Ideas Blog

New partnership offers ‘twice the features for half the price’

A new trans-Tasman partnership promises to shake up the online accounting market.

Saasu, the online accounting software leader in the Asia Pacific area, is joining forces with Acclipse, a leading Australasian accounting practice supplier.

Under the deal, the companies will launch a jointly-developed accounting partner programme which will bring accountants and businesses together at a competitive price.

Marc Lehmann, chief executive of Australian-based Saasu, says the programme will allow accountants to offer real-time advice to their clients.

“Australasian businesses will get an irresistible deal on their online accounting system, a comprehensive system that includes fully integrated inventory and payroll functionality. There’s even a fully integrated point of sale module available as well”

Acclipse chief executive Mike Chisholm says the partnership is great news on both sides of the Tasman.

“Price plans cost about half that of one of our major competitors – and you’re getting a fully mature, feature-rich product from a company that has been in the online accounting business for over ten years, a big contrast to the online offerings from MYOB and Xero” Chisholm says.

“This means accountants and their clients are getting twice the features for half the price.”

Saasu’s simple to use and speedy online accounting system will be integrated into two of the New Zealand-based company’s popular products: Acclipse Web Manager and Acclipse iFirm, the online practice management system designed specifically for Australasian accounting firms.

Development has started on a single Saasu login within Acclipse Web Manager – which means businesses can login to their accountant’s website to access both their Saasu accounting system and any confidential documents and files their accountant wants to share with them in a safe and secure manner.

Development is also underway to integrate Saasu with the Acclipse iFirm suite, including a ledger for accountants to provide year end accounts.

The partnership is not your average joint venture – Lehmann is joining the Acclipse board, while Chisholm is joining the Saasu board.

“For me this is about the pursuit of a dream,” Chisholm says. “I’ve always wanted to build the ultimate solution for an accounting firm that truly connects the firm with their SME client – and with Saasu I believe we can achieve it. I personally consider Saasu to be Australia’s best-kept secret.”

Full details of the partnership will be revealed at roadshows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in September and New Zealand’s main centres in October.

For more information contact:

Mike Chisholm
Acclipse CEO
1800 83 68 69 or +64 29 245 7091
mike.chisholm@acclipse.com.au

Marc Lehmann
Saasu CEO
02 9233 6629 or 0434 033 945
marc@saasu.com

ABOUT ACCLIPSE

Acclipse is a leading provider of solutions to thousands of accounting firms in New Zealand and Australia, with expansion into the United Kingdom and India currently underway. Acclipse provides the tools and support to empower the business success of accounting firms. The Acclipse product range for accountants includes full workflow driven practice management, web management, document and email management as well as value-add client accounting (cashflow budgeting and benchmarking). For more information visit the Acclipse website at www.acclipse.com.au

ABOUT SAASU

Saasu is an online accounting software company with over 10,000 customers from around the world. With millions of transactions each year worth billions of dollars Saasu is a market leader in the Software as a Service accounting industry in the Asia Pacific area. Saasu is a comprehensive online accounting software system for managing business financials. Saasu has capabilities in sales, purchasing, inventory, payroll, ecommerce, CRM, point of sale, document and workflow management. Saasu’s strong online accounting API enables connection to hundreds of web applications, software products, payment services and banks. For more information visit the Saasu website at www.saasu.com

ROADSHOW DATES

Brisbane 15 September 2010
Sydney 16 September 2010
Melbourne 17 September 2010

If you are a CIO, CFO, Advisor or Business Owner then SaaS has become an increasingly compelling choice over software. Online accounting is on the shopping list rather than the future wishlist. The questions are increasingly about how to change rather than is it secure. Not adopting SaaS has switched from being viewed as “risk averse” behaviour to one of “please explain why we are spending a fortune on software licenses”. Ask yourself “can I outperform the Cloud and SaaS providers on security if I take that risk on myself in house and manage and host my own software and data?”

SaaS contains a lot of sugar and spice. It turns CapEx into OpEx. It gives you capacity to burst workflow and users. It enables work from home for parents. Small business owners can take that holiday, do the online accounting payrun from afar and keep up to date. It’s liberating technology. If you aren’t a believer ask yourself why every major software company around the world is busily trying to reinvent themselves. They are busy getting their pilots license so they can fly into the cloud.

Choose an online accounting system based on credentials. Being a traditional software company is far from an appropriate credential to do cloud based applications well. Do you want to back an old dog trying to learn new tricks? Choose SaaS providers who are profitable, there are many. Most important of all is to look at their breed. Do they have a history of free tax updates? Do they let you export your data? Do you get stung for high support costs? Many new SaaS providers along with the old software companies fail on this. What’s their motive? Barriers to exit? What are their ethical genetics like in light of this?

Look for SaaS companies that will let you fly like you’re in an A380, that has the scale and all the mod cons and features you expect in this new age. One that you can trust.

Photo by VSZ

I presented at Web3.0 and the Future of Social Media Conference yesterday (see Twitter hashtag #web3).

I wanted to push ahead a few years and get the point across that we need to think about the web in a more naturalistic way. It’s not about silicon, electrons and data. It’s now has a life unto itself and displays the traits of living things.

I also wanted to focus on the way the web application and business space faces consumers. Essentially that we need to change direction and treat each individual as important, be careful with their time and relevent when we give them content and services.

Here’s my slide notes…

Burning Questions

So much technology
:: Why am I so time poor?

Photo: ToniVC

The next big thing
:: Where are we at?
:: Web 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, yada, yada.

Photo by David Prior

The Web Entity

The net is a beast
:: It has developed a life unto itself
:: Relative to natures evolution it’s a mini-beast, amoebic.

Photo by microagua

Primordial Days
:: Quality of info filters builds
:: Good levels of sharing
:: Early sensory control
:: Early utility adoption
:: Start of linked data

Life like
:: Homeostasis
:: Organization
:: Metabolism
:: Growth
:: Adaption
:: Response to stimuli
:: Reproduction

Biotic
:: Consumers
:: Employees
:: Developers
:: Investors

Abiotic
:: Applications
:: Network
:: Platforms
:: Web construct

Devices

Generation D
:: The data generation
:: The device generation

It’s about the data
:: Data surpasses the importance of the digital bodies that it lives on.
:: Data is created about data. A world of linked data.
:: Data lives on the web and Devices are windows into the web.

Data is set free.
:: User permission.
:: Socially permission.

Everything has a brand
:: People, Ideas, Services & Products. Not just companies.

Numerical Brand
:: Algorithm + vote search
:: Social bookmarking
:: Followers & friends
:: Crowd sourcing
:: Content rating
:: Like vs link

Information overload
:: We need better controllers of the data we see.

Restraint
:: We collect and regret
:: Collect = Gather and store data, experiences, apps, tools.
:: Regret = Missing something like news, ideas, experiences.

The Cost of the Habit
:: Time
:: Effectiveness
:: Self expression
:: Quality of experience

Data Addiction
The old addiction
:: Physical Consumption
The new addiction
:: Digital Consumption

Sales Automation

Educate vs Sell
:: Authenticity

Trigger vs Campaign
:: Trigger based email/mail/web

Targeted and relevant
:: Don’t waste their attention

Off balance sheet Sales
:: Community, Customers, Partners & F&F

Data Brokers

Data Brokers
:: Integrate and connect applications and data
:: Examples: WDCI, Boomi, OneSaaS

Web applications will change
:: less device dependent
:: more connected.

Application Constraints
:: Apps that don’t connect and that are feature light weights
:: Applications that are niche require hand holding

Moving data around
:: Too many pieces in the puzzle.
:: Too many connected apps to solve business problems.
:: Too many moving parts.
:: Higher risk of failure

Attention Dollar

Attention Dollar
:: The currency of the web is attention.
:: The attention police is relevance.

Attention Defined
:: 8 hours a day playing Warcraft

Photo by glenn batuyong

The Attention Economy
:: The web beast evolves based on your attention votes.
:: Your time is being absorbed by websites and apps in piecemeal
:: Systems seduce you into giving your time away.
:: Good systems will reward your time

Marketing emails
:: Like the guy at the party who talks & talks *eyes glaze over*

Attention engineered email
:: The new email regime.
:: Email that is exactly relevant to my needs in time, place and interest. e.g. Marketo

Infographics
:: Pictures trump text

by Davvi

Meta Data Driven Content
:: Wikipedia trumps Encarta
:: Twitter trumps Yellow Pages

Digital Soap Box
:: You have something you want to say
:: e.g. walls, tweets, blogs, chatter

Data and graphic rich business apps
:: Replacing numbers/words with pictures

Memetic Engineering
:: Designing business models to produce memes.
:: Capital value is based on the consumer & business Attention acquired.

Ubiquitous Web

Required Elements
:: Data, Utilities, Connection & Computation

The web is evolving based on what works & what doesn’t
:: Small nuances = Big differences

The web is getting judged, naturally selected
…and across many devices

Consumers are mini VC’s
:: Invest small amounts attention dollars

Consumers are natural selectors
:: May the best “web genetics” survive.
:: Facebook is genetically superior to MySpace? Or does it have a privacy cancer?

Do you have an iPhone?
:: How many apps have you tried?
:: Small numbers of apps survive your standards
:: The few that do have common traits

iPhone App Survival Traits
:: Extremely entertaining
:: Create or save time
:: Window into content

Utility Web

Low rather than No Software
:: Software burns time and CapEx from business
:: Software = Rekeying data, upgrade software, buy licenses & maintenance

Cloud applications / SaaS
:: Converts CapEx into OpEx
:: Google, Microsoft, Amazon are re-building the webs architecture

The Semantic Web is a WIP
:: Resource Description Framework
:: Ontology Language
:: Folksonomy

The AI Web
Mechanising our activity
:: Mechanical turks
:: True Artificial intelligence
:: Data collection and connection
:: Collective web intelligence
:: Knowledge coding
:: Recommendation Engines e.g. Apple Genius
:: Rules Engines: Triggers, Rules, Scheduled Events
:: Business Logic Layers that are flexible, learning, crowd sourced

Web Evolution

Darwinian
:: Natural Selection applies

The future will be strange
Strangeness is a consequence of innovative thinking
Ross Lovegrove

The future will be functional
its the only vehicle which have the elegance of intelligence, because it’s not driven by marketing, it’s driven by function
Philippe Starck (on military vehicles – his favourite vehicle)

User Designed Applications
:: Behavioural design
:: Relevance design
:: Theme serving

Q: With all this technology why are we time poor?
:: Shouldn’t the evolution of the web help?

A: The web doesn’t let you triage your time very well
:: We are designed to collect, gather & hunt = Quick, while it’s there.
:: We are opportunists by design

A: We are bad at delaying gratification
:: The marshmallow experiment.
:: We are still learning how to do this with financial dollars.
:: What hope is there for us with the attention dollar. It’s too easy to spend.

Web 3.0 will
:: penalise inefficiency
:: lack of connectivity
:: poor relevance

A new kind of Capital Punishment
:: Inefficient, expensive, disconnected will lose the survival of the fittest contest
Failure to be efficient
:: The new “margin squeeze”.

All business are really two+ businesses
:: They are what they normally do and they are technology businesses.
:: Survivors will have embraced this passionately
:: Survivors will ensure tech creates time rather than consuming it.

Saasu calls this
:: Engineer the way you work

Thank You

Marc Lehmann
Email: marc@saasu.com
Twitter: @marclehmann
LinkedIn: marclehmann
Web: saasu.com
Blog: saasu.com/blog
Personal blog: marclehmann.net
Address: 1st Floor, 111 Elizabeth St Sydney, Australia 2000
Creative Commons: Attribution-NoDerivs License

Often small businesses can tap into opportunities that arise out of government policy change, project work or new schemes that have uncertain longevity. Billions of dollars of this happens in the economy each year. In recent years the stimulus in the G20 economies has resulted in many new opportunities which businesses are now tapping. The big catch is that a fleeting start can have a fleeting end. I refer to these as pen-stroke opportunities.

As an example in the UK the construction of 5 billion dollar aircraft carrier is in doubt as quickly as it was planned. In Australia there was an insulation scheme with good environmental intentions that recently collapsed highlighting the inherent risks and subsequent systemic business failures.

The problem is that while you swim in a sea of cash a storm may be brewing. Politicians might be changing their minds, funding may be ending, new technologies might be about to make your business model irrelevant. Any business model based on a temporary market opportunities requires a agile business model. In doing this some simple strategies can be employed.

It must be a low capital structure.
Make sure the CapEx you have to make is commensurate with the risks of the opportunity ending and that you can sell that CapEx when and if it happens. The inability to shift old or redundant inventory is one of the biggest problems I see in business.

Keep your human resource needs off balance sheet
Outsourcing, sub-contracting and services (vs. self-service) can help keep headcount down in the business. Thinking more like a film producer that pulls people together for a project rather than thinking like a traditional business owner. Pull the right people together and know that filming will stop and you need a simple dismantling strategy for your business and it’s crew. Set the expectations in the staff as such, they have families and responsibilities and need to know where the risks are around longevity.

Preferably hold near zero or just-in-time inventory levels.
This is simply so you can dance near the door. If you don’t and the party ends you don’t want to get trampled in the rush for the door. If you are holding a big capital investment or high levels of stock you risk not achieving a good exit when forced to sell it back into the wholesale market.

Don’t expect the government to pick up the pieces.
They love cutting projects with the stroke of a pen. We all know this and little compensation is ever forthcoming. Even when the Government is clearly the party that has messed things up there is little sympathy from the electorate or other businesses because opportunism for high returns is understood to have higher risk. If the change in the scheme or project is due to a government change post election then the new government doesn’t need to act in your interests for at least another 3 or 4 years until the next election comes along. They know your cries will be long forgotten.

Structure a low CapEx and instead higher OpEx model
Keep leases and contracts short or flexible. Keep creditors as short as possible. Don’t run your capital structure with long term debt or intensive plant and equipment capital purchases. As an example opt for pay-as-you-go mobile phone plans instead of 2 or 3 year contracts. Buy Saasu on subscription instead paying upfront for old style accounting software!

Gap management
Make sure you OpEx matches you revenue side of the business. This gap management is critical. If considered it will ensure you don’t load expense into the business without having contracted or committed the revenue side.

Put your opportunistic hat on but make sure it’s the right hat for the job.

Often I listen to professional services business people talk from a position where they think they own and control their customer via some right assigned to them through their education, business or financial acumen.

Seriously, no-one owns the customer. I personally think it’s very disrespectful of the customer. At the end of the day the customer calls the shots via their wallet. Where this isn’t the case there is usually something else at play and it’s often more sinister, something I call intellectual deception. These behaviors are often legal and facilitated by the system and regulations for that industry. In law you see this all to often.

This TED talk by Philip Howard below actually hits on some of these issues (you need to read between the lines). I think Philip may be editing himself. It takes a brave person to do this talk and face off against his peers and industry. It’s not just in the area of Law that you see this. It’s observable in banking, accounting and financial planning.

In business we should have some control over the customer relationship but it must be earned and lay in a bed of respect. If you kill their problems, find ways to save them time and help them get what they want, then you are deserving of their trust. Then your grip will be firm. Quite often customers have faced intellectual deception and they end up “lawyer haters”. So they become careful with their trust. Then as a business you are only as good as your product, advice and possibly the most recent dealing you had with them.

Saasu appeared in SmartCompany this week in an article about successful Australian technology companies. It’s great to see Saasu customers Pollenizer and Qmcodes in the list also.

Interestingly, I’ve been reading the writer Brad Howarth’s LagrangePoint blog for years. He is one of the few Journo’s who has blogged from the beginning because he liked and believed in it and not because blogging was a threat to the media industry.

Why no Golden Egg picture?

While we appreciate the analogy of the “golden egg” used in the articles picture we decided to present our organic growth version. The eggs on the left are homegrown “naturally” and “organically”. In business it’s often referred to as bootstrapping or organic growth. The article makes this point about Saasu. The eggs on the right are barn/cage grown for speed to market.

Saasu’s strategy was to get an early start and grow organically with low risk. Traditionally technology companies raise lots of capital, go fast and run big monthly cash burns. Saasu’s investors were uncomfortable with this model due to the risk it places on the customers if we didn’t get it right, quickly. So we opted for the lower risk, lower cost model that leads to profitable, sustainable business.

Google constantly reinvents the way things are done in business. Re-invention in all aspects of their business is a fundamental part of Google’s culture. It’s not just about online solutions and the cloud.

On the way to work I spotted a Google Maps Real Estate promo done with LJHooker. Essentially it highlights the ability to search and view houses for sale or rent using Google Maps. You can explore the area where you are looking to buy or rent with Google Street View. Even check out the neighbours houses next door to your prospective property before you even get in the car to have a look in person.

This is interesting for many reasons. It is a classic leap in customer experience we see often thanks to the web. Mashing up a relatively new tool, Google Maps with a time consuming problem of house hunting. Further monetizes Google’s investment in the Maps technology, which was developed in their Sydney, Australia office. The same team now building Google Wave.

What I also like about Google’s approach is the physical marketing device (pictured). It’s different to all the other marketing devices used in the building. The "placemark" symbol has become synonymous with Google. It was also a tangible and sculptural presence. Typically the advertising device of choice at this site is plasma screens, perspex covered billboards or freebies handed out to passers by. I noticed a lot of people stopped to check it out. I think it has a quality that can be very valuable in marketing. It’s "curious". Curious is good, curious is usually a consequence of innovative thinking.

I’ll be speaking at the International Business Review Web 3.0 conference on the 3rd of June this year about what I call the Naturally Selected Web. Some of the topics covered in my speech I touched on in my speech at CeBIT last year about the Data Generation but at this event I’ll get into more detail about how Web 3.0 is in part about participants selecting brand and product variants in what is literally a Darwinian Natural Selection process.

Quote voucher code SAAS-WEB3 if you want an extra 10% of the 31 March early bird deadline price.

Times is reporting that Amazon is going to open a bricks and mortar book shop.

I’ve long thought that if I were Google, Amazon or any company that has very powerful brand or product base you should have retail presence. Stores build brand, create a feeling of solidity for E-tailers and most importantly are an effective alternative to traditional media marketing spend.

This all comes back to customers buying and experience rather than just a product. Apple proved the theory and many will now follow the strategy.

Twitter Founder, Jack Dorsey, has his new payments system called Square which is now out in the public domain. It looks great but begs the question when will we be able to drop the credit cards all together for payments? We have devices and they can be set to pin access only. We have apps on those devices which also can be secured so in essence the Credit Card is superfluous in the next decade in my opinion. I think what he has done is brilliant. The no credit card approach will win in the end, and hopefully it’s a good guy like Jack.