I'm often asked "how is Spotlight Reporting different to other reporting and business intelligence tools?" Great question, and one I approach from two distinct angles.
Firstly, the answer is less about differences and more about explaining to the questioner the ABC of the Spotlight Reporting family of apps, team and company. This answer fairly quickly makes our differences and strengths apparent - or at least I hope it does!
Secondly, the question is really best answered by a return question: "what problems are you trying to solve?" or, on occasion, "what opportunities are you best trying to execute on?"
So here's our ABC:
Our A is Absolute Transformation as a guiding principle. We exist to transform the accounting industry so that it becomes standard that accountants, advisors and bookkeepers provide useful, 'value-add' services with a strong bedrock of business intelligence and insightful reporting. We partner with others who believe in this mission as passionately as we do.
Uniquely, our pedigree is value-added service provision - a live client environment was the lab in which our products were created, tested and deployed (hundreds of times). Furthermore, our second-to-none team include some of the most experienced and talented developers, software industry sales and account managers and trainers.
Our B is Best Functionality. Now this is a continuous challenge, as software and innovation never sleep. But what we do know, is that our analysts, customers and the recipients of our Spotlight Reports, Dashboards, Forecasts and more all have great ideas, a laundry list of features and functionality for us the build. And we're committed to this work, and to delighting customers with frequent releases and iterations.
Examples of functionality releases that were demanded by our loyal customers include:
- Multi for franchises and not-for-profits, including benchmarking
- Consolidation
- Template build and replication for easy leveraging of IP
- Multi-currency
- Customisable report formats, pages and charts
- Formula builder for great charting
- Wider integrations, including Xero, QBO, WorkflowMax and Google
Our C is Choice. That's why we have 4 specialist products that can be used singly or in conjunction. We don't believe a single product doing a bit of everything lightly, or locked into one approach, is the optimal way for accountants or business owners to gain the insight and clarity they need for better outcomes.
We have also tailored our products for businesses and clients of different sizes and at different stages of the journey. Dashboard is best across a range of clients and is so easy and quick - not to mention cost-effective, that it can be deployed at scale.
Reporting is our tool for the kinds of clients or businesses that aspire to good governance, sound decision-making and the use of data and analysis for competitive advantage. Yes, that should be all businesses really, but Reporting has certainly found favour with the "best 20%". This includes groups, organisations with Boards, and a whole range of industry segments including services, creatives, professionals, retail, hospitality and groups.
Forecasting appeals to those who want or need a cash-centric view. Cash is King, of course - our T-shirts even proudly have that slogan - so we're thrilled to be offering (soon) the most comprehensive 3-way forecasting tool in the cloud.
Multi is designed specifically for the franchise and not-for-profit sector...or indeed any organisation that is made up of a multitude of entities. Multi can do the heavy lifting on dozens or hundreds of orgs, with consolidation, ranking, benchmarking, entity analysis and exception reporting as standard.
4 products, lots of choice.
Our commitment to choice extends beyond our product range and functionality. We now offer packaged, multi-product offerings with two key bonuses:
- one simple price; and
- unlimited organisations.
Our standard SuperVCFO pack - already selling like hot cakes - comes with:
- Unlimited use of Spotlight Reporting, Forecasting and Dashboard. Fill your boots.
- Gold Partner Status. Priority access, case study exposure and more.
- Masterclass Training included. Get proficient, fast.
At $495* per month for most firms, this is unbeatable value for an investment in future-proofing your firm and extending your client engagement.
We find our SuperVCFO offering and support also frequently answers our question back to you - "what problems are you trying to solve?" or "what opportunities are you best trying to execute on?". With Super VCFO we are not only solving problems, but fast-tracking opportunity. And, of course, it comes with the unique and, we think special, ABC of Spotlight Reporting as well.
To read more about SuperVCFO options for you, download our Super VCFO flyer.
*You can discuss your needs and pricing with your local Account Manager