Accounting VARs turn to ASPs

Software resellers are preparing to offer accounting and financial packages via application service providers (ASPs), as leading mid-range accountancy software vendor Systems Union gears up to launch a host-ready version of its SunSystems suite.

Software resellers are preparing to offer accounting and financial packages via application service providers (ASPs), as leading mid-range accountancy software vendor Systems Union gears up to launch a host-ready version of its SunSystems suite.

As Systems Union launched the latest stage of its ebusiness strategy, two specialist resellers, Integration and Foundation Systems, presented ASP solutions at last week's Softworld Accounting and Finance show in London. SunSystems' eBusiness Edition enables applications to access the accounting system and conduct commercial transactions in real-time over the web.

Julian Harper, EMEA chief executive at Systems Union, said the web was reshaping the financial systems landscape. "New technologies are rapidly changing the way that businesses operate and compete. They now need 360 degree applications," he said.

Several consultancy firms are believed to be piloting ASP schemes for the vendor and the company has started to identify resellers with the technical capability to offer an ASP service. Eamus Halpin, managing director of e-services reseller Integration, claimed that many customer organisations were already using or were "looking hard" at ASP options.

"We have 480 users on our ASP systems today and another running SunSystems in a hosted environment from a managed data centre. The plan is to offer a rental model, but they have not worked out the pricing details yet," he said.

Another Systems Union reseller, Foundation Systems, is also planning to offer Sun as an ASP service. The company launched a web-based ASP service for its Tempo time recording and billing system at Softworld last week.

Len Palmer, managing director of Foundation Systems, said that a number of financial software companies were now on the verge of releasing ASP-ready products. "They are at various stages but not many are ready yet in the mid-market. The potential is enormous. We see the situation as allowing us to deploy relatively complex applications on a much lower-cost model."

Resellers will not need different skills to deploy ASP-based accounting applications but must be aware that they will be working on a larger scale, said Halpin.

"Resellers' change management and control need to be disciplined and they also need a very close relationship with the software vendor."