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Big Red Cloud has always prided itself on enabling small businesses and start-ups to grow their business. Some of that comes from saving business people time so that they can focus on their business rather than their books. A good portion of Big Red Cloud users are self employed who have seen their operation grow and our accounting software package grow along with them thanks to our unlimited subscription. We’d like to think that we’re the best accounting software for self employed businesses. Don’t take it from us though, we caught up with some of our smart modern enterprises recently to find out what they thought about Big Red Cloud and the journeys they have been on with their business.

Carmel Downey, who owns and runs Village Interiors, an interior design company, made a name for herself designing luxurious, upmarket high rise apartments despite the negative effects of the recession on the industry. ‘It had a phenomenal impact on our business as we operate in the middle to high end of the interior decorating market, 50% of our sales would have been through builders, so when the builders stopped it definitely had an effect’.

Despite the challenges that the downturn brought, Carmel has diversified her client portfolio but that has meant more administration for her to take care of. ‘If you are self-employed everyone you do work with is effectively your boss, so you need a lot of dedication to it and I suppose attention to the increased paperwork would be very important as well.’ With Big Red Cloud’s online accounting software she’s equipped for the challenge. ‘I do find it handy being able to access my books from any computer, before I only had accounts software on my laptop but now I can log into my books and I can work on them from the office, from home or even when I’m out with different clients’.

Jason Thorpe, based in Dublin, Ireland, started his own physiotherapy practice over 10 years ago but has recently made the jump to establishing an additional personal training service. ‘Many of my physio customers wanted a plan and some hands-on help in building their physical fitness so it was a natural progression to start a personal training service’. With the launch of his personal training service, Jason has taken on a part-time personal trainer to deal with the demand. ‘It was getting too manic trying to squeeze appointments in around the training classes and keep on top of everything else. Mark’s been great though and a lot of the people who come in to us would know him from the area.’

Jason credits Big Red Cloud with helping him to grow his business to this point. ‘It’s been very time effective and with the business growing I know I won’t be caught with any caps or limits. If my accountant needs to check something he can just log in too which doesn’t take me away from the day to day either.’

Big Red Cloud’s accounting software package helps businesses with anywhere, anytime access so that they can access their accounts on the go and our unlimited subscription puts no barriers on your business growth. If you would like to share your business journey Big Red Cloud would love to hear from you. Email us at info@bigredcloud.com/. Get your hands on the best accounting software for the self employed today and try our 30 day free trial.

Marc O'Dwyer

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc’s impressive sales career began at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic where he received numerous Irish and European sales performance awards and consistently exceeded targets and expectations. In 1992, Marc’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up his own business, Irish International Sales (IIS). Initially, this company was a reseller for Take 5 Accounts and Payroll software. Within four years, IIS became the largest reseller of Take 5 in Ireland, acquiring four other Take 5 resellers. He also found time to set up two mobile phone shops under the Cellular World brand and a web design company offering website design services for small businesses. In 2001, he bought the majority share in a small Irish software business, Big Red Book. At that time, the company was losing money. The company became profitable within two months, and Marc then acquired a payroll company to compliment Big Red Books Accounting products. In 2003, IIS were appointed as Channel Partners with SAP for their new SME product, SAP Business One. Marc sold his Take 5 business and concentrated on developing this new market for SAP As a result, by 2007, IIS was recognised as the largest Channel Partner for SAP in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa). In 2008, the IIS Sales Manager bought the Company from Marc in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, to date the company successfully converts 59% of trials into sales and the number of customers is growing rapidly. Marc continues to run both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud which now support 75,000 businesses. He is a very keen sportsman, having played rugby for 20 years, represented Leinster at under 16 and under 20 levels, and league squash with Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club for 10 years. Marc has competed in 11 Marathons, including the London and Boston Marathons, and has completed several Triathlons and Half Ironman races. He has also completed six Ironman Races in Austria(x2), Frankfurt (Germany), Nice (France) , Mallorca (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark)