One out of five people who purchase QuickBooks don't end up using it, Kiran Patel, EVP and general manager of Intuit's Small Business Group, told attendees at Intuit's annual Investors' Day yesterday. Patel made the point to show how much revenue Intel could generate if it can pick up more of these users and those who bail on other Intuit products.

That rate implies there are many thousands of users who leave the software sitting on their shelves. For the year ended July 31, Intuit sold 1.6 million QuickBooks units, along with providing 224,000 free Simple Start activations.

The pace of adoption of Web-based programs by tax and accounting firms is accelerating. But can a application like fixed asset software, which changes with regulation but not so much with technology innovation, be a worthwhile part of the Software as a Service trend. The answer is yes from a vendor point of view. Whether users are as enthusiastic remains to be seen, but the software publishers are betting they will be.

SageSpark, a program that is designed to move Sage down market, is going to provide common human resource forms for its small business members under a new program called HR Advice. Templates and instructions will be available for commonly used forms such as employee evaluation forms, offer letters and employee appraisals.

"We are going to be doing a pilot of this in Canada at the end of this month," notes Chuck LeDuc, the senior director of development for the Spark program.