2011 Awesome Add-Ons for QuickBooks

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:

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  • 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