I posted a couple of weeks ago about the imminent entry of Xero into the Australian market. In what can only be described as a fair development, Australian SaaS accounting provider Saasu has announced the roll out of some internationalizations of it’s product.
For New Zealand customers this includes New Zealand default tax codes. Saasu is quick to add that the NZ codes are for beta release only (same situation for the UK).
The interesting thing here however isn’t how Saasu will do in Xero’s backyard, neither is it how Xero will do in Saasu’s patch – the real test will come when both of them are fully entered into the UK market. Bear in mind that neither company has any particular brand following outside of their home location – UK then will be a great head to head battle – not to mention the fact that they’ll both be battling Free Agent Central for the smaller businesses and Coda2go for the larger players.
I posted earlier today that Xero didn’t work on Google’s new browser Chrome.
Great to read that Xero have checked and corrected this anomaly. So here it is – (BTW Xero you weren’t the first – Just checked and my login to Saasu went fine as well)
After my recent post about SaaSu integrating social networking information in their SME accounting system, I had an email from a reader who disputed my view that this is a positive thing. They contended that;
having your customer DB online is a recipe for disaster…. why furnish your employees with all the tools to leave?
While I have to admit that making this sort of information accesible to employees does constitute something of a threat, I also contend that the gains that can be made outweigh the disadvantages. Gains in terms of customer knowledge, customer intelligence and future customer acquisition.
My correspondent however doesn’t see this, he feels that;
given that one of the largest barriers to SaaS is the SME’s fear that [someone could] get hold of their data….. when they figure [the unintended consequences of SaaS's move] out, SaaSu’s in for a tanking
So this is where I put it out to you. Given a hypothetical situation where you ran an SME that utilised lots of records of individual (be they customers, suppliers or whatever), do you feel that the benefits to be gained by having a social ecosystem up front and centre outweigh any potential deleterious effects?
News that SaaSu is mashing up contact information within it’s SaaS accounting offering with information from LinkedIn, Myspace, Facebook, Bebo and Orkut.
SaaSu correctly points out that;
For a long time companies have not wanted to share ownership of customer and prospect relationships with their employees. These relationships have been owned by the company. LinkedIn allows employees (especially professionals with an eye to having their own business eventually) to de-institutionalise their contacts, taking back some of the dollar value from their employees balance sheet back to their own.
It’s another great point of difference for SaaS accounting, allowing it to become a relationshp management tool that is dynamic and automatic. It also allows qualitative business assesment of individuals, based on community feedback, a useful tool for both customer, supplier and potential employee assesments.
I read a post from SaaSu today which had a link to a video showing off the joys of their SaaS accounting product on an iPod touch. Their latest released has been sorted to work sweet on the iPhone/iTouch.
What is interesting is flicking back to a post from Rod back in July 2007 showing off Xero on an iPhone (this was before the iPod touch was released).
Two things here;
Both SaaSu and Xero realise that mobile computing is the way of the future
There’s a fair degree of observed parallelism between these two players – thus far they’ve been happy in their own markets to a greater or lesser extent – I’m looking forward to them going head to head!
With a hat tip to Dennis Howlett (who in turn ripped it off from Bill Kennedy), check out this 10 point checklist to ascertain whether or not it’s time to change your accounting software. It’s kind of an “in the know” post, but it’s all fuel for those saying that a move to SaaS accounting for SMBs is a no brainer…
10. The service technician keeps threatening to retire
9. “Reconciliation” is your middle name
8. You ask for “proficiency in DOS” when hiring staff
7. When calling Support you hear laughter in the background
6. Salesmen no longer call you about upgrades
5. You have to go for coffee whenever you click on “Post”
4. Your system came on diskettes
3. The last person to know the setup password retired to Florida
2. Nobody understands the reports
and the top sign you need a new accounting system is . . .
1. Your subledgers need counseling for “irreconcilable differences”
Announced today that the Government will set up a new advisory group to represent the various interested parties in ICT in this country. IT Minister David Cunliffe said
Creating a digital future for New Zealanders requires collaboration from a wide range of stakeholders… The new forum will create partnerships between industry, community and voluntary groups and users and provide a coordinated voice to government on digital issues. It is important that the interests of the wider digital community and those working with government on the development and implementation of the Digital Strategy and other initiatives are heard.
It seems that until now, previous groups focused mainly on skills shortages, or building business capability (both valid areas mind you), hopefully this new group will look at all the issues and pick up the great work done by the New Zealand Institute, the previous groups and other stakeholders. Hopefully the new group can come up with an achievable and holistic way to move the country forwards.
SaaS accounting vendor SaaSu, rolled out a new update recently with some interesting and useful new features. Some highlights are as follows;
Saasu Catch – That new little box in the top left corner has more power than your realise.
Capture all those snippets of information in one step. No more sticky notes and stray dockets. We call it Catch. Anything you type becomes a To Do activity. Any activity can become a transaction or more. A simple s: in the front will also search google for your term. All your reminders, to dos, research notes, expense claim dockets, names and numbers, notes, time sheets, meeting minutes, project tasks anywhere on web or mobile text message Type & Tab
Keyboard only functionality (a nod to data entry clerks everywhere) Google Search, Product Search & Maps Integration
Some really good mash-ups here that provide some really good business intelligence functionality to SMEs Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Orkut Integration
Search all the big social networks with just one click. Stay in touch with your contacts and research new employees, prospects, partners, suppliers and more. Built In Connector for CRM Salesforce.com
The world’s best online customer relationship management system salesforce.com is now automatically connected if you wish. This feature has been available in Beta for some time but is now widely used.
Most SaaS vendors tend to roll stuff out without much warning, users tend not to have any real knowledge of the development roadmap. My belief is that for core business functionality applications (accounting, ERP, CRM, HR etc) giving users and idea of what is coming and when is a really positive, transparent and open thing to do.
It’s a model that more vendors should follow.
I’m stoked to see that SaaSu have announced some coming refinements due for Q2 2008 deployment;
Customer Self Service For Your Customers
Available for all your customers so they can get their own sign-in (free) and reprint their invoices or view, print and save their own customer statement for transactions conducted with you. This feature is switched on by default for all new files, existing Saasu customers should go to settings to enable Self Service. Customer Self Service For Saasu Customers
Available for all Saasu customers past, present and future. You can sign in and reprint invoices or view, print and save your Saasu customer statement. UPS/FedEx/Courier Tracking Integration
One click on a PDF invoice and you clients can see where that package is that you were sending them. also available inside saasu for you to use and inside saasu self service for your customers. Learn Faster & Reduce Training Costs
Extended use of screen shot mini-training videos for self education as your go in each to do 3-5 minute segments, improved online visual cues, icons, help and more.
All in all there some good solid functionality coming through from SaaSu, it’ll also be interesting to see what Xero rolls out in the next few months.
In a case of “there being nothing new under the sun”, SaaSu today announced its approach to within-SaaS transaction processing.
Like Xero’s “Xero to Xero transaction processing”, SaaSu’s cloning allows an invoice from a supplier using SaaSu to be posted with one click into your own SaaSu accounts. SaaSu calls it “one click duplication” but essentially it’s the same thing.
Further SaaSu functionality is described as follows;
Connecting
At the same time as you clone, you may optionally choose to connect the two (distinct copies) of the (same) transaction permanently. Why? To ensure you are kept informed of changes on the originator’s end (supplier in this example). This is step up from cloning because it adds the value of change management. You may be notified of changes by the supplier and keep a record of those changes against the transaction. We call this linking ‘one click connection’.
You may also ask why two copies, why not always have one that is permanently linked? The answer is simple, this is one transaction but there are (at least) two parties to it, each are separate legal entities required to have their own records.
Automating
The next step in efficiency is optionally agreeing to do this (clone and connect with various options) for all transactions from that counter-party (e.g. supplier) automatically in future. Possibly also add-in an additional level of security for managing repudiation risk, public/private keys work well here. We call it ‘one click automation’.
What’s pretty exciting for me as a neutral observer is the apparent parallelism between the two companies – as many people have said, it comes down to execution in the end – who will be quickest to prove added benefits, or gain sufficient market share, to achieve scale and momentum.
There’s an interesting duality going on in Australasia around SaaS delivered SME accounting. On the one side you have SaaSu, the Australian solution with a nine year history of development and deployment. In the other corner we have Xero, the new entrant creating a ground-up SaaS application and with global ambitions.
Things sound like they’re hotting up in the arena, I had an email from Marc Lehmann, CEO at SaaSu, hinting at some pretty exciting developments that will be announced in the next little while. I’ll write about details once it’s all public but suffice it to say that SaaSu have taken a long hard look at the pain points that potential or actual users experience and is developing ways to ease that pain.
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