Tag: quickbooks cloud

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Cloud Hold-Out No More: QuickBooks Desktop Editions in the Cloud

When most people hear the words “QuickBooks” and “online” together, they think of the web-based solution from Intuit called QuickBooks Online Edition.  And why wouldn’t they?  With the media, industry talking heads, and everyone in information technology discussing cloud this and cloud that, all the attention is going to web-based applications, Software-as-a-Service models, and cloud platforms.  While these approaches to business software distribution and delivery are working for a lot of software vendors and their customers, there are a few hold-outs that may be keeping a lot of folks from considering that move to running their businesses “in the cloud”.  Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions used to be among this list of applications securely anchored to your local PC, but not anymore.

The desire to have remote and mobile access to business applications and data goes beyond simply getting email or syncing contacts to a mobile phone these days.   Business people in all industries are seeing the benefits of using wireless and mobile laptops, tablet computers and smartphones to handle tasks in real-time rather than accumulating paperwork, spending a bunch of time organizing and keying in data, and then submitting the information for batch-processing after the fact.  And, with services being seamlessly connected and information being shared and integrated for a variety of reasons, internet connectivity has become almost as essential to most businesses as telephone service. (Actually, in many cases, telephone service IS delivered via the IP network, so maybe that statement doesn’t make as much sense as it used to.)  Payroll isn’t calculated in the software, it’s calculated by a service online and delivered through your software.  Same with banking, accepting payments, and paying bills – many are processes handled through the software but perhaps not actually happening WITHIN the software on your PC.

As users have begun to realize that, whether they mean to or not, they are essentially “on line” with their business applications and data at some level, the consideration for outsourcing more of their IT operations and working more fully in an online model might not be so bad as long as they don’t have to give up the functionality, usability, and cost-efficiency they have come to expect with their beloved business applications – like QuickBooks.

Service providers recognized this opportunity and developed business models which would give users their desired desktop applications (like QuickBooks!), but in way that seems more like a cloud service.  As platform and virtualization technologies have evolved, businesses are finding that there are numerous options, and numerous providers, for getting their desktop and network applications installed in the “cloud”, and delivered back to them as a managed subscription service.  It is a model which is growing in popularity and demand, and it makes sense.

Small businesses in particular are moving to the cloud not because they are generally dissatisfied with the products they currently have (there’s a reason Intuit has market share with QuickBooks; there are a LOT of QuickBooks desktop lovers out there).  Small businesses are making the move to online and “cloud” models because of the business benefits of getting information when and where they need it.  Mobility is driving the cloud, and the cloud is driving software makers to change how they do things.

It will be a while before all the investments are made and man-hours are spent to rewrite or redevelop applications to run on these new platforms and in this new cloud-based service model.   In the meantime, ISVs will look to hosting providers of various sorts to help breathe longevity into their solutions while securely embracing their customers and market in preparation for a cloud-based service delivery, and customers will engage with service providers who can supply them with the legacy application hosting and management they require to achieve the level of freedom, access, and mobility they demand.

Make sense?

J

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Changing How We See Software: QuickBooks 2013 interface frustrates power users

Changing How We See Software:

QuickBooks 2013 interface frustrates power users

You’re an accounting, bookkeeping or business professional and have been working with QuickBooks desktop software for years.  Your processes and methods for using QuickBooks to manage client accounting have been developed over time, and have been refined to the point where you are able to maximize your efforts and efficiently handle all your customer requirements.   Sure, there have been changes in the software over the years, and many of them have proven to be helpful.  But sometimes you have to wonder what they were thinking when they changed the interface for 2013.

Initially I thought it was the grumbling of a few people who simply resist change, some admittedly so.  But then the grumbling got louder, and started to come from folks I would expect to hear only “happy rainbows and sunshine” from when it comes to QuickBooks.  The new interface, they say, “sucks”.

So what’s the issue?  What did Intuit do with QuickBooks 2013 desktop editions that has inflamed so many devoted users?  One ProAdvisor puts it this way: “Basically no real enhancements at all, just the interface and relocation of options”.  In short, QuickBooks desktop editions now look a bit more like QuickBooks Online Edition, and “there’s extra stuff in the navigation – Intuit stuff“.

I understand Intuit’s motivations for making the desktop and online editions appearance more similar.  After all, the benefit of the QuickBooks product line is that you can start with an entry-level edition and move up the product line to more features and functionality without converting to and learning entirely new software.  Since the online edition of QuickBooks is positioned as the entry-level product for some businesses, it makes sense to continue that same look for the user as they upgrade to richer desktop editions.  Unfortunately for many accounting and bookkeeping professionals, this means giving up on some of the usability you’ve come to expect (like being able to fit all the necessary information on the screen, and having easy-to-read menus, or not seeing a lot of unusable space on the screen, or even being able to suppress Intuit in-product offers).

Many companies have successfully increased their revenue potential by adding offers for services via links in the software interface, which is much more acceptable now that people have adopted web technologies and are familiar with the “hyperlink” concept.  Building additional value (and revenue streams) in the solution makes sense from a business perspective, which is why you see so many software companies moving in this direction.  Software solutions and services can interconnect seamlessly and transparently via the web, so we should all expect to see software makers engage their customers in as many ways and with as many products and services as possible.  For Intuit, this means being positioned to take advantage of, initially, their partner network of interconnected solutions and, later, their own direct offerings in each area.

Software developers like Intuit DO listen to their users and market influencers, as they value your continued patronage.  They have come to learn, however, that devoted (or invested) users will accept change eventually – even more so when there is a chance to use the change to generate business opportunity.  QuickBooks accountants and trainers rely on change in order to keep their clients coming back for more.

The real target is the new user – the business not already adopted into the product – and it is primarily for this new user that the interface changes were made and in-product advertisements targeted to.

In the case of Intuit’s interface selection for QuickBooks 2013 desktop editions, it might seem like there’s “no enhancement, just the interface change”.  I would suggest, however, that the interface change IS the enhancement Intuit elected to deliver – enhancement of the acceptance of the online edition and connected services.

Make Sense?

J

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Smarter Online Document Vaults: Document Management for QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and more

Smarter Online Document Vaults

Document Management for QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and more

Document management used to be just about storing and retrieving files.  Being able to easily store document images and other files, and then quickly finding them when you need them, is an important aspect of business record keeping.  If you are an accounting or bookkeeping professional offering outsourced services to clients, having a secure way to store and manage client document files from a variety of sources is key to developing workflows and standardizing service delivery.   Invoices, bills, bank statements, and all the other paperwork which is generated by various business processes must be captured, accounted for, and retained for future reference and documentation support.  With all of this going on, having a secure and easy way to handle all that paper and computer-generated reporting is really important.

Using an electronic document management system isn’t really that much different from dealing with paper filing systems, at least in terms of the process.  You obtain the document, you translate it into a journal entry or transaction, and then you file the document away for later use.  The difference is simply that the document becomes digital image data and is stored electronically, instead of keeping the paper file around.   And, the earlier in the process where you can turn paper documents into digital images, the better, because it reduces the need for “paper-based” processes which take more time and resources, and which may introduce risk of information loss or damage.

In an outsourced bookkeeping arrangement, for example, allowing the client to convert paper to image files is highly desirable as it prevents the outsourcer from having to travel to client offices to obtain paperwork, and reduces the time involved either with traveling to and from client locations or time spent waiting for mailed information to arrive.  For the client to handle this process willingly, or with any frequency, tools which are simple to understand and use must be supplied.   Scanning a document, saving it to the hard drive, and then trying to find the file to upload later to an accountant “portal” is not a simple process and it is not efficient.  If the user is somewhat nontechnical (most business owners?), or if there is a lot of paperwork to scan and upload, that multi-step process just won’t work for the client.

SmartVault, a solution for QuickBooks-connected and general purpose document management, has an elegant solution to the problem, and it’s called the “InBox”.   Just like the inbox on your desk, the SmartVault InBox is where new documents arrive to be processed. The ingenious part is that the InBox is a little applet that gets installed on the client workstation, and provides them with a very simple way to scan files directly to SmartVault.  The accountant or bookkeeper then accesses the client files from the inbox and processes and/or attaches them to QuickBooks transactions as required.  The client has only to perform the simple task of telling the SmartVault InBox app to obtain documents fed into the scanner.  No local file saving and retrieval required.  For the accountant or bookkeeper, the inbox is the first stop in the workflow, and is the place they go to obtain whatever information the client has provided.  The SmartVault InBox can also be used to return files easily and securely to clients, bypassing the need to have the client access and log in to a website in order to get the files (but a website portal is also part of the system, just in case the client prefers this method).  If providing seamless service and easy to follow procedures describes how you work with your clients, then SmartVault could become a key element in your service delivery.

Affordability and ease of use are important factors to consider when looking for document management solutions for small businesses.  In addition, having the ability to store documents from popular small business applications allows users to centrally store and manage all their business documents and files, not just those related to accounting.  When users wear many “hats” in the business, and need access to a variety of document types, a centralized filing system is an absolute necessity.  SmartVault addresses this by providing direct integration with Microsoft Outlook, Results CRM, and a variety of other popular small business solutions.

Oriented for use by small businesses and the accountants and bookkeepers who serve them, SmartVault delivers a surprisingly powerful solution which addresses the variety of document storage, attachment and retrieval requirements of most businesses, coupled with the workflow tools and a unique QuickBooks integration capability to specifically address the needs of accounting and finance department users.  You know you need to work smarter and not harder, so your document vault should be smarter, too.

Make Sense?

J

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Bringing Order to Inefficient Business Processes: Give people easy to use tools that make sense, and they’ll use them.

Give people easy to use tools that make sense, and they’ll use them.

Most businesses need a little help streamlining those frustrating back-office processes that remain as barriers to better information collection and use.  What sort of processes?  Time keeping, for whatever reason or need, is one of them.  Maybe employee time spent relates specifically to billable project revenue, or possibly time spent is part of an embedded cost in an engagement.  Or, time tracking may simply be a means to capture data on employee productivity.  In a lot of situations, getting time records from contractors or employees is like asking them to move a mountain.  Maybe there is a mountain to move, depending on how many sheets of notes and handwritten records they’ve got stacked up.

Another process to look at is expense management and reporting, where all those random size receipts taped to a piece of letter paper, credit card statements with lines blacked out with a Sharpie, and spreadsheets of purchase requisitions for things you’ve never heard of before get stacked in the in-box where you not-so-secretly hope a fire will start some time during the night.  Someone actually has to go through this information and enter it into the system, and then decide what to do with the requests.  When this “someone” is the owner or manager, it means taking time away from actually running the business.  When it’s the bookkeeper, more focus may be placed on data entry than on verifying spending authorizations or managing the cash flow.

While almost every business has these time and expense management needs in their business, it is an area of automation and “tooling up” that is often overlooked.   One of the reasons for this may be that a lot of the solutions users are asked to implement just aren’t “usable” enough, or don’t really fit the context of what the user needs to accomplish.  In order to get the most value out of any business solution, workers must actually use the solution.  It has been proven time and again that, if you give people easy tools that make sense, they’ll use them.

Your accounting software may have time tracking with it, but does it make sense for your employees to access accounting just to record their time?  How about your contractors?  Employee reimbursable expenses paid by credit card can be accessed directly via transaction downloads from the bank, but does it make sense for you to have access to the employee’s account?  While there may be many ways to accomplish these tasks, there are only a few really effective ways which deliver the access as well as the security, and the relevant functionality that makes it easier for good workers to capture good data.  Selecting a system with the right functionality is key, but finding a system people can and will actually use means you’ve found a real solution, not just a system.

Make Sense?

J

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Discussion on hosted service options at The Sleeter Group ASC 2012

Discussion on hosted service options at The Sleeter Group ASC 2012

Are you having a hard time understanding the best approach to hosting your business applications – wondering why it costs what it costs, and why some applications seem harder to get hosted than others?  While installing applications on your desktop seems pretty straightforward, it may seem like nothing short of rocket science to get an application installed with your hosting provider.  And, to make matters worse, a handy little software widget you just bought for $20 now means you must have your own entire virtual server just to run it in the cloud? What’s up with that?

There is a lot of confusion regarding application hosting services, what customers expect from them, and what service providers are reasonably able to deliver.  Unfortunately, software developers, customers and service providers are not always on the same page when it comes to trying to solve the problem or making it easier for businesses to adopt the service.

To attempt to address the issue, and to (hopefully) provide some clarity and guidance around the application hosting service model and its use in your business, I will be presenting a session on application hosting, including QuickBooks hosting, at the 2012 Accounting Solutions Conference, presented by the Sleeter Group and being held this year in Anaheim, California on October 22-24.  The discussion will include information on typical hosting provider models, as well as application issues and considerations businesses should be aware of when looking to have their software and systems delivered by a 3rd party.

In all fairness, I will not be recommending specific providers, nor will I suggest that any one provider is better than another.  Each hosting company has their own strengths and weaknesses, which is true with all businesses.  The focus of the session is helping attendees learn what they need to know to begin a basic evaluation of whether or not hosting of their applications makes sense, and to recognize those factors which will impact cost, performance, and usability.  Further, I’ll also be talking about how hosting isn’t a standalone solution, and how cloud-based applications and services may be combined with hosted application services to deliver the necessary functionality for the best value (“can you say chunkify!” to use a Doug-ism).

So, I guess you need to come to Anaheim in October to learn some stuff, and then take a day at Disneyland.

Make sense?

J

Get ASC 2012 conference session information here

read more about the confusion over hosted licensing on The Progressive Accountant http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/tech-tips/confusion-over-hosted-licensing.html

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Price Of The Cloud Still Out Of Reach For Small Businesses? Commercial QuickBooks Hosting Providers offer competitive pricing, but are still largely unknown.

Price Of The Cloud Still Out Of Reach For Small Businesses?

Price Of The Cloud Still Out Of Reach For Small Businesses?

Commercial QuickBooks Hosting Providers offer competitive pricing, but are still largely unknown.

In a recent article on Forbes.com, contributor Gene Marks contends that, for most small businesses, the most cost effective way to run their business IT is locally and not in the cloud.  The contention is that software features and functionality businesses demand isn’t yet available in affordable SaaS solutions, and outsourcing the hosting and management of desktop applications is more costly than doing it yourself.

Because the cost of a cloud solution like the one I have is still too high for most small businesses like mine!  The setup I have would normally run me about $100 per user per month.  Which means that a typical small business with a ten user network would be paying $12,000 per year.   Yes, you read that right.  It’s a great service.  But is it worth that much?  Not to my clients – all thirty of them who considered this option turned it down.  At least for now.  Forbes.com

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2012/01/23/price-of-the-cloud-still-out-of-reach-for-small-businesses/

What this author did not take in to account is the aggressive pricing model which evolved around the hosted QuickBooks desktop editions, and how the community of Authorized Commercial Hosts for QuickBooks offer “full meal deal” hosting of those business applications most small businesses know and love.  Because the QuickBooks desktop editions have such a large market of integrations, add-ons, plug-ins, etc. it was necessary for most of the hosting providers to accept hosting of a wide variety of these applications in order to get adoption of the hosted QuickBooks product with ProAdvisors and accountants as well as their clients.

One of the Authorized QuickBooks Hosting providers, Cloud9RealTime.com, offers both shared hosting of QuickBooks desktop applications and Microsoft Office, as well as virtual server environments where customers may run whatever mixture of desktop software solutions the business already has.  By allowing businesses to place all of their licensed products in a managed environment, where installation of software updates and helpdesk support is part of the service, it enables organizations to have the benefits of remote access and high availability service without having to build the capability themselves – and for a fraction of the cost.  Cloud9’s pricing model is far less than described in the article, with services for businesses being available for half (or less) than the $100 per user cited by the author.

The Authorized Host for QuickBooks program and community of providers seems to be fairly unknown amongst small businesses, but owners and managers should look more closely at providers like Cloud9RealTime.com and see what pricing and services are available.  It may change your mind, and show that the cloud isn’t out of reach for small businesses.

Make sense?

J

read more about the confusion over hosted licensing on The Progressive Accountant http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/tech-tips/confusion-over-hosted-licensing.html