your MSP doing the hands-on work
  • Decommission and a document you own

The workload that keeps firms on a server

TaxCycle in the cloud

TaxCycle is desktop software. In our reference design it does not need a domain controller; it needs a Windows desktop staff can reach, a fast file share for its data, and a backup that has been restored at least once. Two ways to give it that.

Azure Virtual Desktop, Entra-joined

Pooled Windows sessions, profiles in FSLogix on Azure Files.

What it needs

  • A qualifying Microsoft 365 licence per user (we confirm what you already hold first)
  • Azure consumption, billed by Microsoft directly to the firm’s own subscription
  • In our reference design, no Active Directory Domain Services when TaxCycle is the only server-bound workload

Where it fits

  • Firms that expect to grow or add seasonal staff
  • Firms that want patching and scaling handled by the platform

A single Windows Server RDS VM

One server in Azure, Remote Desktop Services, three to five users.

What it needs

  • RDS client access licences per user
  • More hands-on care: patching, one VM as the single point of failure, capacity by hand
  • Azure consumption, again billed by Microsoft to the firm

Where it fits

  • Very small firms with a stable headcount
  • Firms that already run Windows Server and want the smallest change

  1. Oct – mid-Jan

    Migration window

    • Build
    • Pilot with two users
    • Cut over
    • Decommission

  2. Feb – June

    No cutovers

    • Change freeze through tax season
    • Monitoring and readiness only

  3. July – Sept

    Plan and procure

    • Inventory and decisions
    • Licence check and budget approval
    • MSP lined up

Plan the hosted-desktop layer on a one-to-two-year horizon: long enough to justify the setup, short enough to revisit when TaxCycle’s own roadmap or the firm’s shape changes.

Done before

The reference migration

As the technology executive at a Toronto-area chartered professional accounting firm, Roger migrated the firm to Azure Virtual Desktop with Azure Files and FSLogix profile containers, and stood up Veeam- and Zerto-based disaster recovery with defined RPO/RTO and validated failover. Twenty years of senior IT leadership, PMP and MBA. About Roger →

Not an accounting firm? The same per-workload method works for any small or mid-sized business leaving the server closet.

Leaving the server closet

Talk before you buy another server.

A 30-minute call. We will say which path fits, and if the honest answer is to stay put another year, you will hear that too.

  • PMP Certified
  • MBA, Information Technology
  • 20+ Years Senior IT Leadership
Book a 30-minute discovery call [email protected]