The DeRosa Mangold WeBlog

Back from Sage Insights 2009!

We just arrived back from Nashville and Sage's Insights 2009 Conference for Sage Authorized Partners. We would have been back sooner but weather cancellations caused us to be delayed a day!!!!

While there were great new features (recently added or on the horizon) for all of the Sage products we represent, we did notice a unifying theme throughout all of the conference. All roads seem to be leading to:

1. More and Better Business Intelligence
2. Custom Workflow Building Capabilities
3. Better Technology

Presentation after presentation focused on improving the user's experience through use of Business Intelligence tools and interfaces and Customizing the Workflow of the Product either directly or through the use of another tool, such Sage KnowledgeSync, an event driven product that can monitor a database or multiple databases and execute a job stream based on an event.

To give you an idea, you can look at your Sage Product Dashboard every morning with your cup of coffee to see what is going on with your Past Due Customers or you can have Sage KnowledgeSync monitor your accounts receivable and, when it detects that a customer went past due today (based on your criteria of what past due is), Sage KnowledgeSync can execute a job you define that might do things like:

1. Place the customer on credit hold.
2. Email and/or fax the customer a letter or other notice with an attached statement and/or unpaid invoices.
3. Send notices to people in your organization notifying them of what is happening with this customer or a summary notice listing all customers who were placed on credit hold today.
4. Update your CRM package (SalesLogix, SageCRM, Act! or ANY other database) with a note or flag to let salespeople know what is happening.

All without you having to do a thing. Best of all, this tool can be used to monitor and perform custom job streams on any readable database (Sage MAS 500, Sage MAS 200, Sage MAS 90, Peachtree Quantum...even non-Sage products like Quickbooks Enterprise as well as custom in house databases in products like Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL).

The opportunities seem to be endless.

In summary, we also saw great product improvements such as:

Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200

• Version 4.4
  • Completes Business Framework
  • New Expanded Inventory Item ID's and Customer ID's
  • Ability to Customize Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 Workflow with new Customizer capabilities
  • Web Services allowing forms from your website to write directly to MAS files
• New Microsoft SQL version to be rolled out shortly after release of 4.4. Customers can elect to stay on current ISAM database or go to Microsoft SQL.

Sage Peachtree Quantum

• New document management and routing capabilities

Additional Product Offerings

• Sage KnowledgeSync (described above)
• bMobile for Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 (allows you to access and work in your MAS installation using your web browser from anywhere in the world without Terminal Services)

So there is PLENTY to talk about in the coming months. As a result you should see an increase in or email newsletters, user group meetings and product demonstrations, both live and recorded, in person at user group meetings and webcasts. Hopefully, one way or another we will get the information to you. We highly recommend attending the upcoming user group meetings (the next will be in June) and as always, feel free to contact me anytime for a custom consultation.

More to come!

 

The Perfect Mother's Day Gift!

This is a wonderful little treasure I discovered last summer. I hope you enjoy!

-First...grab digital photos of mom's favorite kids. Be sure to include yourself!
-Second...Grab your favorite song from a CD or iTunes. (You can skip this step there is free, very cool music where you age going.)
-Third...go to www.animoto.com and follow the instructions!

At Animoto you can upload your pictures, select a tune and let Animoto do it's magic, creating a truly amazing video. You can add text and emphasize certain photos, use your own music or select from their library.

You can create a free short...about 15 seconds...or for a few dollars (like $3) you can purchase a full length video. The video can be downloaded, played on a PC, iPhone or iPod.

If the mom in question does not have any of these, for a few more bucks, Animoto will burn to a DVD and mail it to you. But for that you had better hurry. Mother's Day is Sunday!

I hope you enjoy this awesome tool as much as I have. Happy Mother's Day!

Mike DeRosa

Facing the Giants

A few months ago my son and I filled up our Netflix wish list. I didn't really pay attention too much to what he was selecting and as a result every week has been a surprise! Last week was a pleasant one.

He had selected Facing the Giants. An inspirational low budget film created by a church in Georgia. No one will win an Oscar for their acting but the movie was entertaining and had a strong message, one that fits for our current economic situation.

A scene that really hit home, and I have used in my business process decision making since, is a story told to the main character, the head football coach, by a local minister. Everything in the coach's world was falling apart and he was questioning himself. The minister said " There is a story about two farmers during a drought. They both prayed for rain. One farmer prepared his fields and planted his crops while he prayed. The other waited for a sign. The question is coach...what kind of farmer are you?"

Especially today with so much economic uncertainty it is hard to make business decisions without questioning ourselves severely. I have found this simple story to be of comfort to me as I now make these decisions. How do to I prepare my crops? Because we all know, sooner or later, it will rain.

Mike DeRosa

What is CRM?

Hello Everyone,

If you have spoken to me in the last several weeks or attended one of our user group meetings this quarter, you know that I am headed to Scottsdale, Arizona for Sage CRM training. The most frequent question I have been asked over the last several months is “What is CRM?”

While I could go into a long dissertation on what Customer Relationship Management is, how it can help your business; you are probably more interested in how it would look in software form so you can visualize how it can help your business. Follow the link below for a tutorial demonstration of Sage CRM.

http://www.sagecrmsolutions.com/assets/tutorials/introduction/crm%20intro.swf

We have a wonderful offering on this product. Sage CRM has been bundled with Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 along with fixed assets and released as a new product known as Sage Extended Enterprise Suite. This fully integrated solution comes on a single set of installation DVD’s, a single support number to call and a single software maintenance plan. Sage Extended Enterprise Suite is offerred as a new product offering and upgrades to Extended Enterprise Suite are available for existing Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 users.

Have a look at the demo. If CRM is something your company should be doing a better job of, and you would like to see if Sage CRM could help, we would love to talk to you about it. We will perform a needs analysis and give you a customized demonstration at no charge. If you would like to learn more but not ready to commit to an appointment, join us for our September User Group meeting.

As always, should you have any questions or need anything regarding your accounting information needs, please do not hesitate to call.

Mike

Get Paperless!

We recently had Jeffry Pearson with eRequester give an overview of their product via webcast. If you missed it, you can watch it here. What is eRequester?

eRequester by Paperless Business Systems
In today’s environment of multiple offices, remote employees and increasing worker mobility paper-based purchase and requisition practices are difficult to manage. eRequester offers a web-based purchasing system designed for medium- to large-sized companies that manages internal purchasing and payment processes from start to finish.

eRequester is a Web-based procurement management, requisition, and purchase order software solution that allows companies to define and implement standardized purchase requisition practices which streamline and manage supply chains. eRequester controls the requisition process, helps entire organizations run more smoothly, and delivers rapid return on investment. It is simple to use and assists compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley.  www.erequester.com

We plan on having another eRequester webcast in the upcoming months. Keep an eye our for a new Webinar link on our website coming soon.

How to Send Forms Electronically in Sage MAS 90 4.3

Hi Everyone,

As you can tell by my infrequent postings to the blog, I am not much of a writer. But for those of you who know me, I love to talk! And I really like to talk about Sage MAS 90! So, for a new twist, I thought we would present a series of screen casts to introduce you to the great new features in Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 4.3 recently released.

I hope you enjoy our presentation. As always, we love to hear from you, so please give us some feed back!

Is invoicing your customers by e-mail a good idea?

A mentor of mine used to say “don’t run your business at the expense of your customer”. In other words, your big idea to make things more efficient could be perceived as a big pain in the neck by your customer. When was the last time a real person answered the phone when you called “customer service”. Sometimes inefficiencies can even pay off if your customer values the effort.

My favorite fried chicken place is a great example of this. Bush’s Chicken in Hewitt, Texas has no less than three drive through lanes. Two for food and one just for drinks. They accomplish this by employing an army of high school students who literally run in and out of the side door of the building like ants. “Have you been helped yet, have you been helped yet?” They ask as they go from car to car. Starting from the first car they see, insuring no one is left unattended. The lines of cars continue to move as the ants keep bringing food, drink and change. Rarely do you actually make it to the window before you are ready to go. My perception…I never have to wait!

This can’t be efficient from a cost perspective. Or is it?  Ask the Churches Chicken that attempted to make a go of it across the street. It’s now a great place to get tacos!
But I digress. So what does all of this have to do with e-mailing invoices. Does e-mailing invoices appeal to you? Does it appeal to your customer?

In a recent USA TODAY Snapshot, the headline read “Customers prefer to get financial info in the mail.” When asked…Do you prefer to receive bills, bank statements and other financial reports at home by regular mail or by e-mail? The answer was a resounding Snail Mail!

I was surprised…no, shocked. Not that I didn’t agree. I insist on paper statements and paper bills myself even though I work with technology every day. I was amazed that that much of the world agreed with me!
My issue with emailing invoices to customers in a business to business relationship is this…the vendors that email me usually get paid late…because I don’t pay the bills and I usually don’t even open the emails (out of the hundred or so I get a day) much less forward it to Caterina who does pay the bills. I am doing good just to get to emails from customers who need something from me…everything else comes second. So it becomes one more thing for me to do. And none of these vendors…not one…asked if it would be ok to invoice me by email or even bother to ask who to send it to. And…the last straw…when I ask them to send it to the appropriate person…they still keep coming to me.

As a business owner, I have to ask myself, if I start broadband emailing my customers invoices, how will it change the way they think about our company. I know what I think about the email invoices I have to deal with. And what is the hidden cost of that bad feeling? A lost sale? Late payments? A feeling that we don’t care how it affects you as long as we save the postage?

Bottom line, I really like the idea of sending them, it would be so much more efficient, right?…but I don’t because how I feel about getting them.

So what do you think? Take our poll and tell us how you feel about sending email invoices to your customers and how do you like receiving them from vendors in your business. I will be interested to see the results.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Opinion Polls & Market Research

What to Look at Daily in Your Accounting Software?

Frequently I am asked what we look at daily when we run MAS 90 in our business. So here is the short list:

• Income Statement for the current month as of today, current period to date and current year to date compared to prior year and variance.

• Balance Sheet as of today compared to prior year.

• From these I look at the following:

  • Gross Profit

  • Cash balance

  • Accounts Payable Balance

  • Purchases Clearing Balance

  • Customer Deposit Balance

That’s pretty much it. I know I can get this from the Business Insights Dashboard, Income and Balance Sheet display, but I prefer to preview (not print) the financials. It drives everybody nuts because I usually decide to do it when someone wants to post and MAS still thinks previewing a GL report is printing, so it locks the file! But it only takes me a few seconds to take the pulse and I usually out before “Who’s in G/L?” is yelled for the second time.

“So what do you look for or watch?” I have been asked.

First, Gross Profit. I don’t need to look at total revenue because I don’t get to use all of that to pay the bills. For me…and most of you…gross profit need to hit a target number every month for my company to break even. Then I quickly calculate in my head….am I where I should be? For example: if your company has $100,000.00 a month of fixed expenses, you need to be at least at $50,000.00 gross profit on the 15th.

Second, I look at Cash less Accounts Payable less Purchases Clearing less Customer Deposits. This is how much of the cash balance is ours to work with. We can have a large cash balance and none of it be available because of pending payables. If you do this in your company and have a negative result, your going to want to look at your cash flow predictions in the Business Insights Dashboard because you may run out of cash in a future week.

Now, if you’re saying to yourself, “that won’t work, that information won’t be correct”. Then there are probably a few things we are doing that you would want to consider.

1. Make deposits daily and post them daily. If you are holding cash deposits in a desk drawer and not posting and/or depositing them, not only are you hurting your cash flow, but you’re keeping yourself from knowing where you are at.

2. Post receipt of goods daily and receipt of invoices daily. Not only will cash requirements not be current if you don’t post this information daily but if you’re trying to track inventory, it will not be up to date either.

3. Post sales daily. This is how you’re going to know BEFORE the end of the month if you need to step up revenue generating efforts.

4. Know your numbers. When I go to conference and talk to other business partners many of them are amazed that I know my numbers. Many business owners simply don’t look. Here are the numbers I always know:

   1. How much we need in gross profit to break even and where we are now.

   2. How much we need in gross revenue and gross profit to exceed same month last year.

   3. How much cash we have today and whether it includes payroll or not if one is coming.

   4. How much of that cash would be there if I had to pay everyone today.

Now I know what I need to do today, are we having a good or bad month and if I want to buy something, if we can afford it.

Please let us know what you think. If you would rather have a private discussion, please drop me a line at mike@derosamangold.com.  

Stay Tuned for:

- Here Be Dragons:  What to Look for in Your Monthly Accounting Data
- The Five General Ledger Accounts You Should Never Post To [aka How to Always Be in Balance]
- How to bring spreadsheet data into an Frx Financial Report
- How to control Purchasing in a Manufacturing Environment
- How to control Purchasing in a Distribution Environment
- How to control Purchasing in a Budgetary Environment
 

We're Here!

Well the Gen X’ers in the office have finally done it. They have persuaded me to Blog! For those of you who have been curious about what BLOG is short for, like me twenty minutes ago, it is short for Web Log. I guess those two extra letters were just too much.

For me, it’s another way to stay in touch with you and keep you informed about happenings at DeRosa Mangold, Sage, and the MAS 90 world at large. Mitzi will help me keep you informed about the Peachtree and BusinessWorks stuff!

But it is also a venue where we can discuss the other things many of you ask us. Such as what are some of the best business practices we have seen in the many places we visit. How do other people control, record, handle [insert your favorite need here]? Even how do we do things at our office?

Don’t worry, we will still have the user group meetings. We enjoy seeing everyone too much to give that up. But if you enjoy some of the things I have to say, and God bless you if you do : -), then I would like to invite you to subscribe. Sherri Dollar and Aaron Smith have pledged to not let me ramble on and to help me keep it short and relevant.

Please, please, please! Give us feedback. Tell us what you like or what you don’t like. Let us know if there is something you would like for me to discuss or if you need more information. I hope you enjoy what we have to say!

Mike