Here is a little “something” about the SaaS - Software as a Service vendor reality. It is a fact that it takes SaaS vendor longer to break even, than an old type software vendor. But, when it happens you can do things like this:

From October 1st, 2006 all our Silver and Gold Accounting Partners will receive a 80% subscription revenue share on all clients signed up through the partner firm.

This will further enhance the opportunities for our partners to offer help and support for our SOHO clients. Our accounting partners can offer our products from any price at or below the RRP. Some may even decide to absorb the monthly fee for the marketing benefit.

While our AccountsOffice is free of charge anyway. It allows partners to offer our AccountsOffice+, OnlineOffice to clients with the additional benefits of accountant business advisor input for the client. This all includes our newly launched CashBook.

This in turn will further enhance our SBI - Small Business Infrastructure approach, by getting our partners into the SOHO businesses, with the aim to reduce mortality rate among our clients. This makes sense for the entrepreneur, our partner firms and WinWeb.

Tags: AAT, ACCA, Accountants, AccountsOffice, AccountsVision, Bookkeeping, Business Development, Business Infrastructure, Business Start Up, Cash-Flow, CharterGroup, CIMA, CIPFA, Client Relations, CPA, CPAs, Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Evenlode Network, Great Business Idea, Home Business, ICAEW, ICAI, ICAS, IFA, IT, Micro Business, Office/IT, On-demand, Online Shop, OnlineOffice, Outsourcing, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, United Kingdom, VAs, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VirtualOffice, VSB, Web Technology, WebOffice, WinWeb AccountsOffice+, WinWeb CashBook, WinWeb OnlineOffice, WOW

I guess GM food may also be good for insects. As you can see on Google Earth, their is a problem in Germany. It is about 50 meters long (150 feet) and could be a problem on the nearby motor-way.
Don’t you love it when this sort of thing happens ! We are still human after all!

Tags: Google

Reading Jason’s post on accounting in real time and Phil’s ( BTW, thanks for mentioning us ) post on SaaS and some CIOs comments, it struck (!) me, that nobody is talking about the environmental impact of SaaS.

Here is how I see it:

NO PACKAGING. This is the obvious one. We do not need to send CD’s, boxes and wrappings to supply our product. Remember you also save all the packaging, fuel and pollution associated with the supply chain.
LESS TRAVEL. The SaaS technology allows users to be based anywhere. They do not need to travel to work and can save on all kinds of other travel, by using SaaS technology to meet online. Not only the environmental impact is considerable, but also the time and cost saving for the user.
LESS PAPER & PRINTING. Using email, e-Quote and e-Invoice, web-site and online shop, you save an enormous amount of paper and printing, considering again the delivery process of catalogues, brochures, letters, invoices and quotations the environmental benefits are enormous. Again the user benefits from time and cost savings at the same time.
HOMESOURCING. Using our SaaS and Live! products you can out-source or home-source additional work, using an largely untapped labour market of skilled virtual assistance, who do not need an office, desk, computer, software, heating, air-conditioning, etc. again saving time, money and benefitting the environment.
SUPPORT ONLINE. Much the same as above. Our support is done online, knowledge-base replaces manuals. Effect is obvious. But even the business support, i.e. talking to your accountant can be done online, no travel, less time for the accountant or client wasted, less cost.
LESS COMPUTER WASTE. Since none of the processing is done on the clients PC there is less need to upgrade the computer hardware, it certainly gives computers a longer service life.

Some of these benefits may also be available by using the old software model and desk-top applications, but in comparison they are very limited. If we want to get serious about our environment, we need to change the way we work.
Here is the thing that gets me going, do we really need to be on the motor-way, in trains, buses, taxis, etc. for hours each day? Do we really need to heat and/or cool our house and our office space all day?

I know that “human” value is gained through the social interaction between people in the office environment, but could we use social networking to do the same? Surely daily travel adds to our stress levels, that impacts our work performance and our health.

I believe once we question these daily realities we will not only help the environment, but also have a direct personal, financial and health gain from the changes we could make.

Tags: Accountants, AccountsOffice, bad business, Business Development, Business Idea, Business Infrastructure, Business Mentoring, Business Start Up, Business Tool, Client Relations, Customer Service, E-Commerce, Entrepreneur, Environment, FREE Business Tool, Great Business Idea, Home Business, Homesourcing, IT, Micro Business, Office/IT, On-demand, Online Shop, OnlineOffice, Open Source Software, Outsourcing, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Skype, Small Business, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, Teleworking, VAs, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VirtualOffice, VSB, Web Technology, WebOffice, WinWeb, WinWeb AccountsOffice+, WinWeb CashBook, WinWeb OnlineOffice, WOW

Dennis over at AccMan has put an interesting twist on a job advertisement.

The job advert is for accountancy firm Goodman Jones, who unfortunately use one of WinWeb’s competitors Twinfield, never mind you can’t always get it right (only kidding David, we all know it’s a nice product).

Dennis has rewritten, and in my opinion, very nicely humanized the advert, I wonder if this is the way all job adverts will go, a bit less stuffy….

Nice rewrite Den, I like it …. just off to post my CV, the pubs sounds great, only I see no mention of 3 hour lunches in the pub to discuss business strategy, is this an oversight?

Tags: WinWeb, Twinfield, Dennis Howlett, AccMan, Goodman Jones, Job advertisements, Staff recruitment

An interesting article in AccountancyAge the other day about Warren Tayler, the chairman of AIM-listed direct marketing group, Themutual.net, he has blasted the accountancy profession.

In a letter he wrote to the FT he said the group’s auditors had trebled the fee without explaining why.

He goes on to say that ‘while many businesses are cutting overheads and staff costs by the use of technology, the accounting profession, while stating that they too are moving with the time, end up greatly increasing the costs to clients’.

He went on to question why auditors could not use the internet to update client accounts in real-time.

Well Mr. Tayler, they can and we do!

We don’t act as auditors, and we don’t have AIM-listed clients, we offer our services to smaller businesses, and since September last year (2005) we have offered FREE online real-time accounting software to all our client (that want it) in association with WinWeb. 

Tags: WinWeb, Holden Associates, SaaS, Online accounting, AccountancyAge, Warren Tayler, AIM, Themutual.net, FT, Accountants, Auditors, Real-time accounting

We all now know that from 1 October the National Minimum Wage ‘NMW’ is going up, so I thought I would share with you the top ten most commonly used reasons employers give for not paying the National Minimum Wage when caught by HM Revenue & Customs:

10. I only took him on as a favour
9. The workers can’t speak English
8. He’s over 65, so the national minimum wage doesn’t apply
7. She’s on benefits - if you add those to her pay, it totals the NMW
6. They can’t cope on their own and it’s more than they would get in their own country
5. He’s disabled
4. I didn’t think it applied to small employers
3. I didn’t think the workers were worth NMW
2. But she only wanted £3 an hour
1. He doesn’t deserve it - he’s a total waste of space

Tags: National Minimum Wage, Employing Staff, HM Revenue & Customs

Soon October will be upon us, and with it some important changes for those of you who employ staff.

I know recent postings have mentioned employing staff, well here are a few more things to be aware of from 1st October 2006:

• National minimum wage increases

• Changes in statutory maternity and adoption leave

• New age discrimination legislation comes into effect

• New fire safety regulations

• Changes in collective redundancy notification

Nobody said running your own business would be easy, less so when you are responsible for employing others.

Enjoy the rest of September and prepare to be fully compliant with all the changes from 1 October.

Tags: National Minimum wage, SMP, Statutory maternity pay, Adoption leave, Age discrimination legislation, Fire safety regulations, Employers, Employing staff

I am happy to report that WinWeb has launched WinWeb CashBook. It is the first module completely coded in AJAX, so it’s behavior is much more like a desktop application, and not like a web page. We will release more and more of our code in AJAX over the next month.

CashBook is a accountant partner only plugin for AccountsOffice+ and OnlineOffice ( it requires the FileStore functionality ). Accountants will set their clients up who have no understanding or interest in bookkeeping/accounting.

For Users:-

Using the Cashbook couldn’t be easier and you don’t need to know anything about accounting. .

Whatever method you use to record your income & expenses at the moment, instead simply enter the details on a form on the Payments & Receipts pages of ‘Cashbook’ to record any money paid into or out of your business. Enter the details on a form on the Purchases & Sales pages of ‘Cashbook’ to record any invoices to or from your business. You will then have a record of all your income & expenses shown with monthly totals.

If you make any mistakes, use the edit button to change entries or just overwrite with the next entry you want to make.

Use the balance outstanding column, on the Purchases & Sales pages, to check how much money you owe or chase any money owed to you.

Let your accountant post your entries for you & you will see reports of how your business is doing.

For Accountants:-

You will be able to set up your clients with AccountsOffice+ or OnlineOffice to give them access to ‘Cashbook’.

Using the Settings page, you will be able to set Standard or Cash Accounting or, if your client is not VAT registered, just switch off the VAT.

To post your client’s entries, using the ‘Post Payments’ & ‘Post Receipts’ pages, you only need to select the nominal account, VAT account & bank accounts.. Before posting, any mistakes can be changed by editing the entry on the Payments or Receipts pages.

With your accountant’s log in, you will be able to prepare VAT returns & reconcile bank / cash accounts & will be in control of the chart of accounts, which you can customise to suit your client’s business. Your client will be able to view the nominal ledger, trial balance, profit & loss & balance sheet reports but will be unable to change any of these.

Tags: sme, Software as a Service, SOHO, OnlineOffice, AccountsOffice, Outsourcing, Business Development, Micro Business, AccountsVision, Teleworking, Customer Service, WinWeb OnlineOffice, Business Infrastructure, Cash-Flow, SaaS, Accounting, Bookkeeping, E-Commerce, SBI, Business Start Up, Entrepreneur, United Kingdom, Selfemployed, VAs, Very Small Business, Home Business, Virtual Assitants, VirtualOffice, Office/IT, On-demand, VSB, Web Technology, WebOffice, Business Tool, Small Business, smb, WinWeb, WinWeb AccountsOffice+, WinWeb CashBook, WOW, sme-blog

I took my Honda car to a local dealer in Southport on Friday for its annual service. I phoned them well in advance and booked it in and at that same time went through with this firms representative what service was required.

I explained the car was not my main car and therefore had limit use so a full service was not required this year, only a minor service.

Then on Friday I took my car in at 8.30am as agreed signed for the work to be done and left my keys after arranging to pick the car up at 4pm. All this was so very easy and without stress.

However, when I went back at 4pm to collect my car I was duly informed that it was serviced and everything was fine with it and the bill for a full service is ……….

Now this is were everything went south for customer service, I explained when I booked it in, it was for a minor, and not a major service, to which I was told ‘you didn’t say anything this morning’!

I explained that I was not aware after confirming everything over the phone originally that I then have to go through it all again when dropping the car off.

In the end the reception I was given went decidedly cold, I was told to sit down and they would take all the parts off that shouldn’t be on, once this was done I was given my invoice, still experiencing an arctic type reception.

Result, this is one dealership I will never use again come hell or high water. Not a very good way of pleasing your customers, especially when you are in the wrong.

How would I have handled it, or how would I advise my clients to handle it, well firstly, it’s not the customers fault you have screwed up, so don’t blame them, apologize for the error, and in my case tell them you will only charge for the minor service and leave all the parts on and tell them they have done well, a major service for the price of a minor one, good PR.

Then I would find out what went wrong internally, find out why the person taking the booking didn’t make a note of the service agreed, explain to this member of staff that this can never happen again, as this has resulted in the company losing money, and if this keeps going the long term prospect would be no pay rises for anyone and worse case scenario job loses!

At least this way, the customer will come back again the following year (hoping no doubt for the same mistake to be made) and you will have identified a chink in your company’s armour which you can now fix.

Remember, the customer is not always right, but he/she is the customer and you need them!

Tags:  Customer relations, Car dealers, Customer service, Service levels

Damian Wild over at Accounting Age wrote about growth for accountancy firms. And as far as the big firms are concerned I agree with him. He writes:

(….) Yes, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a slowdown is underway (comments from PwC chairman Kieran Poynter, less-good-than-previously financials from a big recruiter etc.) (….)

and then carries on:

(…) Deloitte’s chief executive John Connolly says: ‘ “Calling” the market in the year ahead is challenging. (…)

I think this may be true for several reasons. In my discussions with big firms so far I always got the “It’s our way, or the highway” for SOHOs who want to do business with them. Because of their size, the bigger firms find it difficult to deal with “all these small business needs“. In fact often they do not want to get involved, and that is very bad for SOHOs.

One other reason my be, that the large medium size market is more and more saturated. So the business that is there for the taking is not serviced correctly (IMO), and the business that could be serviced is no longer growing fast enough.

But for the small firms I see a very different picture, since the SOHO sector is largely untapped. Small firms locking after SOHOs are in for a period of growth and long term customer relationships.

Why do I believe that? Because small firms or sole practitioners are:

• closer to their clients needs,
• often more cost-effective,
• willing to offer “special” services.

For reasons of relevancy and financial importance to the accounting firm, it is also better for a SOHO to use a sole practitioner or small firm.

Tags: AAT, ACCA, Accountancy Age, Accountants, Accounting, AccountsOffice, AccountsVision, AIA, Bookkeeping, Business Development, Business Infrastructure, Business Start Up, Cash-Flow, CharterGroup, CIMA, CIPFA, Client Relations, CPA, CPAs, Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Evenlode Network, Home Business, ICAEW, ICAI, ICAS, IFA, IT, Micro Business, On-demand, Outsourcing, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, Teleworking, United Kingdom, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VirtualOffice, WinWeb