Server for accountancy company

Randall8686 · 29 Sep 2017 at 17:05

My other half is setting up her own accountancy company, so she is going to need a secure server to store clients accounts. maybe host a sage server and generally back lots of important data up. She is likely to have a few members of staff relatively quickly if only part time working on some of these documents remotely. I want to try and keep all the data in house rather than use a cloud service.

So my questions are what OS would you use ? I have a IBM TS140 with a xeon that i use to play with and personally found the xpenology to be amazingly fun but this needs to be a secure "genuine" product so i can get support should anything go wrong. she will need access to files remotely too. Im thinking of hiring a IT company to set this up initially and provide suport when needed but want to do as much as i can myself and learn as i go. Im not an idiot and can happily set up VM's configure networks etc.

So what OS ?
what brand of server ? i hear dell's support is great.
How much power do i need ?
Ideally i want this to be rack mount.
What backup solution should i use? im thinking the Server in the house in a small rack along with UPS Switches etc. then a backup in the Garage just in case the house burnt down etc.

blueboy2001 · 29 Sep 2017 at 20:30

Servers at home aren't generally a good idea. They're noisy, they consume a lot of power, generate a lot of heat and it doesn't look very professional IMO.

Then there's the upfront cost of hardware, racks, licences, backup kit etc. As an accountancy practice you'll need to keep records for 7 years with proof they haven't been altered.

If you don't want to go to a public cloud provider, you might be better looking at a hosted desktop provider. They'll provide servers, licenses, backups, secure remote access and anything else you need on a per user per month basis so no upfront costs all hosted in an ISO 27001 data centre, and if you choose the right provider they'll support your apps as well. The company I work do this for a lot of accountants and other professional services practices from a few seats to several hundred users.

Randall8686 · 29 Sep 2017 at 23:13

I was trying to avoid anything cloud as currently she uses Citrix and is absolutely hurrendous, this is a remote or hosted desktop. Its slow, crashes, laggy servers constantly down and when an app crashes you have to wait forever to be in a position to open it again. She has been in accounting a while and worked for a couple of the big four companies and has found their cloud desktops nothing but a frustrating and dissapointing. This is why i wanted to try and host locally if we can.

She works very fast and does not want te be reliant on cloud services if possible. The server will be in a server room out of sight, i dont mind having backups in the cloud but actual data to work on is so much nicer when its connected to your machine over gigabit lan.

I get what your saying but she has yet to find a remote desktop service that is anything like using a normal pc. My hands are a little tied and one of the reason she is stepping down from a fairly high position in the company is frustration with IT and citrix.

blueboy2001 · 30 Sep 2017 at 19:48

There is no reason for remote services to be slow if they're well run, the endpoint you're using to access it reasonably fast and you've got a decent, stable Internet connection. Lots of people do Remote Desktop badly, but the technology itself is fine.

If the business grows she won't be at home long anyway, then you're in the position of hosting from your home off an Internet connection with no SLA or having to move the kit to an office and get comms in there. Business comms often come with relatively long contracts and if you grow really quickly that either adds to your costs or makes you less agile.

Very small businesses are actually the most difficult to provision good IT Services for.

You're already saying remote access to files will be required, so you've got a potential security issue there immediately. Who's going to monitor and maintain things from a security perspective? Just because it's in your house, doesn't make it secure.

In your position I'd get her a decent i7 PC or laptop with 16Gb RAM and SSD with Windows 10 Pro and bitlocker to encrypt the data. Get an account with Box or another decent commercial cloud storage provider and enable 2 factor authentication. Use the Box sync client to sync between the PC and the cloud. Future remote users can be granted permissions on folders and access remotely. If you really want separate storage on site get a Synology NAS box, disable any native cloud/remote access stuff on it for security and run cloud sync to sync files to Box.

neil_g · 1 Oct 2017 at 08:29

I'd agree with blueboy, remote desktop/apps done well are absolutely fine.

what speed internet does she have.

what compliance(s) is she working to?

Caged · 2 Oct 2017 at 21:26

You're asking the wrong question - starting with the server hardware and OS is backwards. What are the correct applications for this person to use, and then what are the requirements to run it? Does it have to be Sage, for example. Sage's small business products are terrible, so that will put off potential clients if they have to use bad software with a Windows-only client. Why can't she use Xero (https://www.xero.com/uk/partner-programs/partners/why-accountants/)? Why are you trying to have people work part-time and remote and then store all this data in your house?

I'd recommend trying to get all of your software needs fulfilled by SaaS applications.

#Chri5# · 3 Oct 2017 at 16:34

Caged said:
You're asking the wrong question - starting with the server hardware and OS is backwards. What are the correct applications for this person to use, and then what are the requirements to run it? Does it have to be Sage, for example. Sage's small business products are terrible, so that will put off potential clients if they have to use bad software with a Windows-only client. Why can't she use Xero (https://www.xero.com/uk/partner-programs/partners/why-accountants/)? Why are you trying to have people work part-time and remote and then store all this data in your house?

I'd recommend trying to get all of your software needs fulfilled by SaaS applications.

Could be other way round and the OP's wife would be working for companies already using Sage, so therefore she needs to use Sage to work on their data.

Now, given the frequent patches released by Sage for Line 50 and especially if working with 3rd parties that use multiple versions of L50 (so you need the Sage server side components for V22, V23, V24 etc), needing to wait for a 3rd party MSP to install or update server side components could be a problem.

Caged · 3 Oct 2017 at 17:33

Yeah if you're stuck with awful software then you do have to compromise in terms of your setup. I was advocating not using Sage but appreciate that it depends what the clients use - though some might be open to changing, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing.

But approaching this problem with step 1 being "what box shall I purchase" is not going to yield brilliant results.

El Pew · 5 Oct 2017 at 15:39

Caged said:
You're asking the wrong question - starting with the server hardware and OS is backwards. What are the correct applications for this person to use, and then what are the requirements to run it? Does it have to be Sage, for example. Sage's small business products are terrible, so that will put off potential clients if they have to use bad software with a Windows-only client. Why can't she use Xero (https://www.xero.com/uk/partner-programs/partners/why-accountants/)? Why are you trying to have people work part-time and remote and then store all this data in your house?

I'd recommend trying to get all of your software needs fulfilled by SaaS applications.

Exactly this. I'm not well versed in either Sage or Xero but trying to run this sort of application from home is just asking for trouble. If it's business critical you need to have resiliency, you need backups, and most importantly it needs to be secure particularly with customer data being stored so you need encryption, two factor authentication, and other complicated stuff. If you go with a Saas offering then the publisher of the software takes care of all this, and your wife can concentrate on running her business without having to become a part-time sysadmin just to keep herself afloat.

I don't know why you're bring up Citrix and Remote Desktops in this context, Sage Saas is just a website that you log on to and use.

Randall8686 · 7 Oct 2017 at 20:26

Thanks for all your comments guys we are trying to work out the best solution. The reason i menatiin citrix is she currently uses is at a practice and they have nothing but massive outages and issues with speed on a 300mbps connection(fairly sure its just citrix)

She has to use sage, Xero, quick books etc as depending what he clients want dependa what she can use. She is a Xero specialist and will try to convert to Xero when possible but some clienta refuse and will stick with sage, she charges more for this but if they pay the bill its up to them. I think we will go the synology route for now. With a backup onto a good cloud service. Looking at some of the rack mount synology stuff. Its expensive but i know DSM inside out as i have a big xpenology setup for media and surveillance etc backing up onto a genuine synology.

Im going the Dell route. On the laptop and monitors etc as their onsite support is great. With me often traveling she needs someone to fix somthing if im away.

I think she will use online services for the majority of stuff but needs some documents locally. She will often be sent documents via email and needs to store these in some way before working on them. Synology seems a safe bet for this and i notice they even offer cloud backup now

nightmare99 · 9 Oct 2017 at 14:35

Be aware on the last three versions of Sage you cannot store the data on a NAS as they now require the Windows Sage Data Service.

Randall8686 · 9 Oct 2017 at 14:51

nightmare99 said:
Be aware on the last three versions of Sage you cannot store the data on a NAS as they now require the Windows Sage Data Service.

thanks for this, I guess i could have a Windows VM running on the synology. She will mainly be using Xero but will need to store certain documents etc. I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what she needs but Synology also offer to sync your server with their own cloud service thus giving a good backup solution too. Sage is the real pain and is also so expensive

nightmare99 · 11 Oct 2017 at 08:52

thanks for this, I guess i could have a Windows VM running on the synology.

Sounds way to over complicated to me, I would have the Sage data on the main workstation and just make sure that's backed up to your NAS/Cloud whatever. Also Sage 50 always runs better on the machine that the data is hosted one.

PurplePhoenix · 11 Oct 2017 at 19:38

Have you thought about future cost ? Paying for something now as it the cheaper option could limit what you can do later. If you went for a cloud server you can just add more cpu and memory to it with very little down time. Along with having it all back up without much issue.

Mark M · 12 Oct 2017 at 10:36

Bit of a hijack but a cloud server acting as a basic file server will it operate the same as a physical server? Id like to get away from hosting things on site but Ive looked at dropbox, Google Drive, Box etc and they all allow the same file to be edited by multiple users at the same time. What I need to happen is what happens with our current NAS where an error pops up to say the file is in use by another user.