For more years than I care to remember, professionals have struggled with finding ways to get clients to keep books and records that could be readily turned into accounts. In my day, the Simplex green book was the closest we ever came. As for computing – forget it.
The problem has always been one of design. All the well known products and services are geared towards people who already understand the fundamentals of book-keeping. Sage, Intuit and others will argue they’ve simplified the user interface and that much of the grind of double entry has been removed. I agree. But the basic design problem remains. There has been no fundamental change because without exception, the products were designed with accountants in mind. FreeAgent Central hopes to change that – at least for small, non-cash service businesses. Instead of viewing a set of books as a series of double entry transactions, the lads at FreeAgent Central have turned the problem on its head.
Instead of starting with books and records, they designed the system with the entire value chain in mind. They thought of pretty much everything from projects and time recording through to cash collection, expenses and tax. This is in contrast to just about every other system I’ve seen where the starting point is the recording of the transaction and everything else has been bolted in.
When Ed Molyneux, the founder originally approached me, I immediately liked what I saw. For the first time, a person who has lived with ‘spreadsheet hell’ was saying he wanted to find another way. Along with Roan Lavery and Olly Headey, Ed had put the bones of a system together that to my eyes ‘just makes sense.’
They have taken a modern approach to how the service is delivered such that professionals should also benefit. But the truly disruptive thing they’ve done is to put the business person in control. Almost. My sense is that those users who really get the system will be in a far stronger position to manage their finances and will, to some extent, be able to push back at professionals who use the mystique of accounting to charge ever escalating fees for no apparent benefit. I will be encouraging that because I also know that FreeAgent Central is taking the 60-70% grunt work out of accounts production.
If we can get the accounts production vendors to play ball, then we could push that figure to around 80%. That is a huge potential benefit for end users and professionals because it means that for the first time in my lifetime, we will have a way of giving both parties a choice about how they wish the professional relationship to proceed. But it also means the potential for new business models in the profession. That’s the real story.
There is a long way to go (you really don’t want to see the To-Do and Wish Lists) and there are some rough edges to smooth out. But the basics needed to achieve the goals we’ve set ourselves are there. The bottom line:
- The service fits Phil Wainewright’s definition of an on-demand application. It sure as heck isn’t the same as SoSaaS.
- It addresses an age old problem and delivers a ground up solution that benefits everyone in the financial supply chain.
- It has the potential to reach across organisations in ways that have never before been attempted with any degree of seriousness.
- It takes full advantage of what technology can deliver to assist in the meaningful creation of value based services and relationships.
That’s eating my own dog food.
