Awesome QuickBooks Add-ons for 2010

From the Nov. 2009 Issue

At The Sleeter Group, we continually study the marketplace of QuickBooks add-ons and services that enhance QuickBooks. I’m quite impressed with the depth and breadth of solutions in the market, including solutions for everything from automotive dealership management solutions to construction, property management, document management, manufacturing, wholesale and distribution. It’s truly amazing to see how the “ecosystem” of solutions has grown and thrived over the years.

For several years now, we’ve spotlighted several special products we call “awesome add-ons.” We survey products in several vertical markets where QuickBooks may not have all the needed features, or where clients want customized solutions. Most of the winners are software, but several are hardware and software combinations.

In order to qualify for our list, 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 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.

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Autofy — Propelware
www.propelware.com
Pricing: $395/year – includes updates & support
Target Customers: QuickBooks users that process more than 15 transactions per week or require data to automatically be entered without manual data entry

This utility program helps automate the process of pulling data from and pushing data to various applications such as QuickBooks. It is particularly useful for QuickBooks consultants who need to help clients automate the process of synchronizing data between different applications on the desktop and on the web.

Autofy automatically synchronizes a variety of business records between desktop and enterprise software, as well as online data sources. Save valuable resources (money, time and productivity) by eliminating double data entry and data-entry mistakes. Accounting invoices, sales transactions, payroll, customer contact information and more can be easily exchanged between software platforms such as QuickBooks, Peachtree, Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office, among others.

The Autofy system is available as a shrink-wrapped application or as a customized solution where data is synchronized exactly to specification. Connections can be built to any data source available, including any relational database system, Intuit’s QuickBase, Fox Pro, Excel, and many others.

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Netfira Connect Commerce — Netfira
www.netfira.com
Pricing: Free, $1 per transaction
Target Customers: Wholesalers, Distributors, Manufacturers, any buyer or seller of finished goods

Netfira Connect is the fast, simple, real-time application connecting sellers, buyers and their accounting systems, enabling small and large businesses to securely trade over the Internet.

Netfira Connect Commerce has two integrated modules — Connect Seller and Connect Buyer — which transform the traditional buying and selling process into two-way, real-time electronic commerce.

Unlike traditional e-commerce solutions where sellers list their products on an external web store, Netfira Connect allows buyers and sellers to securely link to each other in real-time via a secure peer-to-peer link over the Internet. Key features include online price checking, inventory availability and ordering. Netfira Connect links to most SMB inventory management and accounting systems, including MYOB, QuickBooks, Sage, Attaché and Fishbowl. This enables customers and vendors to electronically trade with each other securely from their desktop, regardless of their size or which backend accounting or inventory system they use.

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