We LOVE feedback and feature requests. Our apps get better every day because our users constantly submit feedback. In the past 6 months we've received quite a bit of emails that Steve and I have called "one small thing" emails. They go something like this...

"Hey Guys, love your apps, they're so simple and feature rich at the same time. I'd love to be able to use them except I need to be able to do _________."

The request is usually for some very minor thing that they don't really need and that no one else has requested. It's a "deal killer" for them, they can't live without it.They would "sign up for the paid version right now" if we had it. Yeah, right. In reality they're looking for a reason to not use the app. They're the same person that one ups every story you tell. They're the same person that complains at every meal and every movie wasn't as good as this other one.

In response to these emails we thank them and usually explain our thought process of why our app doesn't include their "needed" feature.

Beware! These users will brain wash you, they will be enablers for your own desire to commit feature creep. They will suck the life out of you "one small thing" at a time until you are no better off than the poor shlubs at Intuit, who's main job is to keep putting crap out so they don't get fired for thinking for themselves. You don't need these people who are never going to signup for the paid version anyways. You're better off without them. Write your app for yourself and for your core customers that "get" you and what you're doing and love it.

How much to charge for your web application is a question with no right answer. You will never make everyone happy. Nor should you. I firmly believe that if you hear no complaints about the price then you are not charging enough.

Although you’ll never know for sure if your pricing is right, I can give you one example of a pricing model that is wrong. There is an online invoicing application that recently sent an email to all it’s users asking what they thought of being charged based on how much they invoice. I became very excited when I heard this because it meant that Less Accounting would be getting a whole new group of customers. Here’s what they suggested:

• $6/mo
  • $1,000 invoiced or
  • 320 hours tracked

• $12/mo
  • $2,500 invoiced or
  • 800 hours tracked

• $25/mo
  • $5,500 invoiced or
  • 1,600 hours tracked

• $45/mo
  • $9,000 invoiced or
  • 6,400 hours tracked

• $75/mo
  • $15,000 invoiced or
  • 16,000 hours tracked

• $125/mo
  • $25,000 invoiced or
  • 32,000 hours tracked

• $200/mo
  • unlimited amount invoiced and
  • unlimited amount hours tracked

I mean seriously, it’s so easy to invoice over $15K with one or two invoices. We see this all the time in Less Accounting. Is this worth paying $75/month? I don’t think so. The rational is that the software is being priced in the same manner as your credit card processing. Although I like the idea of paying more for using more, this is just ridiculous.

Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks and Quicken, have reinforced my theory they don't get it. They've recently launched a "Small Business Grant" campaign. Kinda cool and I encourage everyone to submit an application and try to get some money. Anyways, this idea is nice in theory.

If you watch Twitter for "Quickbooks" you'll see literally hundreds of people everyday needing help, having confusion and feeling the pain of Intuit software. Instead of giving away money to a certain few people. Why not provide free tech support for a month during tax season for everyone? Help the user that's crying out for help everyday.

It's much easier to throw money at a problem than to fix it. It's easier for Intuit to give away 300k than to provide great customer service. It's easier for you to buy Google AdWords than to evaluate yourself and then change. It's easier to get highly ranked with SEO than to provide a service people love. It's easier to have a giveaway than to provide kindness everyday.

Quickbook users your suffering is over, we’ve launched the Quickbooks data importer into production. This will allow you to import your Quickbooks data into LessAccounting. If you’re tired of error notices, crashes, no Mac support, rebuilding your company’s data file and the general tyranny of Intuit you are able to escape! Now it only takes a few minutes to leave behind painful frustration and tears.

The setup steps are found here.
https://SUBDOMAIN.lessaccounting.com/quickbooks_import

Log Into LessAccounting.com

_{Another installment from the best accountant in the world, ours.}

Now that you have employees what do you do?

DO NOT just go out and buy a well known payroll software package and start printing payroll checks.

Remember my first article utilizing KISS (keeping it simple at startup).

Sole Proprietors:

If your business is just starting up and you anticipate more than two employees. Find a reputable payroll leasing company and dump the entire problem on them. Yes, it will cost you a little more for each payroll but just add the extra cost to your bidding process. By leasing your employees the leasing company takes on full responsibility for all of the State and Federal reporting and insurance requirements. Also, your small number of employees could have access to large group health insurance and other fringe benefits for a smaller fee than you can offer.

Corporations and LLCs:

If your business is just starting up and you anticipate more than two employees. Find a reputable payroll processing firm who will assume all of the record keeping and reporting requirements from you. You will still be ultimately responsible in the IRS eyes for your payroll but will have professionals to help you along the way.

In both cases, when you feel comfortable about all of the State and Federal payroll laws then you can start looking for an in-house software solution. Do not depend on your internal bookkeeper because you are ultimately liable and need to know how records, reporting, tax deposits and required insurance should be done in order to C.Y.A.

Everyone with less than two employees, just let your tax professional or C.P.A. guide and help you in the payroll reporting and form processing requirements on a quarterly basis.

Remember focus on building your business not creating paperwork.

_{This article was written by our accountant. Who is the best accountant anywhere. We strongly recommend that every small business owner invest the time to find an accountant that will save you money.}

During the life of most small businesses, every owner might need help producing the deliverables and enlist persons outside their immediate family for help. Now the decision of how the helpers will be paid must be made. Should they be paid as an independent contractor or withhold taxes from their compensation as an employee? The biggest determining factors should not be what are easiest for the owner but rather what are correct in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service.

In the past decade, the IRS has developed guidelines and common law rules to help small business owners make the right choice between independent contractor and employee. The decision should be well thought out and well documented in case of possible disputes later from either the helpers or the IRS. The trend has been for the IRS to view all helpers under the direct control of a business owner as their employees not as contractors. This view allows for an easier method of tax collections direct from a single business owner rather than chasing down several independent contractors.

So, be careful with your choice, if the helpers you paid as independent contractors are determined later by the IRS as employees then the Trust Fund recovery penalty which is federal income tax, social security and Medicare taxes not withheld will be assessed to the owner.

Below are excerpts direct from the irs.gov web site and might help you make the correct choice.

The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if you, the person for whom the services are performed, have the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result.

Example: Vera Elm, an electrician, submitted a job estimate to a housing complex for electrical work at $16 per hour for 400 hours. She is to receive $1,280 every 2 weeks for the next 10 weeks. This is not considered payment by the hour. Even if she works more or less than 400 hours to complete the work, Vera Elm will receive $6,400. She also performs additional electrical installations under contracts with other companies that she obtained through advertisements. Vera is an independent contractor.

Common Law Rules

Facts that provide evidence of the degree of control and independence fall into three categories:

1. Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?

2. Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)

3. Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

Businesses must weigh all these factors when determining whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor. Some factors may indicate that the worker is an employee, while other factors indicate that the worker is an independent contractor. There is no “magic” or set number of factors that “makes” the worker an employee or an independent contractor, and no one factor stands alone in making this determination. Also, factors which are relevant in one situation may not be relevant in another.

The keys are to look at the entire relationship, consider the degree or extent of the right to direct and control, and finally, to document each of the factors used in coming up with the determination.

Finally, remember to ask a Certified Public Accountant or tax professional before making a final decision because as the owner the ultimate liability always falls directly on you.

A few weeks ago I attended the Money 2.0 talk at the Office 20 conference. Sitting right in the middle of the panel is Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks. At the end of the talk they had time for one question. I was picked and took the opportunity to poke Quickbooks in the eye. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here is the video. My question is at the end, at minute 34:00.

“Ben Kepes”: just published a nice write up about Less Accounting. Thanks Ben!

We launched some pretty neat features in Less Accounting today.

Design Changes

Allan has been a busy beaver trying to look at every angle of Less Accounting to see where moving a pixel this way or that way might have an impact for folks. I hope you find the changes and welcome as I do.

Tagging System

You can now add tags/keywords to expenses, invoices and deposits and filter reports based on these tags. If you use the Wesabe importer then you’ll be pleased to know that your tags from Wesabe will be imported along with your data.

Unlimited Users

Invite as many people as you want to join your business. The more the merrier.

More Less Accounting

Up until now you had no choice of what features you want or don’t want, well now you do! We have created three packages so you can chose the right amount of Less Accounting (and price) that works for you. The features you know and love are available in the middle tier package called “Less Accounting.” We have a trimmed down version called “Even Less Accounting” which is just expenses, invoices and a few reports. Just the barest of essentials. For people that need a bit more we created “More Accounting” this is where most new features will go. We started out by creating the ability to reconcile bank statements. This is a More Accounting feature only. Look for more More accounting features to come in the next few months.

Revised Pricing

Well it had to happen sooner or later, with the creation of the new packages, “Even Less” and “More,” the price of Less Accounting has gone up. Instead of $19.95 Less Accounting now costs $20.00 per month. We think you’ll survive.

Pricing Structure *

Package	Price
Even Less Accounting	$12.00/month
Less Accounting	$20.00/month
More Accounting	$24.00/month

*There is still a free version available.

More To Come

If you think this stuff is cool, just wait. In the coming weeks and months we will be creating features that we are so excited about we’ve wet our pants multiple time thinking about. I don’t want to reveal too much here but can you say ”....” on second thought I won’t reveal anything here. But Less Accounting is about to become the Accounting software that everyone uses.

We have the smartest and the most clever accountant in the world. So we asked him to write an article about starting a business and the accounting setup needed. Here's what he wrote, it's solid advice from an accountant that saves us tons of money.

1. KISS. Keep it simple starting out. The simplest form of entity for running your first business is called a sole proprietorship. This form of ownership requires NO special communication or filings to the Internal Revenue Service until you start paying employees.

2. As a sole proprietor you are the owner/entity which might require only to acquire an occupational license if your county or municipality mandates one. As the owner, you are also liable to remit all state or city tax collections on retail or wholesale sales your business collects. Service businesses and most cross state sales are exempt from state tax collections.

3. If you are concerned about personal liability as a sole proprietorship then do the cheapest and simplest thing which is to buy a personal liability umbrella policy. The best way to avoid liability is to learn your trade well and keep accurate records on LessAccounting .

4. Concentrate on building your business not communicating with the IRS. As a sole proprietor, the IRS will not even know you exsist until after you file your first personal income tax return. This return will include a Schedule C which communicates all of the sales and expenses you recorded in LessAccounting on your business. These sales and expenses do not have to be in a separate bank account as mandated by the LLC or Incorporation format. The sole proprietor losses offset your day job's income to provide a possible tax refund.

5. Over 90% of small businesses fail or change ownership within the first five years. Plan your business to thrive but if it fails under a sole proprietor you simply stop doing business. No communication or special forms with the IRS, no additional taxes to get your investment returned and no high accounting fees to close out your entity. Simply file a final Schedule C with your next personal return. KISS.

6. How do you get paid as a sole proprietorship? Simply take the money out as a draw. No payroll taxes or quarterly forms needed. Most startups lose money for the first several years, so keep your day job to pay your living expenses.

7. After you pass the five year hurdle, then you can talk with a CPA about another entity type that might save you taxes. Again a simple bookkeeping entry transfers all of the business assets from the sole proprietorship into the new entity without any tax penalties. Then quit your day job to celebrate your new livelyhood.

We need your help, we’re close to launching a Quickbooks importer to allow those oppressed Quickbooks users to escape the tyranny of Quickbooks.

But we need some help. We need some real Quickbooks files to test the importer. Send the files to steve [a t] lesseverything.com, feel free to change the data if you fear emailing them.

Clearly David Stetler is a very smart person.

There is a Rails conference coming up in Feb in Orlando FL. Acts_As_Conference, which is sponsored by Less Accounting and promises to be lots of fun. Obie Fernandez will be headlining along with Dan Benjamin. If you don’t know who these two guys are, you need to get out more! Obie just published what has quickly become the quintessential Ruby on Rails book The Rails Way, Dan Benjamin is the guy behind Cork’d and the guy that wrote the getting rails setup on osx post that all of you have been using. Both seriously heavy hitters and both living in Florida.

Other notables include Evan Phoenix taking about Rubinious, Ezra Zygmuntowicz talking about Merb, Anthony Eden talking about Shining a Light on the Dark Magic of ActiveRecord, Charles Nutter talking about jRuby, and more.

Zed likes 66% of the people I mentioned: This promises to be an amazing conference.

As if you didn’t need another reason to attend, here are two more:

1. The whole Less crew will be there. This includes Allan, myself and “the guys!”
2. Since Less Accounting is a sponsor, we get to put a gift in the gift bag. We have decided to give away the very first “Allan Says…” t-shirts. After the conference you will be able to buy these “pre-collectible” t-shirts.

See ya there!

Freelance Radio produced by FreelanceSwitch.com recently mentioned LessAccounting.com. Dickie Adams thanks for the plug! FreelanceSwitch.com is a great resource for anyone who freelances or owns their own small business.

Listen to the Podcast we're mentioned around 1:01 into the podcast.

This article talks about the new Quicken Online by Intuit. I think this is fantastic, and here’s why:

1. A lot of people are likely to use it.
2. Most of those people will be unhappy with it.
3. Some of those people will go looking for other alternatives.
4. Some of those people will find Less Accounting.
5. Most of those people will love Less Accounting.

Anyway you slice it, this will bring a lot of people into the online world of accounting applications. This can only be good for us and the others in this space.