FinancialForce has hired Heather Gille as chief people officer. She fills the position left open by Jonathan Schoonmaker.

Schoonmaker, left in June to take a position with the same title at Talkwalker, was with FinancialForce from July 2017 through June this year. Gille was previously global VP of, people at workplace, at Glu Mobile, from September 2019 through last month. Glu Mobile was acquired by Electronic Arts in April. Before that, she worked at McKesson from September 2015 through September 2019. She was VP of human resources for the last one year nine months with that company.

 Sage Intacct has handed out channel awards for 2021 with most going to CPA firms. The two top awards also featured repeat winners.

Bakery Tilly U.S. won the Intacct Partner of the Year because of its purchase of AcctTwo Shared Services earlier this year. It marked the eight consecutive year AcctTwo took home the honor. The VAR of the Year award went to Armanino the eighth time. The growth partners of year were Alta Vista Technology and CliftonLarsonAllen. The Growth Partners of the Year for Deals are Dean Dorton Allen Ford and LBMC Technology Solutions. Eugene, Ore.-based Kernutt Stokes was picked as Rookie Partner of the Year because its standout addition of new customers. The Sage Intacct Accounting Partner of the Year is Consero Global for the fifth consecutive year

 Diversis Capital Management has acquired Fishbowl. The private equity firm did not disclose terms for buying the inventory management software  company

Fishbowl CEO John David King said although Fishbowl had not actively sought a sale, it was approached by Diversis and was impressed by the firm. Recently Fishbowl launched a SaaS product, Fishbowl Online. The cloud-based product works with the new Fishbowl Online Mobile App, which is available for Apple and Android devices. Along with inventory management features, the applications has integration with a number of packages and platforms including QuickBooks, QB Online, Xero, Amazon, Shopify, WooCommerce 

Somerset CPAs, a firm based in Indianapolis, Ind., has started an Acumatica business. The new affiliated organization, Somerset Technology Solutions was formed through the acquisition of the Acumatica practice of Dataquest Solutions. 

The new organization’s leaders are David Gelula and Debbie Mazzullo from Dataquest and Jason Leveson from Somerset. An owner of  STS, Gelula, was principal consultant and general manager of Dataquest from January 2018 until taking the last month. Mazzullo served as principal at Dataquest there from April 2016. Leveson, now managing director of the new group, rejoined Somerset 2018. Gelula was a manager at Azamba Consulting Group from June 2007 through June 2016. Mazzullo founded Mazzullo Inc., a technology consulting group, in 1987. Leveson was a director of professional services with Deltek from 2014 through 2018. He worked at Somerset from 1999 through 2010 and  was a manger in the information solutions team for more than eight years

The most interesting entry in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was the QAnon float which had a projection of John F. Kennedy Jr. announcing his plans to return.

The highly awaited “Q” balloon failed to appear. It was reported it started attacking other balloons while waiting to move into line. Speaking of Macy’s the iconic Geoffrey the Giraffe is now with Macy’s with Toys R Us Online. It was revealed that after the failure of the Toys R Us chain, Jeffrey spent some time in rehab on the Isle of Lost Toys. … Hallmark has put together a slew of new movies for the holidays: A Sugary Christmas, The  Sick of Christmas Movie, A Golden Christmas 25 and Another Damned Christmas Movie… The move to end Britney Spears’ conservatorship was accompanied by another movement that went much less noticed. A handful of people who remember her 2001 performance with a python named Banana were outside the courthouse with “Free the Snake” placards. It hit me that with her father removed after years as a conservator, well, you thought holiday meals in your family were awkward. … With the Delta variant followed by the Omnicron variant, schools can use the COVID-19 outbreak to teach the Greek Alphabet. … The original TV show “CSI” has returned with a sequel “CSI: Los Vegas”. It is expected the franchise will expand with CSI North Pole in which Santa Claus doubles as a criminal investigator, aimed by the Elf Patrol.  He is highly efficient in law enforcement as “He sees when you are sleeping. He knows when y ou’re awake.” Etc.

The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas has a lot of features that are designed to recall the watery Italian city. That includes two sets of canals with Gondola rides—one outside and one inside on the second floor.

There’s one dead given away about the lack of authenticity of the hotel boat rides—the canal water isn’t green and it doesn’t smell like sewage. … I must say there’s a real high going to Vegas and it’s not just the oxygen being pumped into the casinos or the thrill of gambling. It’s the small of pot smoke, everywhere, in the casinos, on the streets. I had a drug sniffing dog come up to me while I was kneeling in the hallway at the Venetian changing camera lenses. It came up to my bag, and well that’s another story. ... I think the mini-bars at Vegas hotels must have motion detectors that can sense your presence at up to 10 feet so they can put a charge on your bill to dispute. … There’s a new take on the classic game show “To Tell the Truth”. Among the first guests will be Green Bay Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Maybe he didn’t get caught in grade school and have to write “I will not tell lies” 100 times. I guess the team probably won’t be changing its name to the Green Bay Vaxers.…. … We had a record number of trick or treaters this year at our house. But they weren’t impressed with everything we were handing out—we had a lot of left over wipes and Purell. . I told one friend, who believed that an antimalarial drug being promoted by some politicians was a cure for the coronavirus, that he could get the same effect by swallowing half a cup of Purell but he didn't go for itl

Stayed in the “Nobu Hotel” in Las Vegas recently. It’s a hotel within a hotel, essentially off a Caesar’s corridor.

The rooms were fine but I would describe lighting in the lobby and lounge as early modern mushroom farm. …. There are some misleading place in names in some of the hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, including Caesars Bacchanal Buffet and the Linq’s Hash House a Go Go. I expected people in the former to be covered in Thousand Island dressing and croutons. And the latter promised something it didn’t deliver. … I don’t know if it meant anything, but the signs at Linq had the directions for the Dog Relief Area and Uber on the same placard. … You may have noticed the TV ads, advertising the Caesars Sports Book which says, “We are all Caesars”. I commented, “You mean you are going to be stabbed by 23 times by people you thought were friends?”Actually, the application of the name to gambling is appropriate as the Roman emperor was known for playing a mean game of Texas Hold 'em. … I am not going to comment on the use of Ivermectin by people opposed to the Covid-19 vaccination. But it is comforting to know a significant portion of the anti-vaxers are thoroughly dewormed.

 This Halloween, the scariest people will be the ones that come to the door without and masks.

… It is well known that the first telephone call by Alexander Graham Bell was to his assistant, Watson. The message was “Watson, come here, I need you.” What is not so widely known was the first call Bell received was “We have been trying to reach you about your car’s warranty. … TV actor William Shatner who played Star Trek’s James Kirk has just finished a flight into space on Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket.  Kirk was confused during the flight and kept saying, “Warp speed, Mr. Sulu” and asking Scotty to beam up the landing party. Later, was heard mentioning something about tribbles. ... The recent outage of Facebook was so bad people who remember it were searching for My Space. ,,, I understand Gartner has created a fifth quadrant for companies it can’t place in the other four. It’s called, “The Quadrant of Shame” and places people on the x and y axes based on criteria such as “Still hanging around”, “Leader in outdated technology” and “No apparent strategy”.  … On a game show I watched recently a contestant told the host she had five beautiful children. “You have five children?” he asked. “No, five beautiful ones,” she replied. “The other two are ugly as sin.”

This is it--final call for submissions for the 2021 Bob Scott’s VAR Stars. So take a minute to request a form or fill out and return a form.

The selection will be accompanied by a special report discussing just what mid-market financial software resellers have. been experiencing and where they think lthe market is heading. The selection is based on quality—not revenue. Past honorees have ranged from one-person operations to the largest ERP dealers. Factors that are considered in the selection are growth, development of significant products and services and contributions to the industry. If you are interested in having  your firm considered, please email bob.scott@pmg360.com

Just what kind of year has it been for the mid-market reselling community? It depends.

For some, it was very tough, but for others, it was the best year in their history as demand for cloud products drove business. If you were in segments such as hospitality and restaurants, it was very hard, if you were in ecommerce, things have never been better. Overall, it was a year of great change with the accelerated shift to the cloud from on-premise applications and the forced move to remote work which is producnglasting changes.

So click the button below to find out who made Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2021 and many of their thoughts about the last year and the future

It has been a year like no other for ERP mid-market software VARs. But one thing has stayed the same–it is time to ready your submission for Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2021--and this week is your last chance to do sol.

The IRS just gave you extra time to submit your individual tax returns, so use the opportunity to be considered. Each year, we rank the biggest financial software VARs in the mid-market and  use the occasion to learn more about how the market has worked in the last year and talk about directions it is likely to take in the near future. To be a player, please ask for a submission form  and return your information as soon as possibleto bob.scott@pmg360.com

 The year 2020 has been Dickensian—the worst of times and best of times. For most of the population, the coronavirus has made this year probably the most awful in memory. But for many mid-market software resellers, the move of companies to the cloud as their workforces went to remote operations, meant 2020 has been a good to great year. The results are not uniform. For VARs in markets such as entertainment and hospitality, it was not great. However, if clients were able to conduct business remote, resellers could service them remotely and despite the difficulties, 2020 was fine. Bob Scott’s VAR Stars for 2020 faced the pandemic and many not only survived, they prospered.