Chuck Vigeant M.Ed at 2014 Sleeter Conference | CLEARIFY

The Sleeter Conference is the country's largest Accounting Solutions Conference, and was held at Ceaser's Palace, Las Vegas - Nov 9 thru 12, 2014

Chuck discussed the following topics in his sessions:

• Current state of the business analytics industry with regards to small-midsize business
• Nuances between reporting, analytics, visualization
• The four pillars of business analytics.  (Opportunities, Customers, Operations, Finance)
• Process and pitfalls of going from concept to final presentation
• Overview of tools and their capabilities with guidelines

Chuck notes his experience as follows:

"Aside from the lectures I provided, I had the privilege of visiting with vendors who have a variety of tools and solutions in the business analytics space, and found that there are a variety of innovations within the financial summary space - but relatively few, within the other areas of business analytics - e.g. opportunities, customers, and operations.  This is not to negate the innovation and hard work that these 3rd party vendors have provided, but just an observation of the offerings within the small business accounting eco system."

"Cloud computing adoption is gaining momentum, but it is clear to me that analytic solutions are also dictated by generational 'comfort zones'. Current generations are still accustomed to the traditional reporting and pinpoint layouts - and yes Excel is always present as the preferred medium. However it is difficult to fit a 12 column custom financial report - or play with a pivot table - on an i phone, or perhaps portable device; but this is where the next generation of tools and operatives will reside."

"Currently, the situation is dictated by the user, the desired result, and the tools available to produce the results - and there is no one tool that does everything, or handles every situation. The continuum is totally dynamic."

"Another observation is that noticeably absent in many of the cloud offerings from Intuit, Sage, and Xero is advanced tools for job costing, inventory management, manufacturing and the like - places where CLEARIFY's QQUBE technology shines.  For now, products like QuickBooks Enterprise, and Sage's advanced product lines will continue to be desktop and/or hosted.  But as these companies add to their online product capabilities, we will add to our solutions and product lines."

"Within the small business space - and specifically QuickBooks - CLEARIFY remains the leader in detail reporting, and advanced analytics. But we have to keep pace with direction of the industry: it is changing quickly."  

"Lastly, I was very grateful to have the opportunity to discuss and promulgate my thinking in this arena.  I had taken a hiatus out of the limelight for a couple of years, to step back from the closed small business accounting technology ecosystem, so I could focus on listening to customers, and observe their pain points - and maybe attempt to solve them.  What is clear however, is that everybody's view of what specific analytics are necessary - and what they should contain - is as varied as individual snowflakes.  But it also drives us to keep working to solve them.  It is the ultimate challenge."

The Sleeter Conference continues to be the premiere accounting technology venue, covering all offerings in small business accounting ecosystem - including Intuit, Sage, Xero - and has successfully served its ever growing membership of accounting professionals for over a decade.

Next year the conference will be at the Bellagio, Las Vegas.