News - Acclipse & Xero working together
By Mike Chisholm - Thursday, 28 August 2008
I'me writing to you as I'm wanting to let you know about an announcement being made today about Acclipse and Xero forming a partnership to deliver what I hope and expect will be a solution that will revolutionise accounting practices throughout New Zealand.
When presenting at seminars to accountants I often introduce myself with something like "my life has been accounting. I've spent around 10 years working in a practice in Christchurch, 10 years in CA-Systems (New Zealand's most popular practice software), one year as a financial controller of a medium sized company (120 staff), three years in Nepal as the accountant for a large medical mission and three years in MYOB where I ended up with the grand title "Global Product Visionary - Accountants".
Throughout this whole time I've shared the frustration you experience when trying to co-ordinate the importing & exporting of transactions from your client’s accounting program into your practice’s client accounting software. I've dreamed of being able to develop and deliver a totally seamless way of making this happen as we both know the efficiencies and benefits this would bring to you and your clients.
In CA-Systems we tried to achieve this by developing a cashbook with the same data structures as your ledger. I know a lot of firms still like to use this product (now MYOB Cashbook) because of the simple user interface for your business client and the easy integration into MYOB Accountants Office ledger.
When MYOB approached CA-Systems in 1999, what really grabbed my attention was the vision and hope expressed that we could take some great practice accounting software and link it seamlessly to all the business product that MYOB had purchased or developed. I left MYOB in 2002 with a lot of frustration and belief that this dream of mine wouldn't and couldn't become a reality.
In forming Acclipse in 2003, one product we specialised in developing was Acclipse WebPractice. This is your 24/7, online, client focused, interactive website that I believe all accounting firms need in our connected society and web world. Our plans were always to make this the portal to provide you with the seamless link I've described above. Our first step in providing this seamless link, started in 2004 when we developed Acclipse CodeIT as a web interface for your clients using BankLink.
What I'm really excited about now is that I believe the partnership we've formed with Xero will enable me to 'live the dream' and deliver you the ultimate solution and next generation of software that removes all the integration pain.
It's great to be working with Xero, another Kiwi company that's motivated to deliver great solutions to New Zealand accountants and businesses.
We'll soon be organising road shows in your area to demonstrate the progress made in our partnership and to show you our workflow driven, web based practice management software that I know will lift your productivity and profitability.
I look forward to seeing you soon and thank you for taking the time to read this email.
Have a great day, Mike
