Twinfield was the first saas vendor I looked at in any depth but for whatever reason, I’m darned if I can find the in depth review I conducted Here is the review I conducted some three and a half-ish years ago. Since then, Twinfield has progressed steadily and now boasts 29,853 paying customers, most of which are in the Netherlands. That may sound like a piffling number except that the company claims to have managed some €42 billion in transactions during the last year, which is the equivalent of 7% Netherlands GDP. That is a huge number by any stretch and reflected in their financials which, for FY 2007 showed PBT of €1 million on net revenue of €3.6 million.
The company continues to make progress in the UK albeit at a more sedate space. That could change with the introduction of XBRL capability and their having snagged Deloitte in the Nertherlands as a replacement for Navision. Deloitte is the largest SME accounting provider in the Netherlands and Twinfield is currently assisting Deloitte to onboard all its 2,000 ‘shoebox’ clients, a process that will run through the next few months. Twinfield already has BDO as a national account.
XBRL is a simmering issue for accounting software vendors. In recent weeks, I have received a number of queries about XBRL and it is clear that many vendors are still in the dark as to what it means. In the US, the SEC has been evangelizing the XBRL story for several years and it is now mandated for later this year through 2010. In the US, XBRL is seen as a way of differentiating the market for increased transparency in corporate financial information. Twinfield has bitten the proverbial bullet and designed an XBRL capable structure that can be used internationally.
My concern with XBRL has always been about the management of taxonomies. Twinfield claims to have overcome that through a system of hierarchies and taxonomies that reflect the different reporting requirements of its home market. Currently in test, Twinfield expects to have the full product in general availability in the summer time frame – in time to train customers for the 2010 Netherlands ‘switchover.’ For the Netherlands, Twinfield has developed four taxonomies:
- Tax (the equivalent of e-filing in the UK)
- Chamber of commerce (the equivalent of Companies House filing)
- Statistics
- Bank – for loans and other reporting
This is a smart combination because it allows companies to work off a single data set while providing the analysis required by each agency without recrunching the numbers. Since XBRL spits out structured data, Twinfield doesn’t have to concern itself with formatting in the traditional sense. Instead, it can hand off a trial balance to accounts production systems so that clients can still see the numbers in the manner with which they are familiar while professionals can continue using the software of their choice. Looking at the way Twinfield has attacked the problem, there is no reason why this should not be readily adopted in the UK – provided of course, the UK regulatory authorities get their act together.
I like Twinfield’s approach because it doesn’t box anyone into a corner while covering the essential reporting bases. In the accounting world, XBRL is going to be a rapidly emerging issue. The fact Twinfield has come out relatively early not only gives it a lead in the field but provides a halo effect for the saas market.
The other year, I co-edited XBRL for Dummies. It remains a solid overview of what XBRL is and how it benefits different constituencies of user. It is available for free.
In other news, SAP announced an XBRL publishing application but I have yet to see it.
UPDATE: CFO.com discusses the emerging XBRL market
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