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SSA 2010: This year's winners

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6th Oct 2010
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More than 350 people gathered at the Connaught Rooms in London on Thursday night for this year's Software Satisfaction Awards. Here are accountancy's big winners on the night.

FreeAgent Central, Access Dimensions and Sage 50 Payroll carried off the main accounting prizes at the Software Satisfaction Awards 2010 ceremony on Thursday.

In the tax and practice management categories, TaxCalc and DRIVE both repeated their successes of last year. Profile Technology Services was another repeat winner in the 2010 Reseller of the Year category.

Version One was 2010's enterprise-level paperless office software winner, while Draycir Spindle repeated its 2009 success in the small business document management category.

With the consolidation of the accounting categories down from three to two, the 2008 and 2009 mid-range accounting software winner Access Dimensions overcame the challenge of two-time enterprise Software Satisfaction Award winner PS Financials, HansaWorld, Corcero Resource Financials and the Financial Management Solution from Advanced Business Solutions (the application previously known as OpenAccounts).

But the biggest surprise of the night was FreeAgent Central's triumph over serial SSA winner KashFlow in the small business accounting category. And as in previous years, the small business shortlist was notable for the presence of mainly web-based applications such as Xero and Arithmo, with Benchmark and Accountz holding up the banner for on-premise options.

Sage also overturned a long-standing tradition in these awards by winning the small business payroll category.   The other nominees in this group were 12Pay Payroll, Keytime Payroll, MyPAYE Online Payroll and last year's winner, Pegasus Opera II Payroll. The enterprise payroll  prize went to the P11D Organiser from Personal Audit Systems.

Phocas won the business intelligence/corporate performance management category.

Reactions - what the winners said

FreeAgent Central – Small business accounting winner
"It's now the time of web-based systems," said Ed Molyneux, founder and CEO of FreeAgent Central. "That's the expectation small businesses now have."

FreeAgent's Roan Lavery added: "We've put in place feedback mechanisms in the software. Winning best newcomer last year was great. This year we've been trying to help people to communicate better with us…"
Molyneux jumped back in. "…If you offer these things to people they lap them up because that's what they're expecting."

Access Dimensions – Enterprise accounting winner
"I'm amazed our team has been able to make this happen," said a proud Access managing director Chris Bayne.

"I hope everyone realises Access is in the enterprise space. When I first joined the business in 2008 we won Software Satisfaction Awards and other prizes for mid-range software. Our brand is elevated, we winning and I'm loving it."

TaxCalc – Tax software winner
Acorah Software's TaxCalc brand director Anne Porter was "incredibly happy" with this year's prize. "Not only does it show our customers are absolutely delighted, the fact that it had a panel of industry judges shows we really are the best tax software there is."

While several other tax/practice providers are still putting the final touches to their iXBRL-compatible accounts formats, Porter pointed out that TaxCalc has had tools available for its customers since April. "We were very early with it and have proven results with a 99.7% CT efiling success rate with TaxCalc and our Excel Converter. Clients have tended to rely on us. Whatever they need us to do, we tend to do it."

She also wanted users to know that as long as they move to TaxCalc’s next release in November, they will get a copy of its new CRM Hub free of charge.

Sage 50 Payroll - Small business payroll winner
Sage UK product manager Guy Clack commented: "It is fantastic that Sage's work with small businesses has been recognised with this award for Sage 50 Payroll software. What makes it really special is that it is voted for by business software users. At Sage, we pride ourselves on listening to our customers and working in partnership with them to develop software and services that meet the real challenges of today's business environment. This award is testimony to that relationship, and to the features in the product that are enabling businesses up and down the country to run an effective and compliant payroll."

Full details of award winners and nominees in all 17 categories are available from the Software Satisfaction Awards website.

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