I spent an interesting day at Accountex last week – I know, I know, we accountants certainly know how to party! I was there to catch up with the latest software offerings and meet current and potential future suppliers. The overriding emphasis of course was Cloud and in truth the few desktop software providers stuck out like guests turning up in fancy dress to a black tie do.
As a long time proponent of everything Cloud and having always maintained it had more than a silver lining, I confess I felt like running up and down a few aisles chanting “Told you so!” Age, common sense and concern about the brand image of my business held me back, and any anyway I suspect a little happy dance from someone who’s been advocating Cloud for the last 15 years wouldn’t have gone down a storm amongst current proponents who tend to act as if they’ve only just invented the concept!
But seriously, it is great to see that Cloud based software is now the norm and long may it continue.
The accounting software sector is a particularly crowded one – led by Xero and Quickbooks there are enough providers that the user is not only spoilt for choice but in sorting through individual advantages and disadvantages is apt to come down with a splitting headache. As I’ve mentioned previously, I consider Xero has become the Sage of this sector – a prominent position, but as Sage have discovered, the higher he rise, the mightier and more painful the fall.
Despite the plethora of providers in this sector, the majority of products are aimed at the small business or contractor with the more complicated requirements of the medium to large enterprises largely overlooked. Now that Exact appears to have withdrawn from the UK market, I can think of only a few products that service the “M” of SME and if I, in turn have overlooked something that’s under my nose, get in touch and let me know.
One of the current applications is Reviso into whose willing arms many medium sized businesses have fallen with a sigh of relief. Formerly known as e-conomic the product was rebranded – Reviso meaning accounting in Danish – when it ended up in the TeamSystem stable, one of the largest accounting software providers in Italy and Europe.
A fully functioned system, able to meet the needs those of Medium size enterprises looking for something rather more sophisticated than that required by smaller businesses, Reviso is re-launching in the UK. Watch this space.