Outgrowing QuickBooks? Not so fast. / The key is to decide if you truly need to spend massively right now to upgrade beyond QuickBooks. My bet is most of you will answer “no”.

Kurt Steckel for Bison Analytics writes: I’m impressed with the very strong businesses we work with that continue to thrive using QuickBooks. Typically, QuickBooks competitors’ opening marketing salvo is to ask you if you’re outgrowing QuickBooks. Then they provide a list of reasons that boil down to one of three issues:

1.  You can’t easily access your QuickBooks data.
2. QuickBooks forces you to perform manual processes.
3. There is a very specific inventory or manufacturing issue that makes QuickBooks difficult to work with.

There are QuickBooks add-on products that solve all of these problems and cost far less than upgrading to a competitor’s new product suite.

Let’s dig into the key issue most QuickBooks competitors prominently list: you can’t access your QuickBooks data easily enough. That is simply not true. There are tools and products that make QuickBooks far more effective for growing organizations. So, if you’re one of the growing companies targeted by the Outgrowing QuickBooks campaigns, you have options. But choose carefully.

Your chosen solution must meet a few basic requirements in an extremely simple manner. If not, you may be buying a problematic and costly integration issue for your company. The solution must provide:

• A very simple and truly automated data-syncing mechanism
• Simple and secure access to your data whenever you desire, wherever you are, and on any device you want
• Data that is 100% accurate and matches QuickBooks in all facets
• The ability to drill-down to the individual transaction level with ease
• A way to easily create precisely the complex QuickBooks reports or dashboards you want
• As much QuickBooks history as you’d like
• Functionality to easily include external database or spreadsheet data

Bonus provisions:

• Simple and automated QuickBooks or external budget data syncing for your Budget versus Actuals dashboards
• The ability to sync multiple QuickBooks company files with ease
• Simple comparative financials across QuickBooks company files
• QuickBooks multi-company and consolidated financial reporting absent a chart-of-accounts mapping exercise

Why do I present this list of requirements? Our team has worked on major corporate business intelligence and integration projects for many years, while simultaneously doing business intelligence projects for QuickBooks companies. We know what a successful project truly entails across a broad range of clients with many different requirements. You need to strike a balance between embarking on a possible integration train-wreck and a costly upgrade beyond QuickBooks.

The key is to decide if you truly need to spend massively right now to upgrade beyond QuickBooks. My bet is most of you will answer “no”. Every company that continues growing eventually reaches a time when they must upgrade their accounting package. But on a daily basis we see evidence that companies reach that point far later than QuickBooks competitors would otherwise have you believe. Companies successfully remain on QuickBooks when their CFOs augment the package with practical tools.

If you don’t truly need to upgrade yet, go through the requirements above and think carefully about your options. You’ll save a lot of time, money and headache when you find the product that strikes the right balance for your needs.

Kurt is CEO of Bison Analytics. He is the most experienced business intelligence practitioner to tackle QuickBooks. His work has enabled rapidly growing and successful business CFOs to extend the life of QuickBooks in their financial and performance operations, saving these companies valuable dollars and time.

Use Dwolla in AccountingSuite and for 30 Second Payments / a $5,000 transaction would cost a Dwolla user just a quarter the same as a $20 transaction. By contrast, that same transaction using PayPal would cost a user $145.30 in additional fees.

Joshua Sophy for SmallBizTrends.com writes: Digital payment option Dwolla recently made two big announcements that may increase the number of people who use the payments system and the speed at which its transactions are completed.

First, Dwolla has been integrated into AccountingSuite.

AccountingSuite is an all-in-one app for accounting, inventory, order management, and time and project tracking. Integrating with Dwolla allows AccountSuite vendors to accept and request Dwolla payments from their customers. And Dwolla payments should allow AccountingSuite vendors to have more immediate access to funds that are transferred using the digital payment option.

Vendors who have their AccountingSuite linked directly to a bank account can get Dwolla funds there in as little as one day, according to a press release announcing the addition of Dwolla to AccountingSuite’s app roster.

AccountingSuite co-founder Kurt Kunselman says in the release that the addition of Dwolla creates an even easier method of sending and receiving payments. Kunselman explains:

“Every day we are working to make accounting easier and less expensive for growing companies. With this integrating, our users can simply create a payment form for a vendor’s bill, then click the pay-with-Dwolla button or get paid with Dwolla by generating invoices with pay-with-Dwolla button.”

Dwolla has also made it easier and faster for users to send money to vendors or others who don’t currently have an account with the company explains Jordan Lampe, director of communications and policy affairs in a recent post on The Dwolla Blog.

Dwolla users can now take advantage of the new Dwolla Direct feature to send money to those without a Dwolla account. And the company says that the non-user can set up to receive the payment in his or her bank account in about 30 seconds — even though it may take two or three business days for the money to be available.

When a payment is sent to a non-user, it’s sent directly to his or her email. Once the non-user spots the payment notification in the inbox, he or she needs only to enter bank account information to have the money deposited.

Once the original setup is completed, future payments will be automatically routed to a non-user’s bank account without the need for additional setup.

Dwolla was initially developed as a way to allow small business and others to make digital payments while avoiding the accumulation of credit card transaction fees.

Dwolla charges a flat rate of 25 cents for any transaction more than $10. Transaction under $10 are free.

As an example, a $5,000 transaction would cost a Dwolla user just a quarter the same as a $20 transaction. By contrast, that same transaction using PayPal would cost a user $145.30 in additional fees.

Nexonia Introduces Multiple Web Timers to the Timesheets Application / Users will now be able to track work time using an embedded timer function

Nexonia Inc. announced today the launch of web timers, the latest Timesheets feature from the Nexonia line of products. Similar to the timer function on the Nexonia Timesheets mobile app, the web-based desktop version will allow users to track time spent on a variety of projects with an always-on clock running in the background.

Users of Nexonia’s cloud-based online Timesheets application will now have the access to an unlimited number of timers, possibly assigning each embedded timer to a different customer, project, task and any other dimensions the customer requires. This intuitive new feature will allow employees to switch between timers as needed, automatically pausing time on certain projects when a new timer is started. Users will then be able to submit their accumulated work time on a project or projects for quick and easy approvals through Nexonia’s flexible approval system.

“Our customers have expressed a desire to have web timers integrated into their employees’ timesheets, so as always, we did it!” said Neil Wainwright, CEO of Nexonia. “The timer function was already a feature of the mobile app as a single timer, but Nexonia users will now be able to start, stop and submit several timers right from their desktop computer. We’ll be updating our mobile apps as well, to support multi-timers. Our customers know what they want, and we work hard to deliver it to them!”

The new web timers are the latest feature of Nexonia’s Timesheets, a hallmark application of the Nexonia line of products. Timesheets can also be fully integrated with Nexonia Time Off, designed to give customers the ability to track their employees’ vacations, sick days and other paid time off.

Click here to watch the Nexonia Web Timers video online.

About Nexonia:

Nexonia Inc. is a provider of leading web and mobile Expenses, Timesheets, Time Off, Time Allocation, Purchase Orders, Accounts Payable and other business financial management solutions. Nexonia’s simple-to-use and highly customizable applications are fully integrated with ERPs, credit cards and other systems supporting a variety of businesses. Nexonia solutions are designed to streamline the reporting and approval process, improve human resource management and enhance operational efficiency.

To receive more information, visit http://www.nexonia.com