Taking your Offline Product Online

For decades, software has been one of the tech products that's consistently sold well. It's essential enough to buyers that if they have to, they'll buy it at a retail outlet, install it and even buy upgrades. But the Internet allows for a much more efficient delivery of software. Vendors like McAfee and Adobe have successfully moved many of their products online, providing downloads to paying customers at a considerably higher profit margin than boxed sales. Some vendors have realized even higher profits by transforming an off- the-shelf product into an ASP offering. It's a good deal for customers: they don't have to worry about installs and upgrades. But that's not the end to the advantages of ASP models. At least, that's what Lisa Gevelber, Director of Marketing for QuickBooks Online says. Just why would Intuit, the company that created financial software giant Quicken, mess with its successful business model by turning the program into an ASP offering? Better customer collaboration and automation says Gevelber.

Share and Share Alike

Though big businesses have accountants on staff and company intranets, small businesses generally keep the books on just a few computers and use off-site accountants. "In a desktop world it's extremely difficult to exchange information with your accountant. Either your accountant has to drive to your office, or you have to mail them a disk, or you have to e-mail them a file. And, while the accountant has that file, the small business owner can't work on their local file because they would be working on a different version than the one the accountant has," says Gevelber. Using an online system, accountants, staff and business owners can all work on one set of books that's updated in realtime for everyone. Accountants don't have the pressure of having to get physical books right back to the business owners, and everyone within the business with authorization can have a handle on what's going on at any given time.

Automating the Boring Stuff

Online applications offer another great feature: the possibilities of automation. Once integrated with e-mail, fax and payments systems, they can automate repetitive financial tasks, saving a human from the drudgery. "They could literally set up this automation, turn off their computers and never turn them on again for a year, and still bill all of their clients and receive payments electronically," says Gevelber. "We know that small businesses spend a lot of time just billing their customers. I think the statistic in the desktop world is customers send about two billion invoices a year. If you even spent three minutes per invoice, that's an awful lot of time you would spend billing your customers," she says. "The funny thing is we also know many small businesses forget to bill their customers and then it gets to be a couple months later and they say, 'Shoot, did I ever bill this person?' Then it just becomes embarrassing. So we created full circle automation." Using an online product like QuickBooks, business owners can set up bills on a recurring cycle. Every month (or week or day or whatever), the system generates a statement, automatically faxing or e-mailing the invoice, and allows for electronic payment via a system like PayPal. Once a payment clears, the customer's account at QuickBooks Online will be automatically notified. It's not glamorous, but an automated billing and payment system can save tremendous amounts of time. That leaves you, or your financial people, free to do other tasks that require more thinking. The i- dotting t-crossing process of doing the books isn't why you started your business - working on the big picture concepts was. Financial software can make that process easier. And online products offered by an ASP offer significant advantages that might make them the best choice for you and your business.