Small Business

Sage North America has introduced its new Sage Exchange Payment Management System, which is designed to help small and midsized businesses (SMBs) by consolidating all of their payment activity onto one platform. SMBs can also use Sage Exchange to easily monitor and manage the payments from all their sales environments: on the web, over the phone, through mobile devices, or at their storefront.

These applications are low cost or free, and are supported with in-application ads and other special offers provided based on the user’s personal profile. Since they are stored online, the data can be shared with outside advisors, including the individual’s accounting firm.

When Intuit introduced a new design for its products, it was aiming for a harmonic look and feel across its solutions that made it easier for users to use. But, it didn’t just stop there. The maker of financial management solution decided they wanted to make business easier for small business owners.

Xero is a micro-business SaaS accounting platform which is well established in Australia and New Zealand, and was launched in the U.S. in 2012. The company has made significant investments in personnel to compete with other small business accounting software providers in the U.S. market, and has hired a long list of industry veterans to manage its U.S. operations, including Peter Karpas (U.S. CEO), Jamie Sutherland (U.S. President), Ian Vaicin (U.S. VP- Marketing and Product) and many more.

Wave Accounting is part of Wave Apps, which is a suite of free or low-cost apps for self-employed individuals and micro-businesses to accomplish traditional accounting tasks like billing customers, recording payments, writing checks, and downloading transactions from financial institutions.

Intuit QuickBooks Online was one of the first online small business financial management applications when it was launched in 2000. The application has expanded to include many new features over the years, and it is now available in more than 10 languages and 100 countries.

CPA Practice Advisor's Editor-inChief spoke with cloud accounting vendor Xero's top executives, Global CEO Rod Drury and North American CEO Peter Karpas on how they perceive the evolution of the small business accounting space.

CPA Practice Advisor's Editor-inChief spoke with cloud accounting vendor Jim Secord, the CEO of small business accounting developer Kashoo on the evolution of online accounting systems.