Yesterday I posted a link to my “review” of a really crappy website for the folks at imediaconnection. My original writeup lauded an app I use all the time. While they were looking for criticism, I think my original post is worth publishing as the folks at Less Accounting are doing a great job. Here it is…

There are a series of websites emerging from the loosely-defined oeuvre generally called “Web 2.0” that are focused on helping small businesses get things done. The informal leader, or at least iconic representation of these sites is a small company called 37 Signals.

37 Signals puts out a series of very popular project management tools for small businesses. Their company is a small business itself with only a handful of employees, and most interestingly for the tech space, no traditional venture investment (though they recently accepted an investment from Jeff Bezos of Amazon).

When you sign up for one of their applications, in addition to the service itself, you get a healthy dose of small business religion. Essentially… stay small, stay focused, do one thing, and do it well.
This backstory is relevant as that approach is reflected in their user interface as well as those of many of the sites that share their philosophy. These include sites like GoodBarry, CushyCMS, Mint, MailChimp, and SmartSheet. (Full disclosure: we helped with the design of the SmartSheet user interface.) All these sites share a focus on the simple.

Another site that belongs to this genre is Less Accounting. The name itself makes it clear that you are not about to get the a full-featured accounting site ready for enterprise use. But if you’re a small business, overwhelmed by the accounting morass and ugly user interface that is QuickBooks or Peachtree then Less Accounting feels like you’ve arrived home. The first column of marketing text on the page focused on “What we aren’t” while only the second focuses on “What we do…”. I know of almost no traditional big company marketer who would let you lead with a column on what the product doesn’t do, much less include one at all.

And that’s what interesting about the design of this site. It’s not beautiful, exactly. The layout, the colors, etc. are decidedly unfancy.
As someone who is a big advocate for creating an emotional experience, this is counter-intuitive even to me. But in reality, everything they don’t do on this site is a statement about who they are. And in fact, they’ve resonated with their customers perfectly. (Note: in this world of ad funded startups hoping to break even or make any money at all, the Less Accounting customers are all paying customers.)

One you’ve logged into the site, the user experience continues with its coherent expression of the Less Accounting philosophy. And in fact, for anyone bewildered by the depth and breadth of the traditional small business accounting packages, this site is laid out the way most humans imagine a business actually works. There’s the list of all the money coming in (receivables), and there’s the list of all the money going out (expenses). And then there’s some super simple customizable reports, contacts, and administrative functions. All of this wraps up in a homepage called the Dashboard where you can get an at-a-glance overview of the financials of your small enterprise. By the way… the receivables tab is called? “Money In”. Expenses? “Money Out”. Even I can do it!

All in all, I heartily recommend checking out this new genre of sites.
Even if you don’t need what they offer, they make a strong statement about just how much doing less can ultimately add up to more focus, more customers, and a more successful site overall.