The product will be known as Liberty Accounting while the other offering is Paychex Online Accounting. There is a race going on in the cloud for capital and more distribution channels. Kashoo is an example of both since Paychex took an ownership position of undisclosed size. This coincides nicely with the announcement this week that Australian software vendor MYOB has made an investment in Acumatica. New Zealand-based Xero got $150 million, primarily from American investors, also in October, and is planning an IPO before its year ends on March 31. FreshBooks raised $30 million in venture funding in July and a Forbes article said the company was forced to seek capital because of well-funded competitors. Do investors have more cents than sense? I’m inclined to believe that’s the case.
KASHOO SIGNS LIBERTY TAX Featured
The fact that Kashoo will now be privately labeled by franchisor Liberty Tax by itself is not important. The fact that this is the second such deal for the low-cost cloud software vendor–its first was Paychex in October—is very important. The most recent agreement was announced this week by Liberty CEO John Hewitt during the earnings webcast for his company's first quarter ended July 31. “We are testing an accounting package that our franchisees can used to provide small business bookkeeping services,” Hewitt said.
