Jason Harrison: A QuickBooks Convert Credits Office Accounting with Much of His Firm's Success

By Lynn Yoffee

When Jason Harrison first started doing technology consulting in 1990, he found that most small businesses he dealt with were investing in computers primarily to automate their accounting and core business functions. From those humble beginnings, Harrison Technology Consulting has evolved to cover whole-business automation, with Office Accounting typically included as a key component. When Internet technology took off in the mid-1990s, Harrison was right there to help companies adapt and take full advantage.

 

Harrison's company differs a bit from others that offer accounting solutions in that most have a stronger background in accounting. "We came from the technology side and brought in accounting as part of the big picture," he said.

 

Harrison became involved with Microsoft in early 2003 when the company shared with him the fact that they were working on a new product that would be competitive with QuickBooks.

 

"We were already looking for something else beyond QuickBooks," he said. As a former Intuit advisor, he had supported QuickBooks since its early 1.0 version for DOS beginnings.

 

"But small business always had its hands tied behind its back with applications that were hard to use and access," he said. "They always seemed to lack the integration needed for other business processes. Despite Intuit's best effort, they didn't deliver on that. They had a great application in QuickBooks, but it was in its own corner. Then there was Peachtree, which was fairly complicated and not easy to deal with."

 

Now Harrison has a product in Office Accounting that allows him to take the skills his clients have learned with Excel and Access, and transfer those to make their information more valuable.

 

Automating More Processes

 

"We have clients with very specific tracking needs that fall outside the traditional scope of what accounting will do," Harrison said. "We can now create these Access database systems and cross it with Office Accounting in a real time, rich way. Before Office Accounting there was a lot of manual work going on."

 

Harrison, who was one of the first 100 Small Business Specialists in the country, has kept his consulting firm small with only three employees. But he partners with other companies so that his client list is not small.

 

"Having a small staff was a strategic move way back," he said. "I realized that, because of our rural region, talent would be hard to get and retain. I thought it would be better to reach out and partner as much as we can."

 

So Harrison and team provide high-level consulting and partner with other companies to do the hardware and network deployments. "It allows my business to be very dynamic. My market used to be just in eastern North Carolina. Now, because of our visibility with joint ventures, we were getting calls from all over. We've done work from Maine to Florida to Washington."

 

Clients run the gamut from small construction companies to attorneys to architectural firms. And it's the power of integration that's always been the draw to Office Accounting.

 

'The killer app'

 

Most small companies have a need to do more than just accounting. When he demonstrates how Business Contact Manager, Outlook and Office Accounting can be integrated, "I don't have one client who hasn't just dropped their jaws and asked 'When can I have it?' It's really the killer app. After a demonstration, clients ask right away where can they sign."

 

One of the challenges he faces when presenting the benefits of Office Accounting, is an occasional objection from a financial management partner or a CPA. "I talk to the business owners and point out the value they've seen in Office Accounting and point out that if they're going to allow their CPA to make high-level decisions for their companies, then my firm can't help," he said.

 

Harrison said that Office Accounting "Takes the cuffs off with enterprise-class technology at a small business price. "We can put together solutions for under $10,000 that several years ago would have been $50,000. It's opened up an entirely new opportunity ‑ with the power of integration ‑ that just hasn't been there before.

 

What's more, "We use it ourselves. That's a key piece. We sip our own KoolAid."

 

Harrison's firm has used it since its original release date, switching from QuickBooks. "The time/billing aspect is good because we don't do a lot of projects by the hour. We use that to track the time and transfer it through. We'll cover a certain number of things for clients under a blanket contract. Anything more in depth, we'll do that as time and materials. So we use Office Accounting in that area."

 

A Case In Point

 

One of Harrison's clients, R & L Builders & Sons Inc., a 20-employee commercial construction company based in Battleboro, NC, needed help with its accounting and business management solutions. The company's existing accounting solution had allowed it to keep up with accounts receivables, check writing and for tracking bank accounts. But the business had outgrown its accounting solution and the owners didn’t know what they wanted or needed.

 

Harrison’s firm evaluated the situation and recommended Office Accounting Professional 2007 and Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager. R & L’s business partners and clients were pushing them to be able to respond faster and have more reliable business class e-mail, so a new Dell server running Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2 was added as well.

 

R & L has been able to respond to customer inquiries much faster, as well as document and track bidding opportunities, thanks to Outlook with Business Contact Manager and its deep integration with Office Accounting. When a bid is awarded, they can then turn the opportunity into an official estimate and proceed to progress invoice as the work takes place.

 

Using the job costing features in Office Accounting, R & L now has a much better handle on its profitability for each job. The cash flow tools in Office Accounting help them better manage their cash flow to optimize how their available funds are utilized. And they have a real business class network that is super reliable, secure, and is ready to perform when they need it.

 

Harrison credits Office Accounting with a lot of his successes with clients. “When you are able to improve the business processes that operate on top of the infrastructure that directly save a client hours a week or thousands of dollars a month, you're really having an impact. You are affecting the client’s business in a much more visible and tangible way in their eyes.”

 

For more information visit Harrison Technology Consulting.

 

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