Acclivity, makers of AccountEdge, Checkout and Rerun, was acquired by Priority Software today. It’s a happy day in Rockaway, NJ. The union of companies will deliver a broader, deeper set of solutions to businesses of all sizes and industries. We will continue to focus our energies on understanding and addressing the needs of our AccountEdge customers. That won’t stop. But we’ll also be able to offer Priority’s powerful cloud accounting and ERP software to anyone who may outgrow AccountEdge. And, in recognition of the value of the Acclivity team, every single employee was kept on (including us). We’re truly excited for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. But with change comes reflection.

AccountEdge’s history reads like a novel. In the late 1980s, Mind Your Own Business (later shortened to M.Y.O.B., then further to MYOB) was first developed by Teleware, Inc. in northern New Jersey, about 35 miles west of NYC. In 1993, Best Software purchased Teleware to form Best!Ware, then later sold the MYOB software rights to its Australian republisher, Data-Tech, who, in 1999, changed their name to MYOB Ltd. In 2005, Acclivity (the by-product of a management buyout of MYOB US) became the exclusive North American distributor for MYOB. Then in 2008, Acclivity acquired the IP rights to develop AccountEdge (formerly MYOB Accounting). Got all that? 

A reasonable takeaway would be that change is constant around this product, but that ignores key facts. Nearly half of our employees have been with us since the 1990s and a stroll around our New Jersey office can quickly become a history lesson in accounting software. And while we continue to push AccountEdge’s feature set with each new release, adding customers as we go, our customer base shares our history. A note from a happy customer, tracing their MYOB lineage to the early 1990s, is an ordinary, but awesome, occurrence. Yes, the name on our building may have changed from Inc. to Corp. to LLC, but the product’s stewards and loyal customers have remained a constant. 

And in this case, with Priority, we have an attentive partner who is committed to bolstering our offerings with an entirely complimentary approach. The overwhelming majority of AccountEdge customers will never outgrow their software. But if your items list has ballooned to 50,000 or if you’re unsuccessfully networking AccountEdge on 12 workstations, or if you have three office locations that require simultaneous access to your company file, we’ve got you covered. Not to mention Advanced Financials, Warehouse Management, CRM, Mobile Development and (much) more. That’s exciting. 

As Acclivity, we thank you for making the past 12 years great, and we whole-heartedly appreciate your loyalty. 

As Priority US, we are still as engaged as ever to understanding and addressing your needs. 

We’re not going anywhere.

-Scott & Tom (Acclivity - Co-Founders / Priority US - Managing Directors)

This is possibly the most subjective question ever: Where is the line? In our case, it wasn’t political, military, financial, or even that important in the overall scheme of things.  But for some of our customers it was personal. And not in a bad way.