Cloud has transformed how accountancy firms and their clients operate. It does all of the good stuff it’s supposed to: agility, scalability, and innovation at a pace that traditional infrastructure simply can’t match.

But with that flexibility comes the challenge of understanding and managing the financial side of your cloud estate.

For finance leaders, cloud spend is no longer just an IT line item. It’s a strategic investment that needs to be visible, predictable, and aligned with business goals.

Cloud Isn’t the Problem, but Lack of Visibility Is
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Let’s be clear: cloud isn’t broken. In fact, it’s working exactly as intended with resources scaling up and down as needed, services are consumed on demand, and innovation happens faster than ever.

The issue is that the financial reporting around cloud hasn’t kept up. Costs are often spread across multiple providers, teams, and projects. Invoices arrive in different formats, with little context. And you’re left trying to piece together a coherent picture from a patchwork of portals and spreadsheets, with costs continuing to rise on a monthly basis.

This lack of visibility makes it hard to answer basic questions like:

How much are we spending on cloud?
Which departments or projects are driving that spend?
Are we getting value for money?

Without clear answers, budgeting becomes guesswork, and opportunities to optimise are missed.

The Finance Function Steps In
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As cloud spend grows, so does the need for financial oversight. CFOs and Finance Directors are increasingly stepping into the conversation, not to slow things down, but to ensure that cloud investments are delivering measurable value.

We need a shift towards both cost control and better decision making:

Forecasting future spend based on real usage trends.
Identifying areas of inefficiency or overspend.
Accountability for where and how the spend is being used.

We also need to build confidence among boards, partners, and clients that cloud is being managed responsibly and strategically.

Enter FinOps
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That’s where FinOps comes in. It’s a discipline that brings finance, operations, and IT together to manage cloud spend collaboratively. Think of it as the bridge between “what we’re using” and “what we’re paying for.”

For accountancy firms, that means:

Breaking down cloud costs by team, project, or client.
Setting budgets and alerts to catch overspend early.
Identifying idle resources and shutting them down.
Giving each stakeholder visibility of the usage and cost that is relevant to them, without overwhelming them with detail.

But that all takes time, tools, and expertise. And most firms don’t have a spare team lying around to build it from scratch.

A Smarter Way to Manage It
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That’s why Quorum developed CloudCost iQ, a managed FinOps service designed specifically for organisations that need clarity and control over their cloud spend.

CloudCost iQ gives firms:

A single pane of glass across Azure, AWS, Google and more, which means no more juggling portals or spreadsheets.
Role-based dashboards so finance, IT, and business teams each see what matters to them.
Alerts for anomalies and budget thresholds, so surprises are caught early.
Expert guidance from FinOps-certified practitioners who help interpret the data and recommend action.

It’s not another platform to learn. It’s a service that works with what you’ve already got, and helps you make sense of it.

From Cost Centre to Value Driver
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Firms using CloudCost iQ have reported significant benefits:

Reduced cloud spend through better visibility and optimisation.
More accurate budgeting and forecasting.
A cultural shift where teams take ownership of their cloud usage and costs.

But perhaps the biggest shift is in mindset. Cloud is no longer seen as a cost-centre, it becomes a value driver. With the right visibility and controls in place, finance leaders can ensure that every pound spent on cloud contributes to business outcomes. While IT leaders can have the tools and infrastructure they need to keep the business running smoothly.

Final Thought
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Cloud has opened the door to new possibilities for accountancy firms. But we need to manage it with the same rigour we apply to any other investment.

That means using the right tools and insights to be proactive instead of reactive.

With CloudCost iQ, that’s exactly what we’re enabling. If you’d like to have a chat with Quorum about this, you can sign up here: https://bit.ly/CloudCostiQ-Request