Sales of SaaS software in Western Europe are anticipated to hit $3.2 billion this year according to Gartner, with organisations keen to exploit the inherent usability and speed of deployment as well as the economic benefits associated with subscription based pricing.

Security pledges are a key component of every SaaS sales offer – but just how committed is your chosen vendor to really delivering strong security processes?

Here are five questions you should ask your SaaS vendor before putting your data in the cloud:

1. Independent Audit: Is the vendor audited every quarter by a trusted third party robustly assessing the depth and quality of both processes and technologies employed to safeguard this critical financial data?
2. Proactive security checks: Does the vendor use an intrusion detection service to ensure security policies are continually evolving in line with the changing threat landscape? And what are the most recent results?
3. Effective Staff Management: What is the vendor’s policy towards front-end issues such as passwords? Most companies have good back end security processes in place, leaving hackers to focus on compromising staff in order to gain access to passwords. Can staff be targeted with unsolicited email and USB sticks which can upload trojans or other viruses onto your company network? Breaking the corporate policy can compromise data security and result in business-critical infirmation being compromised.
4. End User Policy Enforcement: This is an issue that every organisation – from vendors to accounting practice to clients – needs to address. Always shred paper before disposal; ensure staff never use unsolicited USB sticks; and, critically, enforce strong passwords that are changed regularly. The vendor should lead by example – so it is worth asking for proof.
5. Education: For the investment in SaaS to realise its full potential, it is essential users trust the data – otherwise they will be tempted to retain key information in spreadsheets, undermining the improvements that can be gained through automation and creating opportunities for errors. Can the vendor advise on good user education surrounding the new SaaS model and data security as part of the overall deployment?

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield

After over a decade of use, Software as a Service (SaaS) is really hitting the mainstream, with organisations increasingly considering SaaS solutions for core applications, including ERP and Financials.

The shift towards cloud computing and SaaS has prompted a huge increase in data centre providers and most SaaS vendors will leverage third party data centre resources to store clients’ data since it is the most cost effective approach. However, the difference between these organisations can be significant, not only in areas of performance and resilience but also security. To ensure the long-term safety of key financial data, organisations need to look at a variety of issues from location to physical security and compliance with standards.

Here are five questions you need to ask your Data Centre Provider before trusting financial data to the cloud:

1. Data Location: Organisations are understandably concerned about where data is located. With cloud data storage by its very nature based anywhere in the world and some government legislation – specifically the US – permitting access to data on demand, is is vitally important for organisations to check where data is stored.
2. Data Security: It is also important to assess the quality of security being deployed at the data centre. Check out the physical security employed on site and whether the data centre conforms to the European standard for data centres.
3. Data Centre Processes: With Internet risks evolving on a daily basis, companies need to ascertain the quality of real time monitoring tools and intrusion detection techniques. They also need to check the robustness of back-up and failover solutions to ensure no data loss and guarantee the promised 24×7 access to information.
4. Legal Requirements: The essence of the SaaS model is total flexibility, allowing companies to easily move between suppliers. But what happens to the data if the company unsubscribes from the service to move to a different vendor? With a legal requirement to retain financial information for at least seven years, it is essential to ensure the data centre has a process in place to comply with data compliance requirements and to find out exactly how that information will be accessed as and when required.
5. Secondary Site: What is the data centre’s provision for disaster recovery (DR)? Many London-based data centres are having to consider the risks associated with the Olympics and Golden Jubiliee, but any data centre needs to have good DR in place to ensure continuous availability and safeguard data in the event of a problem at the primary site. Are the processes in place at the secondary site also robust?

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield

Since the acquisition of Twinfield by Wolters Kluwer, my colleagues and I are regularly involved in projects and workgroups within Wolters Kluwer. And given that our approach to and handling of social media is generally the most successful within the wider organisation, we are regularly invited to give insight on the subject. Which we are more than happy to do.

So we find ourselves frequently in conversation with both business owners and employees within accounting and bookkeeping firms, to share our vision of marketing and social media. And of course, within Wolters Kluwer, the concept and purpose of social media is a topic of some interest – hence the Social Media Marketing Initiative. “Intriguing title for an event,” I thought a few months ago, when the invitation to attend this meeting appeared in my inbox.

A few months previously, I had spoken with the collegues who had initiated the social media working-group of Wolters Kluwer. In a meeting that took place in Hoevelaken, I tried to explain how Twinfield was using social media. Not as a lead generation tool, or even as a sales tool – in fact, everything but that. We think it’s important to listen, to engage in conversation and to really be in contact with others. Whether they are clients or not. Funnily enough, many people – and companies – find that surprising.

While presenting in Munich to a group of colleagues from across Wolters Kluwer’s international offices including England, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Germany and of course Holland, it became apparent that our approach is far from conventional. Colleagues are very interested in do’s and don’ts and keen to learn: they are hungry for the practical examples from which they can learn. Well, there are plenty of those. In Holland, KLM does some exemplary work that leaves us speechless: there’s the KLM Surprise initiative, or Tile & Inspire. All great examples that clearly demonstrate how and why social media works. Another good example: the Fanwagon from Volkswagen. And Twinfield’s own André Kwakernaat’s video on his vision for accounting in 2014 also attracted a lot of positive comments – and a lot of online ‘shares’.

There was something else that I noticed with interest; the quite significant differences between the different European countries. Not just northern and southern Europe, but also Holland and Belgium, for example. Or Belgium and Germany. Countries that are neighbours; a stone’s throw from each other, but that have a completely different perspective on how information should be shared and what the purpose is for taking part in social networking. So in Germany, for example, hardly anyone uses the (business) network LinkedIn. In Germany, Xing is the network of choice. Likewise, in many countries it is rare for individuals to share personal information on the social networks. In Holland everyone does – with of course, the occasional exception. Of course, it is not my intention to suggest that Holland should be the evangelist for all things social, but it is good to see that the approach can be different, and successful.

There’s also a lot of interest in tools. Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, or yet another tool? What’s the strategy? And what’s the etiquette when it comes to sharing content generated by someone else? Good question. As far as I can see, sharing (and wanting to share) is the foundation for success on the social networks.  How do you manage multiple languages in one country, such as Belgium? And how does the social world differ for a publisher of knowledge and information, in comparison to your next-door neighbour who’s just bought a piece of software?

Fear has a role to play too. “I didn’t Tweet about the fact that I’m taking part in this,” one of my colleagues said. “Why not,” I asked. “Competition,” was the reply. “Lots of my competitors follow me and I follow them. I don’t want to give anyway anything game-changing.” Sure, that’s one argument. But we’re not talking about state secrets here; in this case, we’re debating taking part in social networking. Is it really likely that our competitors have no idea that we’re talking about this? Or – more likely yet – that they are not developing their own thought leadership in this field? It’s worth pausing to consider these things. How do you manage the competition; what do you share, give away; what can you learn? How do you manage employees and social media: if part of their job role is to Tweet and Facebook, where are the controls?

Lots of questions, many different answers.

One key take-away is this: stay innovative. Our competitors are looking at our product, our solution. Of course they are! We’re doing exactly the same. So, they make up some ground… We’ll develop our solution into something newer and better. Twinfield has grown – and become a market leader – through innovative thinking and innovative action. Because, 12 years ago, online accounting didn’t exist. And that is vision. Stay forward-thinking, keep evolving, and stay one – preferably more – step ahead of the competition.

It’s exciting to be part of the changes taking place within Wolters Kluwer. Every ‘national team’ has gone home with clear goals and the task to turn these into local action plans. I, for one, am curious; I’ll certainly have one eye on our mutual progress!

Text: Raymond Koning, online and social marketeer Twinfield International N.V.

Connect? Use Twitter or LinkedIn.

I’m writing this blog while on a plane and will have to post it later, as internet connectivity is unfortunately still not standardly available in the air. Together, my colleague Gerard-Jan Bentvelzen and I are travelling to London. It’s been a while since I’ve been there, but is now highly worthwhile as we are seeing the fruits of the labour of our dedicated British team as well as the results of a highly positive relationship with CCH, a subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer in the UK.

The next few days are packed full with meetings, lunches, dinners. Yet, while travelling together, you find the almost unique opportunity to properly catch up. We’ve all experienced it; you spend a day travelling with a colleague and find that you have so much more to discuss than you would do when you’re both in the office. And of course, alongside the work, there is some time a private matter or two. And this time, I will know to carry the fish (koi) particularly carefully on account of the changing water temperature.

We have a few meetings in the diary with accounting firms, some big players in the mix too. British accounting firms have taken their time to wake up to the potential of the cloud. So, every now and then, we find ourselves almost a missionary when it comes to introducing new ways of working. Last week, I received an invitation to present the closing keynote at the ICAEW’s cloud congress on 30^th April. And yes, 30^th April – they don’t celebrate Koninginnedag (a national holiday in the Netherlands to celebrate the birthday of the Queen) in England. Of course, it’s a great opportunity to tell our story to a large UK audience; and it’s an opportunity I’m relishing.

What strikes me is the fact that the cloud is becoming increasingly important to ERP software providers. They are busy developing their own cloud-based solutions or buying them from each other. In my opinion, that’s exactly what you should not be doing. On the Internet, it’s the best-of-breed solutions that are getting the job done; look at Salesforce.com. Salesforce has over 1500 partners who are all developing solutions based on that particular platform. So how do you make solutions for everyone and then add highly specialist functionality? It’s all about finding clever solutions and joining those together seamlessly, to couple them. At Twinfield, we’re doing that with Twinapps; at Salesforce, the apps can be found in the Appexchange. This means you can only really develop a solution to a particular level, because there is then something else in the pipeline. There’ll be a blog soon about this subject where I’ll discuss it in greater depth.

I am curious to find out how the preparations for the Olympic Games are going. In 2011 I founded my own triathlon team, inspired by the story of Evert Scheltinga, an athlete from my hometown. His dream is to participate in the triathlon at the 2016 Olympics. For Team4Talent it’s primarily about August 7^th, the date for the Olympic distance triathlon. Our Danne Boterenbrood is doing everything in her might to win a place in the starting line-up for the most beautiful sporting competition in existence. She just needs one more result: a finish in the top 16 in a world cup event! The first chance is on April 15^th in Sydney. Danne is evidence that sometimes you have to sacrifice everything to obtain that one goal. There are a lot of similarities between entrepreneurship and top sport. Maybe I’ll write a book on that one day, there’s enough to be said!

Text: André Kwakernaat

Founder & CEO Twinfield International

Historically, accounting practices have been guarded about sharing information freely and being too open with clients in order to protect their competitive advantage, but the Internet and the increasing popularity of social media tools have changed the ground-rules.

Many other professional service organisations now provide products or services online for free, in order to show what the business can do. For example, analyst firms publish extracts of their research findings online, whilst legal firms provide top-line advice about new or forthcoming legislation. Once a new client has been reeled in, the firm can then sell them a fuller service.

Accountancy practitioners could be adopting a similar approach to showcase the wealth of information they are sitting on – and the services they can offer to organisations on the back of this. Continuing to guard their knowledge and price their services in terms of billable hours is to miss the way the service industry is moving.

Busy managers and entrepreneurs depend on rapid access to timely, relevant information to keep them sharp and ahead of the game. Just as intelligent filtering tools can help managers filter Twitter feeds and sales leads, so they should now be able to proactively drill down into their financial accounts – presented in a way they understand – to quickly spot trends, issues and new opportunities.

The Internet makes the transformation easy. By employing graphical reporting tools, accountancy firms can automate secure, online client reporting, using colour-coded dashboards to bring the figures to life for non-financial users, through illustrative graphs that highlight themes, trends and anomalies.

Social media has turned the rules of doing business upside down, collaboration and transparency brings a more trusted relationship with clients and leads to a better value proposition.

Kevin McLoughlin,
UK Country Manager, Twinfield

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield

As UK organisations face up to the implications of zero growth during 2012, SMEs are, once again, looking to cut costs to the bone. But these organisations are at a significant disadvantage when compared to some European competitors. In the Netherlands for example, the relationship between business and accountant has been fundamentally transformed over the past decade by introducing transparency and collaboration.

How can UK businesses make the right, timely decisions about costs or new business ventures when the only detailed insight they have into business operations is the annual accounts – typically provided months after year-end? How can they exploit market trends in demand for specific products without trusted information about profitability or the implications on the overall cost base of scaling up production or expanding services to meet this demand?

There is a huge opportunity for accountants to step up to the mark and play a vital role in enabling a new level of business insight and understanding that could transform the performance of the UK’s SMEs. But, to achieve this critical role will require accountants to offer new value propositions and adopt Software as a Service based technology to attain near real time access to client information, whilst freeing up talented individuals to share their expertise and knowledge with the marketplace.

With this cultural shift, the UK SME will have the same level of decision-making confidence that companies across Europe have been exploiting for many years.

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield

Software as a Service (SaaS) has become an increasingly accepted way of sourcing technology, offering accountancy firms new ways to interact with clients. This gives small businesses access to a range of real time services, from cash flow forecasts to tax planning, that bear no resemblance to the traditional annual accounts provision and discussion of old.

A few accountants, or their clients, have yet to address the issue of automated invoice processing. By combining SaaS based accounting technology with electronic document management that provides both invoice automation and e-invoicing, accounting practices and small to medium businesses can process invoices automatically, reducing costs and providing faster insight into operational performance.

The ability to provide any business with near real time insight into performance is incredibly powerful. Simply accessing the accountant’s portal to discover how different parts of the business are performing, to track cash flow or assess the impact of currency fluctuations provides unprecedented confidence in decision making.  In addition, the accountant can publish the client’s accounts on the portal, providing anytime, anywhere access to accounting records – useful when talking to investors – as well as the ability to drill through the information to attain a full financial history.

By automating invoice processing through document scanning, standardising processes and using self learning software, accountants can create a near real time resource of client financial information that can transform the customer relationship. It also provides a depth of financial expertise that will be essential to help SMEs maintain or even grow their businesses during this sustained economic downturn, whilst delivering quantifiable additional service revenue to the bottom line.

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield

Growing numbers of accountancy firms are exploring the potential of Software as a Service (SaaS) based financial software. But how confident are clients about the security of data that is stored in the cloud? How easy is it for the accountancy practice to allay fears about the corruption or loss of business critical financial data or explain the compliance and governance implications of the shift from on premise to SaaS approach?

It is critical that accountancy firms understand the questions they need to ask potential suppliers about the quality of their security processes and procedures. For example, where will the data be located? Growing numbers of companies are unwilling to opt for US data centres, even where there is a ‘safe harbour’ agreement with the US. In addition, companies need to consider how they are sharing sensitive client data. Despite concerns over Government access to information, many are increasingly using cloud based file sharing services – which are hosted in the US, raising more concerns regarding compliance and data security.

It is also important to check out the quality of security being deployed at the data centre. Most SaaS providers will leverage third party data centre resources to store clients’ data – it is the most cost effective approach. But data centres vary significantly in the level of investment in data security and availability and not all conform to the European standard for data centres or do the minimum required. Issues to consider include not only essential physical security but also real time monitoring tools and intrusion detection techniques; as well as the robustness of back-up and failover solutions to ensure no data loss and deliver the promised 24×7 access to information.

There is no doubt that the trend towards SaaS based solutions will continue to grow. And, for accountants, it provides an excellent opportunity to cut costs and move into new areas of subscription based services that will add revenue and build strong, trusted client relationships. But this vision can only be realised if clients are totally confident in the security and integrity of sensitive financial data.

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield

On the face of it, the dynamic world of social media and the traditionally conservative, structured world of accountancy seem poles apart. Tweeting, sharing multimedia content and collaborating online hardly sound like features that would add value for figure-hungry clients or the firms that serve them.

But just as the public is now being given more rights to information in their medical records, and can easily look up their credit rating, or bank/retail account status, clients of accounting services are demanding greater, more flexible access to their own business information.

Information services provision is now a product business, like any other. The knowledge that accountancy firms hold about their clients is of no value to anyone but the given customer, so they have nothing to gain by keeping this information locked up. By sharing it with the client, on the other hand, the firm has an opportunity to enrich the client relationship and promote additional services.

The investment required is minimal – simple iPhone or Android apps to provide information snapshots to clients’ mobile devices are easy to get up and running, allowing clients to see at a glance which invoices are outstanding, and so on.

To deny such content to clients who are now so accustomed to information freedom in just about every other aspect of their working and personal lives is to deprive them of full control over their businesses. In a fiercely competitive global market, what kind of service is that?

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield

The accountancy market is in a state of flux – squeezed by the trend towards lower priced book-keeping services at one end and the push into the mid market by the Big Six at the other. But as the UK’s SMEs brace once more for a tough 12 months, there is a massive opportunity for accountants to offer real value to clients, evolving from the annual client discussion towards a more interactive service that meets the needs of businesses struggling to assess the way forward.

Rather than simply cut fees, accountants should be leveraging their expertise and becoming a key part of the client’s business. Such services can only be achieved with real time – or near real time – information from clients; the old model of an annual review is outdated and, increasingly, irrelevant.

Software as a Service (SaaS) based financial software offers the chance to transform the client relationship. The subscription based model minimises the investment required, removing the need for internal IT expertise or server infrastructure. Cash flow is improved with the regular monthly income, while IT costs diminish; and the fact that the information is online – and available 24×7 – means there is no need to be office based, allowing firms to embrace more flexible working practices.

But, to achieve this critical role will require a significant shift in attitude and culture. It will require accountants to adopt not only new technology but also a new way of working that minimises repetitive administrative processes and frees up talented individuals to share their expertise and knowledge with the marketplace.

Kevin McLoughlin
UK Country Manager Twinfield