Intuit says 37 percent SMBs are fully adapted to cloud – right or wrong?

Den Howlett for Diginomica writes: SUMMARY: An Intuit sponsored study conducted by Emergent Research says that today, 37 percent of SMBs are ‘fully adapted’ to the cloud, a figure set to rise to 74 percent by 2020. If the data is correct then this is not a shabby result. That runs contrary to what Ron Miller reckons. But then Miller is way off base. But then the research might be questionable as well.

We don’t know the methodological basis for the Intuit research but we do know that Emergent is pitching cloud heavily for Intuit and we also know this only covers US businesses. That’s clear from a recent write up by Accounting Technology where the main ‘pitch’ covers a series of business type personas with which cloud native businesses will be familiar. To quote:

• Plug-in Players, which plug into cloud-based providers that deliver comprehensive, tailored solutions and take advantage of those ecosystems and networks to collaborate and share information.
• Hives, or the “Hollywood model” that futurists have been predicting to be the next big trend for the last 30 years, according to King [report author.] In this model, staffing levels are flexible, rising and falling to meet project needs and including pooled resources and shared workspaces.
• Head-to-Headers, or small businesses competing against major firms by using platforms and plug-in services to reach markets previously only accessible to large corporations. This persona has become more prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry, where King has witnessed “a surge in growth in small pharmaceutical companies that can use high-end software and big data on the cloud, and not need to have big labs and staff.”
• Portfoliosts, or cloud-adapted freelancers with multiple streams of income, some passion-based and some needs-based, who are building personal empires in the cloud. [snip]   The article continues @ Diginomica, click here to continue reading....

Xero share tumble - Drury doesn't know why

Summary Xero shares appear in danger of slipping below $20 after a brief boost provided by a defiant presentation by chief executive Rod Drury at the company's annual meeting wore off. Shares in the cloud software firm were trading down 6 per cent at $20.21 in late morning trading after touching an intraday low of $20.16. At the company's annual meeting last month, Drury forecast Xero would grow its subscription revenue by "approximately 80 per cent" in constant currency terms in the year to March 2015 and signalled its desire to float on a United States exchange in 2015.
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Hamish Fletcher for the New Zealand Herald writes: Xero's share price has tumbled by about 15 per cent this week but chief executive Rod Drury says the "business is firing" and he doesn't know what is behind the drop.

Shares in the cloud accounting software company were down 6.28 per cent shortly after 1.30pm and trading at $20.15 each.

This is less than half the record price of $44.98 which Xero shares hit in March.

Drury did not know why the shares were falling and said he had just returned from San Francisco where he got good feedback about Xero's growth forecasts.

The company is forecasting subscription revenue growth of 80 per cent for this financial year, Drury said at the company's annual meeting last month.

Rickey Ward, JBWere's New Zealand equity manager, said the drop in Xero's share price was difficult to explain.

But he has one possible theory that relates to the company's $180 million capital raising last October.

New shares issued in the capital raising are restricted from being sold until October this year.

Ward said there could be a fear among Xero shareholders that investors involved in the capital raising - who included early Facebook investor Peter Thiel - might sell stock when the restriction is lifted, which could push Xero's share price even lower.

Forsyth Barr analyst Blair Galpin had not seen anything to explain why share price was cooling off and that the volume being traded was not huge.

"It's not a large number of shares trading for that price drop," he said.

"Nothing's changed in the Xero story," he said.

- with Christopher Adams

Xero shares plunge as investors question US growth plans

Suze Metherell for http://www.scoop.co.nz/ writes:  Shares of Xero dropped to their lowest level since October last year as investors weigh the high valuation of the cloud-based accounting software firm's share price against its US growth aspirations.

The stock fell 6.2 percent to $20.17, less than half its intraday record of $45.99 on March 6, and have shed about 44 percent over the past nine months after its soared more than 300 percent last year. Globally tech stocks have pared gains made early in the year, with the NZX Sci-tech index, which includes Xero and bio-tech company Pacific Edge, and the likes of minnow stocks including BLIS Technologies and Windflow Technology, sinking some 28 percent since January as investors mulled the high valuations relative to earnings.

"In general I think several analysts have captured the essence of what's been going on over a period of time here with technology stocks broadly and globally having peaked in March this year," Andrew Bascand, managing director for Harbour Asset Management told BusinessDesk. "Then investors just started asking questions regarding the business models of a number of tech stocks and how much cash they've got on their balance sheets and what their timeline is to becoming profitable and therefore the valuation of these stocks."

The Wellington-based company wants a million customers, and is targeting growth in the US market where it sees the potential to take market share of an estimate 29 million small to medium sized business owners. According to chief executive Rod Drury's annual general meeting presentation in July, the company has 334,000 customers worldwide, two-thirds of which were in Australia and New Zealand, and 18,000 in North America.

"Lets be truthful, how many clients do they have in the US right now?" said Bascand. "This was never going to be an easy path for Xero but their company is growing as well, it's just a question of what valuation it should be on."

Meanwhile, rival Intuit has "come out swinging" in the UK and US, Bascand said.

Drury told shareholder's at the company's annual general meeting in July he believed Intuit was on the wrong track trying to replicate Xero's open software eco-system approach, which sees partnerships that build new applications onto the Xero platform, by buying out eco-system partners.

"Intuit is spooked," he told the meeting. "Most of the things they do now are responses to us." It was trying to convert five million customers using a desktop software product onto a repurposed cloud offering, "which is not really a great product."

Still, investors think Intuit might pose a bigger threat to Xero. Paul Harrison, head of equities at Salt Funds Management said Xero has shown Intuit what it needs to do to grab market share.

"The Xero stuff just gets more bearish, all it looks like they've done is gone in and poke the giant that's Intuit and it's turned out they haven't managed to grab a first mover advantage in the market because their product wasn't ready for market in terms of the Xero product," Harrison said. "They've woken up Intuit and it's responded with a product that is."

The market was also aware that the escrow period after its $180 million October capital raise was coming to a close, Harrison said.

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Xero dives as NZX 50 Index advances (Finance Courier)Xero was the worst performer on the bourse after it dropped 6.2 per cent to a 10-month low of $20.17 and has shed some 44 per cent over the past nine months after surging more than 300 per cent last year.

MTS Development launches acclux accounting on the Firefox Marketplace

MTS Development LLC, a leading provider for enterprise application software and services announced a great news for acclux accounting users! Online accounting software acclux accounting is now available on Firefox Marketplace to be downloaded for free.

By installing the acclux accounting software from the Firefox marketplace, acclux accounting’s users will enjoy using the software as a native app on their machine whatever the machine is running Windows, MAC or Linux. It’s a whole new experience we are happy to provide to our customers.

“We are thrilled to the listing of the acclux accounting software on the Firefox marketplace” said Mustafa Al Shaikhly CEO at MTS Development LLC. “It’s a new way for our customers to use acclux accounting on their computers; we hope you enjoy it   ”.

To install the app, just visit the Firefox Marketplace and find the “acclux accounting” app under “Business” or “Productivity” category then click on the ‘Free’ button or visit acclux accounting web page acclux.com and get the direct link.

Existing acclux accounting user don’t need to purchase or re-signup for anything. Install the app from the Firefox Marketplace and login with your acclux accounting username and password.

If you are not an acclux accounting user, you can sign up for free 14 day trial today at acclux accounting sign up (http://www.acclux.com/) and then install the app from the Firefox Marketplace.

If you’re not familiar with Firefox Marketplace, it’s an official source of apps designed for Firefox devices or web apps to be downloaded on your MAC, Windows and Linux machines using Firefox web browser. By installing the apps from the Firefox Marketplace, you will enjoy using your favorite’s web apps as a native app in your machine.

About acclux accounting
acclux accounting software, it is simple, yet complete accounting and project management software. It has been designed to meet the need of small yet growing businesses. You can get more information about acclux accounting by visiting acclux accounting website acclux.com.

About MTS Development LLC
MTS Development LLC, provides high quality enterprise level applications designed to help standard and specific industry with state of the art business solutions using a proven methodology. We also provide custom made solutions, maintenance, consulting and training, learn more about MTS Development LLC on www.mtsdevelopment.com

Sleeter Article: Why Aren’t Receipts Automatically Matched to Bank Feed Transactions?

Greg Lam for The Sleeter Group writes: In online accounting software, there’s still a lot of human interaction required where there shouldn’t be.  

One of the most promising areas in which work can be cut down in with business accounting is with bank feeds. These are hookups to your bank account transactions that automatically get pulled into your accounting software. Most software can use the descriptions associated with the bank transactions to guess at what the transaction might be and enter it for the user. For example, if the description on a credit card transaction came through as “STARBUCKS STORE #2348” it can recognize that this transaction is for Starbucks and categorize it as a meals and entertainment expense. Starbucks does sell other merchandise, but it’s a good bet that meals and entertainment is the proper categorization.

However, this simplified rule, based on using the description to parse out the vendor name and thus account categorization, doesn’t always work. Take an item was purchased at Staples for example, which could be a computer (asset) or some office supplies (expense).

So, transactions entered purely using bank feeds are not going to be completely accurate. That’s why another source of information – receipts – need to also be used in conjunction with bank feeds (not to mention the fact that all purchases need to be backed up by source documentation). [snip]. The article continues @ The Sleeter Group, click here to continue reading.....

4 steps to evaluating cloud accounting systems

Polina  Polishchuk for FinancialForce.com writes: While accounting software has been around for decades, it isn’t until recently that companies have been moving their accounting systems to the cloud. This move isn’t a surprise – cloud applications deliver higher return on investment, real-time, multi-dimensional financial analysis and a slew of other benefits, from mobile access to enterprise collaboration.

Choosing an accounting system isn’t a decision to be entered into lightly (the average accounting software is in use for close to a decade). Now consider: Is your company’s accounting system efficient enough? When is the right time to replace your accounting system? How do you evaluate the right solution for your company? These are all questions Brian Sommer, ZDnet columnist, accounting software expert and founder of technology research firm Vital Analysis, helps answer in the Cloud Accounting Evaluation Guide.

The guide to evaluating cloud accounting systems takes a simple step-by-step approach to the evaluation process:

1. Background. This is where you get organized. Not only should your evaluation team be commensurate with the size and complexity of your organization, but the core selection team will likely contain senior executives from finance, IT, legal, procurement and operations departments.

2. Preparation. You must remember that software selection activities have evolved over the years. The guide offers solid advice for organizations who wish to look forward. Some key points include the need to make accounting a real partner in the organization, avoiding a non-value added replacement and evaluating the platform as much as the application.

3. Evaluation. One benefit of cloud applications versus traditional software is that you don’t need to call in the vendor right away for a demo. There are plenty of online resources available to you when evaluating cloud accounting systems, and in this guide Brian Sommer does a great job of discussing all the resources out there as well as how to be the most efficient while evaluating your options.

4. Approval. Don’t forget those contract details. This step in the process includes a look at service level agreements, exit strategies (and what happens to your data if you do not renew), liability issues, performance requirements and more. Plus, this section will take you through how to sell and get buy-in on your decision.

Cloud is the new frontier, and if the last accounting application you purchased was packaged or on-premises based, you will find this comprehensive and informative guide to evaluating cloud accounting systems beyond helpful. Download the full guide here.