Top Sage North America partner Net@Work has officially launched a nonprofit reseller practice with the purchase of Huckstep & Associates -- one Sage North America's leading nonprofit partners.
The Springfield, Mo.-based firm will retain all of its staff, with managing member Jeannie Huckstep becoming Net@Work's nonprofit practice director. The firm also has an office in Okemos, Mich., both of which served approximately 350 nonprofit and public sector agencies in 35 states.
Net@Work had wanted to better serve nonprofit customers and was able to on a limited basis with the accounting products it had, but found that a deeper, more strategic investment needed to be made.
"We had been dabbling in nonprofit and made other applications work for our nonprofit customers, but that was not the answer. This was the time for us to do this, but we needed the right leader and now we have it," said Net@Work co-president Alex Solomon. "You can't just dabble in nonproft and if you are going to build a practice like this it has to be with a leader, now we can go to our nonprofit customers and talk about what we can really do."
Huckstep had been trying to grow its practice and found it best to do so first with a partnership with Net@Work, officially signing on to its Alliance Partner Program last year, and ultimately -- when they were ready -- discuss an acquistion.
"It seems that ultimately we needed to be with a larger firm, as a smaller firm we weren't going to do as well because we are limited with how much we can grow and serve our clients," said Huckstep. "Everyone talks about being a one-stop shop, but as a small firm you can't get there and even with a partnership it's only a half step. When we spoke again[after a year of being an Alliance Partner] we saw great opportunites to be a part of Net@Work to provide nonprofit clients with a wide range of needed, valuable services."
Since 1994, Huckstep & Associates has provided accounting, HR, and software implementation servies to nonprofit and governmental organizations, ultimately representing Sage 100 Fund Accounting(formerly MIP)Fundraising 50 as well as Abra HRMS.
Net@Work's purchase also marks the first non-Sage product line that the firm will represtent, other than its own.
