Since I reviewed ClearBooks I get a weekly email telling me among other things that I've made no sales and spent no money and then purports to tell me my profit before tax. Except of course I haven't not-done anything of the sort - I just haven't processed any more transactions. The illusion that drives the thinking behind the email is that book-keeping is done in a real-time way, with every area constantly up to date.

Apart from access to the online bank statement, small business finance reporting is rarely real-time. In reality, the various  components - bank, sales, expenses etc - are pushed along day to day and then brought to some sort of conclusion at the end of the month or quarter once the payroll and other monthly information is in. There may be daily reports of sales or a check of the bank statement if things are tight, but if a business owner needs more than this real-time then they are probably in the wrong business.

Reporting needs controls like bank recs and it's often highly context-sensitive and in need of adjustment and to just blindly bung out the information without any check for accuracy and completeness undermines the credibility of the brand. There is apparently no way to switch the emails off.

Does it matter - won't users simply ignore it? The problem is that, apart from it being both inaccurate and unnecessary, it sows the seed in the mind of the business owner that there is some nirvana out there where the book-keeping is real-time, and unease about 'why haven't I got it?', which in turn creates unrealistic expectations both for the business owner and any finance professionals providing support.

One of the things that was highlighted by the eulogies being paid to Steve Jobs was how far we have moved away from the dominance of Windows software. Not so long ago - around the time that the majority of SMEs made their choices of the accounting software they use now - it would have been almost unthinkable to have used anything other than Windows as a platform. Even offices that may have had 10 Macs, with their cult-like owners doing all that design and creative stuff, would still have a solitary PC in the corner which was strictly for the book-keeper.

It would most likely be Sage, or maybe TAS Books that was in use, or later it could have been QuickBooks. If you insisted on trying to do the book-keeping on a Mac you were probably using MYOB. If you had the patience of Job (no pun intended) you could try to run a Windows emulator on a Mac, but it was so painful you'd probably soon have given up and have the work done elsewhere, relying on faxes and the post. It all sounds so quaint now. This is how the SME accounting software landscape was set for the next 15 years.

And then along came the net. To start with this new-fangled information-disseminating service seemed to have nothing whatever in common with the mighty desktop application except for the screen on which you looked at it, and yet gradually it started to be apparent that if it couldn'd be done yet it soon would be. Here we are five or so years later and if you so desire you can run any number of on-line offerings on whatever platform you like as long as you have a working browser. Is it so far-fetched to think that such technology will be practically given away within 10 years - a tablet device for the price of a packet of aspirins?

The people that are in the vanguard of buying objects like ipads and smartphones, if they are anybody, are young and tech-savvy - just the kind of people who start up new SMEs. They will expect their systems to be in the cloud and it seems inevitable Windows will lose its strangle-hold on SME accounting systems fast now that the net offers a competing platform. Accountants and book-keepers have to prepare themselves for a few a few changes around the house.