ITWALES.COM - Profile: Accounting Office Software Limited

Posted: Thu, March 22, 2007

Profile: Accounting Office Software Limited

by Sali Earls

Neath based Accounting Office Software Limited was formed in 1993 by Ian Richards, when he decided to bite the bullet and try to develop something more efficient and adaptive that the product s he was previously using. Based on a real time processing model, the product has evolved over time to offer customers a flexible and integrated approach to business management.

Sali Earls found out more about the company from product developer and company founder Ian Richards.

What is the history of your company?
Our company began life in 1993 as a little project which I though I would fill in a couple of months between jobs.

Having worked with Sage products for a number of years, I decided that I could do better job so I sat down at a computer and began with the purchase order form. Months later, OPACII was produced. The name of the product was derived from the original, dual design goals of the project. This was to provide Order Processing plus ACcounts and OPen ACcess, hence OPAC 2.

Ian Richards of Accounting Office Software Limited I hadn't long returned to Skewen from periods writing systems for multi-national insurance companies in the City of London and a scheduling system managing aircraft manufacture for Shorts Brothers plc in Belfast. In between I had somehow found time to lecture at Warwick University on process engineering and write a couple of books on computing and presenting.

Even then, I recognised that a successful package had to readily lend itself to customisation and tailoring so that it could be easily adapted to meet the specific requirements of any company.

The flexibility of the product proved attractive to a diverse group of companies, who were able to benefit from utilising key components of the software to interface with the existing systems. A number of software developers also took up the program as they were able to develop strong vertical market applications on a tried and tested accounting platform.

End users of the product included Digital in Galway (subsequently Compaq and now HP), National Westminster Bank, C.B.I., The Institute of Financial Accountants and the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi.

The decision was taken very early in 1995 to move to an object oriented design platform and this lead to the product being updated in 1998. The new product was one of the first in the market place to share the same VBA technology platform as Microsoft Office and it was named Accounting Office to reflect this.

This year has seen the release of My.N, which is the result of two years development. The product has been totally redesigned to take advantage of .Net and web technologies, providing a much more flexible platform for users and developers alike.

The name of the product, (which is pronounced MINE) evolved as the package developed. It came about because the system is so configurable.

The fields that are displayed on each user form and their layout can all be controlled at runtime by the user. Even each menu and its structure can be managed and users are provided with a choice of two interface styles; standard Windows and Outlook style.

During the development process, the ability to personalise either interface meant that our testers became very attached to how they had laid out their own interface. They actually became quite possessive about them. If we ever changed anything we were always told, "You can't do that to mine." From there, the name just stuck.

Once the marketing people got hold of the thread, there was no turning back!

Wanting to incorporate this personal element to the name, and needing to reflect on the almost exclusive use of Microsoft's .Net technology, the name My.N was coined.

What unique products/services does your company provide?
My.N logo My.N is a completely customisable business management and accounting system which can be tailored to fit the way any business works. In most instances, the user can easily do this using the system tools provided. This in itself is unique in the market place and gives the users of the product control over their working environment.

More complex requirements can be provided by us as the package has a very broad range of functionality supporting businesses as diverse as importation, distribution, manufacturing and job costing.

We see every company we deal with as unique, so it is fair to say that every solution we implement is unique. The flexibility of our platform means that every solution is based on a standard product and this means that we can maintain the levels of support and regularly offer upgrades and enhancements.

What's been the key to your success?
Developing our own products means that we are able to be flexible and respond to customers on a number of different levels. Although we have a set price list, most sales tend to involve an overall negotiated package. If the customer has a suggestion, we'll listen and if the customer has a problem, we'll be able to fix it.

What one piece of outside technology has benefited your company most?
Although there have been good technology platforms on which we have based our products, the technology which has had most impact on the business is the internet.

We have found that it drives product development, with customers specifying bigger and better web based functionality, such as web ordering and payment systems. It improves our support capability with the use of internet support systems such as WebEx, and our sales people are able to respond more quickly than ever before with web based software demonstrations. Overall, the affect has been quite startling.

What one piece of advice would you give to start-up companies in your field?
There are many pieces of advice which would be useful to a start up company but we always remember that our clients are in business to make profits, and our first objective is to produce a product that supports this.

Where do you see your company going in the future?
The product is continually being upgraded as a natural function of the user base increasing. Its current level is around 170 sites.

As well as this, we are developing a range of web and mobile technologies which integrate directly into our business system. This provides a highly integrated business trading platform for businesses in the SME market place.

As part of this development, we'll be providing a very affordable web shop management system for those smaller companies looking for an automated, hosted, web shop solution.

This will provide a highly automated web shop and back end processing solution, for a single low cost monthly fee. The management system will allow orders to be received off the web and processed to the orders to point of invoice. As a by product of this, a simple set of accounts will be maintained. Its almost accounting by the back door!

We will go into pilot testing this product in March and if anybody is interested in testing the product out for us free of charge, I'd urge them to get in touch.

Find out more about Accounting Office Software Limited at www.accountingoffice.co.uk.

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