A few years ago, Tim and I (along with a couple of other friends) started one of New Zealand’s most successful web hosting companies – iSERVE limited. iSERVE grew quickly and, as a result of that growth, one of the major headaches we faced was that we rapidly out grew our accounting system.
We were using MYOB and, despite reassurances, it just didn’t scale and there was no easy way to interface with it. In fact, I believe that Tim and Brent actually ended up hacking it apart so that we could get it to perform what we needed it to. That allowed us to interface with it .. sort of .. but it still wouldn’t scale. Enterprise solutions were well out of our budget then and we were stuck having to do a lot of manual work to make things tick along.
Fast forward a few years, iSERVE has been and gone (absorbed by the fine folk at Orcon internet), but one of the key lessons we took from running that business was to make sure that all our supporting systems were as streamlined as possible. By supporting systems I’m referring to communication systems, help desk systems, accounting systems etc. The systems you need to help your core business run smoothly. You see, at iSERVE, we tried to develop virtually all of those supporting services ourselves and we spent so much time developing them that we neglected our core business system … the piece that our customers used.
When we started developing Sentinel Server & Website Monitoring we were damn sure that we wouldn’t make that mistake again … and, when it came time to sort out our accounting system, Xero.com was a no brainer.
So how does Sentinel use Xero?
We use Xero in two ways.
1. We use it as our general company accounting system.
Xero is hooked into our bank feed and we can get a live update of whats going on at anytime of the day or night and with a few clicks of the mouse we know how much money to put aside for the tax man.This means that Tim and I, and anyone else that we invite along, can get a real time view of our financial position. Something that was very difficult to do with iSERVE.
2. We interface directly with the Xero API from inside the Sentinel Server Monitoring dashboard.
Every invoice that is raised by Sentinel for our customers is automatically handled by Xero. This means that every time a customer decides that they will upgrade their account from the free trial, they enter their credit card details, we process the transaction and raise the invoice in Xero using the Xero API. The next day, when our bank deposits the money into our account, we can log into Xero and with the click of a button, reconcile the transaction against the invoice and everything is squared up.
Aside from being a fabulous accounting system, Xero.com is a true Kiwi success story. The company seems to go from strength to strength, their product is well thought out, well presented and well supported. It is also very affordable with simple monthly payments. That fact alone was great for us as it meant we had very minimal start up costs and could get things up and running very very quickly.
Software as a Service
Xero, Zen Desk, Campaign Monitor and Sentinel Monitoring all represent a shift in the way that we consume software. We are rapidly moving from a model where you buy the software once and then pay for upgrades every couple of years to a model where you pay a small monthly fee and get upgrades (and a host of other benefits) continually. This model is often referred to as ‘Software as a Service’ (SAAS) and it is something that both Tim and I love.
At Sentinel, we use other great SAAS products like Zen Desk and Campaign monitor to help us run our business. We also use Google Docs and Echosign to flash out agreements and get them signed. I’ll elaborate on how we use these products in upcoming blog posts but in the mean time I’d love to hear what SAAS products you use to help run your business! Leave a comment below or, if you prefer, leave a comment on our facebook post.