Embed Your Web site Within Office Accounting

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA

Microsoft Office Accounting continues to extend its features far beyond its competition. As you likely know, the Microsoft Professional Accountant’s Network (MPAN) is a free resource for you. Membership gives you access to free continuing professional education – a great way to accumulate accounting and auditing (A&A) hours. Your membership also includes free - and discounted - software and support, but now you have a powerful new marketing tool: a customized edition of Office Accounting Express. This means that your firm’s name and Web site can be embedded within Office Accounting.

Customized Office Accounting

As of June 26, 2008, you can create a customized version of Office Accounting by visiting the MPAN site. As shown in Figure 1, your firm’s name will appear in two prominent locations within the program:

• At the far right of the menu across the top of the screen
• At the bottom of the Navigation bar along the left-hand side of the screen

When the user clicks on either of these spots, your company’s Web site will appear within Office Accounting.

Figure 1: Your firm’s name and Web site can appear within a customized version of Office Accounting.

As shown in Figure 2, there are only three simple requirements:

1. A short version (17 characters or less) of your firm’s name
2. Your Web site’s address
3. A 24 by 24 pixel graphic of your company logo in .bmp or .png format. Of course, you can also choose a generic, default logo to use instead.

In return, you’ll receive a link that lets you download your customized version of Office Accounting. You can then distribute this link to your clients and/or place the download link on your Web site.

Figure 2: You’re just a couple steps away from a customized version of Office Accounting.

As shown in Figure 3, a simple Web form will walk you through the process of creating your customized version. If you haven’t established a Web site yet, you can easily do so for free through Microsoft Office Live Small Business. Even your first year’s domain name registration fee of $14.95 is waived. Once you register with Microsoft Office Live, you can establish your domain name, and then use simple templates to build your Web site. As shown in Figure 4, no particular experience or software is required: simply click and edit the sections of your Web site from within Internet Explorer.

Figure 3: A simple form collects the information needed for your customized version of Office Accounting.

Figure 4: Microsoft Office Live Small Business provides a click-and-edit interface for your Web site.

Once you submit the form in Figure 3, a new page will enable you to immediately download your customized version of Office Accounting Express, as shown in Figure 5. As you can see in Figure 6, your clients will see your firm’s name when they click the link to download Office Accounting — your firm’s information will appear in place of the Microsoft 123 placeholder.

Figure 5: Your customized version of Office Accounting will be available for immediate download.

Figure 6: The custom download page for Office Accounting will include your firm’s contact information.

Additional Features Available

As you’re probably aware, Office Accounting Express offers a limited subset of Office Accounting’s full capabilities. This free version is ideal for clients who are moving from the shoebox into a formal accounting package. As their needs grow, your clients can easily upgrade to Office Accounting Professional. As shown in Figure 7, they’ll simply choose Help, and then Upgrade to Office Accounting Professional to unlock the additional features. An online comparison chart makes it easy to show your clients the additional capabilities they’ll gain by upgrading. Some of the key features that upgraders will receive include:

• Multi-user capability
• Job costing and class tracking
• Inventory tracking and valuation
• Sales and purchase orders
• Recurring transactions
• Multi-currency support
• Integration with Microsoft Point of Sale

Figure 7: Your clients can upgrade to Office Accounting Professional from within the free Express version.

Marketing Opportunities

The Office Accounting  customizing feature enables marketing capabilities that haven’t been possible in the past. First, your clients – or prospective clients – will be impressed by the fact that your firm’s name appears within their accounting software. This keeps your contact information just a click away for them. Further, you can go beyond just linking to the front page of your Web site. You could choose to point them to a specific page within your Web site, such as a page that shows important tax and accounting deadlines. You’ll want to make sure that the page is kept current, so that your clients have a reason to click through. Such a page also could include Office Accounting pointers, and links to additional training resources, such as the Office Accounting Learning Center. Stay tuned to www.microsoft.com/mpan so that you take advantage of this exciting new capability as soon as it’s available.

Editor’s Note: Current users of all Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 editions are offered options to apply customization to all new and existing companies or to apply customization to new companies only.

 

Users of Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 and Microsoft Small Business Accounting 2006 will receive Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 installed side-by-side, and customizations will be applied to new companies created using Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 only.

 

If technical issues arise, support is available by calling 866-827-1619. Browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer may not work with the customization feature.

 

Not a member of MPAN? Membership is complimentary and offers numerous benefits, including complimentary support, online CPE, and access to discounted software. Go to the MPAN site for more information and to sign up.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Microsoft.