Hot on the heels of the announcement yesterday by Xero about multi-currency, I received an email from someone commenting about some multi-currency and pricing issues around Saasu, another SaaS accounting product. Saasu have been developing multi-currency for awhile and the implementation of this feature had apparently been delayed for a period of time. On top of this the pricing structure for Saasu has changed.
It seemed only fair to contact Marc Lehman, CEO of Saasu to give him an opportunity to comment on the news. Marc replied saying that;
we gets dozens of SME's asking why our price is so low relative to Xero/Netsuite/MYOB/EXO etc. "You're too cheap, what's the catch?". But that's not the reason for the price change. See our blog post out today...
Multi currency was delayed 4 weeks initially when we had customer reviews that altered our approach quite a bit. Lots of them didn't want hover or popup style FX because it isn't keyboard/print friendly and because speed of entry is everything to them. Also a lot of changes occurred internationally with payroll thanks to the GFC so we had to attend to that first as a priority. You may not be aware but australia had changes to super, tax, employee payment summaries amongst other things. That cost us another 4 weeks In essence..
To summarise the reason for the price change is both a reflection on the competitive landscape (pricing their product at a similar level to the competition) but also to allow for the new functionality. Like Xero, Saasu is charging an extra for multi-currency functionality and has also upped the price somewhat to provide for their new file hosting function (which as an aside is a useful feature in my opinion) – like Xero the extra is a mere $10 per month.
I think what we see here is not so much a problem with what Saasu did, but rather something of a lack of communication, and articulating milestones too early. The email I received primarily expressed dismay at the delay to the multi-currency implementation, from my perspective it would have been better to not announce a release date, seeing as these things tend to get delayed once development realities come into play.
As for the price change, again one can argue on the relative merits of separate pricing for add-on modules versus group pricing – again I have no issue with what Saasu has done but believe that perhaps they might have communicated it better.
We don't price at a similar level. Saasu's multi-currency product is $35mth while we see the competitors to be twice that level or more. We aim to be half the price of competitors while having similar or higher levels of functionality. We call it extreme value. Also, we actually posted updates to our blog and info in newsletter/emails so comments about communication aren't fair.
Marc - I retract and apoligise - I subscribe to the blog but must have missed the updates and info. Point taken re pricing levels
Whilst foreign currency is a 'nice to have', and indeed a necessity for business that transact mainly over the internet, I think that some of the online accounting providers should be concentrating on other 'core' modules that are needed by even very small SME's. For example, customer Sales Ordering and supplier Purchasing seems to be missing from a lot of offerings. I think that these should be higher on the product development roadmap instead of Fixed Assets or Foreign Currency?! And don't get me started on better inventory management capacity. Almost all current offerings are designed for service based industries, not businesses that may have thousands of physical stock items that need to be tracked in and out. Integrated payroll should also be a priority, although I realise the difficulties with this given totally different legislation and tax rules in each country.
Devan, Those are all important functions - and by the time you add it all, you have more then a financial system:-) That's what I liked in the original Netbooks system. Too bad it came out of re-architecting with much less functionality. Although they claim to eventually re-build a lot more...
True Zoli, there is a massive grey area between a simple SME accounting system and a full blown ERP system, but one requirement that 75% of my clients need (my own business included) is:- * Customer phones/walks in the door to buy Widget X * Inventory control system says we are out of stock of Widget X * Sales Order is raised against customer, with Widget X being back ordered * Purchase Order is raised to supplier for Widget X * When Widget X arrives, PO is converted into Supplier Invoice * Widget X is allocated to the customer order * Sales Order is converted into an invoice * Widget X is shipped out to customer This basic 'back to back' ordering is sorely lacking in a lot of on premise, and nearly all online systems that I have seen so far. I think it is a core requirement of nearly all businesses that trade goods for a living?!? (Must admit, I haven't had a look at Netbooks' current iteration).
Devan - I'm with you on this one. I run accounting for four of my businesses at last count. Three of them through SaaS accounting apps and the last via a desktop product ONLY because SaaS apps are yet to fulfill the (relatively modest) requirements we have for stock/inventory control. In my mind there is a disconnect here - most engineering driven SaaS vendors are thinking in a "new age business" paradigm where everyone are similar "knowledge workers" - the fact is that there are a hell of a lot of Joe's the plumber and Jill's the electrician who need stock and the like and they're crazy not to be providing for them...
Devan, we hear you. It just takes a while. In many businesses the solution may require Point of Sale and Accounting. POS doesn't feel like a great fit for SaaS and there are lots of vendors we are working with. The basic non-POS scenario we'll get there. It's just prioritization. Cheers Rod
@devan and @zoli. Saasu does what you mentioned above as we have drop shipping, drop ordering and re-ordering of minimum quantity specifications. Saasu also has TouchCashier an offline and online POS system.
Post Comment