RedTail Counts On New 'SuperVARs'

With its new SuperVAR program, unveiled Monday, RedTail has lined up five top VARs to build interfaces to accounting applications from Best Software (now reverting to the Sage Group moniker), Microsoft and AccountMate Software. These "SuperVARs," as RedTail calls them, also will provide interface-related technical support to the 150 VARs that sell RedTail's service.

"We've chosen the leaders in the VAR community for each product," said Del Ross, director of VAR channel development in North America at Westborough, Mass.-based RedTail. "They will be the influencers to the rest of the channel, perform development work and do the integration between RedTail and back-office accounting packages."

The five SuperVARs and their assigned accounting platforms are WAC Consulting, for Accpac Pro; Net@Work, supporting Accpac Advantage; Blytheco, handling the MAS 90/MAS 200 interface; Figtree Consulting, responsible for AccountMate; and E-Com Accounting Solutions, connecting to BusinessVision. RedTail will soon announce a SuperVAR for Microsoft Great Plains, and it's in talks with other vendors of SMB ERP software, Ross said.

"There are all kinds of stories about EDI going away, but there's still a push from customers and vendors for it," said Steve Blythe, CEO of Blytheco, based in Irvine, Calif. "We've done multiple EDI interfaces for a while now. RedTail's service offers a nice, easy-to-use solution for companies doing small to moderate EDI transactions that don't want to invest in a large EDI infrastructure. We've written this interface from scratch, specifically for MAS 90 and 200."

RedTail's hosted service comprises EDI mapping, translation, communications and trading partner management. "I know how complex and gruesome EDI can be to build and implement," Ross said. "Because it's hosted, our EDI service makes it easy for the channel to meet the needs of small businesses that require EDI to communicate with their customers and suppliers."

Blytheco has created links that transfer the transactions from inside the MAS accounting software to the RedTail servers, which then process the information, Blythe said. The Blytheco-written interface then returns the results to the back-end system and syncs the information between the service and the accounting software.

RedTail's resellers receive "a percentage of recurring revenue, which we collect monthly and pay quarterly," said Ross, who previously was director of channel development for Accpac. "They also receive a signing bonus whenever they sign a new clients." In addition, SuperVARs receive a percentage of all sales related to the platform they support, he said.