Barclaycard are piloting allowing businesses using the their merchant services to raise invoices and collect payments using an “e-invoicing” service provided by KashFlow.

This posting on TechCrunch, prompted the above tweet from Duane Jackson, which Dennis Howlett picked up on immediately and wrote about here.

My initial reaction to reading the TechCrunch article was that this seemed like a significant development but, here’s my problem, the more I think about it the less important it seems to me. It may be a big deal for the two companies involved (great exposure for KashFlow particularly) but I can’t see where the importance to business owners might be.

I am running a small business and find the idea of printing and posting paper invoices plain ridiculous in 2010, so I use accounting software that makes it easy for me to create PDF invoices and email them to customers. I want to make it as easy as possible for my customer to pay me, and improve my cashflow, so I include a link in my PDF invoices which directs to my PayPal account, which can accept all major credit and debit cards. If I was a Barclaycard merchant, I assume that I could just as easy link to that account on my invoices.

If I didn’t have my accounting system already setup, I might well decide to use KashFlow, and in that case why would I be interested in a cut-down, badged version of that software provided by Barclaycard?

Maybe another scenario is that I have an accounting system that I am happy with but I can’t produce PDF invoices and collect payment electronically. Am I really likely to keep that accounting system and also run a parallel invoicing system (and presumably sales ledger) in a completely separate service and have all the hassle of keeping the two in sync? No, of course not. I will either struggle on without the benefits of “e-invoicing” or, perhaps more likely, decide that it’s time to change my accounting system. In which case, again, I have no interest in what Barclaycard are offering.

My conclusion is that this is another example of one of the banks trying to use an alternative means to market their financial services by cloaking them in some pseudo “added-value” solution involving software. Barclays have form on this, with their Clearly Bookkeeping promotion some years back.

I can’t see any downside for Duane Jackson, unless they are spending a lot on the “badging” exercise for Barclaycard and, indeed, it is already providing his company with great publicity.

Unfortunately, I can’t see much upside for the small business community. That’s why I am thinking this is no big deal.

Reading this posting on AccountingWeb got me thinking about this unrelated piece at CPA Trendlines and what the future holds for the “Client Testimonial” – as used in the marketing materials of professional service firms, particularly on their websites.

I think testimonials don’t work and are open to abuse in many ways, as the comments on the AccountingWeb thread suggest. The fundamental problem is that the person reading a testimonial knows that they are only being presented with a partial view; they have no way to validate their opinion on it without access to the broader picture.

The next generation of clients, in particular, is savvy to this and they have grown-up in a world where Google lets them assemble something like the full picture from a jigsaw of pieces of information scattered all over the Internet. They are not, therefore, going to take any testimonial in your marketing at face value.

So, why not make it easy for your potential clients to see the full picture in the first place, from your site in a manner you have some control over?

The way forward is for professionals to open as much of their work, and their interactions with clients as possible. Show people as much as you can about what you do, how you do it and what the response from your clients is. Share the ideas you are working on, share the problems that you and your clients have faced and then, only then, share the praise they have given you. Share that praise in a way that is transparent and (prima facie) obviously unsolicited, real-time and real world.

The good news is that the technology to make this easy is already out there and, depending on your requirements, free.

I say the firms that have the balls to expose themselves like this will be the firms that win the next generation of clients. Oh, and if you are scared of hanging out your dirty washing, do everyone a favour and stop taking on new business until you sort yourself out.

Let me firstly say that, in the past, I have been a real fan of QuickBooks.  When I started Pearson & Associates in 1995, I recommended QuickBooks to any clients who would listen.  I have never liked Sage Line 50, it was QuickBooks all the way for me.

Then things changed.  Intuit, the makers of QuickBooks, seemed to lose their way in the early noughties.  With a commercial need to release upgrades regularly, to keep the revenues coming in, but with a product was functionally complete already, they had to resort to adding peripheral features, almost gimmicks, that most users didn’t really want or need.  QuickBooks 2008 was particularly badly received – especially as it left users of multi-currency completely in the lurch.

Times have changed and, since 2008, I have been an advocate for online accounting software – Xero in particular.  So I was interested to see what progress, if any, had been made by Intuit with the release of QuickBooks 2010.  As before, I was disappointed.  There are the usual minor tweaks but no exciting new features.  No vision.  However, what really caught my eye was the Upgrader’s Guide.

We are now used to a world where most of the software and services we use are delivered online.  The providers deal with upgrades for us, they deal with data conversions without us even knowing, new features just appear.  Now read this extract from page 1 of the QuickBooks 2010 Upgrader’s Guide (I have added the emphasis):

• Installation takes about 15 minutes. Upgrading your company file depends on the size, but most take 1-2 hours.
• You’ll need to perform some extra steps after you upgrade. Set a few hours aside for this.
• We suggest you perform the upgrade outside of work hours, either at the weekend or at the end of your work day.

My reaction was “What!  Are you serious?”

Thanks a bunch Intuit.  I pay you my money (again), for an upgrade that offers little in the way of real innovation, and then I have to give you 5 or 6 hours?  Oh, and you want me to give up my personal or family time out of normal work hours into the bargain?  Unbelievable.

The Upgrader’s Guide then goes on to ask me to make some quite technical choices about the location of the QuickBooks data file, whether installation will be best done on a server or individual computers plus other decisions need to be made about user access and rights.  These decisions add to the chore of the upgrade process and many of them would not even need asking in a web-based delivery model.

To be fair to Intuit, it seems like the time-consuming tasks only apply to users upgrading from the 2006 or earlier versions.  However, given that anyone using multi-currency was unable to move to 2008 when it was released and, because of horror stories about the upgrade process to 2008, many users have hung on to their 2006 copies waiting for this 2010 version, there are going to be many, many people facing the prospect of spending a whole Saturday or Sunday working for Intuit.

Maybe Intuit are embarrassed about this but they are stuck with legacy software, written nearly 20 years ago, which they struggle to innovate on whilst being compelled to release new product to generate income.

Far from being a fight-back, QuickBooks 2010 is another nail in the coffin of the old school vendors.  Sage absolutely included.

I recently participated in a discussion on AccountingWeb where I questioned the value of including detailed technical and tax resources on accountants’ websites.  My long-held view is that such resources are a waste of money.  If I were a client, I would want to pick up the phone and get the answers I need.  I would not expect to find them for myself, “on the website”.

However, since there are many providers of technical content and many accountants including their services on their sites, I wondered if I was alone in my view – so I created an online survey and asked for responses.

With only limited public awareness of the existence of the survey, I am pleased to have received 32 responses.  I promised to publish the results and here they are (pdf format).

I believe that the results support my view including technical content on an accountancy firm’s website is not good use of the marketing budget.  Some 24% of firms had no idea if clients or prospects ever used it and less than half (47%) thought that the cost of technical content represented value for money.

Looking at all respondents, including those who did not include technical content, only 16% of firms reported receiving more than “one or two” enquiries per month from their website.  This, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority (85%) had refreshed the look and feel of their site recently (less than three years ago).

So, I stick to my view.  Accountants need a professional web presence but only something that a prospect can use to “kick the tyres” before making contact to initiate a discussion.  Existing clients will likely never visit the site, because they have no need to – and if you think tools, guides and calculators on your site will make them come you are deluding yourself.

Accountants, think for a minute – you are a supplier in your clients’ eyes.  Now, thinking about yourself, when was the last time you checked out the website of the firm’s PI insurer or stationery supplier?