One of our newest customers in the UK is Nincomsoup - a stylish, fast food diner specialising in soups, juices and coffee. We met Ben Page, one of the two founders, at their first restaurant just outside the entrance to Old Street underground station in London. Ben has an intriguing background having started in the Oddbins wine business, has trained as a chef, as well becoming an expert on Cuban cigars. He tells me the aim with Nincomsoup was to provide a healthy alternative to the usual fast food suspects that litter the high street. Nincomsoup provide 'real food' served with the same efficiency and convenience that we have come to expect from the big fast food operators. By 'real food' Ben means:

"food that provides a balanced diet, food that you can eat 365 days a year, food that feeds the mind as well as the body."

Each day they offer a range of soups - poultry, meat, fish, cheese, pulse, vegetable or chilled, with each having at least 4 ingredients. You can see what's in the pot today. We think they have a winning combination, and the modern, simple design of the restaurants has a lot of appeal. They have 2 restaurants so far, but part of the rationale for switching from a traditional Sage Line 50 accounting solution to an online, Software as a Service solution based on Twinfield is to get the proper systems in place for future expansion. Ben wants to expand the chain, targeting busy, city centre locations, rather than smaller towns or shopping malls.  At the Old Street branch they get a regular turn over of business throughout every day of the week. As well as providing an accounting solution that can handle the extra volumes, extra locations, and which can be accessed anywhere from a browser and an Internet connection, they will have the ability to do much more detailed analysis with Twinfield's tools. For example, they plan to match weather factors like rainfall and temperature to sales, or track profitability by restaurant or franchise.

I was delighted when Ben made contact with us and explained why he wanted an online solution, as they sounded exactly like the kind of forward thinking customers we love to have. However, when I asked what other SaaS systems they use, I was impressed at just how much Nincomsoup has embraced "cloud computing". The team uses Gmail for email and the Google calendar application. They use Box.net for storing and sharing data, and Del.icio.us for bookmarking websites. For collaborating on spreadsheets, they use EditGrid, the product we've found to be the best and most comprehensive online spreadsheet solution. They use FnBshop, an on-demand solution, for their stock control and purchasing. They have adopted Highrise to keep tabs on their suppliers, and their contact address book is held in Plaxo. Staff use shared lists for reminders with Remember The Milk, but each restaurant has a Basecamp message board for memos, price changes, new products, or managers to do lists that need to be communicated between shifts. SLIMTIMER comes in to play to track the amount of time they spend on each project. All of these systems mean that they need to use Passpack for managing passwords, and of course, they use things like Skype. I preach adoption of SaaS and web based tools, but it's really not that often that I meet someone without a technology background who has embraced the web 2.0 world quite as completely as Ben and his team.

Nincomsoup were looking to change accountants along with the change from Sage. I introduced them to Goodman Jones, and I'm delighted to see that they will be working together. As well as being experts in Twinfield and use of the Internet, Goodman Jones have exactly the expertise that can help a growing, owner managed small business like Nincomsoup expand in the way Ben plans. I can see all of the ingredients for a very successful future.