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.

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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…

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It is amazing how hard it is to get back in the game of blogging after an extended absence.  For some people, a 10 day absence might not seem like a big deal.  But I am starting to realize that the longer I don’t write, the harder it is to get back to the groove of writing.  In my defense however, I must say that I have been working very hard on the help files for our online accounting software.  The help file section is created like a whole other blog on our website.  We found this method to be useful in organizing help information as well generating consistent relevant content and SEO credits.

Many interesting things are happening on the Clarity Accounting front.  We are now being contacted by people from all over the world.  Today, we had a phone conversation with people over in Singapore (a place I used to call home for 3 years of my life) and we are getting requests from people all over the world to tweak Clarity Accounting to support their accounting needs.

One of the most important features we have to support international users is our strong multi-currency feature.  From our research so far, I can honestly say that Clarity Accounting has some of the best multi-currency support out there.  We now support currencies in the following countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Britain, Switzerland, Japan, Dubai, India, Pakistan, Japan and of course, the Euro for countries in the European Union. 

If you would like your currency to be included in Clarity Accounting, simply contact us and make your request known.

To record multi-currency transactions, you would have to use the “Enter Invoice” tab under the Income section or the “Enter Bill” tab under the Expense section. 

Recent requests from our international customers for multi-currency support also made us realize a wonderful vision for Clarity Accounting.  We are the accounting software that can connect small businesses together all around the world by providing a tool that faciliates doing business with each other.  This is a very exciting vision and we are looking forward to serving people from all over the world.

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Last Thursday at Launch Party 5 one of the things surprised people was my use of the Google Web Toolkit (usually abbreviated as GWT) to develop the application.  Since GWT is so new, there are relatively few publically viewable application that use it, and of those, few are as attractive as Clarity Accounting.

Enter Income

Why GWT?

I originally chose Google Web Toolkit for a few reasons:

1. I wanted the application to “feel” like a desktop application, especially it should be fast like a desktop application.  Since GWT is designed for AJAX & DHTML coding, it met this requirement perfectly
2. I know I would develop the server side in Java for its security, scalability, and code maintainability. Since GWT allows me to also write the client-side code in Java and, in fact, share some code between client and server, I thought it would save me some work there
3. The first time I tried to get it working, it worked without a lot of pain and confusion; the results of my code are usually quite predictable
4. I knew I wanted to provide an API, and since GWT “talks” to the server using an API already, I knew that by providing another protocol to access the same API as my own user interface I would greatly simplify its development.

Entering Income

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Clarity Accounting is the winner of the startup most likely to succeed contest sponsored by Bootup Labs and Fasken Martineau for the grand price of $1000!!

Other contestants in the “startup most likely to succeed” contest included:

Peerfx: a platform that supports peer to peer currency exchange to reduce costs.

Zinepal: aggregates great content from the web into your own printable magazine.

MakeFive: allows users to generate top 5 lists of anything

Urbantastic: an online event listing website that allows users to search for events based on interest and location.

The contestants were asked to make a short video addressing the following questions:

1. What is my name?
2. What is my company’s name?
3. Company Website URL
4. What do we do?
5. Name 3 things that someone would always see on my desk
6. How far I will go to make my company succeed?

Here is our video for Clarity Accounting:

There were two contests going on, one is for the start up that is most likely to succeed, and the other one is the for the startup with the best video.  The startup most likely to succeed was chosen by 7 judges with a grand prize of $1000 (sponsored by Bootup Labs); while the best video was voted by people attending the Launch Party as well as online at the Launch Party website for the prize of 2 box seats at the Vancouver Giants hockey game in November (sponsored by Fasken Martineau).

Some things I found to be interesting were:

Three days before I went to the Launch Party I was working on setting up a free demo account on our online accounting software that showed off the multi-currency capabilities as well as the ability to generate PDF invoices.  I was in the process of entering some sample data when I decided to enter an invoice billed to “Launch Party” with an amount of $1000 due in 7 days.  Seven days later, Jordan Behan from Strutta (organizers of Launch Party 5) contacted me to inform me that Clarity Accounting has won the $1000 prize for the startup most likely to succeed. I can just hear the music from twilight zone playing in my ear as I am writing this.  Very cool…

I also learned that the guys from Urbantastic has a very similar startup / development model as the team at Clarity Accounting (I am going to reveal a big secret here):

They live and work with their business partners.
The team consists of one person interested in computers and one person interested in people.

I sincerely think with startups that want to get their product out quickly and efficiently, being in VERY CLOSE proximity with your business partner(s) really helps.  The success of the startup often depend on the communication between the people on the team and the speed in which things can get done.  The longer something takes, the more it is likely to cost.  Many people are surprised to find that Clarity Accounting only took 1 year to create.  While software development is a never-ending process and we are continuously working on making our online accounting software better and easier to use every day, the core part of the application from nothing to Beta took only 1 year with one programmer (a very talented one I must say). 

Launch Party 5 was a fun event and I am really glad we were invited to be one of the featured companies.  I feel very lucky and blessed

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Your online accounting software has been updated yet again!  Just one of the many advantanges of Software as a Service.  The focus of this release was bug fixes, an email notification system for when your free trial ends (yes, it is nice to notified of these things, right?), and some work on the backend (the part of the software the Clarity Accounting Support team uses to keep on top of things).  Enjoy!

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A big update this weekend, or at least it feels like it.

• You can upload a logo for your business, which will be included on invoices.  To upload your logo, visit your Business Profile and use the upload field there.
• A bunch of user interface glitches and rough edges were polished up
• After adding an income or expense, you’re given the option to “repeat” it, which could save time when entering a bunch of similar records in a row
• In Income and Expenses, you can right-click on a record in the list to see a contextual popup with some information and actions related to that record.
• You can press enter instead of tab in many forms to move to the next field, you can also press CTRL+ENTER or SHIFT+ENTER to jump straight to the ‘Add’ or ‘Save’ button on many forms

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Two major upgrades last night.

First, we’ve moved Clarity Accounting to new servers at a new hosting provider with the following benefits:

• Server “Hot Failover”: If one of the server computers running the software dies for any reason, all the work it was doing is automatically redistributed to other computes while that one is replaced
• RAID-1 storage: All data is saved onto multiple hard drives, so that if a hard drive wears out no data is lost.
• Isolation of components: The major components of the servers run inside their own virtual machine, so that if one of them is compromised the others are not affected.  For example, if someone hacks our blog, he can mess up our blog but he can’t access any financial data.
• Intelligent firewall with intrusion and attack detection
• Improved security practices, including using non-standard ports and public keys for SSH server access
• More powerful servers that can handle more users and virtually unlimited data storage
• Learn more about the security of our new hosting service here.

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