Eeasy

2002 Consensus Software Awards

Product Description

NetBooks is a fully featured Accounting Solution that is accessed securely over the Internet using a Web-browser. This enables clients to safely allow real-time access to specific  accounting information for their sales staff, their customers and even their accountant: anywhere, anytime, quickly and cost-effectively.

Netbooks is specifically designed to work well using a standard modem and web browser. Multiple users at a site can securely access accounting information using just one standard modem connection to the Internet.

- Perfect for working from home or access from multiple offices.

NetBooks even works using a notebook and a mobile phone.

- Perfect for roaming staff ... make sales while on the road.

NetBooks seamlessly integrates with the Internet. This allows clients to securely put any or all of your accounting information on-line:

- Perfect for automated sales and tracking procedures

For more information on NetBooks please see our web site at:

- http://www.e-easy.com.au/index.x?major=NetBooks&ID=CSA  

NetBooks is particularly suited to organisations that need:

1. Accounting functions to be accessible at many locations:

- At home
- The Accountants office
- Head office
- Regional offices

2. Real-time access for sales reps at the customer's site to:

- View trading history 
- View stock levels and prices
- Create and print Invoices

3. Real-time information on the Web so customers can:

- See their trading history
- See stock availability and prices
- Enter and monitor new purchases

4. Real-time access to ALL NetBooks information in Windows for:

- Mail mergers in Word
- 'What if' analysis in Excel
- Custom reporting in Access or Crystal Reports
- Seamless integration with third part products using:
- Over 500 fully documented data access methods:
- Create: Customer, Purchase Order or Payment
- Get: Customer/Supplier Balances
- Get: Profit and Loss, Chart of Accounts or Balance Sheet

5. To have an Accounting System that is fully supported

- Easy to use and customisable
- Installation of all upgrades
- Access to help desk services
- Comprehensive backup and disaster recovery

Innovation

E-easy won the Cisco Systems Innovation Award of the Telstra and Tasmanian Government Small Business Award 2001. This award recognises excellence in Innovation through applied Research and Development. This Award acknowledged our three years of hard work and two AusIndustry Research Grants needed to develop the NetBooks Accounting Solution.

Mail merge in Word

The vision driving NetBooks was to develop an affordable accounting solution focused on the needs of Small to Medium Enterprises. To determine these needs 2000 SME's were contacted via e-mail. Of these 180 filled in a survey web form on our web site. This data was stored in a database for detailed analysis.

The survey analysis results dictated a two-fold approach to product development. A low cost solution for Micro to Small Enterprises (MSE) delivered using an Application Service Provider (ASP) model and a delivery model using a Server Appliance for larger clients. Subsequently independent AusIndustry Grants for the development of each model were obtained.

We knew how much prospective clients were willing to pay given services. So we knew we could not profitably deliver the functionality using existing commercial software. For profitable delivery we needed a system that:

- Used commodity hardware
- Was based on open source system and database software
- Could be accessed through the Internet and
- Worked well using standard telephone lines and modems

We have now achieved this - having a fully functional NetBooks Accounting Solution delivered using either an appliance-based or ASP-based delivery model.

Our Instant Test Drive Site has been fully operational since August 2001. You can use NetBooks now by clicking the following link:

  http://www.e-easy.com.au/index.x?major=NetBooks&minor=Test%20Drive&ID=CSA

For security reasons it REQUIRES Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6.0. The link below will automatically log you in to a shared account. As it is shared please be considerate in the data you input.

Other users WILL be able to view the information you enter

The test drive gives access to the following modules:

- General Ledger
- Accounts Receivable
- Accounts Payable
- GST and BAS Support
- Purchase/Sale Orders
- Inventory (multi-site, multi-price)
- Payroll
- General Ledger posting sets (Payroll and Inventory)
- Payment Details (Credit/Cash/Cheque)

The following option modules are not included in the Test Drive:

- NetShop (integrated e-commerce system – including credit card gateway)
- NetConnect (ODBC access)

Performance

The main performance requirements highlighted by our survey was that the solution must be: affordable, easy to use, fully featured, reliable, fast and secure 

These performance criteria were met by developing an accounting service that

- Is optimised to run effectively on commodity hardware
- Then individually paid off and closed each Invoice and Purchase Order

- Has an intuitive web-browser based user interface
- Followed generally accepted accounting principles
- Complied with all Tax and Payroll Laws
- Used standards-based browser delivery methods (HTML and java script)
- Used standards-based security methods (firewalls and 128 bit SSL)

The Data Centre uses the following technologies:

- Unix-based operating systems
- Structured Query Language (SQL) transactional database
- Storage Area Networks (SAN
- Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)
- Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS)
- Broadband Internet Connections (Megalinks and ISDN)
- Demilitarised Zones (DMZ) and Firewalling
- Network Address Translation (NAT) and Bandwidth Management
- Sandboxing of user databases

These technologies are also able to be used in the E-easy NetBooks Appliances should high levels of scalability and/or fault tolerance be required. At this stage NetBooks has passed Beta Testing and has been in use at E-easy for six months.

NetBooks response time over various access methods is given below:

Method	Response time
Appliance on LAN	Less than 1 second
Internet (56k)	Less than 2 second
WAP/GPRS	Less than 5 seconds

We volume tested a NetBooks Appliance with a PIII 600MHz Processor, 256MB RAM and disk mirroring. The tests were designed to model varying sized companies accounting activities for a year.

Each test created a number of customers then for each customer:

- Linked them as a supplier
- Created one Purchase Order and one Invoice per month for 12 months
- With 10 items on each Purchase Order and Invoice created
- Then individually paid off and close each Invoice and Purchase Order

Customers	Number of Transactions	Total Time	Transactions per second
1000	264,000	18 min	244
2000	528,000	36 min	244
4000	1,056,000	72 min	244

Disk activity was negligible and performance was linear as the database grew. We also added 50,000 Stock Items in 66 seconds using 11MB storage space. That corresponds to 750 transactions per second.

In all tests the General Ledger, Profit and Loss, Balance Sheets, Inventory and BAS were correct.

Potential

E-easy is currently having its Business Plan reviewed by Deloittes e-Business Team. An AusIndustry COMET Grant has supported this process. 

While the planning process is not yet complete there is significant evident to suggest E-easy Netbooks will have a very bright future.

Deloittes has determined that NetBooks is the only 100% Web-based Accounting Package available for the Australian market. Furthermore the only two US-based companies with similar offerings to NetBooks have each received in excess of USD20,000,000 in venture capital during 2001. Both these products are based on Oracle Software's database engine, Oracle 8i. This is a commercial product that costs AUD4000 per CPU per year. This cost makes producing cost effective Accounting Appliances very difficult for these competitors.

Our market research clearly shows that small businesses with more than 10 staff want their accounting infrastructure on-site. This will be costly for applications that rely on commercial databases. We believe that Micro to Small Enterprises with less than 10 staff will use hosted services as they simply cannot afford the cost of hardware and telecommunications
infrastructure.

We plan on charging these customers only AUD50 per month of access to NetBooks. This fee is charged to their credit card and is 100% tax deductible. This is half the price that our US-based potential competitors are currently charging. However due to our low software cost we will still be more profitable than them.

As for the companies with more than 10 staff they will be able to afford a NetBooks Appliance. These companies will not choose to host their accounting services with our competition given we can offer them an Appliance at a similar price. We plan on providing NetBooks Appliances from AUD500 per month. Once again these fees are charged to their credit card and are 100% tax deductible.

We believe the market size for E-easy NetBooks in Australia to be at least $50,000,000 per annum. This can be achieved with only 5% market share. The international potential in other GST-based counties is enormous; these include the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada. We plan to use the profits from the successful launch of NetBooks in Australia to fund the development for localised versions of NetBooks in other countries.

Other information the judges should know

The Business Planning process funded through the COMET grant will proceed with Deloittes undertaking the following stages:

1. Review NetBooks features
2. Identify 10 micro, and 4 small businesses for the NetBooks commercial
trial
3. Assess NetBooks potential based on the commercial trial
4. Prepare a detailed business plan for NetBooks
5. Identify up to five potential aggregation partners
6. Develop proposal packages to attract partners to the negotiating table.
It is expected that this process will be completed by 1st of May 2002.

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