Factor influencing the adoption process of cloud accounting software for Thai SME business

Cloud accounting software is a combination of the cloud computing service and accounting software that monitors and collects data through the cloud server. The global cloud accounting market size was $2,630 million USD in 2017 (QYResearch Group, 2018). In Thailand, cloud accounting softwares are still at the primary stage of development which reflects a lack of acknowledgement and low consumer awareness. The purpose of this study is to identify factors influencing Thai SME business owners to adopt cloud accounting softwares.The research was conducted by using both exploratory research and descriptive research designs to gain an overview of the market and insight from the respondents. The exploratory research included secondary research and in-depth interviews. The descriptive research used an online questionnaire to collect data. The sampling procedure for both methods is convenience sampling through personal connection.The respondents are mainly categorized into two groups as current users and non-current users. The awareness and the acknowledgement of cloud accounting is quite low. Most of the respondents know cloud accounting from browsing on the Internet. More than half of non-current users were dissatisfied with the current accounting system. The non-current users’ selection criteria for using accounting system were user-friendly interface and compatibility with their own business type. Furthermore, online backup and disaster recovery was a critical factor to encourage them to become a current user. However, high switching cost and credibility of the software owner were the main preventing factors for non-current users to adopt cloud accounting. Even though cloud accounting offers the new functions/features to non-current users, those factors did not encourage non-current users to adopt cloud accounting software.