A question often asked of us is ‘How vital is a knowledge of bookkeeping and accounting when you’re using E-conomic?’ and often these are passed to me to answer because in fact I use the system myself for my own book-keeping and trust me, they don’t come with much less professional knowledge than my own good self - I only recently  discovered double entry wasn’t putting something in twice to make sure you got it right – a kind of belts and braces approach!

So I’m here to assure those individual businessmen and women even now nervously chewing their fingernails that if you’re using E-conomic as an individual business owner you need no professional book-keeping knowledge whatsoever to get all the benefits and you can choose just as much or as little of the system as you like.

My personal use is simply entering individual quotes, upgrading them to firm orders, invoicing once the work’s been done (oh happy day!) and then entering monies received (happier still!).

I then sit back and let my accountant do whatever he wants from his end, fairly smug in the knowledge that the days of a file full of rather grubby, coffee stained,  invoice copies are long gone. Of course I fully appreciate I’m at one end of an extremely long scale and that many of our other  E-conomic clients with branches all over the country, several hundred staff and turnover hovering around £ several million, are using the system to a somewhat different depth and functionality.

And there you have the beauty of E-conomic (and I never thought I’d hear myself say that about an accounting system). But there’s no getting away from the fact it works well for you however little or large you might be, however simple or complex your requirements.

A lot of people ask Anders and Jacob (whose baby E-conomic is) why they didn’t create something far less complex and just aim at either small businesses or large ones.  In typical down to earth Danish style they shrug,  ‘Why only please some of the business world when you can keep all of it happy?’ – And quite frankly there’s really nothing one can add to that, is there?

A good mix of local and global enhancements and add-on module improvements have recently taken place, and can be found here

The recession has thrown many issues to the fore. One of these is that whilst individual businessmen and women suffer huge amounts of stress keeping their heads above water, their advisers rarely remain unscathed.

In fact, as several of the accountants I’ve spoken to point out, they’re often dealing concurrently with more than one business going through life or death struggles and whilst cynics might say the only real worry is losing a client – people I’ve spoken to put this way down the list.

If you’re good at your job it’s unavoidable that your investment in it is also an emotional one and very often businesses struggling to stay afloat are ones you’ve helped launch and nurture so it would be unrealistic to expect to sail through unscathed.  

Of course there are no easy answers although sometimes just being aware of a problem is a move towards dealing with it.  As business advisors accountants are well-wired to deal with success. Failure with its close companions, fear, anxiety and stress are not so easy to handle, nor are you forearmed with any kind of training in the kind of support to offer.

Probably the most constructive thing professional financial advisers can do is make sure they have their own strong support network with whom they can off-load and get constructive input. The one thing they shouldn’t do is pack individual problems, stresses and strains into the briefcase to take home nightly.

At E-conomic this is a subject we’ve discussed with many of our accountancy profession partners and we’re always interested to hear your views so don’t hesitate to comment. Businesses aren’t just businesses – they’re people and it’s people who feel the strain.  Goodness, just realised this is heavy stuff for a Monday.  But if an issue has to be addressed then we’re man enough to do it!

We’re delighted to announce that yesterday E-conomic beat rival nominees and worthy opponents, Vattenfall Wind Power and Clas Ohlson to take first place in the Best Nordic UK Newcomer of the year.

Anders Bjornsbo proudly made his way back down the red carpet at the London Stock Exchange having been presented with a very desirable  trophy and happy in the knowledge that whilst pioneering a whole new way of thinking may be a hard furrow to plough, it’s exceptionally rewarding when it pays off!

Anders says he thinks the very simple recipe for success is ‘Knowing your market and knowing your market will benefit exponentially from your product. The toughest part he jokes is ‘Getting your market to cotton on to the fact!

We’re so thrilled that we’ve won this award and delighted our efforts are paying off not just in the increase in our client numbers but the very wide range of businesses we work successfully with.  Two of the top accounting firms in the UK have been test-driving E-conomic for nearly a year now and are very pleased indeed with the way it’s been working for them and their clients.  We’ll follow up with more on this shortly.

Anders was also keen to emphasise just how delighted he is that the company policy of investing heavily in the UK as a spring-board into Europe and beyond has proved so successful.  E-conomic is now a leading supplier of online accounting services in the UK, with a continuing increase in turnover which we predict will continue for 2010.

But of course we couldn’t have done it without . . . all of you!

The support and input from you, our accountancy professional partners and all our great individual business users has been superb. It’s never easy as a foreign company to establish yourself in a brand new country and we feel so much of our success is down to the invaluable contributions, criticisms, praise and encouragement that’s a feature of our relationships with you.

Can we offer you all great big E-conomic THANK YOU!’ We thought you also might like to enjoy some of our success with us – Download the film about E-conomic as the best Nordic UK Newcomer.

http://www.e-conomic.co.uk/news/05-03-2010-best-newcomer-award

Learn E-conomic’s basic functions from a-z

The presentations are for anyone who:

• Wants to get started with E-conomic
• Needs a refresher course on some of the functions
• Just wants to know more about the system

Why not attend one of the following Webinars to see just how simple and cost effective your bookkeeping can be with  E-conomic?

Online Webinars

• 2010-03-10 11.00-12.00
• 2010-03-31 11.00-12.00

Reading – Dukesbridge House – 23 Duke street

• 2010-03-22   16.00 – 18.00
• 2010-04-26   16.00 – 18.00
  

After registration you will receive a mail confiming time and location. The day before the webinar you will receive a mail with instructions on how to join the online meeting. It is very simple – you just follow the link.

You’re probably on top of this already but just a note to say several new browsers have appeared on the market lately. The latest being  Opera 10.50 Beta. This one along with Chrome and Firefox would appear to be much faster than Internet Explorer(IE).

 Obviously you’ll find what works best for you but if you are experiencing any slowness with Internet Explorer, try one of the others and do keep us posted on results - good, bad or miraculous.

Did you know that E-conomic is available in 9 European languages?

If you would prefer to have the system working in another language than English, just send your agreement number and the language you would like to info@e-conomic.co.uk and we will sort it out for you.

Get links to where E-conomic is currently launched

As maintenance work is due to take place the system will not be available from 01.00am  to 03.00am this Wednesday 24th February.
We will try to make the interval as short as possible, but you should not expect to be able to log on during the above mentioned period.
We apologise for any inconvenience.

Much excitement when we heard we’d been nominated by the UK government for ‘Best Nordic Newcomer’ in the UK market 2008 – 2009. The award’s for a company that’s established themselves in the UK, demonstrating outstanding results in their market sector. 

We wish our two fellow nominees Vattenfall Wind Power and Clas Ohlson good luck in the competition but obviously are keeping our fingers crossed that E-conomic might triumph and walk away with the ‘Oscar’!

We’ll be treading the red carpet at the London Stock Exchange on March 4th and of course will keep you posted as to how we fare. http://ukinnorway.fco.gov.uk/en/business/business/awards/newcomer

Payroll made easy and online

– Don’t worry, you have a second chance on Wednesday:

Webinars for Accountants & Bookkeepers

• Click here to register for Wednesday 24th February at 11.00am

Webinars for Business Owners

• Click here to register for Wednesday 24th February at 2.00pm

Read more about the MyPAYE integration with E-conomic.