Sage Canada has more than 12,000 accountants in Canada as a channel recommending Simply Accounting to clients. This base is more than double its active reseller base in the country.With the Accountants edition, partners no longer have to install each edition of the application to work with client files. Instead, they can install Simply Accounting — Accountants package and it will support clients who are using any version of Simply Accounting 2006 such as Basic, Pro, or Premium.
The Accountants Edition also includes tools that enable accountants to synchronize year-end entries with their clients’ data files, so that clients can continue working on their books without interruption.
“Bookkeepers and accountants had to support Simply Accounting (because their customers used it) and this version addresses their pain points,” said Hugo Croft-Levesque, the Simply Accounting product manager for Sage Canada, which is based in Vancouver.
The channel had some objections because customers who used accountants for checking or updating figures had to purchase all three versions of the package.
“This is just for convenience and not so much as a sales driver,” he said.
With the new accountants version, Croft-Levesque said his company had to move away from its standard retail model and use more of its channel partners. Sage did not want to compete with the Staples/Business Depots, he said. In the past, Simply Accounting pushed the majority of its sales through retail, with some sales coming from resellers.
Simply Accounting has been a sales juggernaut for the past decade in Canada. According to ACNielsen Canada it held 57 per cent market share in September.
The new versions of Simply Accounting will also have an improved search capability.
“Customers come in and ask for a new invoice for $519 and the businesses most of the time can’t remember what the $519 transaction was for. So the search can easily find it and print it off,” Croft-Levesque said.