In a case of “there being nothing new under the sun”, SaaSu today announced its approach to within-SaaS transaction processing.
Like Xero’s “Xero to Xero transaction processing”, SaaSu’s cloning allows an invoice from a supplier using SaaSu to be posted with one click into your own SaaSu accounts. SaaSu calls it “one click duplication” but essentially it’s the same thing.
Further SaaSu functionality is described as follows;
Connecting
At the same time as you clone, you may optionally choose to connect the two (distinct copies) of the (same) transaction permanently. Why? To ensure you are kept informed of changes on the originator’s end (supplier in this example). This is step up from cloning because it adds the value of change management. You may be notified of changes by the supplier and keep a record of those changes against the transaction. We call this linking ‘one click connection’.
You may also ask why two copies, why not always have one that is permanently linked? The answer is simple, this is one transaction but there are (at least) two parties to it, each are separate legal entities required to have their own records.
Automating
The next step in efficiency is optionally agreeing to do this (clone and connect with various options) for all transactions from that counter-party (e.g. supplier) automatically in future. Possibly also add-in an additional level of security for managing repudiation risk, public/private keys work well here. We call it ‘one click automation’.
What’s pretty exciting for me as a neutral observer is the apparent parallelism between the two companies – as many people have said, it comes down to execution in the end – who will be quickest to prove added benefits, or gain sufficient market share, to achieve scale and momentum.