With the move towards online engagements for the service industry, there has been a recent influx of new applications to cater to this demand and help provide additional means to streamline the sales and on-boarding processes for service businesses.

The online applications allow you to engage with your existing clients and current prospects to iron out the nature, scope and size of an engagement. Once the client is satisfied with the engagement, they can then confirm service and it be accepted and agreed upon online confirming the scope of the engagement and “sealing the deal”.

Although the setup processes for these tools is not a simple as "turn it on and go”, the ability to customise the engagements is essential and thus it can't be the same for everyone.

Here's a couple of the quoting tools available at the moment that are now connected with Xero:

Quoteroller

www.quoteroller.com

Quoteroller is designed to provide beautiful quotes for your clients and prospects with easy to use platform, drag and drop interface making specialising individual quotes and building templates easy.

Notable features:

• In proposal analytics
• Digital Signature within the application
• Customisable themes and design

See all of the Quoteroller in action here

Quotient

www.quotientapp.com

Quotient focuses on using the dashboard as the “heartbeat of your business” for it’s quoting application. Allowing a central place for all activity on the quotes issued by your business.

Notable features:

• One click customer acceptance
• One step quote creation
• Central place to organise and search quotes
• Status of the quote and it’s # of views

And the following, SocketApp, is not currently available as a Xero add on but fingers crossed, we hope it will be soon.

SocketApp

www.socketapp.com

SocketApp provides a similar feature set to the others mentioned above, but, it has a few additional features listed below, which, is why we use it in house at Interactive Accounting:

• The ability to embed quotes on your website (HTML + iframe)
• Direct linkages to our chosen merchant facility, which allows the order to be completed and paid in multiple currencies
• Linkage to mail chimp enabling you to add new prospects to an appropriate list.

The product is only in it's infancy and has been added to the Rackspace's startup program and acquired 100s of clients within a year of launch.

We're working with the team at Deversus Inc to bring this into the Xero Add On Partner network ASAP.

Positive effect (using Socketapp) 

We love metrics (we are bean counters), so we'd thought we'd share the effects of our new methods of automated quoting for our clients and prospects and the leads that we are generating via our new focus towards online enablement. This snapshot was taken from Socketapp on the 28th of January, we expect that there will be a few more proposals out before January 31st, giving us a constant trend upwards even over the Christmas period.

We are committed to our goal of being the place to go for your end to end online accounting needs and connecting your back end business flows to streamlines your business and investment. We even have events that help you suss out the potential opportunities for your business. See #xerocoffee and #startupbeers below to find out more.

Sticking with our theme of "focus"

We are focused on bringing our clients an Interactive Accounting service in name and nature and continually improving how we communicate as this is usually the source of many problems in the provision of accounting services. You will notice that we are actively creating more campaigns, more points of contact and working on ensuring that you have acess to the knowledge and service you need when you need it.

How do you get started with online quoting?

All of the products offer free trials and have different use case scenarios.

I already have quotes in word, why do I need this?

At Interactive Accounting we are all about streamlining your back end processes and connecting your systems so that you can focus on building your business and re-purpose any repetitive administration team members to deliver value for your business (perhaps in customer support or even sales as they have intrinsic knowledge on your business) Don't undervalue these staff members!

Having a copy and paste Word system is not scalable and it’s timely, you should really be focusing on reducing time to engagement and impressing your new customers.

Need a helping hand?

If you need advice surrounding which tools are best suited for your business and how they all connect with one another, we are able to assist you in connecting your systems and streamlining your online client engagement, sales and packaging.

Contact us about providing a professional systems assessment for your business and engage both our accounting, developers and design team to get your sales channel growing today and generate new business whilst you sleep.

It was Valentine’s Day yesterday (in case you wondered why you were in trouble today) although love was not the main reason why over 200 accountants and bookkeepers gathered at Four Points Sheraton, Sydney....The Xero Roadshow had come to town.

After receiving our name badges other Xero goodies and a coffee we headed into the main room  to take our seats and quietly unwrap and devour the chocolate heart that the Xero team had lovingly placed on every table....apologies to the woman who arrived late next to me who didn't get one. 

Wayne Schmidt, Xero National Sales Manager and owner of the shiniest shoes I have ever seen, kicked off the day in his usual charismatic and infectious style with an introduction on Xero and what lay in store for the day ahead.

After a brief break Joel Hanna, National Training Specialist and Xero Jedi Knight, ran through some of the processes involved in converting customers from MYOB into Xero amongst other Jedi like tips and tricks...the force is strong with this one.

Lunch came and I caught up with the guys from Fathom, one of the events sponsors. Usually, the mention of analysis and reporting tools doesn’t really get blood pumping, however, one look at this new add on for Xero and I realise this is something completely different. At last someone has come along and actually ‘designed’ a reporting and analysis tool that is easy to understand for the even most financially illiterate and also looks totally awesome...good work guys.

In the afternoon there were more helpful tips from Xero Jedi Knight, Joel Hanna, on the general use and configuration of Xero...the force is strong with this one.

After another chocolate heart and more coffee, Chris Ridd, Managing Director of Xero Aus, touched on some of the new Xero features to come this year including:

• Ability to import and export budgets
• Integrated payroll
• Xero personal bank feeds
• Report packs (closed and full release)
• Android app
• Purchase Orders
• Tax code updates

It’s going to be an exciting year for Xero and users of Xero!

Stuart Mcleod, General Payroll Manager and Founder of Paycyle, then took us through the introduction of Payroll to Xero. A huge win for Xero, as this is one of the features that was felt as missing in the Xero offering. Stuart explained that as well as getting it’s own button on Xero it will also include the following features:

• Xero style reports
• Super and tax liability in money going out
• Leave liability included in balance sheet
• PAYG liability hooked to BAS reporting
• Time sheets for employees 
• Expenses syncing as reimbursements

This is great news for users of Xero, congrats to Stuart and the team. We look forward to it’s implementation in April!

Wayne then wrapped up the day with a summary of how we are now living through a new evolution of computing, coming from the first industrial computers, then to PC’s and now The Cloud. He’s right, computing has come along way and when he harked back to past computing practices and software such as Wordperfect and Lotus123, I’m glad it has.

Don’t be left behind, if you haven’t already moved your business to the cloud, then maybe 2012 is the year to do so. Exciting times are ahead!

Continuous Improvement

The notion of continuous improvement invokes the concept of never being "finished" and always developing out the highest priority items (from the customers perspective) first and using feedback to determine the priority, not a boardroom.  

In true Interactive Accounting style, we have tried to embody the mentality of continuous improvement, focusing on delivering a better experience for our clients and consistently raising the bar. We'd love more feedback from our customers (share your ideas here) on how Interactive Accounting can improve, as, we are far from "finished". 

and

Practising what we preach

As a company Interactive Accounting promotes the evaluation and use of technology for businesses to  streamline business process flows and release bottlenecks from lead management through to debtor collection. Keeping that in mind, we looked at our own processes, business flows and have looked to make improvements embracing the concept of the "Modern Practice" taking it to the next level. 

Thank you

Additionally, we have had feedback from our clients and peers to help ensure that this website is next level in both form and function. 

Always make sure you validate your website and business models with customers, peers and professionals. The last thing you want to do is miss the mark. We just think we've made another step forward, and, we hope you agree. 

Version 3.0 features - What have we changed?

• Calendar Feeds
• About Us
• Events
• Knowledge Base
• Screen recorder for support packages
• Online quoting

Sync your calendar with relevant tax dates

Subscribe using RSS or .ics to keep up to date with either our Interactive Accounting events or your tax events with reminders in your existing tools. Never miss a lodgement deadline again! 

About Us

We've added a bit more about what Interactive Accounting does and provided a bit more of the journey we've taken and what we offer as a business and why. 

As a great little metric, we've filled our marketing/ account management position without the need for any additional marketing since our soft launch on Friday.

Events

We are Interactive. This is not just a branding, this is a way of business. So we've launched a few new events to share the interaction with out clients, networks and partners. We've launched #startupbeers and #xerocoffee. Click here for more information and to see what the events are like.

Free knowledge

Yes, an accountant is giving something away for free. We've made it easy to get access to those questions you always want to know the answer too. 

• Xero basic information
• Getting Started tips for new businesses
• Tax news and tips
• Feedback > what do you want to see next?

Click here to review what we've served up.

A screen recorder for your troublesome issues when you're signed up to a support package

No longer do you have to provide a lengthy email with screenshots, no longer do we have to struggle to understand your problem with accounting or software....

Now, you can simply click a button  and you can record and narrate your screenshot and one of our team will answer your question correctly first time around. 

Modular online quoting - choose the level of service that suits your needs

This has been a long standing goal of Interactive Accounting. We want to provide the ability for our new and existing clients to choose their own level of Interaction with their accountant. 

We now have this functionality linked directly into our website. 

Stay tuned for future blogs and information on the steps to this functionality, but, it's here and will continue to get better, so, our clients can choose what they want from their accountant. 

Change is a constant, we are simply embracing it. We hope you like the new site and look forward to your feedback. 

Taking it to new heights with EM3. 

In case you missed our event last week, we had the honour of having some informative guest speakers; Zendesk, Uber, Gryphon Capital, SpreadCode, Atlassian, Recruitloop, Ninefold, Paycyle/Xero. We learned about innovative ways to measure your success online and to focus on the right metrics for your business, not, just the number of hits it may get.... and the importance of defining and tracking these within your business.

Congratulations goes to.....

JR from Atlassian for winning the best presentation award for EM3. Your wine is on it's way! 

The vote count & the feedback from the event are here, some great looking graphs!

 

Photos from the evening here

 

Wisdom

Check out the videos here

Our summary just won't do the presenters justice

Michael Folmer-Hansen, Zendesk

Zendesk provides help desk platform that is aimed at improving your customers experience and support level. Growing to 10,000 customers in a short space of time, they have arguably one of the best websites I’ve seen and incredible conversion rates. Michael spoke about product placement, standing out in the crowd and "keeping it military".

Allan Jansen, Uber

UberConsult Solutions started as a web development “shop” and has experienced rapid growth in the past 6 years resulting in joining the Fast 100 BRW ranks amongst other accolades. Uber is the Enterprise Agency and has successfully delivered major projects for clients including Canon, Australian Pharmaceutical Industries and DP World.

Peter Bush, Gryphon Capital

Peter brings to the table experience from tax, commerce and now a private bank/fund/venture capital firm. Peter's focus was on explaining what a potential investor looks at and the importance of understanding metrics in driving your business and looking to impress your current or potential investors.

Maxim Cherepovitsyn, SpreadCode

Max was one of our startup presenters. Spreadcode specialises in planning, plotting and building iPhone/iPad & Android Apps.

John Rotenstein, Atlassian

J R is a metrics whiz from the Australia startup, turned powerhouse, Atlassian. Having seen their office and dashboards first hand, they measure EVERYTHING and share the information openly in house... it’s no surprise they have some amazing results and a great success story to tell.

Michael Overell, Recruitloop

Michael is proof that innovation can exist and break out whilst working for a large corporation. An ex accountant and management consultant, he has co-founded a start up that does recruitment with a twist, in a service that Interactive Accounting will be using moving forward.

Dennis Graham, Ninefold

Dennis focused on the AIDA model, Awareness, Interest, Desire & Action. AIDA looks at the conversion funnel of interest to sale and what triggers there are in “web speak” to discover where you are able to tweak your message, content, ads to ensure that you land the business you seek.

Stuart McLeod, Paycycle/Xero

Brave enough to present without a slide deck, Stuart associated business metrics to real life desires, goals and aspirations. Paycycle was a lean Startup that went from inception to sale to a listed company inside of 2 years. Although only meeting quarterly on business progress and metrics, Stuart said their focus was on what the metrics actually meant and how they could use them to take advantage of future opportunities.

Interactive Accounting - New Services Announement (Setup, Bookkeeping and Investment)

Lastly, as an experiment in online metrics Interactive Accounting launched an update of it's current site to promote our new services (Setup, Bookkeeping and Investment) and it's online quoting system. Check out our website to see what's new. We've seen a boost to our site and new business inquiries since the launch, what can you do to tweak your online presence to drive new business?

 

 

Click here to view the awesome content from Entrepreneur Meetup 3

The next meetup and it's topic is TBA/TBC as we go back to the drawing board to listen to the feedback and improve yet again. If you're keen to suggest any ides, please join the conversation on twitter #iameetup3

 

Register your interest IA Meetup #4 here

The venue, time, theme and register of attendance will be put together shortly and will be available shortly. 

 

Feedback from the evening