Financial Application Package Reckon in Australia

Question: Discuss about the Financial Application Package Reckon in Australia. Answer: Introduction The financial market in Australia is currently booming with lots of financial software competing among them featuring almost similar kinds of features and service. Reckon is one such type of financial software used for bookkeeping, bank reconciliation, invoicing among others. After numerous acquisitions, awards and recognitions, and innovative new features, it has differentiated itself from others and created a niche for itself. This literature review on the financial software Reckon discusses the history of the company from its inception in 1987 as a small scale business to acquiring some of the leading software in the market used for business process and bookkeeping like APS, and Shelco. This study also mentions the company's development by its major decision to migrate its application to the cloud, and the vast customer base it currently enjoys. Its current challenges mostly have to do with Payroll update and the problems are detailed. Reckon has many competitive advantages in the form of its products Reckon One and QuickBooks over its competitors like MYOB, Xero, Intuit, among others. Recommendations are made based on the challenges faced by the latest Payroll update, and user friendliness of the software. Literature Review History Going back all the way to 1987, Reckon was founded with a loan against an old Holden Commodore car and a credit card that was maxed out. It was the start of a small business. In 1993 personal financing software was released by Reckon dubbed as Reckon Quicken in Australia, and history was made. The Australian market saw business software being released in 1994 called Reckon QuickBooks. By 1998 Reckon expanded its business to Singapore and New Zealand. On 19th July 1999, the Australian Stock Exchange saw the stock price rise to 167% premium (Reckon Australia 2016). Reckon QuickBooks was selected by the PC Magazine as the Editors choice in 2000. In 2002 integration between Microsoft Office and Reckon QuickBooks was established through a strategic partnership with Microsoft. 2004 saw the acquisition of APS by Reckon. In the same year, Reckon QuickBooks was named Best Small Business Accounting Package by PC Users Top 100 products review. By 2006, Desktop Super, and Elite, which was tax so lution and small practice management was bought by Reckon. To start helping business with new company registration, Reckon bought Shelco. 2009 was a significant milestone for Reckon when it released Reckon Docs, used for business registration, and Reckon Billback, used by top law firms. The same year also saw a release of QuickBooks Hosted (Reckon Accounts Hosted as it is now called). In 2012 Reckon bought Virtual Cabinet online document management and Lindenhouse and renamed Quicken and QuickBooks. In 2013 Reckon SyncDirect was released. 2014 saw the end of the relationship of Reckon with Intuit Inc, USA, and the brand QuickBooks could no longer be reused (Allert 2015). 2016 saw the acquisition of SmartVault online document management; Reckon One Payroll module was released. The same year also saw the release of Reckon One online financial software launch in the UK. It has also launched Rocket Loans, in partnership with Prospa, a Deloitte Fast 50 winner. Development and Adoption Reckon One software has many happy customers in its testimonial. It provided customers the affordability to pay for the features they would use, which was quite useful for those running small businesses and wanted an easy way to watch financial report and the performance of their business. By utilizing the bank feed module and the built-in simple reporting, companies found huge cost savings in bookkeeping expenses (Reckon Australia 2016). When Reckon One adopted cloud computing, the companies saw taking more control over their finances. The invoices were emailed to the clients on the spot, they could run and view reports, and the dashboard view gave them a lot of control over their business, which increased productivity. As stated by Hossack (2015), Reckon was founded by Greg Wilkinson with a maxed-out credit card and a loan against an old Holden Commodore car 30 years ago. It currently employs over 500 people and is publicly listed on Australian Stock Exchange with good financial records. Even then, the company is still led by the entrepreneurial spirit and excitement that led to its inception. The company also employs futurists, designers and coders and a network of over 6000 partners in their active customer base (Fool.com.au 2016). Their aim is to move forward while doing continuous innovation. They have established themselves as the market leader in the following three core areas: Practice Management, Document Management and Business Solutions. Current Market Size Reckon APS, which is a practice management software after it has migrated to cloud it took a step ahead in the competition globe (Reckon Australia 2016). It is used for Practice Management and is used by 70% of the top 100 accounting firms and other leading legal firms across the. Reckons document management solutions like Reckon VirtualCabinet (for enterprises) and Reckon SmartVault (for professionals) have seen incredible growth (Smartvault.com 2016). Through this software over 560,000 documents were shared with users and used by more than 48,000 customers. Reckons software is utilized by thousands of businesses across the world. The company is also looking forward to their next-generation accounting software, which is Reckon One, and Reckon Loans for small business learning venture (Reckon Australia 2016). Present leaders in the market Currently, there are many financial software packages available in the Australian market for business managers to control their financial reports and records. There is free accounting software which requires no cost, but among paid options, there are some leading ones like MYOB, Intuit, Sage, Quicken/QuickBooks, Xero online, Cashflow Manager, Nominal, and Saasu. MYOB is battling for supremacy in the financial cloud market and confirmed details of its IPO in April. Intuit and Xero have opened their cloud services for the bookkeeping industry (Businessinsider.com.au 2016). Competitive advantage Every product of Reckon offers its set of benefits. Quickbooks, which is hosted by Reckon Online includes all the main functionalities with the ability to access data files of the company anytime and anywhere, resulting in improved productivity and efficiency. Other features that give it an edge ahead of its competition are Real-time BAS lodgement, automatic backup and disaster recovery, multi-company reporting, industry tailored solutions and more (cutcher.com.au 2016). Reckon One, the cloud accounting software can do far more than just business accounts. It provides flexibility by offering the modular approach, which means users can opt for any number of features they want and turn them off when they are not needed (Allert 2016).. Other features offered are invoice reminders for pending invoices, collaboration among users, mobility, syncing with bank feeds, has guaranteed compliance, better security with professional grade security technology and helps prevent fraud. Current Challenges Encountered and Literature Gap With the announcement that the 101 release of Payroll and enhancements to be delivered, it may come with not so good functionalities (Liburd et al. 2014). Payroll is one such feature where many small users struggle and the more user-friendly, the less complicated it gets. The current challenges are: It does not integrate Payroll values into the BAS reports. Navigation features of User Experience are still in need of more polish. General ledger posting accounts specification is very limited. Compared to MYOB Essentials, it used preset defaults without the need of any specification. The current process is quite complex when it comes to recording leave for employees and opening balances of pay. The Standard Pay Items are not preloaded and are to be setup from scratch (BIT 2016). Reckon One is lagging by two years behind Xero regarding add-ons and features and seven years in development hours, and by ten years behind Intuit regarding development time, but the gap is closing fast by releasing their updated payroll module (Growthpath.com.au 2016). Conclusion Reckon, the financial accounting software package company, may not be in the same league with MYOB, but it has certainly evolved a lot through acquisitions, a release of accounting products and re-brandings of its products over the years from its humble inception in 1987. The company still maintains the entrepreneurial spirit that led to its current success. Its development took an edge when it moved towards cloud computing with its product Reckon One, which offered some advantages of using cloud application and more. Its current market size explains itself with its Reckon SmartVault software used by 48,000 customers, and Reckon APS, which is by top 70 accounting firms across the globe. Its competitors are MYOB, Intuit, Xero, and more, but Reckon has been quite steady. It still has some payroll features to iron out which limits it from coming on to the top. Recommendations Reckon needs to focus on the userfriendliness of the Payroll system because small business depends on it as it is the only thing they struggle with. It needs to load preset defaults without the need of a specification like MYOB. Opening and closing balances must be quite simpler. References Allert, S. 2015.The accounting industry is changing - whether you're ready or not. [online] Accountantsdaily.com.au. Available at: https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/columns/8104-technology-driving-change-for-accountants [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. Allert, S. 2016.15 Little Known Benefits of cloud Accounting Software. [online] Blog.reckon.com. Available at: https://blog.reckon.com/15-little-known-benefits-of-cloud-accounting-software [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. BIT. 2016.7 accounting packages for Australian small businesses compared: including MYOB, QuickBooks Online, Reckon, Xero. [online] Available at: https://www.bit.com.au/Review/344651,7-accounting-packages-for-australian-small-businesses-compared-including-myob-quickbooks-online-reckon-xero.aspx [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. Businessinsider.com.au. 2016. [online] Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/charts-the-battle-for-supremacy-in-australias-cloud-accounting-market-2015-4 [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. cutcher.com.au.2016. [online] Available at: https://www.cutcher.com.au/files/docs/software%20flyers/reckon%20online%20for%20pc.pdf [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. Liburd, J., Chitayat, S., Crawley, S. W., Munro, K., Miller, E., Denis, C. M., ... Smith, S. P. 2014. Structure of the small Dictyostelium discoideum myosin light chain MlcB provides insights into MyoB IQ motif recognition.Journal of Biological Chemistry,289(24), 17030-17042. Fool.com.au. 2016.ASX:RKN (Reckon Ltd.) | Motley Fool Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.fool.com.au/tickers/asx-rkn/ [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. Growthpath.com.au. 2016.Review of Cloud Accounting (Xero, Saasu, MYOB Essentials, QuickBooks) | Business IT. [online] Available at: https://www.growthpath.com.au/Business-IT/review-of-myob-liveaccounts-and-xero-accounting-in-the-cloud.html [Accessed 3 Sep. 2016]. Hossack, S., 2015. Cloud-based accounting and productivity tools for practitioners and taxpayers.Taxation in Australia,50(5), p.265. Reckon Australia. 2016.About Us | Reckon. [online] Available at: https://www.reckon.com/au/about-us/ [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. Reckon Australia. 2016.AP- Reckon Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.reckon.com/au/aps/ [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. Reckon Australia. 2016.Timeline of our history | Reckon. [online] Available at: https://www.reckon.com/au/reckon-history/ [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]. Smartvault.com. 2016.Reckon acquires SmartVault Corporation (USA). [online] Available at: https://www.smartvault.com/blog/2016/reckon-acquires-smartvault-corporation-usa/ [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016].