DEALER PROFILE - Accounting the days to a single currency

Company name

- Tate Bramald

Established - January 1989

Location - Richmond, Surrey

Other offices - None

Headcount - 70

Board members John Tate, managing director; Mike Risley, commercial director; Karen McCraken, director of projects; Ciaren Doherty, business development director; Colin Bramald, technical director; Paul Adam, human resources director

Company year end - 31 March

Last year's turnover - #5 million

And profit - #200,000

Main product lines sold - Great Plains Dynamics, Sun Accounts

Main accreditation held Principle Sun Centre, Global Sales Partner Great Plains 1998, European Inner Circle member of Great Plains and Microsoft Solution Providers

Core markets - Accounting software consultancy and implementation

Key accounts - Gillette, Thompsons Directories, British Horseracing Board, Football Association. European and international presence and extensive consultancy work on global implementation of finance systems

Main competitors - Software vendors selling direct. Resellers of accounting software such as Touche Deloitte and Neville Russell

Distributors used - None

What's the biggest challenge you foresee for the coming 12 months Meeting customers' expectations of upcoming technology.

Microsoft launched the latest version of its SQL database engine at Comdex last week, claiming it would become the industry standard for both high end and mid-range accountancy software packages. Do you agree? And what are the alternatives? The question is - who is going to win the database battle between Microsoft and Oracle? These are really the only two players in the game. At the moment, the mid-range is dominated by SQL and, as you say, it's trying to move both upwards and downwards to cover the whole market.

My main concern is the issue of reliability. These products and the accountancy programs that run on top of them are complex to manage and vital to our customers' business processes. Microsoft has a reputation for releasing imperfect software but it cannot afford to do so in this market. And if it does, it's our job to deal with the customers' problems.

Which brings me back to my previous point, that our greatest challenge is meeting customer expectations by providing them with a service in a commercially justifiable way. The old technology of Unix platforms and dumb terminals was far more stable but not so 'pretty'. But that system is history.

Do you agree with Dennis Keeling, chief executive of the Business and Accounting Software Developers' Association (Basda), when he says nine out of 10 accountancy packages cannot handle the requirements for tax returns under the EU directive? I think that is probably true. There are hundreds of accountancy packages on the market but, unfortunately for some customers, the vast majority of smaller vendors will not be able to deal with EMU. And, unfortunately, many organisations chose to buy these types of packages and are now going to feel the consequences.

The big boys, such as Great Plains, Systems Union and SAP, have invested seven-figure sums to guarantee that euro compliance will not pose a problem.

On the positive side, people are beginning to feel the benefits of the gradual consolidation that this market is experiencing.

There is a slow but sure concentration of accounting software vendors, with smaller operations closing down or being taken over every week. Conversion to a single European currency will almost certainly speed up this process and encourage users to move to a more reliable system.

Basda recently introduced a compliance accreditation scheme for accountancy software vendors in anticipation of the introduction of the euro. Do you think this will benefit the situation? Emu is happening now. I think it's quite amusing that Basda is putting into place an accreditation programme less than two months before the introduction of the currency. It's a little late in the day, don't you think?

Basda is, first and foremost, a trade association - it's primary aim is to champion the vendors and protect their interests. As such, it is not really interested in users' rights, which makes me question whether its accreditation is really worthwhile.