Benefits of Online Databases
Whether your business is big or small, maintaining all important information about your business is critical to success. Customer sales, membership registrations, purchasing invoices and more are all needed to be kept in a safe and easy-to-access place where they can be viewed when required. When your business grows and expands, the database is sure to grow with it – if this is a physical paper database, this can make organising and keeping track of all documents and data difficult.
If this is where you find yourself today, it might be worth considering making the switch to an online database. We understand that you may be feeling some uncertainty regarding making such a big change of operations, but we’re here to help ease your concerns. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest benefits of an online database to see if it’s right for you.
Long-term savings on physical stationary and multiple software charges
With a physical database, a lot of stationary is required to keep that database maintained. Paper, printers, ink and shelving are just the start of what’s needed to have a database like this, and you’d be surprised at how quickly these costs can stack up. Any digital database will immediately alleviate these problems, since you now have the ability to access and track all of your information on a single computer without needing to sift through a massive stack of files.
However, this is still not the most cost-effective solution. It’s a great start to have a digital database on a computer as opposed to a physical paper one – but you run into another cost when it comes to software costs. If you’re running a business that requires multiple people to access the database across multiple devices, you will need to pay for licensing fee on top of the cost of the software itself for each additional device. As your company grows, this can become another monetary issue.
This is where the simplicity of an online database helps greatly. Using an online database leaves you with paying a single recurring cost to maintain the database on a server, which ends up being much cheaper depending on the number of devices being used. In the long-term, an online database ends up being the most cost-effective – which means you can put more money into other areas of your business that may need it.
Ease-of-access from any device in any location
There is a good chance that you will need to access information within your database often – meaning there’s a high likelihood that you will want that database to be easily accessible. This doesn’t necessarily mean accessibility of the database as a whole – the specific data required from within the database needs to be easily accessed as well.
This can become quite cumbersome with a physical database, with staff needing to sift through large amounts of files and documents to find the information you’re looking for. With a digital database, this issue becomes negligent altogether. Instead of deep diving through filing cabinets and shelves, you can perform a simple search that will immediately find a list of possible results for what you were looking for. This cuts out a MASSIVE chunk of time for users, which also improves satisfaction in the long run.
Like before, this can be improved even further – even with a digital database running on a computer, you still need easy access to that computer to quickly grab data from it. This may not be a big deal for some, but if you’re more of a mobile business, it can be tedious. By making the digital database an online one running on a server, you can access information from any device capable of connecting to the server.
Having so much freedom of accessibility will mean that adapting your business for changing conditions – which we’ve all experienced in some form or another in the past year – is much easier, meaning your business continues to run smoothly.
Effective tech support – without the hassle
This last point is more of a distinct benefit of a online database over a standard digital one. If you install database software onto your device/s, there can be potential issues that come up such as bugs or errors. While reporting these errors is certainly possible, it can take a long time to hear back from larger software companies – and even then, your issue may only be resolved in a major update a long way down the line.
AB Web Developers’ online databases are setup with a “client-first” mentality – meaning we put business needs at the forefront of our design. With this mentality also comes peace-of-mind with our support team. We are able to respond swiftly to all queries regarding the online database and be able to apply changes where necessary to improve the experience for all users involved.
If you’ve been considering the move to a new database – or just want to upgrade your existing database to make it more efficient – our team is capable of providing you with a custom solution to fit all of your business’ needs. Get in touch with us today to learn more!