Summary
Invantive will no longer be offering new subscriptions for accounting firms on Invantive SQL-based products to maintain a commercially viable and fair market model. Innovative accounting firms will be assisted as Business Process Outsourcing partners of their respective customers and traditional accounting firms will be served using pre-packaged solutions that exactly match their needs at a minimum cost level.
Delegating to Accountants
Invantive provides a large number of standard solutions, based upon Invantive SQL and over 50 data platforms in the cloud and on-premise. These solutions enable users to assess the state of their business using the information stored in data platforms such as Exact Online or Salesforce. A part of these users have delegated the maintenance and analysis of their business to accountants.
Especially on Exact Online, delegated maintenance by accountants is responsible for a very large percentage of the 400.000 Exact Online companies registered. Besides the so-called “internal companies”, most independent subscriptions by an entrepreneur have an accountant associated with it. In many of these independent subscriptions the accountant is responsible for the financial and regulatory reporting, while the entrepreneur manages the invoicing and delivery process himself. This is typically seen with companies which have sufficient business volume to justify dedicated accounting personnel or even a controller.
Accountancy in a Connected World
Invantive has offered subscriptions for accountants to analyze data of their customers and even upload data into their data platforms. This also held for both internal companies as well as independent subscriptions on Exact Online.
Especially the conditions provided by Exact Online are luxurious: an accountant can download and upload business transactions on behalf of their associated independent subscription companies without any additional costs for users or subscriptions. It extends also to non-financial data such as projects, time transactions, manufacturing and logistics. API integrations are provided to their customers with an independent subscription using accountancy user accounts.
These terms and conditions of Exact Online were too hard for us to work with. Access by 3rd parties to data of independent companies is normally explicitly excluded from commercial licenses; only users acting on behalf and licensed by the license holder are normally entitled to this activity. The same issue holds for other independent software suppliers.
In this case, accountants have a cost advantage over personnel employed by entrepreneurs. In a connected API world, this posed a challenge on the market propositions offered by Invantive to both accountants as well as entrepreneurs. In extreme cases the cost advantage of an accountant would be a factor 400 compared to the cost for an entrepreneur, with no reduction in the costs Invantive makes for our premium support.
This challenge required us to reconsider the propositions for the accountancy market, since they were neither fair for entrepreneurs with an independent subscription on Exact Online nor commercially viable.
Some additional insights around Exact Online helped us in this challenge:
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Access to internal companies is also frequently used by employees of the entrepreneurs, making internal companies effectively actually independent subscriptions.
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Some accounting firms invest heavily in knowledge, innovation and data scientists, creating more value for their customers at unchanged or lower costs, while others maintain the traditional model of accounting on behalf of their customers and running their business upon the percentage of billable hours.
Differentiating Accountancy Solutions
We’ve combined these findings together with our Invantive’s vision on doing business in a fair way and powering innovations for society.
A differentiation in accountancy solutions will help independent entrepreneurs, innovative and traditional accountants and Invantive to make more of their business. The changes are as follows:
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Traditional accounting firms will be served by solutions with pre-packaged functionality, created and maintained by Invantive and/or selected partners, at a minimum cost level. Invantive SQL and/or PSQL access is not available for the end users.
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Innovative accounting firms will be considered Business Process Outsourcing partners for their customers and served by our OEM-solutions, which provide enterprise-grade functionality to access, analyze and maintain over 50 data platforms. Invantive SQL and PSQL are available for employees of the accounting firm. Additionally, innovative accounting firms can use the solutions with pre-packaged functionality for traditional accounting firms.
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Use conditions on free product offerings will remain unchanged. There will be no changes for Invantive Query Tool or for instance https://valuta-tools.nl.
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Existing commercial product offerings will no longer be sold to firms with an accountancy classification, unless a quotation is open or a project is executing.
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Existing subscriptions by companies with an accountancy classification will be continued without changes.
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Existing subscriptions by non-accountancy companies will be continued without changes.
Pre-packaged Functionality
Solutions with pre-packaged functionality for traditional accountants will be based upon the web-based product “Get My Report” and the on-premise product “Invantive Producer Runtime”. Additional containers for running pre-packaged functionality might become available in the future.
Get My Report
Get My Report is available on https://get-my-report.com and provides pre-packaged functionality for various platforms such as Teamleader and Exact Online. It has a limited number of standard available apps for both reporting (red 1) as well as maintaining data in a platform (red 2). Depending on the subscription, additional app groups are displayed with customer-specific functionality to selected user groups (red 3, no additional groups displayed).
Based upon Invantive SQL/PSQL and Invantive Data Access Point, it provides an enterprise-grade hosted solution for web-based functionality tightly integrated with the functional needs of the accountant. Get My Report is priced per “partition”, which reflects for instance a Salesforce org or an Exact Online company. Get My Report pricing doesn’t depend on the number of users or devices.
Additional apps can be acquired but may not in their nature compete with other Invantive’s technology-based products.
Get My Report requires each user to have a log on code on the associated platform. For instance, an employee of an Exact Online company can only use Get My Report when he/she has a log on code on Exact Online. For transparency and compliance on authentication, authorization and audit trail, the platform features will be used.
Invantive Producer Runtime
Based upon the graphical versions of Invantive SQL/PSQL, Invantive Producer Runtime offers plugins with pre-packaged functionality targeting the exact needs of the accounting firm without the need to learn to use Invantive technology. Plugins can be designed and developed by Invantive and/or partners. Additional plugins can be acquired but may not in their nature compete with other Invantive’s technology-based products.
Invantive Producer Runtime is priced per “site”, with no restrictions on the number of partitions nor on the number of users.
All functionality of SQL/PSQL is available, including over 50 data platforms (red 1) such as Company.Info’s webservices.nl (red 2) or interpreting files in the SWIFT MT940 format (red 3).
OEM Solutions
In our opinion, innovative accounting firms are moving into the area of Business Process Outsourcing, since they tightly integrate with their customers’ business processes and provide high added value independent on the amount of labor actually spent for a customer. BPO companies typically run Invantive OEM solutions, which allow use of the software for the business of independent customers.
Invantive OEM solutions start at EUR 500 per month.
When considering the use of an OEM solution, please also check the terms & conditions of other software components involved.
Differentiating Innovative and Traditional Accounting Firms
The differentiation between traditional and innovative accounting firms will be made upon the following criteria:
- Does the firm invest yearly over EUR 50.000 in training and hours of personnel for data analysis?
- Does the firm have a monthly budget of at least EUR 500 to enter into an OEM-agreement?
- Does the firm select new customers based upon their customer’s industry and provide targeted accounting solutions for these industries?