'Sage' appointment for iplicit

Award-winning UK cloud accounting software provider, iplicit, welcomes experienced industry figure, Paula Cooper, to Head of its Channel reseller programme that is central to its continued hypergrowth.

iplicit, which brings powerful cloud accounting software to medium-sized organisations, is on course for its sixth consecutive year of 100%+ growth in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and continues attracting top talent from Sage, Xero, IRIS and Access.

Earlier this year iplicit announced it would ‘double down’ on its investment with channel partners to ensure continued exponential growth into 2025 and beyond.

Cooper spent 18 years with Sage, specialising in channel partnerships, including heading its UK and Ireland sales operation for mid-market organisations. She was also Sales Director for resellers K3 FDS and Protean Software. She now joins iplicit after taking a career break following a 20-year run.

Paula Cooper, Head of Channel at iplicit, commented on her appointment, “It was the first time in my career that I’d had a chance to review who I’d like to work for. I did quite a lot of research into other companies and I found iplicit was head and shoulders above everyone else in product, attitude, support and vision.”

Cooper says iplicit has a unique offering to resellers, many of whom have built substantial customer bases with on-premises products over the past 10-20 years or more. The challenge they now face is how to continue to serve that base when there is often no affordable pathway to powerful cloud accounting software.

iplicit CEO, Lyndon Stickley, said, “We continue to recruit talent from Sage, IRIS, Access and many others, as staff begin to see the position in the market that iplicit is assuming and we are very excited to have secured Paula – she comes with a vast amount of experience and a clear understanding of what’s important to partners in the finance software market.”

The iplicit Channel Programme will allow resellers to fill a gap in their portfolios, enabling them to retain their existing customers as those businesses grow while developing new and recurring revenue streams.

For the reseller, iplicit can aid customer retention by providing longstanding customers with an affordable, low-disruption path to true cloud accounting – something that is not offered by the incumbent vendors. The programme provides the channel partner with opportunities to secure additional revenue streams through acquisition, deployment and support. Margins are said to embarrass those offered from existing vendors.

Partners receive training, sales enablement and the support of iplicit’s solution consulting team who can join them when the software is demonstrated.

Stickley continues, “The industry has been dominated by a handful of on-premises software vendors serving the mid-market over the past 20-30 years. Their strength has stifled innovation, and most have failed in being able to bring a low disruption, cost-effective product to market.”

Cooper concludes, “iplicit is a cloud product that’s powerful but easy for customers to use and it will help those customers to grow easily. I think it’s the best in the market for what it does. For the reseller, that means more growth and higher customer satisfaction. This is a once-in-a-generation piece of software and it’s been launched by a business that wants to scale in a way that’s sustainable.”

“iplicit is growing in a manageable way and is determined not to make the same mistakes that some other vendors have. iplicit may be a relatively new name in the industry but it has a team of people from the top down who have extensive experience, both in direct relationships with customers and through channels. We’re not the new kids on the block.”