If you look at the traffic distribution for Intuit.com for a year it becomes quite obvious that small businesses only think about doing accounting in quite a short window of time around tax season.

It seems quite dangerous to only get a handle on your business finances during a short window.

Do a majority of small business owners only input financial transactions during tax season? Do they keep records offline then move them online at this time?

The power of procrastination is high it seems.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Finance software maker Intuit Inc. reported fiscal fourth-quarter results Thursday ahead of analyst estimates and predicted results for the first quarter and fiscal 2011 year will also beat Wall Street expectations.

Intuit shares rose $2.23, or 5.8 percent, to $41 in after-hours trading, having finished regular trading down 58 cents at $38.77.

For the May-July quarter, Intuit reported a loss of $48 million, or 15 cents per share, compared with a loss of $71 million, or 22 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

When excluding one-time items, Intuit’s loss totaled 5 cents per share; analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected an adjusted loss of 10 cents per share.

Revenue climbed 18 percent to $537 million, beating analyst predictions for $500.7 million.

Intuit said its small business division showed 16 percent growth, and gained customers through its QuickBooks and Intuit Websites products.

Revenue growing in its small business division is good news for Intuit and its share holders but its also going to have a spill over effect for other companies trying to launch into the cloud accounting software space.

Simply SaaS stands for “Software as a Service.” It is a common term used  to describe the business model for many of the web 2.0 applications we use today. It generally means the consumer pays a low monthly fee as opposed to purchasing the software outright at the start.

Many companies also provide SaaS applications free of charge with revenues coming from additional features or plugins and / or advertising revenue.

In the small business accounting arena SaaS is becoming ever more common with small business owners opting to use cloud accounting software. The cost of the cloud accounting applications can vary from free right up to $500 per month depending on which one you select.

At this time industry giant Intuit offers both local install for a one time fee and a cloud application which which is $34.95 per month offered as SaaS. Some other alternatives include www.outright.com which is currently a free SaaS and ledgerble.com which is a low monthly SaaS.

As the majority of the players in the cloud accounting software market are relatively small and new to the market perhaps the only bell weather we can look to for clues in the giant Intuit.

Jeffries analysts reduced their price target and earnings estimates on shares of Intuit Co (NYSE: INTU) with a price target of $44.00. The analysts maintained their “buy” rating in a research note to investors on Monday and said that they expect lower small business growth with a “buy” rating.

Intuit Inc. (Intuit) is a provider of business and financial management solutions. It has seven segments: Financial Management Solutions, which includes QuickBooks financial and business management software and services, technical support, and financial supplies; Employee Management Solutions, which provides payroll products and services for small businesses; Payments Solutions, which provides merchant services for small businesses, including credit and debit card processing; Consumer Tax, which includes TurboTax income tax preparation products and services for consumers and small businesses; Accounting Professionals, which includes Lacerte and ProSeries professional tax products and services; Financial Institutions, which consists of outsourced online services for banks and credit unions, and Other Businesses, which includes Quicken personal finance products and services. On July 23, 2009, the Company acquired PayCycle, Inc. In May 2010, the Company acquired Medfusion.

Shares of INTU traded down 0.41% hitting $38.40 during mid-day trading on Monday. Source: americanbankingnews.com

This could be worrying news for the plethora of start ups and smaller companies currently attacking the cloud accounting software market. While Intuit can rely on recurring subscriptions  from existing users newer companies will be determined to grab new customers and if this growth is limited by the sluggish economy it may signal a very slow growth curve for new comers.

08/16/10 — TrackVia, a leader in Cloud-based application development, today announced the results of its recent customer survey which found that non-technical users are increasingly moving their applications to TrackVia’s cloud-based application development solution because of its ease of use and increased functionality over traditional systems. In fact, even though cloud adoption to date has been primarily linked to cost-savings, survey respondents instead focused on performance, with more than 50 percent choosing to move to TrackVia for its functionality and almost 30 percent citing ease of use. Source: Market Wire.

While its not in someways a surprise that customers who specifically seek out a non-technical solution are reporting ease of use as a primary motivator in moving toward cloud based applications this might correspond particularly closely with accounting. Most people would agree the a vast majority of people using small business accounting software are not very well technically versed in all the nuances of accounting.

So while companies offering cloud accounting applications can often end up being cheaper than the out of the box software maybe the price elasticity of the consumer is less behind the swing to cl0ud applications rather than the perceived ease of use in producing a simple set of accounts for a small business.

1. Quickbooks: the market leader. Many people complain that it is too complex and has too many features. But nevertheless it enjoys a massive advantage over all other cloud accounting applications. Available at www.intuit.com

2. Ledgerble: A reasonably priced accounting software application that has all the esssential accounting features but with an easy to use interface. Available at www.ledgerble.com

3. Xero: Primarily based in the Aussie and NZ market, Xero is a cloud accounting software application that helps to bring you and your accountant closer together. Available at www.xero.com

4. KashFlow: Primarily based in the UK market, Kashflow is not the prettiest accounting software in the world but it does have all the necessary features for the complex UK accounting market. Available at www.kashflow.co.uk

5. Outright: Is a free accounting package that has slightly limited features but for small business can be easier to navigate than quickbooks. Available at outright.com

This is just a quick top 5 of who to look out for in cloud accounting application market. It’s a fast growing sector, with by far the most competition in the accounting software area coming as newly developed cloud accounting software applications.

Well cloud accounting is really a mash up of two ideas.

Firstly accounting software, that is any computer application that helps you with any form of accounting procedure. This can be as simple as a small sales ledger app all the way to an enterprise level full accounting package.

The second concept is cloud computing. Wikipedia list cloud computing as “Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid.”

So in this blog’s discussion of all things to do with cloud accounting it will be focused on accounting applications that are Internet based as opposed to installed on an individual computer or mobile device.

Many people believe that ‘cloud accounting’ will entirely replace locally installed copies of accounting software in the not too distant future. The reasons behind this can be summarized as improved data access and sharing and faster and cheaper software development. The advantages of cloud accounting are not limited to either small or big businesses but can apply to both.