Due in July.
Reckon, the Australian and New Zealand distributor of popular accounting program QuickBooks, revealed last week that it would launch an accounting application for smartphones and tablets in July.
The application would include billing, time expenses and debtors’ ledger on iPhone and Android smartphones and tablets, said Gavin Dixon, CEO of Reckon’s business division.
“QuickBooks Hosted has a lot of functionality but there is a market there for entry-level solutions built around iPhones and Android devices that provide basic accounting functions for mobile users, which is below the QuickBooks market,” Dixon said.
Reckon would focus development on optimising the device for mobile users but eventually would bring the application to the desktop. “The emphasis… is addressing functionality for mobile users as the first priority and delivering solutions to desktops and laptops as a second priority,” Dixon said.
Dixon implied the mobile application would compete to some extent with Xero and Saasu. “You can’t be that different in core functionality,” he said. Data stored in the mobile application would be hosted from Australian data centres.
The application was unlikely to carry the QuickBooks brand which is owned by US behemoth Intuit. Reckon has made one web application for recording receipts called CashBook Online.
There was a slight possibility of the mobile application cannibalising QuickBooks sales at the lower end but it was better for Reckon to keep the customer than lose it to competitors.
Reckon was making more web applications including a mobile payments platform but Dixon said he wasn’t sure whether more would be released this year.
“We are absolutely paranoid about being the number one guy in Australia and New Zealand for cloud solutions. If we don’t do that then we will have a problem at some stage in the not too distant future,” Dixon said.
Click here for the the full interview on Reckon’s cloud plans for QuickBooks.