Australia-based job management software maker simPRO Software has purchased a 30 percent stake in Gem Accounts publisher Gem Software Solutions, with plans to aid the product’s global rollout including its recent foray into the U.S. market.
Midmarket-focused cloud accounting software Gem Accounts officially entered the U.S. market
Brad Couper, simPRO Software’s chief executive, explained that the strategic investment would allow simPRO to offer a fully integrated general ledger as part of the company's enterprise system. He also noted that Gem Software Solutions is on track to deliver $2.2 million in revenue for its first fiscal year based on the current take up rate across its operating regions which includes Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, U.S. and soon to be the U.K. market.
“We were finding a massive gap between products like Xero and something like NetSuite or even MYOB or Sage; Gem fits well in that gap,” said Couper. “What companies like Xero have done is it has cloud accounting out there, it has progressive accountants talking about it and recommending it. One thing we all agreed on was [Gem] were hopeless at marketing themselves, so we used a lot of our connections and gave them a leg up on that. They are accounting and technology people, for the most part and have built something accountants and their midmarket clients will be very interested in.”
In addition, Couper noted that while simPRO may eventually fully acquire Gem, they do plan to keep the Gem Accounts brand in the market.
Chief technology officer Jonathan Eastgate said to expect Gem Accounts version 2.0 to be released by the end of this month, which will feature the ability for users to pull their entire database from Gem Accounts and store it locally as a backup, or send it back to Gem encrypted if they chose. There will also be a secondary backup that can export to an Excel workbook or SQL file. Gem Accounts currently uses six Rackspace data centers around the world in “geographically strategic locations,” including a U.S. center in Dallas according to Eastgate.
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