Software company Reckon has slashed the price of its Accredited Partner program for accountants and bookkeepers from $1395 to $495 months before the release of its first Reckon-branded online accounting program in Q2.
Reckon wanted to boost the number of accredited partners so it could better reach businesses which were not using any accounting software. Online accounting software would play a key role in the first-time user market.
“Cloud software can be really great for small business,” Gerald Chait, Reckon’s group general manager of marketing, said. “By having more partners we believe more businesses will ultimately benefit.”
The company dropped the price by two-thirds by passing on efficiencies such as online software distribution, Chait said.
“A partner can buy product from us using online systems and do it themselves. There have been some areas of improved efficiency and we have passed that on to our partner network,” Chait said.
The annual subscription was also more flexible. Partners weren’t automatically charged for the annual partner conference but could pay the entry fee separately.
“In the past the partner paid for the conference whether they came or not. Most came,” Chait said. “But now we’ve given them the flexibility of going or not, and pay a small fee for going.”
Reckon’s accredited partners received leads from Reckon as well as commissions for software sales, marketing support, subsidies and more training than similar programs run by other accounting software companies, Chait said.
Reckon could offer unbiased advice to its partners on which technology platform suited a customer best – desktop, hosted or cloud. “It puts accountants and bookkeepers joining our program in a really strong position – probably a better position than other providers who can’t offer all three technologies,” Gerald said.
“It’s about having the depth of knowledge that we can provide to them to allwo them to become true experts in a range of technologies.”
The revised price for the Reckon partner program undercut a similar program from MYOB by several hundred dollars. MYOB’s Connected Accounting Program cost $753.50 although there was free membership for the partner program attached to the cloud-based LiveAccounts.
MYOB partners received LiveAccounts and cloud-syncing program AccountRight Live for free. There was no partner program specifically for AccountRight Live.
Intuit, owner of the QuickBooks brand and which sells cloud-accounting program QuickBooks Online in Australia, had recently introduced a free partner program called the ProAdvisor Program.
Members of the ProAdvisor Program in other countries paid a fee for access to free or heavily discounted copies for Intuit accounting software, as well as marketing support, and so on. “In Australia, where we offer just QuickBooks Online at this time, we aren’t charging a fee. Benefits such as marketing support increase as ProAdvisors increase the number of their clients on QuickBooks Online,” said an Intuit spokesperson by email.
Online accounting program Xero provided a free partner program with software, marketing leads, training, promotional material and dedicated support.
Online accounting program Saasu also had a free partner program with software discounts, a “sandbox” for testing Saasu features, and free access for their own firm to use.
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