Thanks to the increased popularity and the number of users using Winweb's OnlineOffice, AccountsOffice and CashBook we are able to announce the price of our OnlineOffice subscription, single user, has been reduced to only £9.99 per month.

For more details of the subscription pricing and our service offering view our pricing matrix. All current and new users will benefit from the new pricing structure. This announcement will mean using Winweb's Small Business Infrastructure will be even more cost effective for all our users.

Winweb OnlineOffice includes our award winning AccountsOffice V3 along with the following items:

• Cashflow forecasting
• e-Invoicing
• e-Mail messaging centre
• Online Address book and calendar
• Web builder and integrated e-Shop
• Online quotation system
• To do list
• Secure file storage
• Small business resources
• Multi-User licences
• Optional EPoS integration
• Optional Call answering,
• Optional mailing address
• Optional company registration
• Additional Live! Services
• Plus free 24/7 live online support.

Winweb AccountsOffice online accounting software is still the first and the only certified online accounting application.

Tags: AAT, ACCA, AccMan Pro, Accountants, Accounting, AccountsOffice, AccountsVision, Bookkeeping, Business Development, Business Infrastructure, Business Start Up, Business Tool, Client Relations, CPA, CPAs, Customer Service, E-Commerce, Entrepreneur, Home Business, Homesourcing, ICAEW, ICAI, ICAS, IFA, Micro Business, Office/IT, On-demand, Outsourcing, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, Teleworking, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, WebOffice, WinWeb, WinWeb AccountsOffice , WinWeb CashBook, WinWeb OnlineOffice, WOW

I’m on the phone on hold to Sage support at this very moment.

A disembodied voice tells me that my call will be answered in "9 to 10 minutes".  That’s got to be better than the "more than 15 minutes" I got when I phoned at 12.15 - lunch break time.

The question I need to ask has a "yes" or "no" answer…

If this client were using Winweb, I could have hopped on the chat support and have had an answer by now…

Sage, take note - a chat support system is good!

Tags: Accounting, Office - IT

At the moment you may have guessed from a recent posting that Stefan is in Australia, ah lucky for some.

In his recent post he commented on the Australian government departments lack of understanding about the home based business, and no doubt the smaller owner managed business all together. Interesting, Australia may be a long way from the UK but their lack of understanding in this area is just the same I would say.

My reason for bring this up is a totally selfish one, I too have also been doing a bit of ‘touring’ down under, but in a virtual way rather than physical.

I am a contributor to the Big Words for Small Business website site. This website which only went live a week ago  is aimed at the small owner managed business, and this ‘type’ of enterprise is not only a UK or Australian phenomenon but a world wide one.

The idea of the site is that a panel of contributors from entrepreneurs, illustrator and cartoonist, business coaches and mentors and me the accountant/business advisor will each month for the next 26 months each write an article based on a letter of the alphabet, this months being A, obviously, these articles are meant to engage the readers in a way that makes them think about what they are doing in their business lives, and maybe even their personal lives.

Andrew Young who’s brain child this is described the purpose of the site better than I can, this is his vision, so I will let him tell you about it.

Remember when you opened your first picture alphabet book?

Remember the feeling of wonder, the discovery and the joy of this whole new world?

Books like these served to focus our attention on a single letter by using drawings and images, and then words associated with that letter.

They created a secret world that each of us could explore, uncover and learn from.

As we learnt more, and our brain developed further, we began learning bigger words, then creating sentences connecting words, which lead to stories, essays and for some, books.

One of the things we sometimes forget is that individual words can have great power, in their own right.

Words such as emotion, passion and possibility have all sorts of associations for us and they also tie into the word inspiration.

I’d like you to keep those two things in mind … the alphabet book and the power of a single word.

Now imagine an adult’s alphabet book

Ah … a dictionary or thesaurus?

No something more powerful and connecting than that.

It’s an alphabet book that is specifically targeted to small business owners.

It’s created by a group of profound thinkers who are acknowledged from its conception.

Unlike most books, this one will be created over a number of months, as the readers are provided with an ongoing and unique insight into the thoughts and ideas of that group, from around the world.

The articles contributed will each focus on a single word and the writers will show how this single word can have impact on the reader, the things they say and do, the way they run their business and the way they communicate and act.

The focus of this book is to be on … “how the simplicity of a single word has much more power than what immediately appears”

Tags: SME, SMB, OMB, Working for yourself, Self Employed, Entrepreneur, Big words for Small Business, Business Ideas, WinWeb, Micro Business, Accountants, Business Advisors

You may have all seen in the news recently the petition to have the Prime Minister scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy, and you may wonder why on a blog for small business I bring it up, well quite simply put, if this government gets its way then this will be yet another tax that the small business will have to endure.

To add your voice to over 1.2 million others who are against it please use the link below and say NO!

Link to E-Petition on Downing Street website.

Tags: Small business, SME, Self Employed, Working for yourself, Road pricing policy, SMB, OMB

As you may have heard, we have taken a majority stake in AccountsVision, why would we do that. We tried to do deals with other vendors, you would know the names, but some of them would not even talk to us or just never called back. So we looked around for someone who did not have an "old" business model to protect. Emily Coltmann pointed me into the direction of AccountsVision and I am very grateful for that. There are several reasons why we feel AccountsVision fits well within our organisation.

Firstly we like the guys at AccountsVision and enjoyed our discussions with them about where we believe the small accounting practice and their clients, the very small business users, are going. We will use our joint expertise to maximise the benefits for the small practice that can be gained by utilising SaaS and our unique online live services model.

Secondly, I have been talking about the need for a SBI - Small Business Infrastructure. This does not only include providing things like web-site, online shop, email, accounting software, online file-store, basic CRM, etc to the small business user. Infrastructure is far more than that, typing, telephone services, parcel services, company formation, cash control and invoicing, all those services performed by real people, that most people in big organisations take for granted. Our accounting partners will be able to gain from this approach two-fold. They will be able to utilise the technology to streamline their own organisation and safe money at the same time.

For example, I hear from our partners, that it is more and more difficult to get qualified staff. Using our CashBook service, we have been able to de-complicate book keeping, by allowing admin staff to enter clients receipts and then have a book keeper do the double entry. We will be offering online training courses and tutorials for these admin CashBook users in the near future. However nobody has to wait, our 24×7 live support is happy to help with any questions anytime.

Our accounting partners also benefit from our free product offer for all their clients. That means not only can our partners offer CashBook and AccountsOffice free of charge to their clients, but also OnlineOffice. This unique offering will further enhance the competitive advantage of our accounting partners, reduce customer churn and make them into "THE" small business advisor in their area.

Thirdly, we and AccountsVision share the vision, that the accountants are the most important ingredient in the SBI approach. We make it faster and easier for Accountants to deal with admin issues, like preparation of annual accounts, to allow for more (chargeable) consulting time, for the accountants benefit and that of their clients. This is partly reality already with the seamless integration of the AccountsVision product with our own product line.

By making AccountsVision part of WinWeb, we will accelerate the development of our small accounting practice vision, by helping accountants to manage their business and clients better and faster, leaving more time to help small business clients to stay in business.

Following this acquisition, AccountsVision will resume total admin responsibility for our accounting partner relationships within a few weeks. We do not force any one to use both products, they will still exist as individual products, but we will try to make our joint accounting partners an offer they can not refuse, based on superior products, better service, very competitive pricing and real partnership.

I would also like to announce the opening of our new development centre in India to further speed up new developments, localisations for new markets, and enhance our API activities. The impact of this should be noticeable within the next few months. With over 100,000 users, we are getting real good usage data and product feedback, which will allow us to make our products more user friendly and with our new development centre we will be able to react faster.

I have been criticised for not talking about the AccountsVision deal with our Gold Partners before it happened and I am truly sorry about that. But my experience with M&A deals tells me to be careful what you announce. I think this deal or a similar deal was the next logical first step. When you look at our product offering it is fairly obvious what we will do next, payroll. We will try again to find an reliable outsourcing partner, failing that we will have to find different ways to give our clients what they need.

Finally my current talks in Australia and New Zealand have helped to formulate a set of offerings and localisations for these markets with the same focus on small business mortality. Here the Government bodies are far more small business orientated and that will make for some speedy rollout of our services.

Tags: AAT, ACCA, AccMan Pro, Accountants, Accounting, AccountsOffice, AccountsVision, Bookkeeping, Business Development, Business Infrastructure, Business Start Up, Business Tool, Client Relations, CPA, CPAs, Customer Service, E-Commerce, Entrepreneur, Home Business, Homesourcing, ICAEW, ICAI, ICAS, IFA, Micro Business, Office/IT, On-demand, Outsourcing, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, Teleworking, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, WebOffice, WinWeb, WinWeb AccountsOffice , WinWeb CashBook, WinWeb OnlineOffice, WOW