Tag Archive for 'Xero'

Ten best UIs awarded

Published by Ben Kepes on August 12, 2008 in Business, Design, IT and SaaS. 2 Comments

With a twitter hat-tip (a twhit maybe) to Stuart for pointing it out, the Neilsen Norman Group has awarded it’s bouquets for the ten best UIs of 2008. Good to see on-demand well represented and great to see our very own Xero take a spot. I use two of the solutions daily (Xero and SugarSync) and both are designs with great intuitive flow and interaction to the forefront.

The top ten were;

  • Campaign Monitor by Eyeblaster (Israel): integrated management of multiple advertising campaigns for media buyers.
  • CMSBox by CMSBox (Switzerland): content management system.
  • FotoFlexer by Arbor Labs (USA): photo editor.
  • PRISMAprepare by Océ (Netherlands): print shop software.
  • Seating Management by Magellan Network and DesignBox (USA): hostess stand reservation book for restaurants.
  • SQL diagnostic manager by Idera (USA): database performance monitoring and diagnostics.
  • SugarSync by Sharpcast (USA): synchronizing files across multiple computers.
  • SuperSaaS by SuperSaaS (Netherlands): creating and hosting scheduling and reservation systems.
  • Wufoo by Infinity Box, Inc. (USA): online forms, surveys, invitations, and payments.
  • Xero by Xero (New Zealand): accounting for small businesses.

The entire report can be downloaded here (for the not insignificant sum of $98). It does look like a very comprehensive report so valuable for those in the UI design field out there.

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Something is rotten in the state of MY-OB

Published by Ben Kepes on August 9, 2008 in Business, Efficiency, Governance, IT, SaaS and Strategy. 0 Comments

Or maybe anyway.

News today that MYOB have taken the surprise decision to dis-establish their MD positions in New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Regular users will recall that MYOB introduced a first edition of an on-demand accounting system, a release that I was fairly dismissive of. The defective on-demand head head of their on-demand product defected to Xero and now this change all adds up to…. something.

I’ve posted previously at length about the pain traditional ISVs feel when trying to move to a SaaS model. The dis-establishment of these MD positions could possibly be tied in to this pain. Clearly a move towards SaaS will have an effect on revenues, perhaps this is a way to keep all the different geographical entities on a very short leash, concentrate control back at head-office, and cut some costs out in preparation for a move to a new model.

This assessment is made more compelling given the news that a new CEO has been appointed while the old CEO moves into the new role of chief innovation executive.

Clearly MYOB needs to innovate significantly - could a true SaaS offering perhaps be on their horizons?

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If only banks "got it"

Published by Ben Kepes on July 25, 2008 in Business, IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy and Web x.0. 7 Comments

I got an email from Xero today advising that Westpac customers can now have their bank feeds automatically brought into their Xero accounting software (this has been available from the other banks for some time now). Eagle eyed readers will remember that Westpac is the bank behind the destined-to-failure community site the Ruby Connection. The fact that Westpac is the last bank to actually sort this out (and technically it’s not a big deal to implement), makes me put them down the bottom of the list in terms of banks who “get it”.

Most banks realise that readily accessible banking is a benefit to customers and shows an awareness to actually react to their customers in truly user-focused as opposed to PR-focused) ways. But no, Xero has to inform customers that;

Please note that Westpac charges a $25 bank fee for establishing the automatic feed (the Westpac fee appears on your next Xero invoice

This raises two points in my mind;

  1. Would it not be worthwhile for Xero to cover this cost to both increase uptake and also build loyalty among their customers
  2. More importantly how can a bank justify charging what is in essence a punitive fee for users who are making changes to reduce the cost of being customers - it doesn’t make sense

So for me the takeaways from this situation are that banks really don’t get the changing paradigm within which they operate, and that SaaS vendors need to do everything they can (and more) to mitigate the damage done by recalcitrant third parties.

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Thumbs up to the Xero API!

Published by Julian Stone on July 24, 2008 in Business, IT, SaaS and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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!

Great Stuff!!” - Vishal (Senior Developer)

About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com

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