Xero boss Rod Drury has taken issue with NBR and NZ Herald stories describing  Accomplish CashManager Online as a SaaS (software as a service) product, and Accomplish's claim on its website that it the newly-launched product is “accessible from any PC with an internet connection - meaning you can work anywhere, anytime”.

Accomplished launched an online version of its accounting software product last Thursday (read Accomplish takes on Xero).

Privately-held Accomplish is a well-established New Zealand-based accounting software, with 25,000 customers across Australasia.

Now, it faces an insurgency from a new generation of competitors like Rod Drury’s Xero (with 7000 customers) that offer their software as a service (SaaS) that sits on the internet, rather than on a client’s PC.

Accomplish has hit back with a new hybrid approach, launching a SaaS version of its product, but maintaining its offline version as well (a similar approach to another of Xero’s rivals, MYOB).