Up with the enterprise

Quicken is set to dip its toes in the enterprise space, releasing accounting software for companies with 20 to 150 employees on 8 August, via its system integrator and value-added reseller network.

Greg Wilkinson, CEO of listed Australian accounting software vendor Reckon Ltd, trading as Quicken, said the new package, QuickBooks Enterprise, would initially be aimed at firms that had grown too big for their QuickBooks Pro software or its rival, MYOB Premier--what he calls the "stretchers" and "churners".

"The traditional channel is not appropriate for this product because it's a big ticket item and needs an IT analyst-type person to work with it. We will be using value-added retailers and system integrators and our traditional accounting channel," Wilkinson said.

QuickBooks Enterprise has a recommended retail price of $4,500, including an annual licensing fee of $2,500, support, free upgrades and tax updates. Reckon has 5,000 professional partners and 500 accounting partners that promote Quicken products, Wilkinson said.

The product was likely to prove "fairly important" in generating future revenue for Reckon, he said, as there were around 32,000 Australia-based businesses with 20 to 150 employees and few strong software competitors.

"In the US, that is 67 percent of the market in terms of size, and we expect it to be the same here," Wilkinson said. "In the US, Intuit found that 20 percent of their database was stretching the capabilities of QuickBooks.

Then they found out they were the market leader in that space." He said "the 1,000-pound gorilla known as Intuit" attempted to come up with a package that would better fill the accounting needs of enterprises of that size.

The result, QuickBooks Enterprise, has been tweaked for Australian needs. The new software reflected international accounting standards, offered multi-currency and multi-site functionality, and provided inventory tracking, payroll and other business management applications for up to 10 users, he said.

QuickBooks Enterprise requires at least an IBM-compatible 500MHz Pentium III machine with 128 MB of RAM, running Windows 98 or newer, 280 MB of disk space, Internet Explorer 6.0, 16 bit colour and 1,024 x 768 resolution. The software integrates with Word and Excel.

Reckon has forecast net profit after tax for the six months ending 30 June 2003 of $2.5m to $2.6 million, up from the $2.2 million to $2.4 million expected. Retail sales of new products was 40 percent up on similar sales for June 2002.