December 17th, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
I read with interest a post on Emily Hill’s blog about Dell claiming to have made £6.5m from their Twitter activity. Well done. Dell! Twitter is very useful as a sales channel/tool, I’ve previously written about how it’s been really useful to me in growing KashFlow.
Whilst Dell seem to be doing very well from Twitter on the sales front, they’re doing considerably worse with using it for customer service or brand monitoring. It’s in the brand monitoring stakes that Twitter comes into its own. Where else can you be instantly informed about a dissatisfied customer having a moan about you?
A number of big companies have sussed this out already and are very good at looking out for unhappy customers or would-be customers and nipping the problem in the bud. Some companies even have a dedicated Twitter or social media team that are highly responsive. Whether this two-tiered approach to customer service is healthy or not it a debate for another day.
If you tweet something negative about Virgin Media, Rackspace or (dare I say it) Sage, their Twitter team will pick it up pretty much instantly and do their best to help you out.
Vodafone are a little slower (see “It’s over, Vodafone. I’m leaving you“) but still making an effort.
Dell just don’t seem to care at all.
I had a whinge on Twitter (as you do) about problems trying to place an order with them and then with actually getting an order date that didn’t move every week. Even directing messages directly to Dell didn’t illicit a response.
I’m not alone. @NetHosted has been having, and tweeting about, a whole myriad of issues in dealing with Dell and just gets ignored by them.
By sourcing sales leads from Twitter, they’re only going to make the problem worse. These new customers, by the very nature of where Dell got them in the first place, use Twitter. So if they’re not happy, you can be sure they’ll be tweeting about it.
Watch out for the Dell backlash, it’s coming.
Tags: dell, Twitter
Posted in Ramblings, Technology | 1 Comment »
December 15th, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
Speak to any accountant who works with small businesses and they’ll tell you HMRC are a nightmare to deal with. Their systems, both technical and procedural, just aren’t fit for purpose
The accounting forum on UKBF is full of war stories. A company I’m involved with (not KashFlow) is owed around £4.5k as a tax rebate. So far it’s been over 3 months since it was asked for and we’re no closer to getting it.
The “accepted” procedure to claim a rebate seems to be to write to HMRC three or four times, then call them to find out why they’ve not responded. You then get told they never received your letters. Then write again another three or four times before phoning for the latest excuse. Thankfully the company can survive even with the cashflow problems this creates.
If it wasn’t such a complete waste of everyones time it’d be funny.
I say “everyones time” but invariably it’s the accountants that lose out. Our accountants don’t charge us more because of HMRCs ineptitude. HMRC don’t re-imburse the accountant for the wasted hours spent writing and chasing letters and making phone calls. So it’s the accountants loss. We all, as taxpayers, also lose out indirectly due the huge waste of resources (funded by us) at HMRC.
There are a number of bodies that represent accountants, with the ICAEW being one of the more prominent. What I don’t understand is why none of these bodies appear to be doing anything to redress this situation that has been going on for years.
I’m amazed that questions aren’t being asked in parliament about this. The overall cost to the economy must be quite significant.
Why do accountants seem resigned to unquestioningly playing their role in this farce?
Why aren’t they asking their industry bodies to use their combined clout to get something done?
Posted in Accounting, Ramblings | 1 Comment »
December 8th, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
The first thing I do when I first log in to Windows XP is right click the “Start” button go to Properties and set it to Classic mode. It’s what I like, it’s what I’m used to.
So when I recently had a play with Windows 7 it was the first thing I looked for. The option wasn’t there. And rightly so. The Microsoft guy I was talking to convinced me I need to embrace all the new changes and the new way of working with the operating system.
Considering I’ve clung on to a lot of the ways of doing things from Windows NT and ignored lots of the new stuff in XP, it’s quite a big change for me to adapt to Windows 7 what is fundamentally an entirely different OS.
So I’d decided I do indeed need to make a conscious effort to learn to use a new OS.
I ordered a lovely new Dell laptop with solid state drives and Windows 7. After numerous changes to the delivery date and unreturned phonecalls I’ve now given up and cancelled the order.
I asked on Twitter for recommendations for a similar laptop with solid state drives and got deluged with the usual “buy a mac!” responses.
I know lots of people who have moved over from PC to Macs and not regretted it. In fact, I’m not aware of anyone that has done it and regretted it. What has put me off in the past is the big change in how you work with the OS.
But as I’d already made the decision to make the step change from XP to Windows 7, the step straight from XP to the Mac OS looked less daunting than it had.
So I warned everyone in the office that I was going to Regent Street and when I got back I’d look much cooler as I would be a Mac user.
I returned an hour later, no cooler but slightly damper thanks to the great weather. The Mac store doesn’t have the Mac book Pro in store with solid state drives.
So I’m now going to order it online (although perhaps wait until January in case it saves a couple of quid).
I wonder if others, faced with a similar big change in their OS will also consider moving to a Mac?
Tags: dell, mac, windows 7
Posted in Technology | 9 Comments »
December 3rd, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
There are a number of changes to VAT on 1st Jan 2010. This is how we’ll be helping you to easily deal with them with the minimum of effort and fuss
The standard rate of VAT will change from 15% to 17.5%. If you’re VAT registered then a message should be showing on your Overview page which to take you to a page where you can click a single button and have your account added to the list we’ll automatically apply the changes to. If you’re on this list then the following changes will take place automatically for you at midnight on 31st December:
- If you don’t currently have 17.5% in your list of VAT rates then it will be added
- All repeat invoice, purchase or bank transaction templates set to 15% will change to 17.5%
- If your default VAT rate is currently 15% it’ll be changed to 17.5%
- Any Sales Types or Outgoing Types you have set to a default rate of 15% will change to 17.5%
- If you use the PayPal Importer service and have the VAT rate set to 15%, this will be chnaged to 17.5%
The data you’ve already entered wont be changed.
If you’re on the Flat Rate Scheme then the percentage VAT you pay may be changing. You can change this rate in Settings -> VAT Settings.
Where you’ll have fun is if the period you’re producing a VAT return doesn’t start on 1st Jan. In this scenario you’d have to pay the old rate on sales prior to 1st Jan and the new rate on sales after 1st Jan
KashFlow makes this very easy. If you tick the box in VAT Settings to say you’re on the FRS then you’ll see the settings to deal with cross-over periods like the above.
In the past you’ve only had to declare sales of products (as opposed to services) that you make to customers in other EC states on an EC Sales List (ESL). KashFlow knows whether the item you’ve sold is a product or service based on whether or not you’ve ticked the box on the Sales Type page that says “This is a product (as opposed to a service)”. If the box is ticked then any sales of that item are declared on your ESCL
As from 1st Jan most services will also have to be declared on your EC Sales List. This is a simple change for us – we’ll just change the wording from “This is a product (as opposed to a service)”. to “Include sales of this product/service on my EC Sales List”
If you have any questions on any of this then please contact support@kashflow.com
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
December 1st, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
If you’re a watcher of the accounting software market, you can’t have missed the fact that Microsoft withdrew their accounting product recently. The very short notice on the withdrawal of the software, along with the payroll element being turned off left lots of customers stranded. The customer base was sold to Mamut who don’t have a great track record of looking after bought-in customer bases.
Richard Tyler at The Telegraph has picked up some interesting info from Microsofts PR firm.
Firstly the numbers:
There were 650 companies using the payroll element of the software. This was quite a neat implementation of their Software + Services strategy that I was dismissive of back in February. So the accounting software is locally installed but the Payroll calculations were done externally out in the cloud.
There were 90,000 users of the free version of the accounting software and 10,000 paying customers.
There were some seriously peed off MS customers talking to the media about how the short notice left them high and dry when it comes to paying staff over the christmas period.
Microsoft have stepped in and said it will now pay the 650 customers to use Mamuts payroll software. Good save!
Side Note: Mamut don’t seem to understand SaaS. A press release with the title “Mamut reveals SaaS service for Irish SMEs” caught my eye recently. Further inspection reveals it’s not SaaS at all. They’re just using the services of RentSoft who have technology to allow you to rent software you’d usually buy outright. RentSoft had a relationship with MYOB so I guess that’s how this came about.
Tags: Mamut, Microsoft, Payroll, Richard Tyler, telegraph
Posted in Accounting, Small Business, Technology | 3 Comments »
November 25th, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
On Monday I posted a blog entry with the title SEO is no substitute for a marketing plan.
It attracted quite a few interesting comments, but I felt one of the comments deserved to be highlighted.
The below was posted by Ian Hendry from WeCanDo.BIZ.
It’s interesting to note that if you ask someone in the generation below me to ring a doorbell, they use their thumb to do it. This seems weird to me as I use my index finger. But then I haven’t been brought up using my thumbs primarily for texting; if I had then my thumb might also have become to the dominant digit.
It goes to show how new technologies can change habits in a generation. And a new generation could see Google confined to the rubbish heap.
People are now increasingly asking the crowd for answers through Facebook and Twitter rather than combing through hundreds and thousands of pages of historical content on Google.
Stats are already showing how much more time new web users are spending on social networks compared to where we’ve spent our focus.
It makes sense as availability of social networks becomes, through mobiles, ubiquitous that they also ask questions and for recommendations that way too. Why go and sift through a library of answers other people got when I can just ask my followers?
People are asking real people for help rather than depending on a bot and a database, mainly because with real people come real answers.
It’s already happening. Just take a look at the opportunities for business that we’re unearthing through our Twitter Sales Leads tool. Most of the posters of those business needs probably never thought to go to Google.
There’s a chance that depending on Google will become as shortsighted as depending on Yellow Pages seems to our generation of business folk now.
Certainly thought provoking. I intend to test the “doorbell theory” on the next few teenagers I speak to. (Game of Knock-down Ginger anyone?)
So are we currently undergoing a big change in the way we search for information? A change that will be cemented in a few years when todays teenagers join the business world?
Googles Eric Schmidt certainly seems think so. In an article on Real Business he’s quoted as saying:
It’s because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources
Assuming it’s a given that the way we (and therefore, our customers) search for information is changing forever, there are a few questions demanding answers.
1) Will Google change quickly enough to embrace this change and retain it’s dominant position? History says not.
2) If not, what new companies are going to rise to the top of the getting-eyes-to-your-site pile? Odds are there’s a sleeping giant in our midst already.
3) How do we, as business owners with products and services to promote, capitalise on this change? Answering this might help answer #2
Tags: facebook, future, Google, search, Twitter, wecandobiz
Posted in Small Business, Technology | 2 Comments »
November 23rd, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
After the Global Entrepreneurship Week launch event last Monday I went along to the IoD for the final of The Pitch. Think Dragons Den without the TV cameras.
It was an entertaining afternoon with 6 businesses pitching for a prize package worth £50,000, Anthony Lau, Founder of Cyclehoop was crowned the winner.
One thing that did worry me was the finalists response when asked about their marketing plan. For some of them their entire marketing plan could be summed up in one word: Google. “If you search for x we’re number one on Google”.
It’s something I see way too often. Relying on natural traffic from Google for your sales is a very precarious position to be in. Google can change it’s algorithm overnight and you can drop from page 1 to page 100 – effectively putting you out of business.
Whilst free traffic (as opposed to paid-for Adwords) is highly desirable – and we certainly do well from it ourselves – you should never rely on it as your primary source of new business.
If you’re ranking well now then great – but make sure you use the revenue generated by that traffic to implement a marketing plan so that you’re not so dependent on one source for your livelihood.
What’s almost as worrying is the judges apparent willingness to accept “Google” as an acceptable response to “What’s your marketing plan?”.
It isn’t.
Tags: GEW, Marketing, seo, The Pitch
Posted in Ramblings, Small Business | 12 Comments »
November 17th, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
Yesterday was the first day of Global Entreprenurship Week - a global initiative to promote entrepreneurship.
We’re involved in a couple of ways.
Firstly I’m a Young Ambassador (emphasis on the “young” please!) for Enterprise UK, the government-funded agency at the center of it all.
Secondly, we’ve donated £200k of accounting software to them to provide to startup businesses around the UK.
The launch event took place yesterday at the British Library with a conference on entrepreneurship. Yes, it sounds awfully dull but actually it was a very interesting morning with a great line up of speakers.
There was one point made that really grabbed my attention. There was a lot of talk about what government can do to encourage startups. There were some valid suggestions such as lowering tax for startups and payroll costs for your first few staff.
Peter Jones of Dragons’ Den fame got slightly irritated and asked what government has to do with it. The point he was making is that if you’re going to start a business, you’re going to start a business. With or without help from the government. People need to take responsibility for their own lives and not depend on the government. His comments received spontaneous applause from everyone in the audience, myself included.
You do have to take control of your own life and make things happen – no one, least of all the government – is going to do it for you.
David Wei, CEO of Alibaba.com also spoke at the event. He attributes a lot of the entrepreneurial activity coming out of China to the lack of a “safety net”. By which I’m assuming he means the welfare system we have here in the UK. So in China if you have no way of making a living you either embark on entrepreneurial activity of some sort, or you starve. Simple as that.
I didn’t miss the irony of the fact that these comments were coming from an event organised by a government funded group.
So does the government have any part to play in encouraging startups? Do they cause more problems than they solve by putting in place a safety net?
I’m not advocating that we should entirely scrap the welfare system in the UK in favour of the harsh reality of life in China. But it’s certainly food for thought.
Tags: Dragons, GEW, Global Entreprenurship Week, Peter Jones, startups
Posted in Ramblings, Small Business | 8 Comments »
November 12th, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
Today we have released integration with web-based invoicing application, FreshBooks.
By connecting FreshBooks to your KashFlow account you can automate the copying across of invoices and customers from your FreshBooks account to your KashFlow account. If the FreshBooks invoice is paid this will also be copied across or if the invoice is paid at a later date then you’ll be able to apply that payment, along with all of the details, to the relevant invoice in KashFlow.
It even maps your items in FreshBooks to your Sales Types in KashFlow. If you update an invoice in Freshbooks that’s already been copied to KashFlow then this is identified and you’re given the opportunity to copy the changes across.
There are a number of reasons you might want to do this. You may want your historical invoicing and customer data to sit alongside the rest of your accounting information and then keep it in synch for the future. This integration allows you to easily copy across all of your existing data into KashFlow
Or you may want to use FreshBooks specifically for your invoicing (it’s very flexible and we have a lot to learn from them) and have that data automatically feed into your accounting system.
Alternatively, you might want to allow one or more of your staff to enter invoices and customers but not view the rest of your accounting data. If this scenario you can give them access to a FreshBooks account and set up KashFlow to pull across invoices, customers and payments. Whilst only allowing yourself to log in to KashFlow and view all of your data..
We don’t charge any extra for the integration and you can integrate up to 5 individual FreshBooks accounts with a single KashFlow account. FreshBooks itself offers free accounts with some restrictions on the number of clients you can manage but they also offer paid-for accounts with higher limits.
To get started just log in to your KashFlow account, click the Settings tab and select the “FreshBooks Integration” option.
If you don’t yet have a KashFlow account you can get one for free, with no obligation, for two months. Registration takes two minutes. Click here to register.
Tags: freshbooks, Integration
Posted in Cloud Computing / SaaS, Technology | 3 Comments »
November 9th, 2009 by Duane Jackson - CEO
After executing the plans laid out in my July blog post “Warning – this blog post may radically alter your business” – KashFlow has now been radically altered.
We’re now based in London and I’ve lured the CTO I’ve been after for years.
I’m now not allowed to touch any code myself and the development team, free of my interference, are turning out product enhancements based on your requests at least twice as fast as they were previously.
We’ve now got some pretty cool stuff that needs to be tested by a select group of actual customers before being released into the wild. First up (ready and waiting for you right now) is integration with FreshBooks. Soon our iPhone app will also need testing and I’m sure there will be plenty more to come.
So are you interested in testing some of these new features? We’d give you access to these new features before others get to use them in return for feedback on them, how we can improve it and if you can find any bugs.
If this sounds interesting to you (you sad, sad person!), contact support@kashflow.com with your username and let them know you’re interested in being a beta tester.
Tags: beta testing, freshbooks, iphone
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
