SME Blog

FreeAgent Central

Technology consultant Ed Molyneux found he was frustrated with the time taken keeping track of expenses and raising invoices on spreadsheets.  For one and two person service based companies he found the accounting software wasn’t easy enough for non accountants. 

Ed founded FreeAgent Central an online service for small service based SME’s to deal with their financials.  What I found extremely interesting is Ed’s comments he made in an interview with Tom Raftery on blip TV.  Here are a few of his comments:

“Quite hard to do some simple things …sharp contrast to the rest of the way we’re running our business which is using technology and the internet”

“Accountants are offering a very valuable service.  Clearly there is a lot of information out there which you need to understand to run your business.” 

“It seems to me a lot of stuff they are doing is stuff that could be automated.”

I agree with all of the above.   Ed clearly realised that in addition to automating processes the online service must be as easy to use. 

This focus on usability is an extremely important one as both Amazon and Google know.  Most business owners don’t want to be confronted by the cockpit of Concorde when they open up a new piece of software.  In my experience they want something that is easy to use and gives instant benefit. 

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A moment in the sun

Recently the weather in the UK has been wonderful and we've had our moment in the sun.  By some strange coincidence so have I.

First there is a profile article from Liz Loxton of Best Practice magazine and then a mention in AccountancyAge by editor in chief Damian Wild.

Damian manages to mention accountants and rapper Vanilla Ice in the same article.  Quite a feat.  It's also good to see the Wiki Wednesday event get such a favourable mention.

Liz's article gives my views on using technology at work and to benefit business.  As a professional journalist she does a much better job at explaining it than I ever could.

Moment of glory over and it's back to making the teas. 

Technorati Tags: small business medium sized business sme smb blogging accountants  sme-blog  technology

Internet technologies

Recently I was in Amsterdam.  No one appeared to believe me when I said it was work.  Why is that?  Amsterdam really does have the reputation of one hell of place to have a good time.

In truth, the hospitality of the Dutch and in particular André Kwakernaat and his team at Twinfield made the whole visit a pleasure.

Twinfield provide the No 1 Online Accounting System in Europe with over 18,000 users and growing fast.  As well as excellent English the Dutch do appear to excel when it comes to using internet technologies.  They must also be the only country in Europe that actually has TV adverts for online business systems.  Like a new Harry Potter novel they are flying off the shelves.  Now before I get carried away I must disclose I use Twinfield where I work.

I like Twinfield because, put bluntly, it can make peoples jobs easier and help them run their businesses better.   I think that message often gets lost.  I see too many systems where users are faced with the cockpit of Concorde or the system is only available on the accountant’s pc. 

Twinfield and the internet appear to be a winning combination to me because:

• IT management is handled by Twinfield; just log on through the internet via a web-browser
• The system is rented; no upfront capital cost
• Automated data entry and reduced manual input
• Integration with the other systems in use e.g. CRM, EPOS etc

In fact, I like Twinfield so much that we’ve rolled it out at work under the banner of GJ Online.  Go on tell me the downside I really want to know.

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Philip Woodgate

Revolution

"During certain periods in history, innovations in technology have grown at such a rapid pace that they have produced what have become known as industrial revolutions." (Source: Bergen)

About 200 years ago an industrial revolution was in place whereby machinery and steam power changed the world in a short period of time. 200 years later we are living in yet another revolution.

Technology is changing the way people live and interact.  Newlyweds meet online (est 12% in USA),  workers connect to the office from home and niche small businesses can now market and sell globally.

The use of technology will become increasingly important to help give SME's a competitive edge. Kevin Reed makes reference to this in his article in What PC. He discusses small accountancy practices, but the general points of how technology can help a small business operate and improve its service applies to all sectors.

One example he gives is online accounting products like Twinfield (which we use at work to power our GJ Online offering).  Using online products allow the business team to truly collaborate.  It opens doors that were previously closed to small businesses and available only to large companies. 

We are in a technology revolution and the reality is that we are nowhere near its end. 

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Podcast

Whilst I'm on accounting online I should also put a link to the Podcast put together by Dennis Howlett.  Dennis made sure the process was very quick and painless for us.  He's the type of person you could talk to all day without a break and never be bored.

Philip Woodgate

Accountants move online

You can read about Online Accounting in the technology section of Financial Director.  Kevin Reed was kind enough to mention my recent work with Twinfield.   I was impressed with how Kevin was able to understand the benefits to business rather than just looking at the IT technology aspects.  As David Terrar would say "think business, not technology."

Philip Woodgate