VANCOUVER – Marking 25 years of business that has seen a lot of change in how businesses use and what they expect from their accounting software, Sage North America has released a new version of its flagship Simply software for the small and medium-sized business market.
At its Simply Partnership conference on Wednesday, Sage took the wraps off of Sage Simply Accounting 2011. In addition to improved workflow, Sage is also promising new tools for accepting mobile payments and to take Simply into the cloud.Hugo Croft-Levesque, director of product marketing with Sage, said Simply isn’t designed for accountants, but rather for the small business owners that have to do accounting. A number of process changes have been made in 2011 to help them, including a more graphical interface that lets users complete common tasks in fewer steps.
“Ease of use is a big part of our process, and making compliance easier for our users is a big part of our process,” said Croft-Levesque. “It’s a big part of our value proposition to say to the small business community we’ve got your back.”
(Watch this video with Sage vice-president and general manager Jamie Sutherland for more on Sage’s 25th anniversary.)
The 2011 edition includes compliance-based improvements including online remittance of tax information to the government, and new business intelligence tools that make it easier for users to generate custom reports and port them into a familiar Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for manipulation.
“People do this already, but what this brings to the table is an integrated solution for people that aren’t database experts,” said Croft-Levesque. “We’re getting a lot of really positive feedback on this application. The number one request I hear from the market is I want to do more with my data and reporting.”
Also, in the enterprise edition of Simply, Sage is promising more advanced accounting flexibility and advanced tools for project management. Croft-Levesque said the goal is to serve businesses in that grey zone somewhere between Simply Accounting on the SMB-side and Accpac in the enterprise space.
Seeing mobility as the coming trend, Sage has integrated Sage Payment Boss into Simply Accounting 2011. For $9.95/month, users can collect payments in the field using their 3G-enabled mobile device and existing merchant account. Integrating it with the Sage backend in combination with Billing Boss reduces the need for invoicing and paperwork, and sees the business paid faster.
Rather than an app, Sage has taken a mobile Web approach with Payment Boss, which allows the tool to work independent of the different mobile operating systems.Darren Root, CEO of Root & Associates LLC, an accounting firm based in Bloomington, Ind., said he loves the idea of being able to integrate Payment Boss and Billing Boss as a payment and billing solution for a mobile workforce.
As a consultant, he said traditionally he could sign a new client at a trade show and he’d have to go back to the office after, generate paperwork, send it to them for signature and then get payment. With this solution he could do that all at once, on the spot, with his smartphone.
“That’s a game-changer for a lot of businesses,” said Root.
Follow Jeff Jedras on Twitter: @JeffJedrasCDN.