In a telephone interview recently, CEO Erik van der Meijden discussed plans for a channel and margins for Exact Online. The program is designed so "a VAR should be committed or dedicated to product," he said.
While the Exact Online channel will probably overlap the Macola reselling base, it is more likely that this will attraction a different kind of organization, Van der Meijden said. "Most VARs don't have the business model to support that kind of business," he said. Exact Online will typically require one to five days consulting to implement and most support will be remote.
Last month, the company said it planned introduce the accounting component to the cloud-based product in the December quarter. The accounting system can work in connected with the specialized online products already available or as a standalone application. Exact will offer the typical arrangement in which accountants have software that can be used to see into their clients' financials and collaborate will them.
While Exact has long had accountants' programs in other countries, it has had none here. "We are going to experiment," van der Meijden said. Having already participated in the Scaling New Heights conference more than once, the software publisher will exhibit at the Sleeter conference in November.
Exact Online is available in three editions—manufacturing, wholesale distribution and project management. Each of these also has basic, advanced and premium versions.
Initially, Exact planned to ride on the coattails of Intuit, expecting that its accounting software users would want to purchase the Exact modules. However, it found that approach did not work as planned and is bringing it own accounting module to market in the United States as well.
For many years, Exact had withered until an interim CEO Martin Janmaat took over in August 2010 He was followed by another interim CEO, Max Timmer, who assumed the position in July 2011. The company hired van der Meijden early in 2012 and purged its U.S. management ranks that year.
Since then, the company says it has stemmed the attrition of its user base and returned to growth, particularly with the introduction of Internet-based products. Van Der Meijden said revenue in the company's Cloud Solutions division is growing at 50-percent a year, while Macola is also "now back to high growth."
The company now has an ambitious goal of moving into market leadership. "We want to be a top three player in the cloud for small and medium business," van der Meijden says.
