Thought Leaders

This page is designed for Youtube Content Creators, Small Business Consultants, Technology Consultants, CPA's, Bookkeepers, Personal Coaches and other comparably oriented individuals who profit off servicing the educational, technological and accounting needs of Small Business People and financially oriented individuals. 

This page is also designed for Creatives in music and the arts. And that's because we need help from you all helping others understand what it is they do and don't understand.

Content on this page includes:

1. An Introduction to our "spreadsheet" based offerings
2. The Pluses of our offerings for End Users
3. The Minuses of our offerings for End Users
4. What's in this for you?
5. How are we going to make money?
6. Summary

1) An intro to our "spreadsheet" based offerings...

All of our core Software offerings are "just spreadsheets templates", but don't underestimate what can be done in spreadsheets by an engineer with twenty years of complex, small business software programming background. Especially when combined with the paradigm altering Google Sheets offering.  

A Google Sheets release in the 2016-2017 time frame converted Google's "blossoming tool" into a behemoth for this century.

The developer behind these solutions had been watching and waiting for over a decade for a new option for web based business systems to break the grip the Venture Capital funded Software As A Service companies were creating in every Small Business industry. Google's upgrades to Google Sheets in the 2016-17 time frame opened that door which can not be now closed.  

These solutions are unique and powerful. Not like anything you've seen prior.  For those familiar with the good and bad of spreadsheet programming, there is some good news. 

• The equations and formulas used are not overly complex because they are separated into logical and maintainable part, something most who build complex spreadsheets don't do.
  
• These equations are generally out of the user flow, which is also something not seen in most who program in spreadsheets
  
• These spreadsheets operate a lot more like databases than they do spreadsheets, and that's what makes them and this all so unique.
• We did not use any proprietary GScript code as part of the core functionality of any of the modules. That makes these modules compatible with any spreadsheet program for those who want to try them outside of Google Sheets.
  

The benefits for End Users and those that support them are significant. 

2) The pluses of our offerings for End Users...

Privacy -- All of our core Software offerings are "just spreadsheets templates". These were designed to be used in Google Sheets, but the core functionality of each is spreadsheet only code (not gScript), thus they should work equally as well in any spread sheet solution. With this system, user data is NOT stored in massive databases with like kind users, where it can be mined for industry specific uses by software vendors.  Also, our templates are without shared "program libraries" or hooks back to us as the developer making them truly stand alone systems.  These features make these solutions the "most private" web based "software solutions"  on the planet with no equals. A person's business system data just can't get any more private in this day and age. 

Customization -- Because these are just templates, they can be customized by users in any form or fashion they desire to meet their own unique needs.

Education -- Because these templates were designed in line with healthy business flow and function first, these templates actually educate users and instructors on "Best Practices" level business processes for a given trade or user group.   Often times, people don't realize they have modeled their own thoughts about business processes based on the software they use, which was seldom designed with their own best interest in mind. 

Raw Power -- These solutions were developed by someone with over 20 years of complex small business software development background. They were designed to do very specific tasks with cross checking and confirmation loops built in that few software vendors any size include in their offering. In fact, these software offerings represent complex data requirement models for larger software vendors who haven't gotten it right yet...

Cost and Support -- The cost for most items is free. We will be offering some fee base video instructions and classes, but they will be very accelerated business and engineering level instructional videos (with a huge gap left for other thought leaders to fill in).  Support wise, we envision community driven support via youtube and forums with a higher level of fee based support offered by others. 

3) The minuses of our offerings for End Users...

Function over Form - Gmail, when first released in 2004 was hideous looking. For over a decade the engineers worked to build something amazing without the complexity of sexiness. During that decade, that ugly User Interface slowly attracted more and more and more users, because it was POWERFUL. Only in recent years has Gmail's interface started to trend towards sexy, and while that means something to some people, to those that adopted it years earlier, it's a minor upgrade and an occasional annoyance.  We will never pretend these are the sleek and sexy solutions they are not.  These were created because there wasn't a single sleek and sexy solution that in fact met a users real needs filled by any of our solutions. In fact, most competitors are so far off, people don't even realize what they are really missing. If those that build "sexy solutions" can offer the functionality in our modules, they will pick up the users who get educated by our tools. It's a challenge and opportunity for them too. 

No Auto-upgrades - Because our solutions are "just spreadsheets" with no code libraries or hooks back to us, any upgrades to a template by us would need to be added to a user's template manually. Or they'd need to download the new template and manually migrate their data.  1) When we release a solution it's very well built out for most basic needs, minimize the need for upgrades after adoption 2) if and when new functionality is added, it will be ideal for some and not needed for others. Those that need it can likely implement it with a little suggestion and information  3) Upgrading to a newer version template would not generally be as big of a task for an educated user as some might think it would be. 

4) What's in this for you?

You were notified of this page because you are engaged in commerce now in a way that makes us believe you can benefit from this software launch in one of several ways.

1. Our Bookkeeping Module can save you time and money (and that can lead into fee based service work?) >> Every one of you has some type of bookkeeping system. Most will likely be using Quickbooks and many will likely be doing their own bookkeeping. For those using Quickbooks, we've found our very robust Bookkeeping Module can simplify your bookkeeping and speed it up while eliminating costs and headaches, with no ongoing fees for life. For those with multiple business and multiple annual licensing fees to Quickbooks, this may be especially attractive financially.  If your conversion to our Bookkeeping module goes well, for those in the content creation and consulting industries, we feel there will be revenue streams available to you related to education, instruction, consultation, coaching or tutoring. Those opportunities would not be limited to the ZAP Accounting Bookkeeping module either. See  http://soul-proprietor-guide.weebly.com/technology.html for an example of technology curriculum for Google Platform separate from this specific offering. 
      
2. You-tubers and the Bookkeeping Module >> We are going to give away our Bookkeeping Module because we need to get it in people's hands, and "trial versions" don't work so well for spreadsheet templates. We are also going to give away all aspects of our video instruction for this offering too to make it as easy as possible for people to leave Quickbooks when they are ready. 
   
   As a nice feature, this module comes with a year's worth of sample data in it, because we need the sample data to ensure programmatic accuracy with changes. But for you, that means the software is demo ready as soon as you open it. As you will see, we also offer a faux Banking Website to simulate additional financial periods for easy training. 
   
   Many eventual end users will want/need a lot more spreadsheet or google sheet background education than our videos offer, and/or they will want hand-holding or longer more consolidated videos than what we will offer. 
   
   You-tubers are free to reference the website, the videos and parts of the videos for this module to create their own classes if they'd like. We will even post themes which will need instruction with suggested considerations for things like 1) using it for real estate or 2) using it in a non-double entry accounting solution to just track expenses (like a freshbooks), etc.  
   ​
3. Consulting, Training and Service  >> We feel there is an opportunity to do Consulting, Training and fee based services with our product just like Quickbooks. In a recent study of online small business consultants, we were surprised to find rates in the $250-350/hour range for educating people in their own small business accounting realm. We felt that was/is high for anything you could have been offering, given it would either have been basic accounting flow information or Quickbooks use. Worse yet, we found similar pricing for YNAB consultants who are offering neither proper small business education nor proper accounting education with a single entry bookkeeping solution for $300/hour? In general, you are free to create whatever offerings you'd like. We do feel our software combined with our models and educational information could warrant those rates better than what is being offered now, but you'll get a lot less hours with each individual given the baseline structure we area providing. The idea of selling more based on confusion should start to dissipate as this rolls out.  We also hope some folks will operate in a more affordable price range ($75-150/hour) for those not swimming in money too. 

5) How are we going to make money?

That is a very fine and very relevant question. 

1) Donations for Templates -- There is very little overhead involved right now. The products being offered for free are exceptional. We hope and expect early adopters to donate after they realize the value and we'd love it if they continued to donate small amounts with each year that passes or as they see fit. Likewise, we hope early adopters encourage those that come after them to do the same. 

2) Bookkeeping Module specific -- A one time licensing fee for support forum access and for the right to produce content -- For the Bookkeeping Module, a $99 purchase gets a license for the software which allows for access to the Private Facebook Forum for community support and it entitles the licensee to create and distribute videos. There will also be small suggested donations for those given fee-based seminars.  

3) Fee based videos for Sales Systems and other Advanced Modules -- For modules other than Bookkeeping, the basic and advanced configuration and use videos along with forum access will be priced accordingly for a one time license fee. The sales hurdle for selling an unknown will be lower because everyone can start with the bookkeeping module, and they can get a feel for the quality and quantity of our instructional videos. They will most likely get a free or close to free version of the Sales Systems, but these can be unwieldy without a lot of information and support from a technical person. 

3) Advanced Instruction, Seminars and Consulting -- Even with all the free stuff, we expect there to be no shortage of consulting and seminar opportunities and we expect to train others so they can put on the same in their local areas or via skype, zoom, meet.google.com or other. 

We are trying to do something very different. We aren't sure how it will all play out. This is all a work in process. 

6) An example of our video instructional offering for the Bookkeeping Module...

Below are screen shots of the download, configuration, advanced configuration, advanced use and back-end technical videos for our Bookkeeping Module. All of this will be made public when this goes live.

6) Summary

If you have any interest in discussing opportunities, please reach out.

For more information or to start a conversation, please email info@zap-accounting-software.com