We believe that loosely-organized groups will be one of the most important business forms of the future. We see them popping up all over the world. Bernard Lunn calls them "Emergent Business Networks".
They take many forms: Joint ventures, Limited Liability Companies, Partnerships, Cooperatives, organizations that have no name (yet). For example, thanks to a new Vermont law, we now have Virtual Corporations.
Unfortunately, the usual accounting system does not account for any of these groups. So, since we are such a group ourselves, and we belong to several such groups, and we know software and accounting, we decided to make something.
One lesson we learned early on is that a group accounting system works best when it is tailored to the particular group that will use it.
Our first food group just went live. The group is the Southeast Minnesota Food Network (SMFN). You can see a demo of the Food Group system here. We tailored this system to the exact way SMFN works (except it saves them many hours of work per week). It focuses on food distribution rather than classical accounting, because that is what they needed most.
Previously, we tailored a Timber Group Accounting system for a group of timber growers, loggers, sawyers and woodworkers in Wisconsin. (We grow timber, among other things.) The system works exactly the way that timber processes work.
Movies of the timber system: Group operation benefits - Value-added processing benefits
The Timber Group Accounting system is now up and running for its first group, Spring Green Timber Growers LLC. Now we're looking for co-housing and renewable energy groups.
We'd always like to work with another group. We're particularly interested in co-housing groups and renewable/alternative energy groups. But we'll consider any group that is ready to go.
If you're interested, please send us an email and we'll talk.