"With traditional desktop packages, you pay 100% of the price even if you are only using 10% of the product. Whereas modular online systems, like e-conomic, let you configure the application to suit the needs of the business and the users within it."That made me sit up and think "He's right".
I had one client who used Sage 50. That was the only product the practice I worked for at the time could offer her, which had multi-currency, which the business needed. Otherwise I would definitely have chosen More for the bookkeeper's sake.
She was very nervous, used only a very tiny part of Sage, and had no knowledge of double entry, which meant that entries like the payroll journal had to be posted parrot fashion (I would tell her "put figure A in that box there, put figure B in that box there...").
But the business had still had to pay the full price for Sage Financial Controller (as it then was).
I know several online solutions that do offer the basic model plus add-on extras. Apart from e-conomic, KashFlow offer add-on extras, so, I think, do Winweb (Stefan please correct me if I'm wrong).
Xero don't appear to, though, I wonder why they've chosen that method? I'd be interested to hear comments.
M
Another way to make the system moduler is via integrations. KashFlow does this well already and we (Clarity Accounting) are starting down that road with FreshBooks and plan to do more integrations in the future. Each department can have their own SaaS application to use, and one day the vision is that the parts can be independently selected an upgraded since the data will be easily interchanged among them. The reality right now is quite different, but you get the idea.
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