Reckon has updated its Reckon Accounts Hosted service to the long awaited “version 2” promising faster and more reliable performance.

The service delivers the latest version of desktop accounting software Reckon Accounts (formerly QuickBooks) through an internet browser. One of the biggest behind-the-scenes changes was moving the service from Reckon’s own data centre to Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing provider.

Reckon launched the hosted service several years ago and the underlying infrastructure struggled to keep up, Daniel Rabie, Reckon’s strategic director, said. “The big change was moving it to AWS which is world-class, it’s truly stable and reliable,” Rabie said.

Users no longer need to load a separate remote-access program to log into Reckon Accounts Hosted. The Citrix plugin was criticised for making the accounting software too slow to use, and the plugin had problems printing reports.

“The actual plugin itself was quite difficult to download. You needed the correct domain and the correct credentials which made it quite complicated for the average small business,” Rabie said. “It wasn’t recognised by local printers so that was a major concern,” he added.

Users can now access the software straight from their browser by typing in their username and password on the login screen.

“We have done something fairly innovative. You would struggle to find anyone who has done it anywhere in the world at this scale,” Rabie said.

“And with AWS supporting it the speed with which you can generate reports far exceeds anything before. We had some reports that took five minutes now it takes a couple of seconds,” Rabie said. “It’s feeling a lot more like a true web experience.”

Other improvements were the ability to easily download company files and making it easier for accountants to move clients across from desktop software to the hosted version. Many accountants had been waiting for the improved version.

“I do expect a lot of our partners will want to migrate a lot of their current desktop clients to Reckon Accounts Hosted now that it’s much more stable, reliable and easier to use,” Rabie said.

Problems with a major upgrade for Reckon Accounts Hosted over the weekend have filled Reckon’s community forums with complaints and prompted a letter of apology from Reckon CEO Clive Rabie.

Users were experiencing four main issues. Users logged into into the upgraded version of Reckon Accounts (formerly QuickBooks) through a web interface instead of a remote-software plugin by Citrix. Several users had struggled to connect to the software through their browser, although this issue had now been resolved, said Rebecca Kington, Reckon’s communications manager, told Digital First.

“The connection issue has been resolved but it’s taking a while for the system to log in and we’re still working on that,” Kington said. Other users were unable to locate their company files due to a change in the software interface. (See instructions for finding the file below.)

In some cases, company files needed to be reattached to the user’s account and required the user to call support, Kington said. No data files or backups had been lost, she said.

 

Lengthy response times from Reckon’s support call centre had caused “some frustration” among users, Kington said.

The upgraded Reckon Accounts Hosted was a major overhaul which performed much faster and could print to any printer with PDF downloads, Kington said.

“I want to thank partners for the ongoing feedback since the move to the new version of Reckon Accounts Hosted over the weekend. I also want to personally apologise for any frustration that these changes may have caused you or your clients, and for any difficulties you or your clients may have had reaching our support team,” Reckon CEO Clive Rabie said in an email sent to customers.

In the email Rabie claimed that over 4,000 users were accessing the software already. “Once we work through any and all issues users are experiencing through this upgrade process, I am confident that you and your clients user experience will be far better,” Rabie added.

 

Instructions for finding a company file in Reckon Accounts Hosted

Reckon sent the instructions below:

Through the change to the new Reckon Accounts Hosted service some files are not appearing where users expect and in some cases they are no longer visible to the admin user. If your company file is not showing in the No Company Open window, we suggest that you take these steps to manually locate your data file:

1. Go to the File menu and select Open or Restore a Company file. The Open Company:Type window opens.
2. Select Open a company file (.QBW).
3. From the Look In drop-down, select My Live (Q:) drive. Your QBW file will be in this folder. If you have a shared file, the shared folder will also be in this folder as a shortcut. You will now be able to open your file from here. You will need to click on the file shared shortcut (you may have a few of those). If you cannot find your file in the first list of shortcuts, proceed to the remaining shortcuts until you locate your desired file.
4. Select your file and click on open.

If after following these steps you are unable to locate your data file you will need the assistance of our support team on 1300 799 150.

Accounting software company Reckon has blamed a major infrastructure upgrade for causing intermittent access to Reckon Accounts Hosted on Monday and Tuesday this week.

The outage caused a lot of frustration among users in Reckon’s forums attempting to close off the previous month. Reckon sent customers an email from CEO Clive Rabie offering an explanation and apology for downtime.

“Reckon embarked on a necessary upgrade to the underlying infrastructure of the service last weekend. As a result of this process on Monday, 2 June 2014, some of you may have experienced difficulties accessing the Reckon Accounts Hosted service,” Rabie wrote.

“We’d like to apologise for the frustration that these difficulties with the service might have caused you,” he said.

The upgrade was carried out over the weekend to improve speed, performance and stability ahead of the busiest time of the year for the program. During the upgrade early on the morning of Monday 2 June, Reckon engineers detected an issue with the configuration of the servers’ storage that resulted in a number of users experiencing issues.

Problems included delayed logins, slow running for certain reports and logins failing to work on the first attempt. The company reported that all issues had been resolved by Tuesday evening.

The full text of the message is below.

 

Reckon Email to Customers

To Reckon Accounts Hosted customers,

Due to ongoing growth of Reckon Accounts Hosted, increasing demand and our quest to provide a world-class service, Reckon embarked on a necessary upgrade to the underlying infrastructure of the service last weekend.

As a result of this process on Monday, 2 June 2014, some of you may have experienced difficulties accessing the Reckon Accounts Hosted service.

We’d like to apologise for the frustration that these difficulties with the service might have caused you.

Some of the difficulties customers reported included:

•         Slow login to the service,
•         Slow running of certain reports, and
•         At peak times of the day some were unable to login on the first try.

What caused the Reckon Accounts Hosted login issue?

The significant change to the underlying infrastructure involved upgrading to a technology platform that now gives us greater visibility, flexibility and control over the server infrastructure supporting the service. This upgrade carried out in preparation for our busiest time of the year, now improves the stability, speed and performance of the  service overall.

Following the upgrade early on Monday, 2 June, we detected an issue with the configuration of our servers’ storage that resulted in a number of users experiencing some of the issues as mentioned above.

Our technical teams worked relentlessly during this period to resolve the issues being experienced by customers and by Tuesday afternoon our support enquiries indicated that most customer problems were resolved. We are now getting positive feedback about the service.

Throughout this time the Reckon Community was regularly updated, and customer queries through our contact centre as well as social media channels were answered.

What did we achieve as a result of the upgrade?

We know that the Reckon Accounts Hosted service is a critical business tool for thousands of businesses. As a result of the upgrade to the underlying infrastructure of the service we now have:

•         Increased capacity to deal with increasing demand, and
•         Better stability and reliability during peak times.

Our ongoing improvements to the service

We also acknowledge that improvements to the service overall are essential. At a date soon to be announced, we are planning to launch a new version of Reckon Accounts Hosted. This new version will provide:

•         A more streamlined login process so that all users can access Reckon Accounts Hosted from any device without the need to install any plug-ins or agents,
•         A single version of Reckon Accounts Hosted to provide one service for all users, meaning all users will have access to a single premium service,
•         Improved printing capabilities, so that your business can easily select a local printer without needing to worry about configurations within Reckon Accounts Hosted, and
•         Improved data file backup management capabilities so you have greater visibility and control over the backup of your data files.

We will also work on improving how we communicate with you to ensure you are informed as early as possible of any potential trouble spots.

Again, we apologise for any frustration that difficulties with the Reckon Accounts Hosted service may have caused you. This message will be posted on the Reckon Community to enable you to have an open dialogue with us about the future of the Reckon Accounts Hosted service.

Yours sincerely,

Clive Rabie

Chief Executive Officer