IT veteran Marinus van Sandwyk has architected, designed and launched PocketAccountant, a world-first PDA-based application that automates expense and income tracking.
While there are many other applications on the market that facilitate expense and income tracking, PocketAccountant is the first to prepare and distribute the resultant data in a format ready for tax purposes, and submit it to the appropriate officials via the Internet, without human intervention. This eliminates the paperwork, duplicated effort, inaccuracy and redundancy typically associated with the process.
Van Sandwyk designed PocketAccountant for Palm OS, and has subsequently added support for the Microsoft-based Pocket PC platform. He intends to sell the PocketAccountant technology to an international value-added intermediary - ideally a global Internet service provider (ISP) - that can make it available to a broader public than the local 120 000-user PDA base.
"The local PDA market is tiny compared to developed world markets," says Van Sandwyk, "and PocketAccountant will only come into its own when exposed to the largest possible user base."
There are some 16 000 PDA applications available worldwide; Van Sandwyk has added PocketAccountant to this pool as he discerned a dire need for a complete solution. "Much of the effort expended and cost incurred in preparing expense and income tracking is unnecessary and redundant. Allowing a user to capture these details on the fly, in a digital form, in the right format for accountants and tax officials, is what sets PocketAccountant apart."
During development he ensured that the solution was of the cradle-to-grave type that sees digital data collected at inception and passed on, without rekeying or recapture, until it becomes usable information.
This has resulted in data that is loaded onto the PDA; when synchronised with a PC or a service provider, it is automatically uploaded to a value-added intermediary (typically an ISP); a process service provider, usually an auditor, bookkeeper or accountant, automatically and free of charge, downloads the data from the ISP, which functions as a hub.
"After users enter the information on their PDAs, it is not touched again until it arrives at the accounting or bookkeeping firm," says Van Sandwyk. "That ensures that it is error-free and minimal effort has been expended in getting it there, with no unnecessary forms and duplication of effort." A value-added intermediary (typically ISPs or Web portals) would benefit from the extra traffic and click-throughs it gets from users linking to process service providers, since their revenue model is based on traffic which supports advertising.
With a footprint of just 16kb, PocketAccountant requires only four stylus strokes to capture any transaction and it is highly intuitive and robust. Application features include multi-currency support, unlimited accounts and tracking of vehicle logbooks.
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