Welcome to the Mclowd Newsletter, our monthly communication to Investors, Marketplace participants and Partners.
Introduction
I recently travelled to the UK and took the opportunity to use Airbnb, a crowdsourced accommodation website.
Thanks to the Crowd I had access to dozens of apartments in the area I wanted to stay, and saved 60% compared to the cost of traditional hotel chains.
Ten years ago the answer to most questions was the Internet. Today the answer to most questions is the Crowd, and nowhere is the Power of the Crowd more obvious than in the free SMSF accounting software which lies at the heart of the Mclowd Community.
Over the next 100 days the software will reach a point at which it provides a realistic alternative to the offering of incumbent vendors (for both individual Trustees as well as Channel Partners).
Accounting Platform Update
Version 2.4 is now live, including the following new functionality:
- Market revaluation at year end
- Updates to data entry screens to improve consistency, integrity and downstream reporting for hybrids, managed funds and unit trusts
- Improvements to the Statement of Financial Position
Integration with Lime Actuarial will be completed in the next few days, and as always detailed Release Notes are available on the website.
Over the next 100 days Mclowd is scheduled to deliver three key outcomes:
- Member Benefit Statements
- Statement of Taxable Income
- Improved support for Direct Property, including the ability to record updates to the cost base
For those Trustees and Channel Partners looking to migrate for FY15, this means that you can begin to plan your migration confident in the knowledge that at the end of the upcoming financial year you will be able to generate the required compliance outcomes at a fraction of the cost of traditional models.
Channel Migration
I would like to welcome David Carter and his Team at Odyssey Resources to the Community.
David has nearly 200 staff working out of their offices in Vietnam, and will be providing migration support to accounting and financial planning firms looking to move their SMSF clients to the Mclowd Platform.
Odyssey brings to the Community the firepower necessary for large scale asset migration, something for which Mclowd itself does not have the capacity. (Mclowd’s role is focused on providing the governance which will deliver rapid growth, including in due course support for the SME market both here and overseas).
David can be contacted here.
Marketplace
The ability to generate invoices has now been added to the Marketplace, and we are in the process of adding data feeds as products that Trustees and Channel Partners will be able to purchase direct from the relevant suppliers.
Discussions are also progressing in relation to a life insurance product designed specifically for the Mclowd Community (absent the conflicted remuneration models that have plagued that industry).
Postscript
“The idea that an economic system that is organised around scarcity and profit could lead to an economy of nearly free goods and services is so counterintuitive that it is difficult to accept. Nonetheless, this is exactly what is happening.” Jeremy Rifkin,Zero Marginal Cost Society.
Capitalism in its current form exists within the space between price and marginal cost. In terms of accounting software that space is now evaporating.
(Forces such as cloud computing, crowdsourcing, 3D printing, renewable energy and free online education have set us on an inexorable journey towards zero marginal cost).
As the gap between price and marginal cost shrinks across countless industries, incumbents must adapt to this new reality or face extinction.
In comparison collaborative Communities such as Mclowd – which has been subject to the discipline of marginal cost pricing from inception – will flourish.
Kind Regards
Ashley Porter
Managing Director
Mclowd Pty Ltd