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Technology

2011 Awesome Add-Ons for QuickBooks

Special Feature

From the November 2010 Issue

At The Sleeter Group,
as part of our ongoing efforts to help accountants and consultants provide technology
recommendations to their clients, we continually study the marketplace of add-on
software and services that enhance the systems and processes of small businesses.

Most of the solutions we focus on are QuickBooks add-ons, but over the past
couple years, we’ve seen more and more solutions that also work with a
variety of accounting products such as Peachtree, BusinessVision, MAS and Microsoft
Dynamics. It’s truly amazing to see how the “ecosystem” of
solutions has grown over the years and how several companies are thriving by
helping small businesses improve their accounting systems.

For six years now, we’ve spotlighted several special products we call
“Awesome QuickBooks Add-ons.” We study products in several markets
where QuickBooks may not offer all of the needed features, or where clients
need customized solutions. Most of the winners are software, but some also include
a hardware component, and others are services.

This year’s applicants include solutions for everything from paperless
document management solutions to enterprise-level financial analysis tools,
employee web portals, automated shipping systems, mobile inventory management,
ecommerce, and application hosting services.

In order to qualify for an Awesome Add-on award, the product and/or service
must be developed and sold by a solid company with a reputation for outstanding
customer support, and the product must have the following attributes:

    • Show superior design, implementation and features;
    • Integrate with QuickBooks using best practices of the QuickBooks SDK
      or IPP programming guidelines;
    • Use appropriate transaction types and field population for recording
      data into QuickBooks so as to preserve and/or enhance the standard reporting
      features in QuickBooks; and
    • Conform to good accounting principles and operating standards.

ViewMyPaycheck — Intuit Inc.
www.viewmypaycheck.com

Pricing: Free for QuickBooks Payroll Subscribers (Basic,
Enhanced, and Assisted)
Target Customers: QuickBooks Payroll Users

ViewMyPaycheck is an employee portal. It allows QuickBooks payroll subscribers
to upload paycheck information to the cloud where employees can securely access
pay stubs, vacation/sick time balances and W-2 forms. Employees can view, print
or download copies of their payroll information anytime, from anywhere.

ViewMyPaycheck is fully integrated into the QuickBooks Pro/Premier or Enterprise
payroll module. Each payroll run prompts you to upload the data to ViewMyPaycheck
so that employees can immediately access their paystubs. The product is very
nicely implemented and has a simple, logical interface. Best of all, it’s
FREE.

WebKPI Business Intelligence Reporting — webKPI
LLC

www.webkpi.com

Pricing: $600/year/company file (sold through authorized
partners)
Target Customers: The product is designed for aggregators of
business intelligence including franchises, tax and accounting firms, VCs, banks,
and multi-division companies. Typical clients have sales of $2 million+.

WebKPI delivers Key Performance Indicators (KPI) via a visual snapshot of your
company’s financial information, taken directly from QuickBooks. These
visual snapshots are provided via a secure web portal. WebKPI facilitates outsourced
CFO services by providing the tools needed to monitor cash flow, revenue, profitability,
return on investment or any other business drivers that can be extracted from
the financial accounting data. It displays a variety of charts, graphs or more
traditional report formats as needed by each client. In addition, reports can
be automatically emailed on a scheduled frequency. Optional “knowledge
packs” are available for budgeting, benchmarking and valuation.

ShipGear by V-Technologies — V-Technologies
www.vtechnologies.com

Pricing: $225 QuickBooks Pro; $375 QuickBooks Premier; $615
QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions (Available through UPS CTP and FedEx Tech Awards)
Target Customers: Small businesses that use UPS WorldShip and/or
FedEx Ship Manager to ship 20 or more packages per day.

ShipGear by V-Technologies offers integration between accounting software (QuickBooks,
Peachtree and others) and UPS WorldShip and FedEx Ship Manager. ShipGear’s
two-way synchronization pro-vides a simple way to ship packages, update QuickBooks
invoices to include freight charges, and eliminate double data entry in the
two systems. As the package ships, ShipGear generates a personalized email notification.
It also integrates with Peachtree, Sage MAS 90/200, Microsoft GP, Exact Macola
and eBay.

bMobile Route Manager — bMobileRoute Software
www.bmobileroute.com

Pricing: bMobile Sales – from $299 per user; bMobile
Route – from $9,850 (final software price based on number of mobile users,
number of routes, industry module, support services selected, optional modules,
optional customization services selected)
Target Customers: Distributors of food, beverages, and other
products.

For businesses whose business happens in the field, bMobile is a great solution.
Great for food and beverage distributors, bMobile can track inventory movement
and provide critical business process management for distributing products to
the field. If you deliver by truck, bMobile helps you plan and track everything
from how you load the truck, to what route your drivers take to most efficiently
deliver inventory, to even avoiding traffic along the way. With bMobile’s
hand-held device integration, drivers can enter sales data and customer information
directly into QuickBooks from the field.
Seamless integration is available with QuickBooks and other accounting systems,
including Peachtree, Sage MAS 90/200/500, BusinessVision, DacEasy and Cougar
Mountain.

SmartVault V3 — SmartVault Corporation
www.smartvault.com

Pricing: Free plan for up to 100MB of storage. $19 to $69
per month, depending on number of users and storage size; first month is free.
Discounts for annual billing.
Target Customers: Accountants and businesses that need an online
document management solution and a web portal for secure file sharing.

When SmartVault launched in 2008, its flagship product was designed specifically
for QuickBooks. However, with the enhanced document management and collaboration
features released in SmartVault V3 (February 2010), any small business or accounting
firm can now use SmartVault to store all of their documents, not just those
associated with QuickBooks, and securely share files via the web portal. Although
our rules state that a product cannot win our Awesome award multiple times,
we feel SmartVault V3 is a completely different product and worthy of our recognition.

SmartVault users can now create and organize multiple levels of folders for
all of their documents, not just the files associated with QuickBooks. In addition
to custom folders, SmartVault also introduced the SmartVault Drive, making it
easier than ever to manage and access files and folders, by mapping a drive
directly to SmartVault. Windows, Mac, Linux and even iPhone users can leverage
the power of the SmartVault Drive for easy document storage and access.

Combining the seamless integration of the SmartVault Toolbar for QuickBooks,
the intuitive Web Portal and Web Drive for easy document sharing and collaboration,
and the electronic Inbox for quick scanning and processing of documents, SmartVault
V3 enables accounting firms and businesses to go paperless with a single solution.

Intuit Statement Writer — Intuit Inc.
http://proadvisor.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/statement-writer.jsp

Pricing: $49 to $149
Target Customers: Accountants who need to produce full financial
statements from QuickBooks data.

Intuit Statement Writer helps accounting professionals prepare complete, properly
formatted financial statements and supporting documents from QuickBooks data.
Intuit Statement Writer is an add-on tool that brings QuickBooks financial data
directly into Excel and Word, allowing for the easy creation of cover letters,
supporting schedules and more. Every period, the user simply has to change the
dates, and click a button to refresh the numbers. The “live link”
automatically brings the data from QuickBooks.

———————————————————————-

New Products to Watch
In addition to the above winners, we feel that there are three new products
worth mentioning, and we’re keeping an eye on them to see how they mature
in the marketplace.

eCommerceConnector — Webgility LLC
www.webgility.com

Pricing: $299 (single-user, single-store); Add-ons for additional
modules, stores and users.
Target Customers: Any QuickBooks or QuickBooks Point of Sale
user selling online with a shopping cart like Amazon or eBay.

eCommerceConnector (eCC) enables online retailers to integrate and automate
their order processing, shipping and inventory management with QuickBooks financial
accounting and QuickBooks Point of Sale data files. eCC works with 20+ shopping
cart platforms including Magento, VirtueMart, X-cart, Amazon and eBay. It also
integrates with UPS, FedEx and USPS for shipment processing.

———————————–

Bill & Pay — SkyHill Software
www.billandpay.com

Pricing: Set up Free – Waived (Limited Time Offer), Monthly Service Fee $16.95, Unlimited Free Invoice Delivery, Payment Transaction Fee $0.55 per ACH or Credit Card Payment processed.
Target Customers: Any business that uses QuickBooks to invoice
customers.

Bill & Pay is an end-to-end billing and payment solution that is fully
integrated with QuickBooks. The power of Bill & Pay is the built-in option
to receive payments deducted from a customer’s checking account versus
paying the high fees associated with credit card payments. Accepting credit
cards is also an option. Bill & Pay allows businesses to send electronic
invoices and receive online payments from customers, and it synchronizes all
transactions with QuickBooks. Customers receive email notifications and log
into a secure website to view and pay invoices, as well as see payment history.

———————————–

Analyzer AP — AuditMyBooks
www.auditmybooks.com

Pricing: After a trial period, $199 per business per year.
Target Customers: Any business that uses QuickBooks.

AuditMyBooks is a subscription software service that automatically analyzes
accounting records to detect errors and possible fraud. This rules-based product
allows users to set conditions for normal data use in the QuickBooks file. Then,
after reviewing all of the accounting transactions, AuditMyBooks presents potential
risks in a simple “management dashboard” for review by business
owners or their trusted advisers. Detailed reports allow further investigation
of high-risk transactions that may indicate errors or fraud. Analyzer provides
the information necessary to quickly identify suspect transactions and take
corrective measures.

———————————–

About QuickBooks Add-ons
In 2003, Intuit released its Application Programming Interface (API), which
is provided to developers in a Software Developer Kit (SDK). This SDK opens
up the 3 million plus small business customer base to software developers who
add value to QuickBooks by creating specific add-on products that integrate
with the popular financial management system. Even a casual programmer using
Microsoft Office and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) can develop an application
to read from and write to a QuickBooks data file.

There is now a second alternative available from Intuit — the Intuit
Partner Platform. This provides a web-based customer experience and provides
the developer with the ability to leverage the Intuit technology and infrastructure
investments.

To search for QuickBooks add-ons that use the SDK, visit the Intuit marketplace
site at http://marketplace.intuit.com. For applications using the IPP, visit
www.appcenter.intuit.com.

For more information about developing add-ons for QuickBooks visit http://developer.intuit.com.

Previous winners of the Awesome QuickBooks Add-on award include:

• Acctivate! (www.acctivate.com)
• AccuPOS – Attitude Positive (www.accupos.com)
• Adagio FX (www.softrak.com)
• AutoReporter (www.bqe.com)
• AvaTax Connect (www.avalara.com)
• Autofy (www.propelware.com)
• BDTS (www.bdts.us)
• BigTime Time and Billing – (www.Edisonsattic.com)
• BillQuick (www.bqe.com)
• Bill.com – (www.bill.com)
• CNG-Books and CNG-SAFE (www.cabinetng.com)
• Corecon 4.0 (www.corecon.com)
• Corrigo Worktrack Service Management (www.corrigo.com)
• Count Me In (www.countmeinllc.com)
• Data Flow Manager (www.atandra.com)
• DataMover (www.personable.com)
• Data Transfer Utility by Karl Irvin (www.q2q.us)
• DepositNow! (www.depositnow.com)
• Expensewatch (www.expensewatch.com)
• Fishbowl Inventory (www.fishbowlinventory.com)
• GiftWorks (www.missionresearch.com)
• InsynQ (e-Accounting) CPAASP (www.cpaasp.com)
• Legrand CRM (www.legrandcrm.com)
• Method Integration (www.methodintegration.com)
• MISys SBM (www.misysinc.com)
• MISys SBM – Shop Floor Control (www.misysinc.com)
• Netfira Connect (www.netfira.com)
• PayCycle (Now Intuit Online Payroll) (www.paycycle.com)

• PDG Commerce (www.pdgsoft.com)
• ProfitCents (www.profitcents.com)
• QODBC Driver (www.qodbc.com)
• QuickBooks Point of Sale (www.intuit.com)
• Qvinci Financial Dashboard (www.qvinci.com)
• ReportWiz from DGR software (www.dgrsoftware.com)
• Results CRM (www.results-software.com)
• Right Networks ASP (www.rightnetworks.com)
• Sharefile (www.sharefile.com)
• SmartVault Version 1 (www.smartvault.com)
• SourceLink (www.personable.com)
• Sunburst Certified Payroll Solution (www.sunburstsoftwaresolutions.com)
• TrueCommerce Transaction Manager (www.truecommerce.com)
• UniResMan (www.uniresman.com)
• Virtual Time+Expense (www.virtualsoftware.net)
• WorkTrack Service Management by Corrigo (www.corrigo.com)
• XpandedReports (www.xpandedreports.com)

See inside November 2010

Are You a Bean Counter? Why You Need to Find a Specialty

Column: Business in Practice

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