FreeAgent embarking on drive to raise £5m funds

GARETH MACKIE for the Scotsman writes: ONLINE accounting software specialist FreeAgent is embarking on a multi-million pound fundraising drive amid growing interest in the cloud computing arena.

The Edinburgh-based firm, which targets small businesses and freelancers, has raised about £5 million in external investment since it was founded in 2007, and chief executive Ed Molyneux told Scotland on Sunday that he was aiming to secure a similar amount “within the next 12 months”.

FreeAgent’s plans come after accounting software giant Sage last week agreed a £97m deal to buy PayChoice, a US-based provider ofpayroll services for small firms, as it seeks to accelerate its “move to the cloud”, whereby customers can manage their books over the internet using both mobile and web-based applications.

Sage’s efforts to build its presence in the cloud follow the success of firms such as FreeAgent and rival Xero, which was founded in New Zealand eight years ago.

Gary Turner, UK managing director at Xero, said small businesses have generally not been well served by accounting technology in the past, but the group has more than 350 “add-on partners” developing online applications that can connect with its systems.

One such partner is Receipt Bank, which extracts data from bills, receipts and invoices so it can be published directly into software packages.

Xero launched in the UK in 2008 and Glasgow-born Turner, a former product group director at Microsoft, joined the following year. Sales at the firm, which has about 300,000 customers around the world, almost doubled to NZ$70.1m (£34m) in the year to March and the UK accounts for 15 per cent of monthly revenues.

Another Xero collaborator is Float, based at Edinburgh’s CodeBase technology incubator, which was last month named “emerging add-on partner of the year” at Xero’s annual conference in Sydney.

Float chief executive Colin Hewitt said: “From our point of view, it’s good to see Sage investing in the cloud. Payroll is a really big headache for a lot of small businesses.”

Hewitt said that Float, which also partners with FreeAgent and has about 500 paying customers, is about to push the button on its own efforts to raise up to £500,000 from angel investors to help ramp up development and marketing.

The firm has a five-strong team, compared with about 70 people at FreeAgent, where Molyneux said he wants to double its number of employees over the next three to four years.

He added: “Many companies are very aggressive in their growth, and I’m sure that’s right for them, but we’re a bit more measured. We’re continually hiring across the board.”

Salesforce.com, inc. CEO Marc Benioff Sells another 40,000 Shares of Stock (CRM), totaling 260,000 Shares Sold in 5 transactions over 5 consecutive weeks.

Of course last week we posted,   Insider Selling: salesforce.com, inc. CEO Marc Benioff Sells 60,000 Shares of Stock (CRM), totaling 220,000 Shares Sold in 4 transactions over 4 consecutive weeks. 

Mr. Benioff has sold another 40,000 shares this past week making that 5 consecutive weeks of selling CRM stock and now a total of 260,000 shares....and we're not sure of the last time we've seen a CEO sell shares for 5 consecutive weeks.   As Mr. Benioff is worth $3 Billion it's not a lot of money for him....but the interest level is driven by the "optics" of what many consider to be the most overvalued stock there is (click to read why).  (Salesforce.com's valuation is debated extensively - and to many insider selling matters).  

On that note....Logan Wallace for TicketReport.com writes:  Marc Benioff sold 40,000 shares of salesforce.com, inc. stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.34, for a total transaction of $2,253,600.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) traded up 1.14% on Friday, hitting $56.56. 2,830,809 shares of the company’s stock traded hands. salesforce.com, inc. has a 52 week low of $48.18 and a 52 week high of $67.00. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $57.4 and its 200-day moving average is $55.44. The company’s market cap is $35.011 billion.

salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) last released its earnings data on Thursday, August 21st. The company reported $0.13 EPS for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $0.12 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.32 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.29 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.09 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 37.9% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that salesforce.com, inc. will post $0.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on CRM shares. Analysts at Deutsche Bank reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of salesforce.com, inc. in a research note on Thursday. They now have a $70.00 price target on the stock. Separately, analysts at Morgan Stanley reiterated a “positive” rating on shares of salesforce.com, inc. in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, analysts at RBC Capital reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of salesforce.com, inc. in a research note on Monday, September 15th. They now have a $72.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $75.00. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. The company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $67.93.

salesforce.com, inc. is a provider of enterprise cloud computing and social enterprise solutions. The Company provides a customer and collaboration relationship management (NYSE:CRM), applications through the Internet or cloud.

How I Canceled QuickBooks: A Guide to Simple, Automated Accounting

Chris Ronzio for Bench writes: I pulled the plug on another CPA. Frustrated by inefficiency, I found myself once again employed as the bookkeeper of my own company - but I hardly ever showed up for work. I had a backlog of nearly a thousand transactions in QuickBooks, five months of credit card statements to reconcile, and despite going to business school I’m still a little fuzzy on the whole debits and credits thing.

This is not what I signed up for!

I’ve been here before. First was the local bookkeeper. Very friendly, but her system of putting receipts into envelopes by month was impractical at best. Then, the outsourced CFO. He had me remotely log into a version of QuickBooks running in his office 2,300 miles away. But I could only log in if he wasn’t using the computer.

I tried hiring my H&R Block guy during the off season. I asked friends for recommendations. I sat through horrible introductory phone calls where I was schooled on Cash vs Accrual accounting. Ugh.

Well, after 13 years as a small business owner, I finally cracked it. Here’s how I automated accounting, canceled QuickBooks, and got back to business.

Step 1: Go Paperless

I can remember so many years that ended with me on the floor of my office - papers stacked wall to wall, highlighters and markers rolling everywhere. What starts as a nice pile on your desk in January grows into a dense forest by December. So, step 1 is to go paperless.

Going paperless eliminates clutter and makes things insanely easy to find. I use Evernote and the ScanSnap Evernote Edition scanner. Anything worth keeping goes straight into Evernote.

Receipts, documents, business cards - all there and available on all of my devices. Evernote uses text recognition to make everything that I scan searchable, so I can always find what I’m looking for.

For bank, credit card, and utility bills and statements, I use FileThis. FileThis automatically downloads the documents as soon as they’re available and saves them straight into Evernote. Magic.

Step 2: Outsource the Work

Now, once you have all of your important documents organized and easy to find, you’ll need someone to take the work off your hands. Bench is the obvious choice for bookkeeping. It syncs to my banks to download every transaction, and my dedicated bookkeeper is always there to answer any questions that pop up. Bench provides my monthly income statements and keeps my balance sheet up to date so they’re ready for me to review whenever I want.

Bench replaced most of the functionality that I used in QuickBooks, but I still needed a payroll solution. For that, I found ZenPayroll. ZenPayroll sets up in minutes, connects to your checking account, and walks you through adding a few previous pay stubs so that your year-to-date information is correct. It also handles all of my 1099s, W2s, and other state and federal form filing.

Step 3: Automate

Here’s where it gets awesome. First, ZenPayroll has a feature called “AutoPilot.” Turning that on means payroll is automatically processed without even logging in or pressing a button. And, to make sure there is always money in the checking account, I set up an auto-transfer with my bank that occurs a few days before each payroll is run.

Next, I went into Evernote and created public links for the folders that contained my bank and credit card statements. I shared these links with my Bench bookkeeper, so each month he can download my statements as soon as they’re available to complete the reconciliation of my accounts. FileThis puts them in, and Bench takes them out.

Last, Bench recommended a tech savvy CPA that works both in their system and in ZenPayroll. So, come tax time, he has all the access he needs to prepare my returns.

Step 4: Finishing Touches

Beyond going paperless, automating payroll, getting monthly statements, and keeping my books up to date, there are a few other little tricks that I use. My bank, Simple, has a feature that allows me to set a recurring bill pay. I use this feature for consistent monthly bills that don’t accept online payments (like janitorial or landscaping services).

For expenses that vary from month to month and don’t accept online payments, I set up filters to auto-route email bills to my virtual assistant at Fancy Hands. Fancy Hands can make payments on my behalf and charge them to my credit card on file, which is extremely useful.

To track my mileage deductions, I use MileIQ. This app uses location awareness on my phone to remember where I’ve driven. Then, I can categorize the drives as business or personal with a simple swipe.

Set It, But Don’t Forget It

Automating accounting using this process has saved me 5-10 hours per month, easily! But more importantly, this system keeps everything in order so that when I do tune in, I can make useful insights and informed decisions. Instead of wasting time tracking down papers, paying bills, and making phone calls, I can sit down for coffee and take a quick look at my financial statements and account balances.

Accounting is such an important part of business. I just want as little to do with it as possible.

Intuit VP Talks About Small Businesses and Their Impact On The Economy (Click To View) 9/27/14