The key decision in migrating to a new accounting application is whether to go with another on-premise software package or shift to an on-demand, software-as-a-service (SaaS) alternative?

Premise-based solutions require that customers purchase a perpetual license, as well as the hardware to support the software upfront. In addition to these significant capital investments, premise-based applications also place the burden of deploying and managing the software on the user, increasing required IT resources.

The new breed of SaaS offerings from companies like VentureSolve permits users to pay-as-they-go and relieves them of the added hardware costs, as well as the deployment and management hassles. This allows users to focus on leveraging the software functionality rather than worrying about the application availability and waiting for IT to finish implementation, upgrades or system changes.

The SaaS model also makes it easier for growing companies to add more user licenses as they need them rather than having to pay for them upfront whether they need them or not.

Unlike premise-based applications which might be hosted by a software vendor, today's SaaS solutions have been built to fully leverage the web and permit end-users to utilize the online applications anytime from anywhere.

Working online may raise security concerns for some companies, but the fact is that major SaaS vendors are certified with higher level security procedures than most businesses. While many SMBs are challenged to keep pace with the escalating security threats facing their companies, it would require a significant investment and would not be feasible for most SMBs to achieve the same level of security for premise-based applications. SaaS vendors offer the same high-level security to all of their customers so they can be confident that their applications and data are secure. Premise-based application vendors are not required to take the same precautions.

While some premise-based application vendors now offer hosting options, these simply shift their applications offsite but don't deliver the added benefits of SaaS solutions. For instance, SaaS vendors are continuously updating their applications in a fashion which does not disrupt their customers' day-to-day operations the way periodic premise-based application upgrades historically have done.

Some of the on-premise application vendors are promising to move to a SaaS platform but face significant challenges making this transition. Moving from an on-premise to an on-demand model requires that they re-architect their applications, restructure their licensing models and reorient their corporate cultures from being technology-centric to being services-oriented. It is for these reasons that 'net-native' SaaS vendors have a big lead in the market over the legacy premise-based application vendors.