
Cloud app integration: Incredibly important, but also problematic
My background and entry into the technology industry came from my experience wrangling tech for a number of different small and mid-sized businesses. I’ve seen first hand just how much work is involved in tailoring discrete solutions into something that actually meets the specific needs of the business. This is even more difficult for resource […]

Cloud Case Study–BlueWolf
While at DreamForce recently I took the opportunity to sit down and talk with BlueWolf a business process and strategy consultancy that does a lot of work with mid sized and enterprise customers helping them move their IT to a more agile way of doing things. BlueWolf has some 3000 customers across tech, financial services […]

Levion and the Promise of Hybrid Accounting Software
As the accounting software industry moves to a general acceptance of the fact that customers demand the sort of benefits that cloud application bring, there are two distinct approaches vnedors are making; Pure-play cloud vendors (FreeAgent, Xero etc) build pure Saas applications and do away with any need for desktop

Back to the Future–FreshBooks is Accounting
On my first ever trip to the Bay area, six or so years ago, I attended the, now defunct, Office 2.0 conference. At the event I moderated a panel looking at what Accounting 2.0 actually meant and the value it could drive. The panel was a who’s who of the space and included folks from […]

Rumors Suggest Xero to Announce Acquisitions at Xerocon
Xero is holding it’s annual Australian conference in Melbourne this week and in keeping with the norm for tech companies, we can expect some important announcements to be made at the event. I’ve received multiple notes from people speculating about potential news including acquisitions – some likely, some less so.

Buying Cloud Accounting Software?
Fellow Enterprise Irregular Brian Sommer is doing a webinar this Wednesday on The Top 6 Things You Didn’t Know About Cloud Accounting Systems (But Should!). in cooperation with FinancialForce. Brian will cover a number of buying considerations and trends that are being reflected in new buyer perspectives for financial accounting software. The software market is undergoing […]

Xero Nabs Intuit Exec
I’ve long wondered how Xero will execute upon its North American opportunity – after all North America is the real goal for the company, and also where they face the biggest hurdles to success. I’ve even been roundly criticized for articulating this question I’ve spent some time with Xero’s US president Jamie Sutherland who seems […]

Is Multi-Currency Actually Important for SMBs?
Of late there has been a bunch of discussion about whether or not multi-currency functionality is important for SMBs. Some commentators came to this conversation from the perspective that if SaaS accounting vendors want to achieve scale, they have to provide for multi-currency. In a post discussing this AccMan says that; As things stand today, […]

Brightpearl Delivers in a Multi Channel World
Nearly three years ago in a fit of frustration I wrote a post detailing what I considered to be a relatively obvious set of requirements for a small manufacturing business I am a shareholder in. To recap – we currently use a bunch of disconnected systems because there is no

MinuteDock Launches on Intuit’s Partner Platform
Exciting times today for the team from MinuteDock (more on them here) the neat little time trapping application from my own hometown, Wellington, New Zealand. Formerly a product that was primarily intended for users of the Xero accounting product, MinuteDock is broadening its approach and is now tightly integrated with

Intuit Pushing Intacct for QuickBooks Graduates
Now this is an interesting piece of scuttlebutt that I was alerted to via a private message. It seems that Intuit have quietly begun pushing QuickBooks users who have “outgrown” their own solutions on to Intacct. This is particularly interesting given the fact that Intuit, a venerable provider with a

SaaS Accounting Roundup
I’ve been travelling for the past couple of weeks and haven’t kept up to date with news from the SaaS accounting companies that I usually watch closely. Here’s a summary of stuff that’s happened of late. Quick general disclosure though, I have consulted to a number of the companies below – more information here. Xero […]

Salesforce for Quickbooks for Salesforce for Quickbooks….
Owning and running a bunch of small businesses, I have a real appreciation for just how important it is for SMBs to have a handle on their customers and deal flow – CRM, a concept foreign to many SMBs only a few years ago has become, with the growing importance of social media, a critical […]

Sage in the Cloud, but is it too little too late?
Last week Sage, the UK’s biggest accountancy software supplier, finally released their first real online accounting solution. It looks like a proper SaaS or Cloud offering, unlike the hosted Online 50 product sold through a few resellers from 6 years ago, or their previous failed attempt of SageLive in 2009. I would argue that because […]

Zoho Rounds Out Small Business Suite with Accounting App–Zoho Books
This morning Zoho, known for SMB focused SaaS offerings in the areas of productivity, collaboration, business processes launched an Accounting app: Zoho Books. I typically don’t do detailed product reviews, when I see the first good ones, will link to them – just a few points here and then let’s discuss how it rounds out […]