Viridity has been working with Unleashed for more than a year now (we are very proud to have been accredited as the Premier Partner for Unleashed in Australia). 

During that time we have seen dozens of new features released with today's release being one of the biggest.  Just a few of the new features over the past year have included:

• Multiple warehouses
• Bill of Materials / Assembly
• An ever increasing list of ecommerce integrations
• Improvements to partial receipting & backordering
• Improvements to discounting options
• And lots more besides!

One area that hadn’t been upgraded until now was the “look and feel” (as you'll hear it referred to the "UI", or User Interface).  Here is an image of one of the screens released today.

The rest of Unleashed looks just as good, and the system is packed with great features too! If you think Unleashed could help you reduce the cost of managing your inventory please contact Viridity.

The whole team here at Viridity is excitedly finalising preparations for CeBIT which starts in Sydney tomorrow (and runs till Thursday).

We will be co-hosting a stand with our good friends from Wendy Field Business Services, and showcasing a whole range of solutions aimed at small and medium business.  So if you are interested in:

• Xero (for bookkeeping / accounting)
• Unleashed (inventory)
• Dremus (e-commerce)
• Paycycle (payroll)
• Any combination of these
• Or a range of other related solutions (such as reporting and CRM)

Please call by and talk to us - we will be at stand K43. 

If you haven't got a ticket yet you can still get in for free, as long as you book by midnight tonight and use a promo code.  If you don't have a promo code click on this CeBIT Sydney link, type "CeBIT promo" in the other comments field and we will forward one to you.

Looking forward to seeing you over the next three days!

The last 18 months has been a pretty hectic time for Viridity, with a shift of focus from desktop to cloud solutions.  We have become dealers for Xero, Paycycle & Unleashed and now have many clients up on one or more of these products (with more being added every week). 

We use Xero & Paycycle internally, as well as a number of other cloud solutions: Workflowmax for our internal workflow, time recording and lead management, Google Apps for email and Box.net for our data storage / data transfer.  We continue to review other cloud solutions that might add value internally or for our clients.

Migrating to these products has involved a learning curve, but far less than with corresponding desktop solutions - and without these solutions we would not be able to provide the level of client service that has allowed us to grow our business.

Not everyone in the market is ready for cloud solutions - we still sometimes hear concerns about security, speed or other issues, but we are seeing a continual shift in the market as more people become comfortable with cloud solutions. 

It is clear (to me at least) that these concerns will continue to diminish over time: 5 years ago many people refused to use their credit card on-line, yet by 2011 the majority of us are comfortable with a wide range of on-line transactions.  Most projections of the IT world over the next 3 or 4 years see significant ongoing growth in take up of cloud solutions.

For those of you who currently prefer to keep you data on your local PC or server please keep reviewing what is available in the cloud - there are no right and wrong answers, so I am not suggesting that by rejecting the cloud you are "wrong".  But as the balance continues to tip you might be missing out on options that could deliver huge benefit to your business.  If you do decide the time is right to make that switch we would love to talk to you.

I have written about the security issues of holding data in the cloud on a number of ocassions, both in this blog and on various forums.  it is an emotive topic, with some people completely chilled about the idea, others very worried about issues ranging from their data being hacked by competitors, data being lost or corrupted, data being accessed by various government agencies and so on.  I have felt for a while (and argued in this blog post) that much of this fear was not entirely rational (still valid of course, but just not warranted based on the facts). 

Today I came across an interesting survey from the UK on this topic that very strongly suggests that this really is one of those classic "fears of the unknown".  Once people overcome that initial fear and investigate this a little further their experiences are overwhelmingly positive.  Based on these positive experiences and a better understanding of the risks involved their concerns about the cloud change dramatically.

The survey looked at levels of concern about cloud security and privacy, compared to the respondents current experience with cloud apps.  Looking at the graphs below we see a very clear trend of those with significant experience rating cloud / Saas as better or no different, whilst those with limited or no experience perceive the risks on both these measures as being far higher.




It is of course important to note that not all Saas providers have an equally good record on either security or privacy.  There have been some well documented breaches of security / privacy in the cloud, but equally many in-house businesses have been broken into, had data hacked, lost records through breaches of security and so on.  And many cloud apps have an exemplary record.   Once again I find myself coming to the conclusion that I know where I believe my data is safest!

Forgive me for distributing a tweet thorugh a blog post!  There is a reason for this, first the tweet:

Heading off to the Xero dealers conference in Taupo, really looking forward to it! #Xero

So why blog it?  Well if you are interested in Xero, in what Xero can do for your business right now or what it might be able to do in the pretty near future please keep an eye on this blog or sign up to follow me on Twitter (Rhys2011).  I will try to Tweet throughout the conference, and within a few days will certainly post a blog of all that is new in the Xero world.

I am looking forward to meeting lots of other Xero dealers, to being able to hang out and chat with the guys from Unleashed, to taking a look at all the other third party applications which integrate with Xero.  It's gonna be a blast!

More to follow, or see you on Twitter.

I do so love working with software in the cloud (Xero, Paycycle, Unleashed, etc)!  Of the many delights the speed of release of new upgrades is one of the best.  It is hard to believe that in the past 6 weeks we have seen 3 releases from Xero, including:

• a release on November 2nd – enhancement to bank feeds, notifications inbox (a really neat feature) and various upgrades to repeating invoices and contacts;
• a release on November 30th – Yodlee bank feeds for the US, and a really nice enhancement to bank feeds for all users (users can now check within Xero if a direct fees is available from their bank).

And now a release today that contains a whole list of great new or enhanced features: a couple of these are thinks I have been requesting (along with many others, I can’t claim all the credit) so they will be in use by several of my customers before today is out!  My pick of the list is as follows:

Custom Invoice Templates

You can now – get this – simply create your very own templates using Microsoft Word for invoices, credit notes or statements.  Once uploaded Xero will automatically merge with your data to produce PDF documents that are unique to your company.  So all of you graphic design types who have beautiful crafted invoices, you can now do these direct in Xero.  Wow!  Take a look at the video to see how easy this is.

Bulk Emailing of Statements and Invoices

You can now send invoices or statements to a batch of clients with one click of a button (for me this is one of the “implement today” features)!  Documents can be batch printed, emailed or sent via the Xero-to-Xero network.  If need be you can update contact email addresses on the fly.

Updated Bank Account Transaction Tabs

This is a bit more mundane, but for those of you who do the bank reconciliations Xero have added a new set of tabs to make it easier to navigate between the list of account transactions, statements, reconciliation and cash coding screens when viewing a bank account.

Lots of other new features specific to the US or NZ (details on the Xero blog).

Plus there are few things for the accountants & Bookkeepers out there to get excited about:

• Detailed Account Transaction Report
• Edit Reconciled Spend / Receive Money Transactions
• Edit Posted Manual Journals
• Trial and Demo Organisations to include multicurrency

Check out the Xero blog for details, if you need any help or advise on any of these please contact Viridity, we would love to help you join the cloud.

Over the past few months we have seen a change in the size and complexity of businesses implementing cloud based solutions.  Prior to that Viridity had implemented lots of micro businesses (single person, or maybe 1 / 2 staff) most of whom had gone live with either a single solution (Xero) which adequately met all of their accounting requirements or with Xero plus Paycycle (for payroll).

More recently we have been referred an increasing number of “small / medium” clients (from maybe a half a dozen employees to 20 or more), each of which have more complex requirements in one or more areas.  In each case we have been able to meet all their needs entirely through cloud solutions, and have done so far more effectively than would have been possible with desktop software.  A few examples of the businesses we have set up over the past couple of months, or are in the process of setting up right now include:

·         A multi-location service business, running an industry specific (cloud based) “front desk” solution, which we have integrated with Xero for back-office accounting.  We have implemented Paycycle for all their payroll needs, and in addition this client was already using both Dropbox and Basecamp – very eager adopters of cloud solutions!

·         An inventory based business in WA for whom we are in the process of rolling out Unleashed for inventory control & Xero for their accounting.  In addition we are working with their web designers to integrate their e-commerce module into Unleashed / Xero.

·         A training organisation for whom we have provided a complete virtual Finance department (from bookkeeping on Xero and payroll via Paycycle, through to an outsourced CFO service).

A couple of these warrant a far more detailed “case study” write up, which we will be working on early in the new year.

Interestingly none of these clients are local to Viridity (in North Sydney), but the use of cloud solutions has allowed us to provide them great solutions irrespective of location. 

This move to adopt not only online products but solutions made up of multiple online products is very exciting.  The key to implementing solutions comprising multiple components lies in the level and ease of integration.  At times I am put in mind of the wonderful Arthur C Clarke quote “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. 

When I watch the way that Unleashed integrates into Xero I am constantly amazed at how easy this is, and by the thought that all integrations should be like this!  When I demo how these systems integrate (for example how an invoice raised in Unleashed integrates into Xero) I am often asked to “do it again”, because the client can’t quite believe it is that easy.

If you would like to see how easy this is please contact Viridity – we would love to help you make the move into the cloud.