UK Accounting Software Market Report
In keeping with our open approach as a business, I am pleased to unveil our UK Accounting Software Market Report. For a copy please click here: UK Accounting Software Market.
If you would like to use this report or quote from it, you may do so providing you reference and link to the Clear Books website www.clearbooks.co.uk.
Last month I posted a plea to online accounting providers asking them to volunteer as much information as possible about their businesses. A big thank you is due to the following vendors who obliged:
- Michael Parkes (Arithmo)
- Hugh Scantlebury (Aqilla)
- Ed Molyneux (FreeAgent Central)
- Duane Jackson (KashFlow)
- Lisa Kendrick & Matt Holmes (Liquid Accounts)
Thanks also extends to the following industry commentators:
- Dennis Howlett (you can read his thoughts on the “bizarre” analysis here!)
- Ben Kepes (CloudAve)
- Richard Messik (Vantis)
- David Terrar (Business Two Zero)
These were the contributors cited by the research team so apologies if anyone has been missed out. In particular gratitude must go to the three students from The Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge who put together this report over a period of just one month. These students were set objectives on the premise that they were acting as consultants to Clear Books, and were then left to carry out their research independently.
As far as I am aware this report is the first ever serious piece of consolidated work on the online accounting market in the UK. That’s not such a surprise in our young industry.
The interesting snippets that I picked up were:
- Estimate that 2m businesses in the UK use accounting software and that more than 2m don’t
- UK user number estimates: KashFlow (5000-6000) Xero (3000-4000) FreeAgent (1500-2000)
- The big four desktop accounting vendors between them have UK estimated revenues of just over £200m and approximately 1m users.
- Quality of product is critical in evaluating IT products
- FreeAgent probably raised approximately £800k from recent Iris investment
- Clear Books performed favourably against competitors in a usability questionnaire
What did you pick out? Do you agree with the research or do some facts need setting straight? Let me know…
Donkey Internet Ltd
I feel the need to point out a couple of things before I start. The first is that I am fussy; the second that I use a Mac. Sometimes these two things make my search for software tricky. You can imagine how it normally works out.
I realised that I needed some proper accounts software after my accountant laughed (and then very quickly coughed) when she saw my “spreadsheet”. I thought it was the bees knees, but when you copy something you used to use in the Civil Service one should really know better. Hence the search started, and was then soon hampered by the lack of effective business software for Mac.
My accountant suggested I used Solar Accounts. Indignantly I agreed to look at it, although I wasn’t best pleased that it was only available for Windows. Although I have the ability to run Windows and Windows programs on my Mac I do use it for a reason and that isn’t to run Windows!
My search turned instinctively to an online solution and, because I’ve known about it for sometime, I went to Kashflow. I signed up for a trial, but something has never been right about it for me , so I continued to Google. Quite by chance I found a post somewhere that mentioned Clear Books and their approach to openness and current user numbers.
I signed up for the free trial (what the heck, eh? It doesn’t harm) and was extremely surprised. It’s not often that I’m taken by a website (or the company behind it) but I really am by Clear Books. It’s simple to use, pleasing to the eye, allows multiple logins, has a simple API that is easy to integrate and a team that are keen to see the software grow and prosper.
Support requests over at the Clear Books Get Satisfaction site are readily answered and the team never seem to reject an idea or bug report. In fact some suggestions come back with a simple response like “changed” or “updated”. How it should be I know, but it’s not often it happens and it’s very refreshing to see.
I’m still on my free trial but I have no intention of signing up to another solution for my businesses. As an online company the effectiveness of the API is the key thing for me as I can automate over %90 of my accounting transactions so they are immediately recorded in Clear Books.
I’m looking forward to getting more involved with the team and the software and making the most of how easy using Clear Books is going to make things!
KashFlow
- Website:
- http://www.kashflow.com
- Company:
- KashFlow Software Ltd
- Location:
- Essex, UK
- Founder(s):
- Duane Jackson twitter
- Shareholder(s):
- Duane Jackson, Lord Young
- Launch date:
- February 2006
- Number of employees:
- 9
- Number of paying customers:
- 2,500 (as at March 2009)
- Cost:
- £15.99/month
- Free trial:
- 60 days
- Support & feedback:
- http://forums.kashflow.co.uk/
The KashFlow Story
Duane spent most of his childhood in different children’s homes in East London and left school at 15 with no qualifications. He said: “It was the cliche of I got into the wrong crowd, and eventually ended up with a five- year prison sentence.”
“I came out at the age of 24 and knew it would be hard to get work with a big gap on my CV so I approached the Prince’s Trust with my business ideas.”
He was given a loan and grant totalling £4,000 and Key One was born. Later is was developed into KashFlow, an online tool to help bosses in small businesses manage their accounts.
Links
Sources
Information correct as at 8April 2009
List of accounting software online and on the web
When we first started Clear Books in July 2008 we thought we had hit on a great idea with our online accounting app. We still think that, but we are not alone…
There is nothing new about accounting software. Indeed, accounting itself can be traced back to 1494 and the father of double entry bookkeeping, Luca Pacioli.
We thought we were on to a winner with our online concept. Needless to say, a little market research soon showed that we were not the first to have the idea. Indeed, every day I seem to stumble across a new face and here they are: 
KashFlow
KashFlow is a UK based online accounting software company operating in the same space as Clear Books.
KashFlow is an established outfit boasting 2,400 paying customers and 9 employees built up over four years. In comparison Clear Books is the new kid on the block. Currently in beta and set up just over half a year ago, Clear Books currently has no paying customers. Compared to the claimed 40-odd daily sign-ups KashFlow gets to its free trial, Clear Books has just a handful (but growing all the time).
Priced at £192 KashFlow is a one subscription level solution. Clear Books has an advantage here in that smaller businesses that cannot afford such an outlay can use Clear Books completetly free to begin with and then upgrade to our mid bracket subscription level, ‘Clear Books Growth’, which will be priced at around the £100 mark.