ACCOUNTSIQ, THE Irish start-up that provides a platform for online accounts, has won a five-year deal with Deloitte Australia which it is understood could be worth about €5 million to the company.
Tony Connolly, founder and chief executive of AccountsIQ, said the value would depend on usage of the software but declined to put a figure on it.
Having signed a number of Australian customers over the web, AccountsIQ established an office near Sydney last November.
“It would have been impossible to win the deal with Deloitte without a local presence,” said Mr Connolly.
Initially the service will be provided from the firm’s production servers in Ireland but Mr Connolly said the contract stipulates that once a certain level of usage is achieved, AccountsIQ will host the software in the region.
Deloitte will re-brand the service as its own, a strategy known as “white labelling” in the industry.
The Dublin firm has made a number of enhancements such as adding benchmarks and key performance indicators for specific industries. Deloitte Digital, the division that will re-sell AccountsIQ, is initially targeting estate agents and finance brokers.
Deloitte also hopes to streamline its own operations by encouraging its clients to use the platform. The accountancy firm estimates that 25-30 per cent of the time it spends working with its clients is wasted on “data drudgery” – transferring information from different systems or simply looking for the correct data. AccountsIQ acts as a document store for all information relating to a company’s accounts.
“It changes the nature of the client-accountant relationship from a ‘once a year’ contact to an ongoing conversation; from accountant to business advisor,” said Peter Williams, chief executive of Deloitte Digital. “It includes collaboration capability such as a clever bulletin board feature which allows our accountants and clients to post messages for one another in a secure online forum.”
Launched in 2007 AccountsIQ provides accountancy collaboration software as a service. Investors include technology entrepreneur Gerry McKeown, Enterprise Equity and the AIB Seed Capital Fund.
