2012 Awesome Add-Ons
At The Sleeter Group, we believe that success in small business relies heavily on developing efficient business processes. The successful business owners are constantly seeking better accounting software, more efficient sales and customer tracking systems, better product fulfillment systems, and better vendor management systems. And accountants are always striving to keep up with the latest solutions in the marketplace so they can make the best recommendations. So each year, we research the marketplace of accounting software and hardware solutions to identify and recognize the companies and products who deliver "awesome" value.
This year, our seven-member committee of judges participated in evaluations of nearly 30 products in the market. This panel of experts is comprised of the most experienced accounting experts in the world who bring a broad set of skills to software and hardware product evaluations. The committee includes Bonnie Nagayama, CPA, Mario Nowogrodzki, CPA.CITP, Jennifer Katrulya, CPA, Greg LaFollette, CPA.CITP, Randy Johnston, Charlie Russell, and Doug Sleeter, Founder of The Sleeter Group.
In order to qualify for an Awesome Add-on award, the product and/or service must be developed and sold by a solid company with a reputation for outstanding customer support, and the product must have the following attributes:
- Must be fully released and shipping in the U.S. by August 1, 2011.
- Although it is not a requirement that the product integrates directly with accounting data, if it does integrate it must use the best practices for integration in addition to using the latest integration technologies as appropriate in the view of the evaluation committee.
- Must conform to good accounting principles and operating standards.
- Should use appropriate transaction types and field population for recording data into QuickBooks and/or other accounting software packages so as to preserve and/or enhance the standard reporting features.
Here is the list of "Awesome Add-ons" for 2012.
Bill.com Receivables
Bill.com
www.bill.com
Pricing: Bill.com Receivables is a $5/month upgrade on top of a Bill.com Payable account. ePayments received are $0.49/payment. There is no charge for accepting credit card payments; however, credit card merchant fees may apply.
Target Customers: Bill.com Receivables is for any business that sends invoices to customers and wants to offer their customers the option to pay electronically, via an online portal. It is also the perfect solution for small and mid-sized accounting firms both for their own use as well as for performing client bookkeeping services.
This SaaS product is a perfect example of how the Web is revolutionizing small business. By allowing businesses to manage the entire accounts receivable process in the cloud, Bill.com has taken a giant step forward. In addition to sending electronic invoices and e-reminders, you can receive payments via ACH or credit card, and your customers can access their own portal (for free) to see their invoicing and payment history. And of course, it integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks, Peachtree, Intacct, and NetSuite.
Fujitsu ScanSnap
Fujitsu Computer Products of America
http://us.fujitsu.com/scansnap
Pricing: S1100: $199, S1300: $295, S1500(M): $495
Target Customers: Consultants, CPAs, and accounting professionals looking for a way to reduce paper & easily digitize documents.
Our committee was very impressed with the overall function and ease of use of the ScanSnap line of scanners. The pricing is great, the push-to-scan button is effortless, and the integration with software products such as SmartVault makes this a very well-targeted solution for the accounting profession.
The ScanSnap one-button document scanners are a fast and easy way for accountants to digitize any type of paper including client documents, tax forms, expense report receipts, and more. Models include both mobile and desktop devices. The S1500 scans up to 20 pages per minute in color, grayscale, or black & white at an uncompromising 300 dpi resolution. With 50- and 10-page automatic document feeders (ADF), the S1500 & S1300 capture both sides of each page in a single pass. ScanSnap scanners automatically recognize the size of each document, detect and correct for skew, and show images in their proper orientation with blank pages removed. With an easy mouse click, documents can be saved, emailed, or e-faxed to clients as well as directly uploaded to client portals or Cloud-based document repositories - not to mention converted to Word or Excel files, enabling content to be edited.
ShareFile for Accountants
ShareFile
www.sharefile.com
Pricing: Starts at $29.95/month (2 users, 5GB storage, 5GB bandwidth)
Target Customers: Accounting firms of any size that need to securely transfer files that are either too large or too confidential to send by e-mail. Whether you are dealing with large QuickBooks files, sensitive Excel spreadsheets or tax estimate vouchers that contain social security numbers, ShareFile can help you communicate with your clients securely, professionally, and easily.
Our committee simply loves ShareFile. By specifically targeting the file transfer and secure data sharing needs of accountants and their clients, ShareFile has developed a winning, easy to use tool for the profession. This product is a must-have in your client support toolkit.
ShareFile for Accountants was specifically designed for Tax & Accounting Professionals to securely exchange confidential documents and large business files. Accounting firms can make documents available to clients through ShareFile's encrypted, password-protected custom branded client portal or securely through email with ShareFile's Microsoft Outlook Plug-in. ShareFile's client portal allows you to create online folders which allow clients to see only those folders where specific access is granted.
Bill & Pay
Skyhill Software, Inc.
www.billandpay.com
Pricing: $16.95 per month, $0.55 per payment transaction
Target Customers: All businesses that want to streamline their Accounts Receivable processes and who are looking for a robust online payment solution.
This SaaS product really helps businesses reduce costs and increase cash flow by automating the A/R collections process. Bill & Pay automatically uploads invoices from QuickBooks, Peachtree, Great Plains and other accounting software into a Web portal where they can be tracked and managed. There is also an "Easy Invoice" feature in Bill & Pay that allows you to create your own invoices without using any accounting software. You can send e-reminders for open or late invoices, accept online payments by credit card or via ACH, and it integrates with several merchant accounts (including Intuit Merchant Solutions) so it doesn't require extra steps for batching deposits into the bank account. This is a great product at a very low price.
QQube
Clearify
www.clearify.com
Pricing: $425 single user version, $895 multi-user version (2-users), $195 per additional user
Target Customers: Small businesses that need to develop complex reports and/or "dashboards" that cannot be created with QuickBooks alone. Helps companies develop data analytics, and helps multi-company operations or franchises develop cross-entity reporting.
When we looked at QQube for the first time, it opened our minds to the possibilities for mining QuickBooks data like never before. This is a VERY powerful tool for accountants. What impressed us the most was that QQube is so deeply "aware" of how data is stored in QuickBooks, what the relationships are between different data types, and how it can free us to create pretty much any report imaginable. Although there is a learning curve, once you get the hang of it, you'll be amazed at how much you can do with this tool. And think of the new revenue you can generate by providing analytics and mentoring services with Qqube. This is a game changer.
QQube is a data extraction technology tool which allows you to drag and drop information into Excel, SAP Crystal Reports, or any desktop/cloud BI tool of your choice.
QQube enables you to create reports or analysis in minutes - rather than hours or days - because it eliminates the need to know tables and relationships, deal with ODBC drivers, wrestle with unrecognized field names, or endure hours of reverse engineering and trial by error.
Honorable Mentions
In addition to the above winners, there are two products that we were very impressed with and will be looking closely at in the months and years to come.
AvaTax Certs (Avalara)
www.avalara.com
Pricing: Starts at $375 for 50 certificates, plus $249/year.
Target Customers: Any size business with customers qualified for exemption from paying sales tax. Typical industries include manufacturing, technology, education, wholesalers and retailers although hospitality customers are growing. The target customer can be an e-commerce, wholesale, distribution or retail company using any accounting, ERP, retail POS or e-commerce software.
When we saw this product, several members of the committee immediately said "wow, where has this been all my life?" It's a great idea and Avalara has done a fabulous job of building it. There are still several features to build and more integration with accounting systems to come, but we thought this product definitely warrants a close look.
AvaTax Certs limits your audit exposure on non-taxed transactions with end-to-end certificate lifecycle management. It integrates with ERP, e-commerce and POS systems to digitally create, process, and store customer exemption certificates for easy access, renewal and reporting. Online, rule-based wizard automates the paperless collection of certificates and ensures you only collect valid certificates. All collected certificates are stored digitally in a central database to speed tax-exempt transaction processing and to simplify audit preparation and defense.
Websites for Accountants (Emochila, Inc.)
www.emochila.com
Pricing: $70/month
Target Customers: Accounting Firms
If you don't already have a web site, or even if you do and you're frustrated with the cost and hassles of building, updating, and improving its look, then you should really look at eMochila. It's inexpensive with very powerful tools to help you quickly build a professional looking, full featured web site in just a few hours. Less if you know what you want, but more if you want to really get creative. The key is that this is a very powerful online tool that doesn't require any programming or technical skill.
Full featured websites for accounting firms, complete with client portals, monthly newsletters, financial calculators, Search Engine Optimization, Company Blog with Social Media Integration, and more. Its month-to-month contracts allow accounting firms of all sizes the luxury of having a website which would cost tens of thousands of dollars to develop independently.
About QuickBooks Add-Ons
In 2003, Intuit released its Application Programming Interface (API), which is provided to developers in a Software Developer Kit (SDK). This SDK opens up the 3 million plus small business customer base to software developers who add value to QuickBooks by creating specific add-on products that integrate with the popular financial management system. Even a casual programmer using Microsoft Office and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) can develop an application to read from and write to a QuickBooks data file.
There is now a second alternative available from Intuit, the Intuit Partner Platform. This provides a Web-based customer experience and provides the developer with the ability to leverage the Intuit technology and infrastructure investments.
To search for QuickBooks add-ons that use the SDK, visit the Intuit marketplace site at marketplace.intuit.com. For applications using the IPP, visit www.appcenter.intuit.com.
For more information about developing Add-Ons for QuickBooks visit developer.intuit.com.
For previous Awesome Add-On Award winners, please visit these pages:
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