GrowthForce Partners With Right Networks to Scale Their Outsourced Accounting Service. Stephen King founded his Intuit Solution Provider and Advanced QuickBooks ProAdviser, GrowthForce, in 2004. GrowthForce provides online outsourced bookkeeping and controller services to small businesses, non-profits and CPA firms that utilize Intuit's QuickBooks® accounting software. Prior to starting GrowthForce, King, a Board Member of the Texas Society of Public Accountants, spent over 20 years in various corporate financial roles as well as serving as President of Administaff's Financial Management Services Division.
Stephen saw the demands and needs of the market. To support those demands, Stephen recognized an opportunity to expand GrowthForce's business by offering additional services to his existing customers as well as increase their reach into new markets. Mr. King reached out to several of his existing customers, who were Managed Service Providers (MSPs), for advice and knowledge on hosting QuickBooks.
After several trials with different providers and significant amounts of testing, there was no getting around the fact that QuickBooks was architected as a client/server application. Hosting QuickBooks in the cloud properly presented a brand new set of problems that typical MSPs had no knowledge about. Many of the QuickBooks extensions (like the Intuit Statement Writer or the Intuit Fixed Asset Writer), critical to advanced users, would not function properly in a cloud environment. According to King, "QuickBooks looks for data files in the same folder structure, not just the same computer, and the inability of these MSP's to allow QuickBooks to provide these basic functionalities, or really know anything about them, forced us to look elsewhere to solve this problem".
When a hurricane hit Houston, home of GrowthForce headquarters, Stephen down the realized that whatever solution they found to properly host QuickBooks for their clients needed to be robust enough to also allow his own business to be fully hosted as well. There would be no more server's in GrowthForce's office. Stephen spared no expense to make sure GrowthForce did all the research and testing in order to find the right host.
After a very extensive process to choose the right provider, GrowthForce admits they probably know as much, if not more, than anyone else about QuickBooks hosting. "I'm a CPA, and by most definitions, that should tell you I am naturally risk adverse. We hired an outside consultant to do a review of every Authorized Certified QuickBooks Hosted Provider as well as putting out an RFP asking each one of them to respond in a set period of time, which they did", said Stephen. After all of their testing and researching, GrowthForce selected Right Networks.
for their hosting partner. Said Mr. King, "Anyone can put QuickBooks on a box, put it in the cloud and say they are a QuickBooks Hosting Provider – but Right Networks has figured out how to make QuickBooks work in the cloud while making it think it is running locally on a desktop. I don't know how they do it, but it is not a trivial task and it works as advertised."
Not only was Right Networks the best solution for his customer's, but King loves the support and willingness of Right Networks to work with him on the hosting of his own business. "Right Networks showed a willingness to work with us since we wanted to host our entire business in the cloud. They were very helpful and came back with solid solutions to allow us to host our Microsoft Exchange and other Office applications in their cloud as well. Now our entire business is hosted by Right Networks and I am absolutely thrilled to be a reference for them because I really do believe in what and how they are doing things."
GrowthForce's partnership with Right Networks allows them to be true to their promise of being an "online, outsourced accounting service." The partnership opens up new markets for GrowthForce and enables them to bring on new clients that don't have, or can't afford, the appropriate computing infrastructure necessary for their QuickBooks environment. Said King: "Right Networks allows GrowthForce to pass dramatic cost savings onto our customers by providing them with a complete hosting, management and protection solution for their QuickBooks environment. Without Right Networks, we never would have been able to bring on many of these new clients nor experience the growth in our business because of it."
As one of the nations largest outsourced accounting service providers, GrowthForce is expected to not only provide its customers with the best solutions for their QuickBooks environment, but support and service those environments as well – meaning they expect that same level of support from Right Networks.
"It's one thing to be happy with their service, but another to be happy with support", said Stephen. "With Right Networks, you get someone immediately who can help you when you need it. Just as crucial, Right Networks knows about your environments and are qualified to talk about them, so they are able to fix most problems right away. And as a CPA, any time you are spending on the phone with support means you are not billing your time and making money."
Stephen built GrowthForce into a very successful business with hundreds of clients across the United States as well as serving as the online outsourced accounting and bookkeeping and Controller service to small businesses on every continent. GrowthForce workS with many of Houston's top CPA firms and IT companies. Said Stephen – "What made us 100% confident and validated our decision to go with Right Networks was when Intuit came out shortly after we chose them and selected Right Networks to be their official Host Provider for QuickBooks Enterprise Edition."
"Our aim is to provide excellent service to our customers. Customers are our priority. If they can't access their QuickBooks, then they are not billing, which means they are not making money."
"Intuit validated our decision to go with Right Networks when they chose them to be their official Host Provider for QuickBooks Enterprise and the folks at Right Networks have delivered."
"One of the best forms of insurance you can ever get for your company is to host your QuickBooks with Right Networks."
-- Stephen King
Founder and President
GrowthForce
GrowthForce provides small businesses financial intelligence as a trusted service partner. GrowthForce helps customers grow by enabling business owners to focus on their core competencies. Founded in 2004 by Stephen King, GrowthForce has grown into one of the nation's largest provider of online outsourced bookkeeping and controller services to business that use QuickBooks.
Founded in 2002, Right Networks is the leading hosting provider for most popular small business accounting applications. Right Networks leverages its technology combining clustered virtual desktops and servers to provide a hosted network that can be accessed from anywhere. Right networks hosts data and applications for a rapidly growing client base consisting of Fortune 50 companies to sole proprietorships and individuals.
