Cloud accounting trial offer hits a milestone

It generally isn’t a big deal if a lot of people take up a free offer. But when it’s for something as central to the operation of a business as accounting software, people tend to be more cautious.

After all, migrating to a different accounting program is no small matter even for a small business, unless all your customers pay cash on the nail and you treat your suppliers the same way. Even then, it’s not as simple as trying a new word processor.

So Netregistry’s announcement that 10,000 SMEs have accepted its offer of a free two-year subscription to the cloud-based Reach Accounting service can be seen as a significant milestone, even if not all of them end up actually using it – though the company does claim "high and rapidly growing activity rates. Metregistry’s gamble is that sufficient users will convert to paying customers (at $25 per month) after the first two years to make the exercise worthwhile.

$25 per month is a competitive price. For example, MYOB Live Accounts costs the same, while Xero Accounting is a little more expensive with prices starting at $29 per month. The real questions are which service best suits a particular business’s needs, and whether conventional desktop software (which in some cases is no more expensive than a cloud service) is more appropriate.

The Reach Accounting free trial was initially offered to customers of Netregistry-branded services, but will be extended to those of the group’s other brands over the coming months.

Netregistry purchased a 50% share of Reach Accounting last month, and has foreshadowed the integration of the accounting software with its other products and services, for example recording sales made through Netregistry’s e-commerce facilities.

"It’s great to see so many Australian SMEs embracing cloud functionality – despite media claims that Australian business aren’t ready. It proves emphatically that SMEs are desperate for cloud services and are comfortable with cloud security," said Netregistry CEO Larry Bloch.

"The fact is, if provided by a reliable and secure company, the cloud carries no more risk than ‘traditional’ software. This has been proven by the success of our software and shows that SMEs are happy as long as they are using a trusted supplier," he added.

Taking a dig at MYOB, he went on to say "We expect to overtake other key competitors soon. It seems that SMEs are hungry for a product which is specifically designed for them, something which MYOB fails to deliver."