The former document management business of Australian Reckon has gone public as Reckon, once Intuit's QuickBooks distributor in Australia, markets Reckon One, cloud-based, low-cost accounting software, in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It also sells accounting firm applications.
GetBusyHQ is lead by CEO Daniel Rabie, who was COO of Reckon and is son of Reckon CEO Clive Rabie. The COO position was created in July 2016 with Daniel Rabie was its first occupant.
Reckon purchased SmartVault in January 2016 and said it planned to eventually converge that application with its own Virtual Cabinet. Then, in March, Reckon said it would spin off the document management products, which represented 15 percent of its revenue. However, Reckon said, the applications' performance exceeded its expectation.
One investment firm, Forager, based in Australia, published a web article by Steve Johnson on August 2 that explained why it had sold what it called "substantial holdings" in the software company." Forager said the sale of the GetBusy business reduced Reckon's value.
Johnson, Forager's chief investment officer, wrote that as larger shareholders and directors, the Rabies "have a clear incentive to underwrite the issue at the lowest price possible and will end up owning a larger percentage of GetBusy than they do of Reckon. One can't help but wonder if they are laying the groundwork to move on from Reckon."
Intuit's QuickBooks online has quickly garnered more customers than Reckon One has in Australia while "we have lost confidence in our valuation of the Practice Management division," Johnson wrote.
