I’ve spent the past 15 years being in sole-charge of the accounting function for a number of different SMEs. Now I’m not an accountant by any stretch of the imagination (I can tell a joke which precludes me already) - but I believe I’ve got a pretty good handle on what accounting is like, and what it should be like.
The way I look at it the accounting world is still mired in a pre-release beta stage and there’s a new class of product which will drag it along, bypassing 1.0 and straight into the 2.0 world.
I was stoked to see that Xero has reacted to the buzz from its being awarded the distinction of being judged one of the top 10 UIs of the year. Their reaction was to announce that;
by early 2009 it will release a global version of its award-winning online accounting software
Now this is exciting on a number of levels - firstly as a proud Kiwi it’s great to see that we’ll have a global accounting solution created back here in New Zealand. Secondly Xero heralds the dawn of a new age of accounting. And it’s the dawn of this new age that gets me all fired up.
I was pleased then to be asked to moderate the Accounting 2.0 panel discussion at the upcoming Office 2.0 conference. The participants at the panel include;
Aaron Forth (Mint.com)
Marc Hedlund (Wesabe)
Rene Lacerte (Bill.com)
Mike McDerment (FreshBooks)
It’ll be great to assess each of these participants view as to where accounting is going - and their vision for what Accounting 2.0 will look like.
Our development team have been working on an integration module between our ProWorkflow application and Xero. ProWorkflow is web based project management software and XERO is web based accounting software. Both operate under a SaaS (Software As A Service) model. The aim is to transfer invoices from ProWorkflow to XERO and update the invoice status from XERO back into ProWorkflow.
We’ve recently been working on a QuickBooks integration to do virtually the same function. Whilst QuickBooks is a great application and has high adoption, I have to be honest and say the integration wasn’t that easy. It’s taken about 2 months and we’re nearly there but keep encountering small, odd complexities. It should be ready very soon though.
Going back to XERO though, this is a whole different game. I personally signed up and have been going thorough the solution. It’s looking very promising and QuickBooks should be watching their backs - XERO are doing a nice job of reinventing accounting. There are pro’s and cons to a web based approach, just like there are to a client side app, but personally I prefer web based and portable.
On the API front though, it took weeks to suss out QuickBooks, but our developer had integration with XERO sorted within a few hours with data moving back and forth. He told us it was a piece of cake. So I wanted to say a big thumbs up to the dev team at XERO for the really easy API - It’s much appreciated! Here’s a comment from our developer:
“Working with the XERO Network API was a great experience because of its simplicity in the integration compared to some other Accounting packages around.
I am very impressed with the guys at XERO on how they have created their Network API that allows partners to integrate smoothly without any problems. It basically requires a simple line of code to transfer to and from XERO. Out of all my experience in integration with outside applications, XERO is one of my favourites!
Last week at Dreamforce Europe 08 Coda Group launched Coda2Go - an SaaS accounting application that runs on the Force.com platform.
In their press release they note:
Powerful international on-demand accounting application from one of Europe’s leading financial systems providers
Biggest ever development project on Force.com Platform-as-a-Service
First accounting application designed from inception to integrate with Salesforce CRM applications
It’s certainly the biggest Force.com app I’ve seen, most of which to date have been feature add-ons for Salesforce.com rather than full blown applications in their own right.
Release 1 of Coda2Go is called Opportunity to Cash and continues Salesforce’s process which ends at converted opportunities and carries on through credit management, invoicing, accounts receivable, ageing and collections, and cash allocation.
One of the advantages which I haven’t seen mentioned is the ability to extend the app and potentially integrate with other Force.com apps you use. But the biggest drawback seems to be the price. Initial pricing is a whopping $125 per user per month. Their target market however is customers who are already willing to pay a healthy price for Salesforce.com itself.
At the moment I’ll put Coda2Go in the keep an eye on category but I’m sticking with Xero for now.
Next move I’m picking [for Zoho] is a filling out of the space between the current small business offerings and People, the first larger business offering.
That remark was particularly made to comment on the release of Zoho’s first offering that seemed poised to move them into the enterprise space. Today however we see that Zoho has released Zoho invoice. Check out the slideshow for an intro;
Already hints have been made that this is the first part of a full-featured accounting system - it seems logical - imagine a situation where a SaaS provider had a solution that included office productivity, CRM, accounting and collaboration - it’d make a pretty compelling case (and a strong foil to Google’s stickiness).
I’ve always waxed poetical about SaaS solutions being part of a wider platform play, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to see how Zoho can be stopped from creating an all encompassing platform of their own (OK - that’s a pretty generous statement at the moment but consider the velocity of their development thus far).
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Our development team have been working on an integration module between our