If you want to know the value of Twitter, sign up for HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com). Twitter in and of itself isn't useful to me, but HootSuite is. It allows someone like me to track emerging trends and competitors using keywords. For example, I use the words SaaS and Accounting and have found out about three players in the SaaS Accounting space that I was previously unaware of.
Yes, you can put these two words in Google and search away, but with HootSuite the results come to you.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Kelowna – 9th and Final Stop on the Simply Accounting 2010 Listening Tour
Record attendance in Kelowna! Thank you Jennifer for bribing your fellow Kelownians :). What a city and what a great bunch. Thank you all for coming and providing great feedback on ways to improve our business. Right from the get-go the discussion started and just got better as the day progressed.
There were definitely some key themes that reared themselves again. One of the key topics that continues to arise is that attendees do not know of all the training and education tools Simply Accounting has available. We clearly need to do a better job of communicating all the tools that are out there for Simply Accounting customers. We will definitely be working to elevate the awareness of all these tools, but in the meantime check out the Learning Centre tab within Simply Accounting and also www.sageu.com/simply.
Several attendees brought up the notion of document management and asked what Simply Accounting was doing to help facilitate document management. There were also a number of suggestions around the need for more electronic filing and improved email capabilities. Laverne made a great point about batch emailing. This is something Hugo and team are actively looking at…more to come on that.
There was also a lot of interest in “regional meetings” for our Sage Accountant Network members. We envision a forum where fellow Simply Accounting users can meet to discuss best practices within the product as well as best practices beyond Simply Accounting. Lisa is working to develop these across the country and Jennifer is going to take the lead in Kelowna. Look for one popping up in your area soon!
Well that wraps up this year’s Listening Tour and in closing I want to thank all of the attendees across Canada who spent a day with us. As I said at each stop on the tour, we got a ton of value out of these sessions and we hope you did as well.
I also want to thank the core members of the Listening Tour for helping make it a success: Amber, Hugo, Jennifer, You-sheng, and especially Lisa who spent a ton of time making sure each event went off without a hitch.
Lastly, we have already discussed what the Listening Tour is going to look like next year and we are leaning to a tour that spans the entire year. Stay tuned, we may be coming to your city sooner than you think! That’s right Louise…Victoria may be next!
Jamie
There were definitely some key themes that reared themselves again. One of the key topics that continues to arise is that attendees do not know of all the training and education tools Simply Accounting has available. We clearly need to do a better job of communicating all the tools that are out there for Simply Accounting customers. We will definitely be working to elevate the awareness of all these tools, but in the meantime check out the Learning Centre tab within Simply Accounting and also www.sageu.com/simply.
Several attendees brought up the notion of document management and asked what Simply Accounting was doing to help facilitate document management. There were also a number of suggestions around the need for more electronic filing and improved email capabilities. Laverne made a great point about batch emailing. This is something Hugo and team are actively looking at…more to come on that.
There was also a lot of interest in “regional meetings” for our Sage Accountant Network members. We envision a forum where fellow Simply Accounting users can meet to discuss best practices within the product as well as best practices beyond Simply Accounting. Lisa is working to develop these across the country and Jennifer is going to take the lead in Kelowna. Look for one popping up in your area soon!
Well that wraps up this year’s Listening Tour and in closing I want to thank all of the attendees across Canada who spent a day with us. As I said at each stop on the tour, we got a ton of value out of these sessions and we hope you did as well.
I also want to thank the core members of the Listening Tour for helping make it a success: Amber, Hugo, Jennifer, You-sheng, and especially Lisa who spent a ton of time making sure each event went off without a hitch.
Lastly, we have already discussed what the Listening Tour is going to look like next year and we are leaning to a tour that spans the entire year. Stay tuned, we may be coming to your city sooner than you think! That’s right Louise…Victoria may be next!
Jamie
Friday, February 12, 2010
Huddles
Every organization I have worked for has struggled with effective communications.
One simple way to increase to flow of communication is through “huddles”. Huddles are very short meetings where quick updates are shared and key decisions are made. It is not always necessary to host a 30 or 60 minute meeting when you can accomplish your purpose in 2 minutes or less.
At Simply Accounting my leadership team meets every wednesday at 9:05am for 10 mins. We call it the 905. We chat about wins, losses, hires, and anything else that is relevant to the business. In January we moved the meeting to the lunch room and speak freely in front of any employee that wants to attend. Employees can get the scoop and pulse on what is going on.
I know of three other high-performing companies that hold similar meetings and each has said that it is the single best thing they have done for their company.
One simple way to increase to flow of communication is through “huddles”. Huddles are very short meetings where quick updates are shared and key decisions are made. It is not always necessary to host a 30 or 60 minute meeting when you can accomplish your purpose in 2 minutes or less.
At Simply Accounting my leadership team meets every wednesday at 9:05am for 10 mins. We call it the 905. We chat about wins, losses, hires, and anything else that is relevant to the business. In January we moved the meeting to the lunch room and speak freely in front of any employee that wants to attend. Employees can get the scoop and pulse on what is going on.
I know of three other high-performing companies that hold similar meetings and each has said that it is the single best thing they have done for their company.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Toronto – Stop #8 on the Simply Accounting 2010 Listening Tour
It was great to be back in Toronto and we had our biggest turnout yet! There were also a number of attendees that traveled a fair distance to get there—Sudbury, St. Catherines, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and Burlington. Thanks for coming and making this such a great session.
We had a great mix of “new to Simply Accounting” customers as well as long standing customers who wouldn’t dare use a competing product because of the lack of audit trail. Clearly this is one of the key reasons we have remained #1 in Canada. Your financial data is something you really don’t want to take chances with. Simply Accounting has always been a trusted application.
Some of the key takeaways for me include:
1) Vickey loooooves Billingboss! It’s a free online invoicing tool designed for small businesses to invoice customers through the web and receive payment online. It’s free. No strings attached. Check it out at www.billingboss.com.
2) Galit suggested we need to clarify our definition of “consultant” to our customers who are looking for help. Galit is a Sage Accountant’s Network member. We also call these members consultants as well as business partners. Bottom line is that there are 10,000 of these SAN members across Canada and they are a resource to customers and we have too many names and not enough clarification on their relationship with Simply Accounting.
3) There was more talk about HST given we were in Ontario. Almost all attendees had some concern around the upcoming changes and were interested in what we were doing to help them through it. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, customers can change the default tax code on all customer and vendor records with a single click. Anna made a great point about having the HST wizard come back with the next product update. Great point! We are going to look into that.
4) All the small things. Don’t forget about all the small things is what Sue’s stressed. There are so many little things that can be tweaked to improve the new customer experience. We jotted these down as we did with all the great suggestions today. If you didn’t get your idea through to one of us, there is another place that you still can! Please go to the Learning Centre and click on the “give feedback” link. We read every single submission that goes in here and take this feedback seriously.
And the moment you have all been waiting for…a link to a free magnifying glass tool. Go nuts! www.magnifier.sourceforge.net
Thanks Toronto. It was a great day and we look forward to coming back soon!
Jamie
We had a great mix of “new to Simply Accounting” customers as well as long standing customers who wouldn’t dare use a competing product because of the lack of audit trail. Clearly this is one of the key reasons we have remained #1 in Canada. Your financial data is something you really don’t want to take chances with. Simply Accounting has always been a trusted application.
Some of the key takeaways for me include:
1) Vickey loooooves Billingboss! It’s a free online invoicing tool designed for small businesses to invoice customers through the web and receive payment online. It’s free. No strings attached. Check it out at www.billingboss.com.
2) Galit suggested we need to clarify our definition of “consultant” to our customers who are looking for help. Galit is a Sage Accountant’s Network member. We also call these members consultants as well as business partners. Bottom line is that there are 10,000 of these SAN members across Canada and they are a resource to customers and we have too many names and not enough clarification on their relationship with Simply Accounting.
3) There was more talk about HST given we were in Ontario. Almost all attendees had some concern around the upcoming changes and were interested in what we were doing to help them through it. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, customers can change the default tax code on all customer and vendor records with a single click. Anna made a great point about having the HST wizard come back with the next product update. Great point! We are going to look into that.
4) All the small things. Don’t forget about all the small things is what Sue’s stressed. There are so many little things that can be tweaked to improve the new customer experience. We jotted these down as we did with all the great suggestions today. If you didn’t get your idea through to one of us, there is another place that you still can! Please go to the Learning Centre and click on the “give feedback” link. We read every single submission that goes in here and take this feedback seriously.
And the moment you have all been waiting for…a link to a free magnifying glass tool. Go nuts! www.magnifier.sourceforge.net
Thanks Toronto. It was a great day and we look forward to coming back soon!
Jamie
Ottawa – Stop #7 on the Simply Accounting 2010 Listening Tour
Ottawa was fantastic! What a great day with loads of new ideas! Whether it was Paul asking a straightforward question about the font sizes in Simply Accounting (as well as where to get the magnifying glass tool!) to more strategic discussions about training resources for our customers, attendees were engaged, vocal, and very frank. We loved it!
In the morning, there was a ton of interest in reporting so we adjusted the schedule to dive deeper into Simply Accounting Intelligence—a business intelligence tool we will be launching very soon! Christina provided an excellent demo in the morning and then in the afternoon in front of a much larger audience. Phew! Second time was a charm! I spoke with several attendees during the breaks and they were incredibly excited about Simply Accounting Intelligence. One went as far as saying he believed we have built something that will change the face of Simply Accounting!
Another hot topic was the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) that is coming into effect on July 1, 2010 for Ontario and BC. We realized customers were concerned about the tax changes and staying compliant with these tax changes long ago and developed a wizard lessen the administrative burden for our customers. With the release B of Simply Accounting 2010, customers can change the default tax code on all customer and vendor records with a single click! Now that’s a time-saver! Florian, a Sage Accountant Network member and attendee from Montreal, asked a great question about how this affects other provinces. The release is available to all customers regardless of province, however, we are only going to message customers in BC and Ontario with to remind them to update their tax codes.
We also spent a lot of time talking about training. Sean made a guest appearance and presented the many things Sage is working on to improve training and education. While we do have a lot going on, it was clear that not many attendees knew about Sage University (www.sageu.com/simply) nor did they know about the Learning Centre that sits right inside Simply Accounting. The Learning Centre has free tutorials, anytime learning classes, and also the ability register for classroom training. We need to make customers more aware of this “Training” section of Simply Accounting and it was Alan who suggested we change the name of it to Training. Makes sense to me!
Thanks for a great day Ottawa! Merci Beaucoup!
PS - We’re contemplating adding the magnifying glass into Simply Accounting as a feature! Ha!
Jamie
In the morning, there was a ton of interest in reporting so we adjusted the schedule to dive deeper into Simply Accounting Intelligence—a business intelligence tool we will be launching very soon! Christina provided an excellent demo in the morning and then in the afternoon in front of a much larger audience. Phew! Second time was a charm! I spoke with several attendees during the breaks and they were incredibly excited about Simply Accounting Intelligence. One went as far as saying he believed we have built something that will change the face of Simply Accounting!
Another hot topic was the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) that is coming into effect on July 1, 2010 for Ontario and BC. We realized customers were concerned about the tax changes and staying compliant with these tax changes long ago and developed a wizard lessen the administrative burden for our customers. With the release B of Simply Accounting 2010, customers can change the default tax code on all customer and vendor records with a single click! Now that’s a time-saver! Florian, a Sage Accountant Network member and attendee from Montreal, asked a great question about how this affects other provinces. The release is available to all customers regardless of province, however, we are only going to message customers in BC and Ontario with to remind them to update their tax codes.
We also spent a lot of time talking about training. Sean made a guest appearance and presented the many things Sage is working on to improve training and education. While we do have a lot going on, it was clear that not many attendees knew about Sage University (www.sageu.com/simply) nor did they know about the Learning Centre that sits right inside Simply Accounting. The Learning Centre has free tutorials, anytime learning classes, and also the ability register for classroom training. We need to make customers more aware of this “Training” section of Simply Accounting and it was Alan who suggested we change the name of it to Training. Makes sense to me!
Thanks for a great day Ottawa! Merci Beaucoup!
PS - We’re contemplating adding the magnifying glass into Simply Accounting as a feature! Ha!
Jamie
Friday, February 5, 2010
Halifax – Stop #6 on the Simply Accounting 2010 Listening Tour
Just ducky! That’s how Dave felt about the stop in Halifax and I think that’s how I’d sum the stop as well: just ducky! Dave is a long-standing Sage Accountant Network member who flew in from St. John’s. Now that’s commitment to the program!
The day started off with warm coffee and a warm welcome from our Halifax customers. We learned that the citizens of Halifax are some of the nicest people on earth. This is what Guy told us—he said it’s one of the best things about Nova Scotia. He also said he called support and they answered his call in less than 30 seconds! Good things come to nice people!
One of the things that stood out at our stop in Halifax was the number of bookkeepers and accountants that were helping charitable organizations with their books. There were several suggestions about improving Simply Accounting with charitable related functionality. We have heard this consistently at each stop and we will be looking to address these concerns in an upcoming release. In the meantime you should know that Sage has a full suite of non-profit solutions from fundraising to fund accounting that may be of interest to some of you. Check out www.sagenonprofit.com for more details.
In the afternoon it was the “Alistair Show”! Alistair was in town as a ringer and did an awesome job absorbing all the feedback and answering questions about the product. He managed to control most of the afternoon despite a microphone that didn’t want to cooperate. After some of the Q & A, Alistair showed the group a demo of HR Manager and this sparked a ton of interest. For those that attend any stop on the Listening Tour we give away a copy of HR Manager to every attendee! www.simplyaccounting.com/productsServices/hr. It is a great tool for tracking employee information like vacations, absences, certifications, disciplinary actions, and you can also set reminders for key employee events. One of our attendees, Paul, likes the product but made a great observation about synchronization of events and reminders from HR Manager into MS Outlook. We’ll be looking into that one.
As I have said before, this tour has been a huge benefit to Simply Accounting. We have been taking voracious notes and collectively we have over 15 pages of suggestions about our products, our services, our support teams, and our web site. The list is amazing! We have started to prioritize and have actually actioned several of your suggestions already. Although not product related, one of the items on the list is to find out who Amber’s dog is name is named after. A free edition of Known Locally (www.sagespark.com/knownlocally) for the first person that emails me with this information!
On to the nation’s capital…see you tomorrow Ottawa!
Jamie
The day started off with warm coffee and a warm welcome from our Halifax customers. We learned that the citizens of Halifax are some of the nicest people on earth. This is what Guy told us—he said it’s one of the best things about Nova Scotia. He also said he called support and they answered his call in less than 30 seconds! Good things come to nice people!
One of the things that stood out at our stop in Halifax was the number of bookkeepers and accountants that were helping charitable organizations with their books. There were several suggestions about improving Simply Accounting with charitable related functionality. We have heard this consistently at each stop and we will be looking to address these concerns in an upcoming release. In the meantime you should know that Sage has a full suite of non-profit solutions from fundraising to fund accounting that may be of interest to some of you. Check out www.sagenonprofit.com for more details.
In the afternoon it was the “Alistair Show”! Alistair was in town as a ringer and did an awesome job absorbing all the feedback and answering questions about the product. He managed to control most of the afternoon despite a microphone that didn’t want to cooperate. After some of the Q & A, Alistair showed the group a demo of HR Manager and this sparked a ton of interest. For those that attend any stop on the Listening Tour we give away a copy of HR Manager to every attendee! www.simplyaccounting.com/productsServices/hr. It is a great tool for tracking employee information like vacations, absences, certifications, disciplinary actions, and you can also set reminders for key employee events. One of our attendees, Paul, likes the product but made a great observation about synchronization of events and reminders from HR Manager into MS Outlook. We’ll be looking into that one.
As I have said before, this tour has been a huge benefit to Simply Accounting. We have been taking voracious notes and collectively we have over 15 pages of suggestions about our products, our services, our support teams, and our web site. The list is amazing! We have started to prioritize and have actually actioned several of your suggestions already. Although not product related, one of the items on the list is to find out who Amber’s dog is name is named after. A free edition of Known Locally (www.sagespark.com/knownlocally) for the first person that emails me with this information!
On to the nation’s capital…see you tomorrow Ottawa!
Jamie
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Calgary – Stop #5 on the Simply Accounting 2010 Listening Tour
Wow! This was a vocal bunch. We started at 9am sharp and the discussion was non-stop for the rest of the day. Nice work Calgary—apparently you have a lot to say! The Simply Accounting team always gets excited when our customers are engaged.
I am still surprised by the number of attendees that have their own bookkeeping or accounting consulting practices that are not on our Sage Accountant Network program—we uncovered at least 6 attendees. If you have fee paying clients please check out the benefits of this program here: www.simplyaccounting.com/partners/joinSAN/benefits.
There was some great discussion around connecting small businesses to students across Canada. For those that don’t know, Simply Accounting is used in over 3,800 secondary and post-secondary schools across Canada. Graduates of these accounting programs may be looking for internships as well as full-time jobs after they graduate. To connect students with the many small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers across Canada using Simply Accounting, we built a web site called sageforstudents (www.sageforstudents.com). The web site also helps students with resume creation, cover letter creation, and general information on the accounting and bookkeeping fields.
Carol was in good spirits (is she ever not?!). She loves Simply Accounting but is also not shy about providing candid feedback! One of her comments directly impacted her customer experience—she commented on our support and service agents asking redundant questions after the call to gather feedback on her experience. She is completely willing to help, but she suggested we need to revisit the questions on the survey as some are unnecessary in her opinion.
There were a number of “new to Simply Accounting” customers in the room and we heard they need help getting started and learning the basics. One of the best ways to learn more about Simply Accounting is actually right in the product. If you switch to enhanced view on the Simply Accounting home screen and click on the tab called Learning Centre you have immediate access to a number of training modules for free as well as a number of anytime learning classes. You also have access to classroom training registration on the same page. We also provide the anytime and classroom training tools at Sage University (www.sageu.com/simply).
The day was phenomenal and the engagement hit a whole new level when Leyla joined us on at the podium to demo a feature! We like to keep these sessions as dynamic, fun, and interesting as possible and this was no exception. Thanks Leyla…can you come to our next stop?
East Coast here we come…Halifax you better be ready!
Jamie
I am still surprised by the number of attendees that have their own bookkeeping or accounting consulting practices that are not on our Sage Accountant Network program—we uncovered at least 6 attendees. If you have fee paying clients please check out the benefits of this program here: www.simplyaccounting.com/partners/joinSAN/benefits.
There was some great discussion around connecting small businesses to students across Canada. For those that don’t know, Simply Accounting is used in over 3,800 secondary and post-secondary schools across Canada. Graduates of these accounting programs may be looking for internships as well as full-time jobs after they graduate. To connect students with the many small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers across Canada using Simply Accounting, we built a web site called sageforstudents (www.sageforstudents.com). The web site also helps students with resume creation, cover letter creation, and general information on the accounting and bookkeeping fields.
Carol was in good spirits (is she ever not?!). She loves Simply Accounting but is also not shy about providing candid feedback! One of her comments directly impacted her customer experience—she commented on our support and service agents asking redundant questions after the call to gather feedback on her experience. She is completely willing to help, but she suggested we need to revisit the questions on the survey as some are unnecessary in her opinion.
There were a number of “new to Simply Accounting” customers in the room and we heard they need help getting started and learning the basics. One of the best ways to learn more about Simply Accounting is actually right in the product. If you switch to enhanced view on the Simply Accounting home screen and click on the tab called Learning Centre you have immediate access to a number of training modules for free as well as a number of anytime learning classes. You also have access to classroom training registration on the same page. We also provide the anytime and classroom training tools at Sage University (www.sageu.com/simply).
The day was phenomenal and the engagement hit a whole new level when Leyla joined us on at the podium to demo a feature! We like to keep these sessions as dynamic, fun, and interesting as possible and this was no exception. Thanks Leyla…can you come to our next stop?
East Coast here we come…Halifax you better be ready!
Jamie
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