ProAdvisors span the nation, consulting with many of the 3.7 million QuickBooks customers on how to get better use of their software. Now Intuit hopes to convince a portion of those 40,000 ProAdvisors, as well as resellers of competitors’ products like Sage Software’s MAS line and Microsoft Dynamics GP, to add QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions to their toolkits. Could this plan be realized, or is it just a pipedream? Intuit began beta-testing this channel strategy a year ago, and by its QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions user conference in San Diego earlier this month, announced that 94 people had signed on, including a handful of the competition’s resellers. The goal is to hit 250 around the time of its 2008 user conference and 750 by July 2010. Unlike its competitors, Intuit essentially is starting from scratch in its attempts to formalize its channel. “We didn’t have a bona fide VAR program with a clear role for the channel,” channel director Jim Gregg acknowledged during the conference. “We don’t have much flesh on the bone right now.” That leads to a challenging path ahead. The QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program began in 1999 and provides members with product discounts, free training and an online resource center to help accountants market and run their practices. These members have formed a community over the years and some even compete with each other to be first to acquire the latest certification. Now Intuit must push them to either upsell their current clients who have outgrown the lower-level application or convince users of more complex and expensive products to switch. What’s challenging is that many accountants who hold the ProAdvisor title are uncomfortable with the selling stage of engagements and are dependent on Intuit for help, according to Gregg. While the vendor aims to provide its channel with 50 percent of their leads, it expects them to generate the other 50 percent, he says. Program participants receive a 25 percent margin, which could jump to 50 percent if they sell two deals per month, and Intuit plans to offer coop marketing assistance in the future and expand the Intuit Developer Network to encourage VARs to sell other products. Sounds fair enough. But when you look at Sage’s highly structured channel program, which offers sales training, marketing coaching and clearly defined plans to help its partners succeed, Intuit’s program looks like the little engine that could—or at least that might. Add that to the fact that Sage execs at their May partner conference in Orlando discussed plans to bring Peachtree Quantum into the channel, and the hill grows a bit steeper for Gregg’s team. He says he hasn’t seen much competition from Quantum yet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. Dynamics resellers, however, are demonstrating interest, quickly returning inquisition calls from Intuit, according to Gregg. That is not hard to believe being that Microsoft’s channel is so large it doesn’t need to nurture it. What can Intuit do to entice Sage resellers to take on its mid-market product when Sage has its own and rewards partners who sell only its products under the Sage Select program? It might benefit by providing more individualized attention to VARs, demonstrating a clear commitment to helping them grow. It’s on the right track, with plans to add a marketing manager, channel manager and training manager in the next three months. But it’s going to take a lot of steam for this little engine to catch up with the locomotives.

Online business management applications provider NetSuite Inc. has launched NetSuite 2007.0, an offering that focuses on three key areas: an enterprise resource management system focused on ease- of use; a global customer relationship management and partner relationship management; and built-in suite analytics designed for the small to midsized market. The company, headquartered here, also has developed new NetSuite Assistants, a component of NetSuite 2007.0 that eases the setup, data import and ongoing administration of complex tasks. In addition, NetSuite has added assistants for complex ERP areas such as multi-dimensional product configuration and transactional form layout. Orders, forecasts, quotas and commissions can now be managed on a per-country basis in local currency to help streamline the management of global sales operations. In addition, all countries can then be rolled-up into a single dashboard for a consolidated global view across the entire organization. In a related launch, the company has also released SuiteAnalytics, a business intelligence tool that integrates pre-built dashboards and pre-configured key performance indicators with new analytics capabilities, - including the ability to embed Excel-like formulas in any NetSuite Performance Scorecard or saved-search report. For more information about NetSuite 2007.0, visit www.netsuite.com/2007.0.

Write-up and payroll software provider Universal Business Computing Company said it has added a data importing/exporting feature to its applications. UBCC said that its data importing/exporting feature enables users to send reports to paper, PDF, CSV/Excel files with partial-run capability by date range, by state, labor distribution codes, and employee. For more information, call (800)-827-8610 or visit www.ubcc.com.

M5 Networks Inc. wants to get rid of your phone system.

OSI UNVEILS TRAVERSE 10.5

How a firm deals with an underperforming partner defines the strength of its management. Well-managed firms deal with it in a professional manner, rather than ignoring the problem.

ANOTHER REASON IT'S HARD TO FIND STAFF ...

Nonprofit software provider AccuFund Inc. has unveiled AccuFund Hosted, an online version of its AccuFund Accounting Suite. AccuFund said set-up, training and support for its new hosted product would be provided by local resellers. Pricing is available on a quarterly or monthly basis with a one-year commitment. Pricing on a monthly basis is only $289.80 for one user, which includes all modules and phone support. The company said that customers have the option of putting 15 percent of their payments for AccuFund Hosted towards a later purchase of the AccuFund Accounting Suite software system.

Intuit has cast its lot with open source. Intuit? The guys with millions of small businesses that use its tax and accounting products? Intuit’s mid-market product, QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, is going to be supported on Linux servers.

Wizard Productivity Systems has unveiled the first end-to-end system for streamlining the implementation and set-up of Microsoft Dynamics. Wizard Accounting Solutions for Microsoft Dynamics aims to make it easy to purchase, install and learn Microsoft's accounting and business software by offering a turnkey end-user package that companies can purchase online or over the phone. The package includes Dynamics; a step-by-step program for configuring a company's system; a customized server with a three-year service plan; and a choice of three different levels of technical guidance and coaching. Pricing starts at $12,250, including hardware. WPS has offered the set-up component of the package, the Wizard X4 Productivity Suite, through Microsoft resellers for a year; this marks the first time the product has been available directly to users. For more information, visit www.wizardx4.com or call (800) 939-4119 ext. 701.

Advertisements at California airports entice busy executives to “play hooky” using handheld devices. After all, the ads argue, if you fix a PowerPoint and answer an email, it’s not really playing hooky now, is it? This marketing strategy touches on an increasingly common scenario in which the worlds of business and pleasure collide. While this particular vendor is trying to promote the fact that we can spend a day at the beach or on the golf course instead of in an office, it fails to include an asterisk warning us of the downsides of anytime, anywhere access from a machine that can fit in our pockets. *Warning: This device can be addicting and impede on your personal life. Contact your IT professional if you catch yourself checking emails in your sleep. Traveling to various accounting shows put a bug in my head that I need a “Crackberry.” It’s not enough that I run back to my hotel room to check my email every time my schedule shows a 15-minute “open” slot or that I have my cell phone attached to my pants so I can feel people trying to reach me in case I don’t hear it ring. I should be able to communicate in the elevator, on the Starbuck’s line and maybe even while showering. (A little electric shock couldn’t be that painful.) “Please, don’t get a Crackberry,” a friend of mine implored during a hike one recent weekend during which I promised to keep my phone in my backpack—but not turned off—and not to conduct any business until I returned home (are we there yet?) “You’re the picture of a junkie.” I envisioned myself standing still with a BlackBerry sticking precariously out of my veins and knew his statement was true. The sick thing is, his comment is making me entertain the idea even more… Having a Palm Pilot, Treo or BlackBerry does not serve as a magic wand in which all business problems can be solved from the road in a matter of minutes, either. This kind of connectivity has obvious advantages. Most companies with mobile workforces can win the argument in favor of providing their staff with handheld machines. Sales people, in particular, can stand to gain from viewing client and prospect data when out of the office, potentially even winning them deals by arming them with pertinent or personal details about an individual or company they may otherwise not have known or remembered. But as accounting software vendors start boasting about their mobile apps, one has to wonder just how much number crunching customers expect to do on the road. When pressed, a few of them admitted that companies are only using a select set of features and functionality, most of which involves looking up client data—not necessarily updating their general ledgers. There’s something to be said for preparedness when entering a meeting, even when closing a deal is not the main objective. There comes a point, however, at which attempting to conduct the type of business you would on a PC on something the fraction of the size just becomes counterproductive. After all, how much drilling down can you do on a screen that small without straining your eyes so much that the numbers start resembling Chinese characters. Not to mention Swollen Thumb Syndrome. One software reseller I spoke with is convinced the next generation will be born with extra thumbs in a twisted world of Darwin vs. the BlackBerry, in which the cool kids will wear glasses and the most popular pickup line will be, “Nice Digits.”

Sage Software has launched Act! by Sage for Financial Professionals 9.0, a contact and customer management system targeted at financial advisors, brokerage firms and financial services teams. This is the second Act! industry-specific system released by Sage in as many months. In May, the financial software conglomerate introduced its Act! by Sage Premium for Real Estate 9.0. Though Act! is touted as contact management product, Sage described the application as being part of its customer relationship management suite of products. The new offering features data management, activity tracking, reporting and sales tools. It centralizes prospect and client data in a single database and enables users to capture and access key contacts, accounts, investment and financial information and assists with regulatory compliance tracking. Available in two versions, Act! by Sage for Financial Professionals is designed to work with up to 10 users, while Act! by Sage Premium for Financial Professionals is targeted at those who intend to share a database with more than 10 users. The Premium version also includes advanced security features at the user and contact levels, automatic database synchronization and backup, and centralized administration. For more information, go to www.sage.com.

Years ago, write-up software was fairly rare, and the market was dominated by trial balance applications. Over the years, as software applications have become more sophisticated, the distribution has switched, with write-up becoming predominant. While not as popular as it was in the past, software specifically designed for trial balance use is still available, and still selling very nicely.While the two applications are somewhat similar, they are far from identical. Nor is trial balance a subset of write-up. Sure, you enter financial data into either of them, and both can produce financial statements, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

Intuit Inc. and Electronic Clearing House Inc. have agreed to scrap a deal that would have seen Intuit pay $142 million for the debit and credit card processor.Intuit had announced the acquisition plan in mid-December, after the boards of both companies approved the proposed deal. The companies announced late in April that it would be in their mutual best interest to terminate the proposed agreement.

The oversight body for the International Accounting Standards Board said that Olivier Servais will serve as team leader for the organization's Extensible Business Reporting Language initiative.The IAS Committee Foundation said that Servais will coordinate all XBRL-related activities by the foundation, working closely with private and public organizations involved in the advancement of online financial reporting, as well as advising users and preparers of internal standards in considering the appropriateness and timing of XBRL adoption.

Development or growth - what is the difference? Has your firm been growing at a rapid pace? Many firms just completed their best years by financial measurements, but they're still challenged with finding quality staff and increasing their capacity to handle market opportunities. Because of financial results, it's often difficult to convince partners that they need to change for the firm's long-term development.Authors David Norton and Robert Kaplan suggest four perspectives in their writings about the Balanced Scorecard and strategy maps. Most companies focus on the financial perspective. Professional service firms are no different.

Today, most firms realize the importance of marketing and are more than willing to invest in various activities to drive growth. In accounting, this anxious desire to jump in and "do something" often leads to opportunistic growth, in directions unintended by firm leadership.In this article, we'll focus on the key elements of marketing that will drive your firm's strategic growth and profitability. These are commonly referred to as the Five Ps of Marketing, and are listed below in my suggested priority order.

Intuit Inc. announced last week that its QuickBooks: Online Edition has 110,000 subscribed companies, with more than 270,000 individual users.

Everyone needs to laugh, especially when spending nearly a week on the verge of exhaustion in back to back meetings at a conference far away from their offices.

Web-based business management software company NetSuite Inc. has unrolled its first mobile customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning offering.