Who is jc anyway?

Dennis pinged me the other day about a discussion taking place on AccountingWeb and it involved WinWeb. I think it would be a good idea for our clients in the UK to have a look at this website for “professionals” in the accounting arena. It will give you a idea of what accountants in the UK are talking about and also about the attitude towards very small business.

As most of my readers will be aware our aim is to provide a Small Business Infrastructure to the one to five people business in order to decrease to totally unacceptable mortality rate (business failures) in the first 12 month of business and beyond. Especially for this purpose we are giving away a complete accounting system or cashbook for free use to single users, so that you can get to work with your accountant online - one of the main causes of business failure is that many businesses get needed advice too late.

Example one, here is Martin Foley on AccountingWeb:

” ….. To give a micro example on topic ; I looked at Winweb say 12 months ago (not certain of exact timing - might have been longer) with the 100% intention to give it a whirl with a few “test” clients who would be keen to try it. One of the more unsatisfactory experiences of my life. I could not even easily ascertain their offering in terms of the basics of market interface and fees, and attempts to find out were like trying to nail jelly to the wall. OK, I was clearly not prepared to work hard enough at it, but it was indicative of a pretty fundamental issue. The technology may be good but their understanding of how to approach (or be appoached by) a market were woeful and a complete block to my transfer. Perhaps, with your input, they radically changed and are now accessible - the figures you quote would indicate they must have changed something !! Like many, I am working with software companies in the area, but of course when I have my next shot at using an off-the-peg solution, it is likely I will try someone else.
Strange how technology and marketing make awkward bed-fellows so often. But it provides great opportunities. …….”

Do we get everything we do right, no we don’t - but give me a break, Martin could not find the “Pricing” button on top of the page, nor could he find the 24/7 live online support button, right at the top of every page. Even if the online support could not have helped with any of his questions it would have automatically opened a ticket and we would have got back to him ASAP.

This guy was only thinking about himself, nobody else, certainly not any clients he had, who he could have serviced better and cheaper - incredible. Later Martin comes to the following conclusion:

“….. as it might be read as a comment that I failed to get a message across to them. Doh !! NOT a way to build a business. Their business (any business) is dependent on sucking the message in from the market and facilitating market feedback . The whole point about my experience was that it was just too much like hard work to get the basics !! Let alone then go on to find out a way to give ‘em my fourpennyworth of feedback.
That’s not a good business model. The whole business point is that the developers have to find ways to extract the market feedback.
Perhaps that’s one reason they are crying out for professionals to pick up clients they already have? - please feed that back to them (with my name by all means!! ….”

Martin good news - we got the message, thank you. I will see if I can decipher your comments and make further improvements!

So here it is, Martin is happy to spend the time on AWeb in this fashion instead of having a discussion with us. I don’t know what his real issue is - but in this instant my website worked fine, it kept him away from my customers.

Example number two - jc! Don’t you hate that when people do that. If you can’t put your name to what you have to say, why bother? Anyway here it is:

“… Winweb nudge …
Perhaps someone could give the people at Winweb a nudge to respond to my previous WinWeb questions. ….”

This then leads to this:

“Winweb Questions
- what database is used (if any)
- is there a separate database per client or does one database include many clients
- client data can be backed up to their local disk; is this a database backup or a text file (csv) approach
Many thanks

jc”

Does jc know what our website is, does AWeb technical support for us?

ANSWER: We use a SQL DB and you can do both backups, database and .csv. For the rest of this I refer to David Terrar’s comments on AWeb.

Dennis and others defended us and informed both people, and I am grateful for that, since my login has been deleted by AWeb again. I wonder what else I missed.

Here is the thing why you should care. Accounting rules are complex and vast, you need to be able to trust that the people you are dealing with are up to date and informed and also have an idea to whom they should talk if they need information. In this day and age it definitely involves online resources and the proper use of them.

We are working with a great bunch of accountants and bookkeepers, but be aware that not all accountants are the same. So next time you are looking for an accountant and don’t want to use one of our partners - and you know you should - have a look at AWeb to find out if they have made any comments here. It will help you to make up your mind - only if you know who jc is of-cause.

Remember wrong advice is often worse than no advice.

Tags: Accountants, Client Relations, Customer Service, Dennis Howlett, Entrepreneur, Micro Business, OnlineOffice, Outsourcing, AccountingWeb, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, SOHO, Very Small Business, WinWeb, WinWeb AccountsOffice , WinWeb CashBook, WinWeb OnlineOffice

10 Responses to “Who is jc anyway?”

1. martin foley
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 3:47 pm

   What an astonishingly childish article.
   And intentionally misleading.
   Any folk wishing to use adults for their services may wish to go to the original aweb thread and read the full story for themselves rather than this sort of New Labour spin.

   Most online service providers (whatever their technology base) are seeking ways to provide the end user with the best solution. Pity that Winweb, based on this diatribe, appear to wish to buck that basic concept.

   For the record, I emailed winweb directly FOUR times for explanations and clarification. If this article is anything to go by, their lack of ability to respond and interact over a year ago has not moved on one jot.

2. Stefan Töpfer
   http://www.winweb.com
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

   Martin,

   It’s time to put up or shut up. When did you sent these emails. You said before and I quote:

   …. too much like hard work to get the basics !! Let alone then go on to find out a way to give ‘em my fourpennyworth of feedback…….

   You are making very serious allegations here, not only insulting me, but my staff - IF you are right I am happy to apologise to you very publicly.

   Let me see if I have a problem in my support or if you just need your ego trips.

   I also posted on the AWeb site.

3. martin foley
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 4:52 pm

   Stefan
   You posted a clear-cut untruth on the aweb thread, and I note you have not even apologised for it.

   Winweb responded TWICE to me - so if your systems cannot trace the stuff, you do indeed have serious problems.

4. Stefan Töpfer
   http://www.winweb.com
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

   Martin,

   You made false statements on AWeb, by saying we did not respond etc, etc. You contacted us on Sept. 18th, 2006 our ticket number is 30370, you used a different email address then, I did not find it because I used your current email, my fault and I apologise for that mistake.

   The fact remains you knowingly lied about us not responding to you. You even made everyone believe you had not even contacted us, because it was not worth your time. Then with every post from you a new story evolved.

   We will post this whole ticket as a .pdf file on this blog in the near future. Then everyone can see that your original accusations are false, I am happy to leave it at that. However you are welcome to continue down this path if you feel it necessary.

   Let me make it perfectly clear to you, I will not allow you or anyone else to insult me and my staff in this way. If we make a mistake - and believe me we make mistakes, including me - we own up to them to get it right the next time.

   Maybe you can let us all know what we did wrong in our dealings with you, apart from insults we have had no concrete facts from you.

   So lets see. Maybe next time you will be a little more careful what you say in public.

   UPDATE: I need your approval to post the ticket here, I think it only fair for you to give that to us, after the accusations you made.

   But I am allowed to say the following without your approval:

   You contacted us on Sept. 18th, 2006 at 13:15 hrs.
   We replied to you on Sept. 18th, 2006 at 15:14 hrs, two (2) hours later.
   You then came back at Sept. 18th, 2006 at 16:10 hrs,
   We answered back on Sept. 19th, 2006 at 10:03 hrs.

   The ticket remained open until Nov. 14th, 2006 at 09:33 hrs, at which time it was closed.

5. martin foley
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

   p.s. I am not sure how you are searching your DB for the earlier exchanges. Are you using “Martin Foley” or are you using an email address? If the latter, I will send you some email addresses that may have been used at about the time of the earlier correspondence.
   Please email me off thread (and do not post this on thread) if you wish me to supply possible alternative email addresses. Nothing sinister (they all use my name !!).

   No very public apology would be necessary in any event - I think my attempt to get Dennis to feedback to you has caused a escalation way beyond the original posting.

6. martin foley
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

   oh oh. Our postings crossed.
   There is a crucial communication point here - you seem to have made some assumptions which are simply not correct.
   If you wish to correspond off thread, please email me direct.

   I am happy to defend myself, just as you are.

7. martin foley
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 6:25 pm

   Stefan, I ‘ve just read your last note in detail and it contains some statements of “fact” which are simply your interpretation of some of my comments and do not reflect the words used. It is your reading of the words, not what the words actually say, that seems to a cause of some (admittedly not all) the differences between us. You are still doing that in the last note.

8. Stefan Töpfer
   http://www.winweb.com
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 6:51 pm

   I guess that means you will not allow us to post the ticket here for everyone to see - that is it for now.

9. martin foley
   
   Said on June 6th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

   Stefan, since you are not apparently prepared to discuss this off blog, then we will have to leave it that
   (i) I had what I regarded as an unsatisfactory attempt to use winweb (or at least trial it).
   (ii) I believe you told a specific clear untruth on the other blog
   (iii) you believe I told a specific untruth on the other blog
   (iv) I think you do not read what is written, but read things that are not there
   (v) You think that I do not write very clearly
   (vi) we don’t like each other very much
   (vii) we consider that each of us has insulted the other

   and, since it is nice to have a point of agreement as the final number,
   (vii) we agree that everyone, incuding both of us, make mistakes.

10. Dennis Howlett
    http://www.accmanpro.com
    
    Said on June 8th, 2007 at 9:28 pm

    Martin - I have commented on this at Aweb. I am not surprised that Stefan takes offense at your approach to this fiasco. There is no substitute for civility but if you look critically through that entire thread, there seems to be an under current of a concerted and specious attack on the on-demand vendors for reasons that perplex me.

    The fact is that on-demand provides many more opportunities for professionals than the one-trick pony that is on-premise.

    It is also a fact that the access links Stefan refers to have been ‘in plain sight’ for well over a year. I should know, I was working with Winweb the whole of last year.

    Most professionals I speak with have no real clue or apparent desire to see how changes in the way the online world is impacting the end user also impact themselves. That’s fine. The market will decide and I rather suspect it will be end users that win out.

    In the meantime, I’d suggest you put personal differences aside and try WinWeb - it is the system not the person you’re buying into.

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