Auckland based startup Roll has launched its new Software as a Service (SaaS) offering to market coinciding with its acceptance into the Xero eco-system as a Xero approved Add-On Partner.

The cloud-based business management software integrates with Xero for invoicing provides contact management, sales pipeline, project tracking and business visibility.

The software primarily targets creative and web development companies but directors Tristan Marris and Mark Osborne admit the application potentially has much wider appeal.

“Most service-orientated organisations have similar basic needs," Marris says.

"With Roll, we’re already seeing interest from organisations outside of our initial target market including photographers, interior designers and other professional services."

What has become clear to the Roll development team is that there are a lot of products on the market but the majority are overly complicated to use.

“Roll is super fast and super simple,” Marris adds. “We’ve done away with the complexity and convolution that plagues most software packages operating in our space and the feedback we’re getting from existing users has been extremely positive.”

Marris says the feedback has been so positive the company decided to bring forward the launch date, reducing the original six month beta test phase to four months following overwhelmingly positive feedback from those signed up to use the application.

Getting into Xero eco-system was also key for the company.

“Xero offers a huge opportunity to New Zealand SaaS businesses and Integrating with Xero was a no brainer for us,” Osborne adds.

“Roll is an excellent fit with Xero. While you can use Roll with any stand alone accounting package, the integration with Xero provides a powerful solution for users.

“The support from Xero has been fantastic. their team have been excellent to work with were really positive about our product.”

For Roll the timing couldn’t be better, launching into a New Zealand business environment which is extremely positive and upbeat.

With the success of other local SaaS companies including Xero, Vend and GeoOp, there’s a real focus on the SaaS market now and this has had tradeoffs with local businesses more aware of the efficiencies of cloud based software products.

“As a result, SaaS solutions are viewed as much less intimidating products than they used to be. Business owners are looking to the cloud more and more for business solutions and efficiency gains,” concludes Tristan Marris.

“It’s a great time to be have a SaaS product offering in New Zealand. As long as you’ve got a good product that meets a clear need in the market, there’s opportunity.”