Accounting network Tenon this month expanded its outsourcing operation through a partnership that will allow it to offer clients online access to Microsoft Dyamics GP (formerly Great Plains) accounting applications.

The Tenon Outsourcing service can take on all of a company's financial processes including payroll and payables, backed with professional advice on things such as VAT and employer tax. Clients pay a flat monthly fee for outsourcing package and do away with the need to recruit and equip a finance function.

Like the Virtual Accounts Office [1] (VAO) concept promoted by the IAAITC and software houses such as Mamut, the Tenon Outsourcing service caters for growing businesses with complex financial requirements, for example those with multiple international subsidiares, or foreign companies setting up in the UK.

For more than a year Microsoft has been promoting software as a service options for its Dynamics applications through third party hosts, and the Tenon partnership is another step along this route. Already, more than 70 Tenon clients have taken up the service, with more expected to do so.

Microsoft Dynamics UK director Paul White commented: "Our partnership with Tenon gives greater flexibility in the way that customers purchase their financial and accounting software, based on the needs of the business and IT. Customers can now decide whether they have systems on-premise or hosted as an on-demand service."