SaaS accounting: getting the right people on board

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FreeAgent has just announced that Emily Coltman has joined the business:

Emily Coltman will be joining the company as our Support Accountant. It’s an exciting addition to the team as she has a wealth of experience as a small business accountant and really understands the needs of our accounting partners.

Other than the fact it is good to see old colleagues expanding the business and people I’ve met through the blogs enjoy success, it is exactly the right thing to do. When it comes to software, accountants want to speak to accountants. These are the people that speak their language and understand their problems. There is an inherent trust which should be used to mutual advantage, especially in the early client onboarding days where the professional is likely to have the most difficulties. Emily understands the issues from years of working with other products. She also does extremely good ‘how to’ videos which I understand will become an integral part of the offering. She’s also an extremely likable person. I’m looking forward to getting her and one of the FreeAgent team on video when I attend SoftWorld to find out more.

Coincidentally, I also spoke with Jeremy Roche, CODA’s CEO. That company has just announced the formation of a new business FinancialForce.com. This sees CODA2go’s assets and people transfer to a new venture with Salesforce.com as a minority stakeholder and with Jeremy taking up the CEO’s chair. I’ve written a detailed account of what this means over on ZDNet. During our conversation, Jeremy said it is vital the company gets accounting types on board who have a taste for SaaS in sales and pre-sales positions. That might be harder than he imagines.

Getting the right accounting types to move into software is not easy. It’s not a natural world for them to occupy in sales roles. Getting SaaS enthused people is even tougher. This is still a relatively new market. Market penetration is possibly around 5%.  Most of those who are in the game only know the on-premise world. Those that do ‘get it’ will do very well.

Tagged as: Accounting, Cloud computing, CODA, Emily Coltman, Jeremy Roche, Salesforce.com, Small business