I really believe I am very similar to 80% of business owners who dread bookkeeping. Using our small business accounting software I sit with the daunting task in front of me to do the bookkeeping for Habitsoft Inc., the creator of Clarity Accounting. Up until this point my business partner has been doing all the bookkeeping for our company. However, I was determined to take on the job of dealing with the bookkeeping software because I knew doing this would help me gain a better understanding of our customers.

Once upon a time, I tried other forms of self-employment and got QuickBooks to keep track of my income and expenses. That software was so difficult for me to set up that I ended up abandoning it altogether within two months, long enough that I could no longer return it and get a refund.
What is the first thing I need to do? If I am planning on being the best bookkeeper the world has ever seen, the first thing I need is a good QuickBooks alternative. I had to ask myself these important questions:

• Isn’t there a small business accounting software that works well with Mac?
• Is there a bookkeeping software that runs smoothly in multi-user mode?
• Isn’t there a small business accounting software that can handle large files without slowing down the computer?
• Is there a small business accounting software that has unlimited customer records where you don’t have to buy an expensive upgrade once you hit your limit?
• Is there any bookkeeping software that has easy installation that is hassle free?
• Is there a small business accounting software that has top of the line technical support?
• Is there a small business accounting software that doesn’t have database performance issues?
• Isn’t there a bookkeeping service where I can get a free trial and not get stuck with software I’m never going to use?

Luckily for me the answer was sitting right there in front of me, the perfect QuickBooks alternative is of course our own small business accounting software.

I ended up finding out that our simple accounting software was created to make everyone’s accounting software needs easy and affordable. Not only is it compatible with Mac but it can handle multi-user access beautifully.

And if that isn’t enough I also found out that when I’m dealing with large files my computer didn’t slow down at all. I was even able to handle a much larger data input of customers then Quick Books offers without having to get a costly upgrade.

For me something else that is always important was easy installation and when I found that I myself could simply download Clarity accountings bookkeeping software I knew we had a winner on our hands. After all if I can do it anyone can.

I have heard so many horror stories about the customer support over at Quick Books and if I don’t say so myself our customer service is far superior than any of our competitors. It is so important to me that I recently wrote a great blog giving away my winning tips on excellent customer service.

As I mentioned earlier, I got stuck with QuickBooks and couldn’t return it after I figured out it was just to difficult to use. You won’t have that problem with our simple accounting software. We want to make sure your happy with your choice which is why we start you off with a 30 day free trial. This way you can’t get stuck with some costly software that doesn’t work for you. With us there is no risk it’s all gain.

The end of my story is a happy one. I no longer dread bookkeeping, my life and job is a breeze. Did I become the best bookkeeper on the plant? No… but you would never know it because Clarity Accounting bookkeeping software makes me look and feel like I am.

I am so excited to share with you our simple accounting software so you can see how you too can be the best bookkeeper on the planet. Of course we have made it easy with our 30 day free trial. You no longer have to dread bookkeeping now you can even look forward to it.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

There has been a major breakthrough for accounting software for Mac. For over a decade the Apple Macintosh has been seen as a great home and education computer, but when it came to software for small business it lacked the related applications to “get the job done”.

However, there is a new hope for Mac users. New business applications are being developed on the web, and Mac users (Linux users, too) enjoy the same access to that software as everyone else. This is part of what people are calling Web 2.0, the new way that business embraces the strength of the internet, a new approach to marketing online. The other part of Web 2.0 is the “social media” like Facebook, Twitter, and blogging.

Accessing Macintosh Software for Small Business

A new generation of web standards allows desktop-quality applications to be delivered over the internet directly to a browser.

• Online accounting software
• Invoicing software
• Financial reporting
• Expense reports
• Time tracking software
• Project collaboration
• Contact management
• Appointment scheduling
• Custom databases
• To Do Lists

and much more are being delivered as web applications. Including our accounting software for Mac. Most web applications run just as well on Mac OS X as on Windows (you may have to switch to Firefox, however, for some of them).

Is SaaS the New Phenomenon in the World of Macintosh Software?

There is no doubt that there is still a market for offline products and services. When I go to networking events, there are people that have never heard of the idea of using accounting software that is hosted online. Almost all the small business owners I have met were thrilled to find out this was possible and even available in Canada.

SaaS, Software as a Service, is still a relatively new phenomenon, most users are still considered to be “early adopters”. Once they actually convert to using our accounting software for Mac, for all their financial matters ,they never look at Saas the same way, they never go back.

Advantages to Using SaaS

• Faster implementation of services
• Lower cost of ownership
• Expanded client base
• Relationships through direct contact
• Enables users to access technology immediately
• Increases time-to-benefit
• Software upgrades at no additional cost
• More available resources to fund business growth

How to Reap the Benefits of SaaS

Sass changes the way people sell buy and use software on line. Accounting software for Mac can now be accessed the easiest way possible, down loaded directly from the service provider. This availability makes Macintosh software more accessible and functional.

We offer a thirty day free trial so customers can connect directly to our services. We have found that this process increases our business and our client relationships.

To experience the ease and comfort of our superior accounting software try our thirty day free trial. Once you try our extraordinary accounting software for Mac or your PC you will find it be extremely cost effective.

By meeting our clients needs and expectations we offer Free Customer support, free multi currency support and unlimited multi user access to name only a few of our amazing benefits that you will only experience here at Clarity Accounting. Start your thirty day free trial for our accounting software now and watch you business succeed.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

Do you take responsibility?

Did you know that taking responsibility, blaming yourself, can actually improve your profitability?

Every business faces setbacks, like:

• someone accidentally unplugged the power at your data center and your web site goes down
• the economy takes a dive and you lose some customers
• your top talent leaves to get a higher-paid job in order to better support her family
• one of your employees makes a mistake and it costs you or your customer time and money
• your shipments are late due to bad weather
• your customer’s web browser doesn’t display your web site correctly

We’re faced with a challenge: How can we explain this to our creditors, investors, and customers who depend on us?

We’re tempted to point the finger at whatever or whoever seems to have caused the problem.  However, studies have shown that avoiding responsibility is not the best approach to take.

In “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive” they present a study done to determine the effects of taking responsibility for the problems your business is having.  They presented the study respondents with two sample company annual reports; in one, the company laments the poor state of the market and increased competition as the reason for poor profits, and in the other they blame their own internal processes saying that “as a management team, we were not fully prepared …”  Study participants gave more positive feedback about the company that took responsibility.

You may be thinking “but, how can I take responsibility for things that are not my fault?”  This may take some creativity, but it’s an uncomfortable truth that we are responsible for the events of our life.  You can take responsibility by admitting that you could have:

• chosen a different data center
• chosen a more recession-proof business
• saved more money to carry you through a tough time
• hired employees more carefully
• trained your employees better
• selected a different shipping company
• been more conservative in your estimates about delivery dates
• provided our own web browser
• been more diligent about cross-browser compatibility
• and so on …

An important pitfall to avoid is thinking that just because something seems far out of your control, that you can not be responsible for it.  Everyone has their own line to draw between what they are willing to be responsible for and what they are not.  I encourage you to see as much responsibility for yourself as you can handle.  Anytime you’re dealing with a complaint or breakdown in your business - whether with your investors, employees, or customers - ask yourself “how can I be responsible for this?”

The next major concern about taking responsibility is “won’t I look bad?  Who wants to work with someone who screws up all the time?”  First, the study shows this kind of attitude will be appreciated by others; they will see you as in strong and in control of your business instead of being blown about by the winds of circumstance.  Second, people already know you’re responsible, so avoiding responsibility makes you look dishonest and unwilling to face up to your mistakes.  If they see you being responsible they will have more confidence in you and your business and see you as someone with integrity who deserves respect.

It’s important to keep in mind, also, that being responsible for something doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it.  You are simply taking the position that your choices led to the circumstances you are in now; that doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice, or that you have to fix the economy.  You just accept and admit that you didn’t fix the economy, you didn’t avoid today’s problems, and you’re sorry.

Note that this discussion of responsibility should not be applied when resolving insurance claims or contract disputes.  Yes, you could have been driving on another road, and yes you could have selected a different person to work with.  However, in these circumstances when people refer to responsibility they are really asking “who was negligent?”  Take responsibility for the impact on your stakeholders but don’t pay the bill for carelessness of others.

In the operation of our small business accounting software we believe in taking 100% responsibility for anything that causes our users an inconvenience, whether it’s the economy, poorly written laws, or even other peoples’ software.  Sign up now for a 30-free trial and see the difference.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

I have had some great customer service interactions this week from the comfort of my home office at incredibly odd hours of the day.

I had mentioned in a previous post awhile back that I used to be concerned about answering email inquiries outside of office hours for the fear of being seen as “unprofessional” or “amateur”, or worse yet, to be uncovered by my customers that I work from home. 

It seems like working from home has worked well for servicing our clients.  We noticed that in our target market, many people sign up and log in outside of normal business hours.  If I can make the assumption that most of our clients are self-employed or small business owners, this would make perfect sense.  The other day, I was doing my own bookkeeping from 10 pm to 3 am on a Saturday night er…morning… and my web analytics are showing me that most of our clients actually prefer to do their bookkeeping at night or on weekends (strangely enough, no one else works at 3 am though).  I also feel that there is more authenticity in my responses because I am in my own element.  I guess there goes the idea of “work life balance” (which I think is a total myth by the way). 

One time, due to pregnancy related heart burn, I got up at 6 am to drink some soy milk.  I thought I would take this perfect opportunity to check my email and how many new sign ups I’ve got (I wake up to new sign ups on a daily basis and this makes interrupted sleep that much more fun) when I noticed an email inquiry from someone in Eastern time.  6 am my time was 9 am their time and their work day has already started.  Needless to say, the person who sent the email was pleasantly surprised and impressed at my “excellent customer service”.  Another time, a client who just signed up wanted to know how to enter multi-currency transactions in our accounting software.  It was around 7 pm at in the evening when I got a help inquiry and I was able to provide a response within 16 minutes of receiving the inquiry.  I even got a reply from this new client saying “You guys rock”.  This could not have been possible if I was working during “normal” business hours.  I have even been responding to email inquiries from Japan at 11 pm with much appreciation from the client.

One thing I am beginning to realize is that our clients do not work during normal business hours and neither should we.  If I could speak to the decision makers of large companies, I would suggest they consider allowing their workforce to work from home.  Give each support staff an iPhone / Blackberry so they would be delighted to receive emails at all hours of the day.  Responding quickly and authentically to client support inquiries seemed to be more useful than looking productive during office hours.

That’s all I have to say for now.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

Let me get the record straight, I do not consider myself and expert in marketing.  The good thing about being the owner of my own business, is that I can give myself whatever title I want. 

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, here are some of my thoughts and insights about marketing for SaaS applications - both as a result of working on our small business accounting software as well as observing what other people are doing.

Offline Engagement for Online Software?

The world of operating a business online is relatively new.  While it has been around since the 1990’s, it cannot compare to centuries of merchant activity offline.  Some of the questions we were considering when we first started developing Clarity Accounting was: how are we going to market an accounting software?

This was back at the end of 2007 when we sat down to have a discussion with the possible founders.  When we first started, there were 3 of us, one backed out because he couldn’t see a clear marketing model and didn’t see this project to be worthwhile to commit to (this will have to be discussed in a separate blog post about forming the core team of a startup company).  Initially we thought that the best way to market an accounting software was to go after the accountants and bookkeepers.  This seemed like a really good idea.  We thought, each accountant / accounting agency may have up to 100 clients (or more) and if we can enlicit 10 of these agencies to use Clarity Accounting, we can gain 1000 clients!  Marketing was going to be EASY! 

Until…

The grim reality sets in — Accountants Can’t Sell.

I remember meeting Wayne Zielke, owner of Ledgers Online, and having a discussion with him about the possibility of engaging accountants in the sales process when he broke the news to me.  Surely this could not be true.  Look at Intuit! They have the largest network of “Quickbooks Advisers” actively promoting their software, how can this not work?  Recently in a panel discussion, the person in charge of Quickbooks Online said, “There are 25 million users of Quickbooks, 1 million of which are accounting professionals…”, leaving door open to 24 million other users.

Using the traditional offline approach of establishing sales channels hasn’t really worked that well for us as a startup company so far.  Maybe we just haven’t been around long enough to gain the credibility necessary to secure those sales channels.  What I understand about the offline world is that it is about building relationships — leading to a longer sales cycle.  With our price point of $10 / month, it has become clear to us that this method of gaining customers would not be a good use of our time and resources.

I have seen several companies attempting to use offline strategies to distribute online software and I find that these companies simply ended up spending too much time and resources trying to build those offline relationships.  The online world is a place where people go to “skip the middle man” and clients appreciate having a direct connection with the vendors who are providing the products and services.

There is no doubt that there is a market for offline products and services.  When I go to networking events, most people have never heard of the idea of using accounting software that is hosted online.  Almost all the small business owners I have met have not even thought this was possible or available in Canada.  Software as a Service is still a relatively new phenomenon, most users are still considered to be “early adopters”.  Trying to convince them to use online software to deal with their financial matters is like trying to pull off an arm or a leg.  However, I do think there is hope as people are becoming more and more comfortable with banking and purchasing products and services online.

Online Engagement for Online Software

This is the path many software as a service companies have taken in an effort to increase subscribers and users.  Based on the success of some of the companies I have seen so far such as Salesforce and Freshbooks, many businesses are jumping on the online bandwagon.  Social media tools have the astonishing effect of pulling together people with similar interests who otherwise would have been strangers.  People who are actively engaged online are more likely to utilize products and services that are hosted online.  I do find the online world to be increasing saturated, but i don’t think it is nearly as saturated as the offline world.  Someone approached me today about the possibility of doing “print advertising” to promote our online accounting software and I thought to myself, “are they joking?”.  I replied saying, “if you can give me some compelling reasons why I should consider print advertising over spending my marketing budget on internet marketing, I’m all ears!”.

Once upon a time I thought most of these people who are actively engaged online are young people (3 to 25 years of age — that’s what I would consider young), but now I am seeing a much older crowd being interested in online applications — people in their late 30s to mid 40s.  If you feel offended by this statement, please try to understand that I am 28, therefore, people who are older than 35 are “old” and younger than 25 are “young”. 

Long story short, I still think online engagement is where online businesses should focus their attention.  This is especially true for startups on a limited marketing budget.  Offline engagement should be considered when some level of brand recognition and credibility have been established.  Even then, I still think leveraging the power of the internet provides the best bank for the marketing buck.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

Today is an interest day, maybe because it is Halloween.  We have had 2 people email us within a 2 hour time span asking “What are your future plans with Clarity Accounting?” and “Where are you going?”.

First of all, I am greatly flattered by peoples’ interest in our small business accounting software.  We have come such a long way in such a short time and have a quality piece of software to show for it.  I would like to take a brief moment to share my response to the question:  “Where are we going?”

In terms of where we are going, we are looking for a crystal ball (do you happen to have one?). It is hard to concretely say exactly where things are going.  We believe that this is a sensitive time period and it is very important to remain flexible. Obviously we would like to grow our user base, make more money, and live happily ever after… Does any of you have any other suggestions?

Given that statement, there are a few things we know for sure:

• Our operation is financially stable and steadily growing
• Our intention is to provide the most innovative small business accounting software possible
• We want to empower people to deal with their finances powerfully either through the use of our online accounting software or through software integration / partnerships with other products and service providers such as Freshbooks, Booking Calendar, and Ledgers Online (development is currently underway)

One thing I have realized is that making a difference in peoples’ lives does not only include selling subscriptions to Clarity Accounting.  There is so much more to it than simply providing accounting software.  We have really good reasons why we work long hours and stay up late at night.  I can’t even say this is “work” because it has been so much fun connecting with people from all around the world.  I never thought something seemingly boring like accounting can be the central link for establishing great customer interactions and key connections.

Our goal is to incorporate fun, innovation, and inspiration in our quest to transform peoples’ relationship with money.  That, is where we are going…

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

Last month, I wrote a blog post about doing the bookkeeping for Habitsoft, Inc (creator of Clarity Accounting) using our own small business accounting software. It has been a scary thought for me since I wasn’t the accounting brain behind Clarity Accounting.  My business partner has been doing all the bookkeeping for our company ever since we first started.  However, I was determined to try because I really believe I am very similar to 80% of business owners who dread bookkeeping.  Doing this will help me gain a better understanding of those we serve.

Our fiscal year started in October 1st, 2008 and I began to do the preparations for being the best bookkeeper the planet has ever seen.  I went to the local office supply store and got myself a huge accordion file with 21 pockets (the usual size is 13 pockets).

I labelled the different pockets of the accordion file with different expense and income categories as well as separate pockets where I keep our bank and credit card statements. I also added an envelope in each pocket for smaller receipts so that everything can be neatly kept.

Then, I felt I couldn’t do ANY bookkeeping until I got myself a Stapleless Stapler. 

If you have never seen one of those, you are missing out!  They come in all shapes and sizes and ideally used to staple credit card receipts and purchase receipts together.  I always wished I can just get one receipt for everything, but the reality in my part of the world is that I often get two receipts when I purchase things with my business credit card or debit / charge card.

The way the stapleless stapler works is that it makes a whole through two pieces of light weight paper and clip it together without ever using a single staple.  I had so much fun with stapling my receipts that my bookkeeping was done in no time at all

I also got a car mileage log book that I keep in my car.  I think that really is the best place to track car mileages because it is easier for one to record how many miles or kilometres driven for business while still sitting in the car.  I don’t think we will ever add a mileage tracking feature on Clarity Accounting for that very same reason.  While it may be nice to do EVERYTHING online, there are certain things that are better done “offline”.  Of course, there might be a possibility of doing a blackberry / iphone integration that will allow one to track mileages “online” from anywhere…

Now the challenge will be keeping up with my bookkeeping on a semi monthly basis.  Bookkeeping is one of those tasks that if one ever falls behind, it is such a headache to get back in the game.  I think this works for most things in life. 

I feel somewhat guilty for not boasting about our small business accounting software as one of my favourite bookkeeping tools.  I figure this should be something that is obvious.  Once upon a time, I tried other forms of self-employment and got Quickbooks to keep track of my income and expenses, I probably set up everything wrong and ended up abandoning it all together within 2 months.  Long enough that I could no longer return it to the store.  That’s why I think a subscription model for accounting software is great, you can cancel at any time.

Bookmark this post: