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BillQuick Success Story by Carl Saxon:
BillQuick has been the answer
for my clients and me. My CPA practice is focused on engineering
consulting firms. My corporate experience was centered in an eight-year
stint as the CFO for a large engineering consulting firm. Both
experiences have exposed me to either very expensive, elaborate
financial software systems or mass market, inflexible systems that are
really fancy automated checkbooks.
Both alternatives were very
frustrating. The elaborate systems required a full time MIS staff and
hours of expensive training. At the end of day after the system was
fully installed and the last check had been written, I always had the
feeling that there had to be a better way. The cost could not really be
justified when you knew that a more economical way was technically very
feasible. The mass-market software products were just as frustrating,
because they seemed so close, yet so far. There was always this feeling
of "yes, but."
About three months ago, one of
my clients hit pay dirt. They had been discovered by the nuclear utility
industry and they grew from 10 to 75 people overnight. Their computer
financial system could not handle the workload. The firm’s management
hired me to research and evaluate an upgrade to their current computer
financial systems. I sat through the sales presentations of all the
large software vendors Timberline®, Harper & Schuman®, Solomon®, Real
World®, Semaphore®, etc.. The base bare bones cost of all of them was
$20,000 to $25,000, and when you added in training and support and more
staff, you could easily reach $50,000. My client could comfortably pay
this price, but it just went against all my training and instincts.
There just had to be a more economical way. PC’s had dropped to under
$1,000. Stock trades are now consistently under $10. Why can’t we get
effective billing software for an economical price?
Listening to all these pitches
was time consuming. My client was desperate to find a solution, and I
chose one of the large vendors for a final meeting where we would
finalize the price and begin installation. Before that meeting, I jumped
onto the Internet to do a quick search hoping that something would pop
up. Entering the words, billing, time, and accounting. The usual
suspects showed up Timeslips®, Quickbooks®, and Peachtree®. Been there -
done that. Two of my other clients had terrible experiences with
Timeslips®. To be fair, I downloaded all three programs and found them
to be inadequate. Some new names did show up for me, and one of them was
BillQuick™.
I went to their web page and the
layout was clear-cut and to the point. Nice. I immediately called them,
because time was running out. Someone other than an arrogant salesman
answered the phone. And he knew the program well. The price was out
there for all to see. $495 for up to five users. Yes! So far, so good. I
downloaded the program and spent the better part of the evening playing
with it and nursing a beer. I liked the layout. The screens were to the
point - just like their web page. Easy to understand. After twenty years
as an accountant, you just know what will work and what will not work. I
immediately knew that BillQuick™ was a better way.
I called my client the next
morning and told him that I found a better solution to his problem. I
downloaded BillQuick™ to my client’s computer that afternoon and showed
him what it could do. He liked the screens and he quickly understood the
power of the report writer. BillQuick™ has the price of the mass-market
programs and the power of the expensive programs.
Isn’t America a great place.
Carl V. Saxon, President
The Saxon Accounting Group
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