Wiise is a new integrated business application aimed at small business launched in Australia - it comes forth from the collaborative efforts of KPMG, Microsoft, and CBA (created by KPMG, built on Microsoft, supported by CBA). You may have seen the press surrounding the launch of Wiise - not in the last place containing critique of the link between KPMG and CBA, as well as the (perceived?) lack of understanding these large corporations have with the actual needs of small businesses. If you are expecting a post with an indepth review of Wiise, or a scathing critique of the consortium, I can be brief - this is not such a post. But if you would like to read about what would make a great integrated business application for a small but growing business, then read on. I am using the claims made at the Wiise published website as a guideline (www.wiise.com.au).
Build your business with an integrated solution
"Move from online accounting to an integrated suite." This is the title of the Wiise webpage - and there is merit to the statement. Small businesses often start with accounting, and then add a myriad of disconnected applications to manage the business. The challenge that an integrated suite overcomes is the disconnected experience, and facilitates a healthy data flow.
The flipside of a fully integrated suite is the complexity it introduces. A fully integrated suite is difficult to separate across the functionalities. Implementation choices can affect the functionality up or downstream in the data flow - implementation planning is essential, and a professional implementation partner is probably not a luxury you can afford to omit in the implementation.
The alternative: a suite of applications that can work independently as well as integrated. This limits the complexity and contains the consequences of "trial and error". It also allows for central user management, unified security, and a standardised "look and feel".
Get advanced analytics on your business
A business wide analytics suite is valuable - especially in businesses that have experienced growth. In order to stay on top of the business, all transactions generated in the course of the business should be feeding into a business intelligence and visualisation application. Once again, Wiise hits the right button, with the business intelligence built in and (assumed) pre-configured.
But - what is needed for business wide intelligence is not just the tools for analytics and visualisation, it is the availability of the system to generate the transactions to all within the company. This means the value of the system increases by the number of users (or is limited by the lack of these numbers). This can be a significant factor in the overall cost of ownership - from license cost per user, to implementation complexity and training costs to get adoption across the organisation.
The alternative: a suite of applications that are simple enough to be implemented quickly, where the individual applications are targeted to specific users to keep the scope per user small, yet integrate to keep the scope of the suite enterprise wide. On top of this, a pre-configured, yet further configurable and extendable business intelligence suite included in the price - such suite will have the full business generating transactions, and consuming appropriate and targeted business intelligence.
Link Wiise to your Microsoft Suite
For users of Microsoft Office 365 (and there are a lot of them), this is a good thing. Getting the business application to work with the Office suite that most people are familiar with helps with the adoption of the business suite, and proliferation of usable data within the organisation.
There are a few things to consider. First, Office 365 may have a substantial market share, but not every business is an Office 365 user. How will this work for G-suite users? Second, there is the licensing implication to consider. On the one hand, you will need to be licensed for Office 365 to be able to take advantage of the integration. On the other hand, will you also be required to licensed to use Wiise if you only access some of the data through Office 365?
The alternative: Many business applications can be linked to a business productivity suite, such as Office 365 or G-Suite. There is nothing new here, it is not a unique selling point. A real game-changer would be a suite of applications that gives you the choice between Office 365, G-Suite, or even brings its own productivity suite included in the price.
Connect your banking and accounting software
Bank feed integration into accounting software is a "must have". You'd have to look very hard for an accounting package tailored to the market in Australia that does not have the capability to take the feeds from the major banks. Wiise offers this as one of the key pillars - this is not really a point of differentiation.
How about credit card feeds for the expense management? Does Wiise offer expense management with approval workflows, and receipt capturing? And what about payment gateway integration, such as Stripe, Square, and Paypal? And is Wiise able to process subscription based payments (as more and more businesses are moving away from the transaction based model as the only way to buy into a subscription model)?
The alternative: any self-respecting accounting package will integrate with the major banks for the bank feeds. For small businesses, a suite that offers this integration, as well as integration with credit cards, payment gateways, and offers the possibility to have both the transactional as well as the subscription based business model would be a true differentiator, offering small businesses a means to serve customers with the flexibility they demand.
Conclusion: Is Wiise the revolution in business applications for small businesses?
No.
Oh - it needs a further qualification... Ok, let's judge Wiise on its merits. It is an integrated suite aimed at small business. Check(really, Oracle, SAP, and Dynamics 365 are too expensive and complex for small businesses). Wiise offers comprehensive functioality. Qualified check. Wiise comes in various plans, Wiise Lite, Wiise Business, and Wiise Premium. Each plan has a significant increase in functionality, as well as cost. Wiise lite, the entry level Wiise plan, starts at $49 per user per month with a one off joining fee of $99. Sounds good for an integrated suite. However, for the Business plan the price jumps to $119 per user per month and a $990 joining fee. The Premium is the most complete Wiise offering, and will set your business back $199 per user per month, and has a joining fee of $2990. Since a productivity suite is not included, Office 365 will need to be licensed separately (currently plans start at $7.04 without the Office applications to $17.49 per user per month for the full suite) These costs are prohibitive of getting Wiise everywhere in your organisation, limiting where the transactions are generated and consumed.
The alternative: I have put the various Wiise plans against the Zoho One plan below, so you can compare the various options. Note: all Wiise features are taken from the Wiise pricing page (https://www.wiise.com/au/pricing) and may change over time. It is recommended you check the features of each plan in the below table.
| Plan | Wiise Lite | Wiise Business | Wiise Premium | Zoho One |
| Monthly fee | $49 per user | $119 per user | $199 per user | $45 per employee |
| Joining fee | $99 | $990 | $2990 | - |
| Free trial | Available | Available | Available | Available (30 days) |
| Accounting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sales and Purchasing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Integrated bank feeds | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Productivity suite integration | Microsoft | Microsoft | Microsoft | Microsoft Zoho Workplace suite included |
| CRM | Simplified Sales Opportunity Management | Simplified Sales Opportunity Management | Simplified Sales Opportunity Management | Zoho CRM Enterprise Plan included |
| Payment gateways | - | - | - | Paypal Paypal flow Square Stripe Authorize.net Braintree |
| Human Capital Management | Employee information maintenance | Employee information maintenance | Employee information maintenance | Zoho People Enterprise Plan included Zoho Recruit Enterprise Plan included |
| Inventory control | Basic Inventory | Advance Inventory Control | Advance Inventory Control | Zoho Inventory Enterprise plan included |
| Assembly of goods and Kitting | - | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Manufacturing | - | - | Yes | - |
| Payroll | optional @$3 per employee per month | optional @$3 per employee per month | optional @$3 per employee per month | - (Aurelian Group is planning to release payroll this year, price tbd) |
| Business Intelligence | Yes | Yes | Yes | Zoho Reports Enterprise plan included |
| Other functionality | Social Marketing Email Campaigns Subscription management Project management software Website builder and hosting Website visitor tracking and chat Support desk and ticketing Remote assistance Corporate IM and Voice Productivity suite (mail, word processing, presentations, spreadsheets) Online cloud storage Intranet and content management etc. |
Comparing the chart above - you might have another look if the Wiise offering is the right one for your business. If you are not a manufacturer, you should consider taking a look at Zoho One. Zoho One allows you to scale your business, as it has been used in organisations with a single employee, to organisations with thousands. Zoho themselves run on Zoho One - that is approx. 7000 employees - so there is room for growth. Zoho One is priced in such way that it is not prohibitive to get everyone on board. The value of an integrated suite and business intelligence grows exponentially in relationship to the exposure to users.
Start your free trial of Zoho One today - there are no hidden costs, no joining fees - just a simple to understand monthly fee of $45 per employee per month (Australian dollar, exclusive of GST). If after the trial you are not satisfied that this is the solution for your organisation, then simply let the trial lapse - you do not have to provide any credit card details during the trial.