Xcentric: Managed Services, Cloud for Small Accounting Firms

There are roughly 45,000 accounting firms in the United States, and about 40,000 of those firms have 10 employees or less. Xcentric, an MSPmentor 100 company, likes those numbers. Until now, Xcentric focused on larger accounting firms. But within two months or so, the company will more aggressively engage small business accounting firms.

So far, details are sketchy. But the effort will certainly involve cloud computing. “About 85 to 90 percent of our business involves cloud computing,” said Xcentric CEO Trey James. “We manage all of our clients’ data in the cloud. We’re their IT branch in that we manager their server and applications.”

James concedes: Contracting Xcentric to hand IT work costs a company about the same amount of money as it would to hire a full-time IT specialist. The real cost savings involves IT infrastructure — servers and other applications that customers no longer need to “buy” when they engage with Xcentric. “We eliminate all IT labor, hardware and network infrastructure with the exception of end-points like laptops, desktops and printers,” said James.

Outsourcing IT to Xcentric also allows accounting companies to focus on their core businesses rather than IT. “Most small businesses didn’t choose to become technology companies,” he said. “They’re focused in an individual space, like health care or accounting or something else.”

Generally speaking, I think Xcentrix will offer greater cloud customization to large customers, and a more standardized cloud package to small business customers. I’ll check back in with James and the Xcentric team once the offering is available and pass along the details accordingly.

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