The belief that one way to better success for accounting software publishers is to win the hearts and minds of accountants is an old one. But the approach of merely providing in-house copies of financial software at a discount to program members is no longer a driving force it was when such efforts began years ago.
"We are doing a lot of research on what accountants need and helping them meet their needs," says Jennifer Warawa. VP of partner programs and channel sales for Sage. "It has to go beyond software. Our main message is a lot of listening."
The real driver now is the belief that helping firms run their business better is the way to make them more enthusiastic in recommending a vendor's products. And whatever benefit they seek, accountants have signed up in thousands for the two largest programs: Intuit's roughly 60,000 ProAdvisors and the Sage Accountants Network with more than 24,000 members.
Besides conducting formal surveys, Sage plans to ascertain the needs of practitioners in person with what Warawa called increased emphasis on activities involving the state CPA societies and the American Institute of CPAs. For example, next year Sage will exhibit for the first time at the main conference of the Maryland Association of CPAs.
"We are going to be sponsoring a number of their conferences and meetings," says Warawa. "We are going to be increasing our presence on their web site."
SAN members can also become certified for Sage 50 (the former Peachtree) and with greater expertise can qualify to become premier certified advisors.
In one way, Intuit has started putting more emphasis on the old-fashioned approach of making products more easily available. The company is providing ProAdvisors with the ability to prepare five 1040 returns via Intuit Tax Online and offering them 10 percent off on product bundles.
It is also to give them access to QuickBooks Online and the new QuickBooks Accountant Online. "We're launching a variety of cloud solutions to our ProAdvisors at no additional charge," he says. Members can also receive one year free of Intuit Online Payroll for Accountants or Intuit Full Service Payroll for one client.
Improving the ProAdvisors skills remains important. Members can demonstrate those skills by becoming certified ProAdvisors with about 15 percent having achieved that accreditation.
But that number is likely to increase with Intuit's new carrot-and-whip, according to Luis Sanchez. To continue free telephone support, members must become certified and as memberships come up for renewal, many are likely to take the certification test.
Intuit has also made taking the test easier by removing one irritant. And that was ensuring that test takers can save their work when they are interrupted during the examination. That was not true previously - when accountants exited the program, all answers were lost.
"People have wasted several minutes or up to two to four hours," he acknowledges. Now, "once you finish a question, all progress is saved. Before that was not the case.' The test is now also available to mobile users and Sanchez says this enables accountants who might be between other tasks or in transit to take it.
The new approach means test takers can move between devices, for instance starting on a mobile phone, moving to an iPad and then completing the task on a desktop.
Newcomer, online software vendor Xero, is also courting accounting professionals bookkeepers via its Xero Partner Program that concentrates on rewarding those members as they add clients that use Xero.
"We sell Xero through our accounting partners," notes Richard Phillips, channel marketing manager for the New Zealand based company. While the company sells through accountants it also gives them control of the client relationship "They own the subscription,' he notes.
Xero provides tiered margins that improve as accountants, who can use the product for free, get more clients to use the online package. They also receive free support and what the company describes as accredited training.
Accountants with from 5 to 24 clients receive 15 percent margin and that rises to 30 percent for those with more than 500 client organizations using Xero.
Since many firms also dislike taking the margin and sometimes pass the discount on to clients, Phillips says make their money by bundling the program with their services.
