Method CRM adds $3M to Expand QuickBooks CRM App to Intaact, Wave, Xero, Freshbooks, and other Accounting Platforms

Erin Bury @ BetaKit writes: Sometimes the simplest and most effective apps are ones integrated with another company’s technology, and Method has bet its livelihood on being a customer relationship management (CRM) app for QuickBooks’ accounting software. Today the Toronto-based company is announcing it has raised $3 million (We @ ExactCPA assume this is Canadian Dollars)  in Series A funding from Klass Capital, its first outside investment since launching in 2010 (the founders initially put $3 million into the company). While right now it focuses on QuickBooks integration, the funding will allow it to scale its integrations to include Intaact, Wave, Xero, Freshbooks, and other online accounting platforms.

Method’s CEO and founder Paul Jackson was formerly the founder of QXpress, another company that integrated with QuickBooks, in that case providing field service scheduling software. They sold the company to a competitor and started working on Method, with the goal of providing a fully customizable CRM app for small businesses.

“What we saw with our old product is that customers need more credit for how technical they actually are, even these small businesses,” Jackson said about the inspiration for Method. “We figured if they could do that, they could do a lot more, and why limit that to reports.”

Jackson said the company will use the funding to double in size, going from 25 to 50 employees, and to expand internationally to South America, Europe, and Asia. Right now the company has thousands of users in the U.S. They’re also planning to redesign the platform so it doesn’t just work with QuickBooks, but rather encompasses any online accounting tool for SMBs, which will be key to its expansion.

“With the funding, it opens us up to all small businesses. It’s not just a little link into Xero or Freshbooks, it’s really doing everything we’re doing for QuickBooks with Wave, Freshbooks, and Xero as well, which is syncing everything, and making everything available in the CRM that’s available in the accounting [app],” he said. He added that they are actively working with companies like Wave to get their input on the integration, and while they could potentially launch their own CRM apps down the line, he doesn’t view it as competitive today.

The platform tracks sales, marketing, customer service, and contact data, reminding users to follow up on leads and making it easier to reference client data and track issues. It also provides a customer portal for viewing and paying invoices, with all the data synced to QuickBooks, and vice versa. The drag-and-drop interface lets businesses customize their dashboard, and it also features integration with Google Apps. The SaaS platform charges either $25 or $40 per user per month, depending on the number of features.

Expanding to additional accounting platforms will be the key to standing out vs. competitors, from larger players like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, to startups targeting the SMB market, to social CRM startups likeUnifyo and Dynamic Signal that focus on combining customer profiles with their social media presence.

The CRM space isn’t always easy to succeed in, with startups likeNetworkHippo shutting down to focus on other projects. Method plans to test out its new apps over the next few months, with a responsive mobile version slated for April, and an official launch of the new platform slated for the summer. It’s also planning to add integrations with marketing platforms like Mailchimp, as well as shopping cart software. The company’s challenge will be switching from “CRM for QuickBooks” to an all-purpose CRM add-on for any online accounting platform, but with a solid base of users and now this new funding, it should be able to scale out in 2013.

QuickBooks Online for iPad® App Now Available

With today’s introduction of QuickBooks Online for iPad, small businesses that are mobile by nature will no longer have to save the books for last. Rather, they can get more out of their workdays with an app that helps them work more productively, wherever they are.

“As a wedding planner, I spend 70 percent of my time away from my desk meeting with clients and vendors. At the end of the day, I used to sort through my meeting notes, map out next steps, track payments and expenses, and follow up with invoices,” said Sadie Waddington of Locally Grown Weddings in San Francisco, Calif. “Now, I save time by catching up on accounting during the four hours I commute on public transit each week using QuickBooks Online for iPad. The app also helps keep me more organized and look more professional in front of my clients and vendors.”

Now available in the App Store℠, QuickBooks Online for iPad brings the world’s No. 1 small business cloud accounting solution to one of the world’s fastest-growing computing devices. It packages the most useful on-the-go business tasks in an easy-to-use, friendly app with a native iPad experience, including integration with the Camera, Contacts, Push Notifications and Location Services.

“Managing a small business is a different game today than it was a few years ago, due in large part to the proliferation of smartphones and tablets,” said Dan Wernikoff, senior vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Financial Management Solutions division. “We found that more than 20 percent of QuickBooks Mobile for iPhone users access the app through iPads. And, customers like Sadie told us they need more than mobile point solutions – they need an all-in-one app that lets them work in a whole new way, and that’s what we created.”

Get Started Quickly

Starting an account and learning to use QuickBooks Online for iPad takes just minutes.

• Sign-up requires only a username and password.
• Guided setup walks new users through customizing and sending a sample invoice, a common task in QuickBooks, in a couple of minutes.
• Pulling in contact information from other sources is effortless. Users can download customer information from Contacts, Gmail, Yahoo or LinkedIn, and customer pictures from Facebook.

Provide Better Service

QuickBooks Online for iPad empowers small business owners to complete important tasks as they occur, which allows them to provide better customer service and get more time back in their days. It lets them:

• Create and send professional estimates and invoices on the spot to get paid faster.
• Get estimate approval by electronic signature from the customer to expedite jobs.
• Capture photos and notes to remember important project details, and for fast reference when completing forms or answering customer questions.
• Quickly access and browse a complete history of customer interactions, including notes and sales transactions, in the Customer Feed.

Organize Finances in one Place

QuickBooks helps small businesses organize their finances all in one place so they have business insights at their fingertips, and are prepared for tax time. Users can:

• View interactive reports and charts that provide at-a-glance snapshots of income and expenses, or more detailed views.
• Take photos of receipts and enter expenses to be organized for tax time.
• Stay on top of business updates at a glance with the Activity Feed. Users can check recent activity, and focus on what requires action, such as upcoming invoices or overdue accounts, with the “Needs Attention” view.

Financial Management on Many Devices

QuickBooks Online for iPad is the newest addition to the QuickBooks Online suite. Through a singular QuickBooks Online account, a business can access and interact with its data from a computer, iPhone, iPad, or Android devices. Data automatically syncs between devices and users, so small businesses can manage their finances anytime, anywhere.

More than 400,000 companies and 1.3 million individuals subscribe to QuickBooks Online globally, making it the world’s No. 1 cloud accounting solution for small business. Small businesses can easily customize QuickBooks Online by turning on Intuit Payroll, Intuit Payments and a host of third-party apps as their business needs evolve.

Pricing and Availability

QuickBooks Online for iPad is free to download in the App Store. QuickBooks Online subscribers in the United States can start using the app with their account login information right away at no additional cost. New users can instantly create a QuickBooks Online account through the iPad app and sign up for a monthly or annual subscription through In-App Purchase. After a 30-day free trial, QuickBooks Online for iPad starts at $12.99 per month or $124.99 per year, and includes access to QuickBooks Online on the Web and QuickBooks Mobile on a smartphone. Visit http://quickbooks.intuit.com/mobile/ for more information.

The QuickBooks Online for iPad app is available for free from the App Store on iPad or at www.appstore.com/QuickBooksOnlineforiPad.

Free Tax Efficiency Seminar Hosted by Beacon Wealth Management on February 28 at Fairleigh Dickinson University

Beacon Wealth Management will host a complimentary tax efficiency seminar titled Investors Tax Playbook for 2013 on Thursday, February 28 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University in the Wilson Auditorium in Dickinson Hall, located at 140 University Plaza Drive in Hackensack, NJ (10 minutes from the George Washington Bridge).

Attendees of this program will hear strategic insights, commentary and analysis from the playbooks of three top experts in the fields of tax efficient investing, macroeconomics, domestic and foreign equities, and fixed income. Anyone seeking to enrich their tax and investment knowledge is invited to attend this educational event. Participants will discover strategies to build wealth and keep more of what they earn.

Topics will include:

•     Q1 commentary and analysis of macroeconomic themes
•     Tax changes for 2013 and how they affect you
•     Tax efficient asset management strategies
•     Asset allocation themes
•     Framework for tactical investing
•     Risk and reward – Why “risk-free” is no longer risk free
•     Strategic opportunities in the year ahead

Investors Tax Playbook for 2013 features three speakers with extensive experience in the financial markets. Mark Germain, CFP®, MBA, founder and CEO of Beacon Wealth Management, will share his expertise in the field of tax efficient asset management. Mr. Germain's firm provides investment management and tax efficiency planning to high-net worth individuals and families. He holds the Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation and received his MBA in Finance from Northeastern University and B.A. Economics and Accounting from Southern Connecticut State University. Currently, Mr. Germain is an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University teaching future CFP® candidates the Estate Planning curriculum.

Gregory R. Kurek, Director, is a member of the Credit, Rates, and Alternatives Product Strategy team within BlackRock's Fixed Income Portfolio Management Group. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2010, Mr. Kurek was a Client Portfolio Manager and Fixed Income Market Strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, where he was responsible for providing market and product insight to clients as well as participating in portfolio strategy and positioning. Mr. Kurek earned a BS degree in finance from Pennsylvania State University.

Simon Arrata is Senior Vice President for Fidelity Financial Advisor Solutions (FFAS), a division of Fidelity Investments. Mr. Arrata joined Fidelity in 2000 as Senior Financial Planning Consultant. There, he managed the investment portfolios for the firm’s high net worth clients, managing over $3 billion in assets, and developed and implemented sophisticated estate and income planning strategies with a focus on intergenerational wealth transfer. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Hunter College in 1988 and a Juris Doctorate (JD) degree from New York Law School in 1993 and is a member in Good Standing of the NYS Bar Association. Mr. Arrata holds FINRA series 7, 63, & 65 as well as his Health, Life & Disability license.

Admission is open to the public and complimentary. Pre-registration is required and can be completed online here at: http://bwmllc.sites.hubspot.com/investors-tax-playbook-2013, by telephone (201) 447 – 9500 or email: tina(at)bwmllc(dot)com. Complimentary kosher refreshments, wine, and soda will be served.

How Quickbooks Online Will Change The World

Okay, we at ExactCPA are suckers for grand declarations so when something called "The Projection Hub" wrote "How QuickBooks Will Change The World", we had to take a look.   Quite amusing.  They  write:  I believe that Quickbooks Online is the final piece of the puzzle for Intuit to control the financial world for you at home, at work, and in the eyes of the government.  You may not realize this but Intuit owns the 3 top finance web applications in the world:

• Mint.com – Personal Finance
• TurboTax – Tax Finance
• Quickbooks – Business Finance

As all three services make the transition from driving to Best Buy, picking up the latest version of TurboTax or Quickbooks, and installing on your computer via CD, to a cloud based solution, Intuit is unlocking an absolute gold mine of data.  Intuit can now take that data from their over 65 million accounts, and make it available to developers like ProjectionHub who will cut and slice the data in order to provide incredibly valuable information to a wide range of customers.  As my day job, I manage a small business loan program, I can think of several ways that we could use Intuit data to make our job of lending money easier.  These are just a few of the ways that I believe Quickbooks Online, and it’s partner programs Mint and TurboTax will change the world for lenders, investors and small businesses everywhere:

1. Predict Business Failures – As a lender and business consultant I would love to be able to take the Quickbooks data of a small business and compare it to aggregate industry data.  For example, an application could easily be developed to compare your restaurant’s sales, margins, cost of goods sold, labor costs, etc to the aggregate of all other restaurants that use Quickbooks Online.  This would tell me what areas the business needs to improve on.  The data can go way beyond that though.  A couple of clever statisticians could find trends that might show that a business with certain sales levels, certain margins, etc fails 40% of the time within 5 years.  You could find commonalities with the businesses that succeeded, and focus on those areas for your business.  No longer do we need a thousand management consultants to tell us their idea for how to improve our business, the data will speak for itself, and the numbers don’t lie.    
2. Benchmark Against Industry in “Real Time” – I already mentioned the idea of benchmarking and comparing your business to other businesses in your industry, but you could take this a step further and compare your business in real time.  Many Quickbooks users are entering in data on a daily basis for their business.  You could watch your daily sales at your coffee shop compared to daily sales of all other coffee shops around the country.  Maybe you run a promotion and business picks up by 10%, and you assume it is because of the promo you are running, but if you noticed that other coffee shops in your region also saw a spike in sales, you might realize that it was not your ad, it was the fact that it was exceptionally cold this week and more people wanted a warm beverage.
3. Simplify Loan and Investment Approval – Finally, I believe that when Quickbooks Online is connected in a coherent way with Mint.com and TurboTax, Intuit could vastly improve the loan and investment approval process.  Lenders typically want to look at both personal and business financial information.  Mint can provide the personal, Quickbooks can provide the business financial info.  Since you can put anything you want into your Mint and Quickbooks account, a tax return is typically used to validate that you are telling the truth.  TurboTax can provide that information quickly and easily for both the personal and business finances.  I could imagine a day when the bank clicks one button that brings all this data together and gives the person a score immediately that will describe their creditworthiness.  This level of information would put the credit score to shame.  Credit score information would still be important, but it would be only a small piece of the overall puzzle, instead of the primary number that most banks look at.

I truly believe I am only scratching the surface with all of the really crazy and cool things that we will be able to do with Intuit data someday.  I would like to develop an app here at ProjectionHub that utilizes this data that is now becoming available, I just need to focus in on one core problem that this data can help solve, and then build it.  Any ideas?

A Comment

Harry Grier

While I agree with your assessment that the data gathered from Intuit’s online customers can potentially be used to make predictions, benchmark businesses, and simplify some aspects of the lending world; I have to throw up a red flag to anybody who is interested in doing so.

I have seen too many businesses who use QB, whether on-line or desktop, who have absolutely no valid data I would want to use for any of the ideas you mentioned. The problem stems from the fact that QB is used by small business owners who have no idea about accounting principles. Their Income Statement and Balance Sheet simply can’t be trusted to make critical decisions. They make critical errors in their entries. IF, and I stress IF, QB brings the error to the owners attention, they often don’t know how to fix it and take whatever suggestion QB proposes. Reconciliation Discrepancies is a very popular GL in QB. In the vast majority of cases, the business owner isn’t purposefully creating bad accounting entries. They just simply don’t know any better.

Here is a perfect example. I know of one sole proprietor who paid themselves from their Retained Earnings account. They wrote the check out of QB, crediting the Cash account and debiting the Retained Earnings account. Their logic was that anything that was retained after all of the expenses was available for paying themselves. Their accountant didn’t question a thing. I don’t know if they prepared tax returns based on this flawed data or if they made a correction and moved on. Either way, the CPA didn’t bring the error to the attention of the sole proprietor. This went on for two years before I discovered it and showed them the correct way to do payroll.

Anybody who buys the customer data from Intuit needs to take it with a grain (a ton would be better) of salt. The data is most likely very flawed.

REPLY

ProjectionHub February 8, 2013 at 6:21 pm

Harry,

I agree there is a lot of room for error; however, any data scientist worth their salt would be able to quickly devise ways to determine what data is likely untrustworthy. For example, you may throw out any business with less than $50,000 in annual sales from your data set, or maybe you get rid of all businesses less than a year old. In your example, we would quickly throw out that data point because it would be an obvious red flag to have a business with significant sales and no payroll. We could probably also throw out businesses that do not reconcile on a monthly basis. We might not have any data left haha, but I think you could find a million businesses out of their 11 million clients that have solid data, and a million businesses is certainly enough to show some clear trends.

Adam Hoeksema

The Cost Of Health Care Insurance, Taxes and Your W-2

Kelly Phillips Erb, the Taxgirl writes for Forbes: Notice any different about your form W-2?

Take a look at Box 12. Seen anything that wasn’t there last year?

The value of health care coverage provided by your employer is now reported in Box 12 with Code DD to identify the amount. The amount reported in the box should include both the portion paid by your employer and any amount paid in by you.

So why is this information showing up on your form W-2 now? Under the Affordable Care Act – you may also refer to it as Obamacare or the health care act – most employers must now report the cost of your health care plan (a few small businesses are still exempt from reporting under the transitional relief offered by IRS).

Chances are that number is more than you thought. A lot more.

The average cost of healthcare for a typical American family of four in an employer-sponsored health plan in 2012 was $20,728. On average, employers paid $12,144 of that total cost while employees paid the rest. Employer contributions for health care plans for the typical American family are now nearly equivalent to the salary of a full time employment for a worker who is paid minimum wage.

And it’s not taxable.

That’s why most Americans don’t even know how much their health care coverage costs. It’s one of those benefits that many of us take for granted because we don’t see it on a tax or wage form.

But now that’s changing. The reporting requirement under the new law will make many more taxpayers aware of the actual cost of their health care benefits.

What’s not changing is the tax treatment of those benefits. It remains federal income tax free to you as an employee. So if you see wages of, say, $50,000 in Box 1 and benefits marked “DD” for health care insurance paid in $15,000 in Box 12, your income for purposes of calculating your federal income tax liability remains $50,000.

The requirement that the benefits are reported on your form W-2 is “for informational purposes only.” The purpose of the rule, according to the IRS, is to “provide employees useful and comparable consumer information on the cost of their health care coverage.” And believe it or not, that specific requirement wasn’t a partisan move: it was actually proposed by a bipartisan quartet made up of Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT); Michael B. Enzi (R-WY); Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA); and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

But let’s be honest: is it really just for informational purposes? The IRS and Congress both say yes – for now. But a number of taxpayers fear that it’s not. That fear isn’t totally unfounded. The tax free treatment of health care insurance benefits is a whopping $180 billion tax break to employees. And while for now raising the notion of taxing health care coverage – especially now that it’s mandated – would be political suicide, that doesn’t mean that won’t change. You know that somewhere, some Senator has circled that number – $180 billion – in red ink.