I would agree with you whole heartedly that it will come down to look and feel and feature set and i'm not going to comment on automatic bank feeds!!!

Mark

The pool of forward thinking accountants is growing and the "credible" SaaS accounting companies as seen by practice accountants is not as large as we (Xero) thought.
We are concentrating on the small number of accounting firms who "get" the service and we are seeing excellent results. Those practices who are presently unsure about SaaS will be revisited when they see the light!!

I guess we are making two points here:

1. Forward thinking practices will present the best solution to thier clients. This maybe a SaaS solution or installed solution – but the client comes first.
2. SaaS accounting solution providers who understand accountants best will promote to the right practices and revisit those others when they are ready.

So as I posted above it's all about positioning!

Mark

I wouldn’t have expected you to

Cheers for the dialogue – talk to you soon

b

I guess my contention is that the pool of forward thinking accountants is sufficiently small, and the number of SaaS accounting products too large, for a go-to-market strategy involving accountant partnerships to be overly successful.

Very happy to be proven wrong though!

Ben

Interesting and a valid strategy I’m sure. It’s just that reading the marketing spin from the UK facing SaaS accounting vendors, they all claim a huge level of credibility within accounting practices: e-conomic founded by a CA, Xero respected and endorsed by ACAEW, FAC with a (very small) holdingby Dennis and traction with the CAs.

So the pool is small as we both agree but I’d contend that there are a few sharks circling that little school of fish!

So it comes down to look and feel and killer features – automatic bank feeds anyone?

Of course the tide of change is not quick, but by positioning to the clients that they (the accountant) are able to deliver a better service the accountant is not losing credability.

It’s all about positioning and not all do it well!

(S)he then has to say "no, actually we think Winweb / Xero / FreeAgent / whatever it may be is better", thereby contradicting his/her own recommendation.

Would most clients see this as being innovative – or as a loss of credibility?

M