SaaS Channel Momentum Builds

Two nice pieces of news for Intacct's channel program this week at our annual user and partner conference.

Yesterday in the main conference session, we were delighted to recognize LarsonAllen as Intacct's partner of the year. Al Anderson, managing principal, accepted the award and gave a fabulous keynote on how LarsonAllen us using Software as a Service to transform their business.

Al talked about what is was like in the bad old days of having to deal with nearly 6,000 installations of nearly every version of just about every model of on-premises accounting packages. He then talked about how LarsonAllen has been rapidly deploying Intacct to eliminate the technical and business barriers arising from this chaos. By shifting to SaaS, he said that they are realizing major improvements to the service they can offer their clients, better career paths for their people and greatly improved operations for their business.

It was a great presentation and the most common comment from the other partners in the audience was "wow, I want to do that too."

We also issued a press release this morning announcing some of our new channel partners who have joined the Intacct Business Solutions Providor program. ACF Solutions, Business Intelligence101, Infoclad, FAOnDemand, InnoVergent, Software Solutions for Business, and Tripp Chaffin and Causey are among the new resellers who have recently joined the Intacct family.

Getting todays press release done was an interesting process because the partners were all here with us at the conference - so we were able to have them sit down and type their own quotes directly into the announcement. If you read what they say below I think you'll get the idea why momentum is really building in the SaaS channel - these partners are finding it easy to bring SaaS solutions to their customers and are building great businesses while doing so.

From Paul Camissa, managing partner of Innovergent:

We are excited about our Business Solutions Provider partner relationship with Intacct. Since our first contact with Intacct, it was very apparent how much of a priority the BSP program is to Intacct’s overall growth strategy. Intacct’s commitment to partner success starts from the executive team and runs through the entire organization. The partner-friendly strategy further supported our decision to invest in our relationship. Our ability to support our clients and grow our business is enhanced tremendously as result of this partnership.

From Kevin Lalor, president of BI 101:

We have over 500 customers using SaaS applications, including Google Apps for email security and compliance. Our customers have embraced SaaS, and are demanding more mission-critical applications, including those for financial management, as they outgrow the functionality in QuickBooks. We looked at the market, and quickly realized that Intacct is the clear leader in the space and that they are focused on making their partners successful. We're excited to be a part of the Intacct partner program and look forward to continuing to offer and support best-in-breed SaaS applications to our valued customers.

And from Doug Sharp, VP at ACF Solutions:

As a premier SaaS consultancy and salesforce.com implementation partner, ACF Solutions found Intacct to be a perfect fit for our customers’ on-demand financial requirements. We're closing business today because the simple integration of Intacct MAX™ for Salesforce makes Intacct a no-brainer to bring to our salesforce.com customer base.

So you can see why I am excited - Intacct's partner and channel friendly strategy is paying off. Our channel business was already growing at 160 percent year over year before these new partners joined our family. I love the fact that SaaS channel momentum is building and I think the sky is the limit - and I firmly believe that being partner friendly is better for our partners, their clients and for Intacct.