Kevin Cumley, who heads the Intacct Accountants' Program, said the company has signed 40 new members in the last year, about half the total the year before. In both channels, the emphasis is on retaining those that are willing to devote resources to Intacct. The software publisher has revamped IAP education and created the categories of Intacct Accounting Specialist and the Intacct Implementation Specialist, which Cumley says require about double the education in order to pass exams. In July, the Intacct Partner Community was launched—a portal for customers and the channel. Macdonald told the VARs the company did not put enough money into partner marketing and also had some inexperienced VARs selling complex deals. "We tried to rein that in so partners are in right-sized deals," he said. "Customers moved on to other partners."
INTACCT TIGHTENS CHANNEL REQUIREMENTS Featured
Intacct has trimmed its reseller and outsourcing channels as it tightens requirements. The cloud accounting software company has dropped to 80 resellers from 95 a year ago. It has also dramatically decreased the number of accounting firms and BPO outsourced accounting services partners being recruited. "If you were of a size that would not be successful we asked you to go partner with somebody or do something else," Taylor Macdonald, Intacct's VP of channels, said in a speech to resellers at the company's Advantage conference this week.
