Category: business process improvement

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Why Finance Belongs in the Supply Chain Conversation

When most businesses talk about Supply Chain Management, the conversation usually centers on the product – the physical item that needs to get from here to there. But the supply chain is also a financial system. The timing of every order, shipment, invoice, payment, and remittance affects cash flow, reporting, and overall performance. A process may appear to be working “well enough” while quietly leaving money and efficiency on the table. Modern technology can help, but only if the right people are part of the conversation.

That is especially true when a company begins connecting electronically with customers, suppliers, banks, and payment providers. These are not simply operational upgrades. Orders, invoices, payments, and remittance details all feed directly into revenue recognition, cash management, and the financial statements.

For a modernization project to succeed, leaders from both supply chain and finance need a seat at the table. Together, they can address the timing of business events and make sure those events are treated correctly in the accounting records. After all, the same documents that move goods – purchase orders, sales orders, shipping notices, and invoices – also drive the financial side of the business. When that information is accurate, timely, and moving through an electronic workflow instead of a manual one, the company is in a much stronger position to improve cash flow, financial performance, and business value.

The trouble is that many business owners do not see the true cost of manual data entry. It is not just labor. It is the delay, the rework, the errors, and the cash that arrives later than it should. Faster, more accurate order processing leads to faster invoicing and faster cash collection. On the purchasing side, electronic data interchange can support just-in-time ordering and better logistics, helping the business release cash when it is actually needed, not weeks earlier.

Purchase orders offer a familiar example. When they are not sent digitally, someone must receive them, interpret them, and enter the information by hand. That work may land in several departments, but it often ends up in finance. For years, many companies responded by assigning the task to the lowest-cost labor they could find. That may reduce the hourly cost, but it does not eliminate the errors, bottlenecks, or delays built into the process.

A better answer is a digital strategy that replaces manual work with connected electronic workflows. Converting data into files and importing those files may be an improvement, but it is still only a halfway measure if people must prepare, move, review, and repair the data. A true integration reduces human touchpoints and allows information to flow from one system to another with far less effort.

The point of any business improvement effort is not simply to install newer technology. It is to create a stronger, more valuable business. When finance joins supply chain leaders in the digital transformation discussion, the company can make better decisions about timing, cash, risk, and return.

This shared perspective makes it easier to identify which changes will deliver real value and which ones are just shiny new tools. Bring finance into the conversation early. The results will show up not only in smoother operations, but also in healthier cash flow and a stronger business.

Make Sense?

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Your Business Data Is Everywhere

We see it time and again: a business moves from desktop software to web-based applications, and before long, its data is everywhere. Files and folders collect on local hard drives. Teams adopt more apps and services. What started as progress becomes a technology tangle that no one fully understands. If there is an IT manager, they may have little visibility into how many of those tools were selected, configured, or connected. That is how shadow IT takes hold—and how security, protection, and backup quietly become afterthoughts. Eventually, someone abandons an app, but its connections and data-sharing permissions may remain in place long after anyone remembers why they were created.

Moving to web-based applications does not eliminate the need to protect your data.

In many cases, migrating from locally-installed software to web-based solutions causes even more data distribution. Businesses must build integrations, jump between systems, or download files to a PC to use the full capabilities of an application. And, just as often, everything winds up in a spreadsheet so the work can finally get done.

Distributed data rarely feels like a serious problem, until it is. Consider business intelligence reporting or AI. If these tools cannot access all the relevant business data, the results can be incomplete, misleading, or simply wrong. Good decision support depends on good, relevant, and complete data. Anything less produces poor, irrelevant, and incomplete information.

Security is another major concern.

Businesses need to know where their data is stored, how it is being accessed, whether it is backed up, and who can reach it. Every integration, plug-in, add-on, downloaded file, and shared connection creates another place to pay attention.

Noobeh has years of experience helping small businesses and growing enterprises use technology to gain new capabilities without losing control of the information that keeps the business running. We believe a practical approach to change matters more than buying the latest shiny thing. After all, business still has to get done, even in the middle of a transformation.

Ready to simplify your systems without losing sight of your data?

Connect with Noobeh to learn how we can help streamline operational workflows, reduce complexity and friction, and keep your valuable business information secure, protected, and within reach.

Make Sense?

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Your Clients Don’t Need More Software. They Need Better Business Outcomes.

Accounting professionals spend a lot of time thinking about technology inside their own firms. They automate repetitive tasks, modernize workflows, and try to help their teams get more done with less friction. That matters. But it is only half the opportunity.

You already understand how our clients’ businesses work. You see the financial information, the reporting gaps, the approval bottlenecks, the internal controls, and the places where people are holding a process together with spreadsheets, email, and sheer memory. That perspective puts accountants in a powerful position—not to become the client’s IT department, but to help connect technology decisions to real business results.

Start With the Problem, Not the Product

Too many technology conversations begin with a product demo. I think that is backwards. Before anyone starts comparing applications, we need to understand what is actually getting in the way.

Where is the same information entered more than once? Which reports take too long to prepare—or arrive too late to be useful? What work depends on manual follow-up, email, spreadsheets, or one employee’s memory? Where do errors, delays, and approval bottlenecks keep showing up?

Those questions open the door to much better conversations. The answer may involve document management, payroll, billing, expense capture, reporting, workflow automation, system integration, cybersecurity, or responsible use of artificial intelligence. But the category of software is not the starting point. The business problem is where you start.

Match the Solution to the Client

A solution can be technically impressive and still be completely wrong for the client. Cost matters. Complexity matters. Existing systems, staff capability, security requirements, available resources, and risk tolerance all matter. The goal is not to recommend the newest tool. It is to recommend an appropriate tool that the client can realistically adopt, manage, and use.

This is also where scope and trust become critical. Accountants should be clear about where advisory guidance ends and implementation begins. When a project requires deeper expertise in integration, cybersecurity, configuration, or deployment, bring in qualified specialists. That is not stepping away from the client relationship. It is protecting it.

Start Small, Assign Ownership, and Measure

Big transformations sound exciting. They also carry big risk. A better approach is to identify one meaningful problem, define the result you want, and create a focused improvement initiative.

Give the initiative an owner, a realistic timeline, an approved budget, appropriate access controls, staff training, and a clear way to measure success. Then look at the results: Did it save time? Reduce errors? Speed up reporting? Improve visibility? Remove a recurring frustration? If it delivered the promised improvement, build from there.

This Is Where Accountants Can Create More Value

Clients need more than efficient accounting. They need better information, stronger processes, fewer handoffs, and technology that helps the business run better. Accountants can help them get there because we understand both the numbers and the operations behind them.

Do not start by shopping for software. Start by asking one client where work consistently slows down, gets duplicated, or depends on manual follow-up. Define what better looks like. Solve that problem well. Measure the result. Then take the next step.

Your clients deserve technology that works as hard as they do. Partner with Noobeh to build an IT foundation they can count on.

Make Sense?

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AI Tools Revolutionizing Small Business Operations

Cafe worker using a laptop at a table while staff serve customers

AI is no longer just for big companies. Small businesses are using it to save time, sharpen marketing, improve customer service, and make everyday decisions. Adoption is moving quickly, too: by 2024, surveys estimated that 20% to 40% of U.S. businesses were using AI tools. Among respondents to the Federal Reserve’s 2024 Small Business Credit Survey, nearly 40% of small businesses were already using AI or planned to start soon.

How are small businesses putting AI to work?

  • Some owners rely on AI features already built into familiar software, including billing platforms and accounting solutions.
  • Others use widely available tools such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini to draft and polish blog posts, emails, and social media content.
  • Some invest in paid tools such as Claude to research ideas, solve problems, and tackle more complex work.

Industry-specific uses are catching on, too. One business uses AI software to track caregiver visits to clients’ homes. Another uses it to forecast HVAC service demand based on local weather. More advanced firms are building custom models or adding AI-powered features to products for their own clients.

Why are some owners still cautious?

Not every small business is ready to dive in, and that hesitation is understandable. Owners have real concerns about accuracy, confidentiality, intellectual property, and the time it takes to learn something new. Others are interested but simply do not know where to begin. And some are not convinced they need AI at all. As one respondent put it: “I hope not. We make cheeseburgers.”

It’s time to get started

AI does not have to be overwhelming—or reserved for companies with massive budgets. The best approach is usually to start with one real business problem, choose the right tool, and build from there.

Ready to save time, work smarter, and grow with confidence? Reach out to Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh. We help small businesses turn technology into practical results with guidance that fits the way they actually work. Together, we can identify the right opportunity, take a smart first step, and help your business do more, better.

Make Sense?

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Mo Bigger Data

3D arrows pointing upward among colorful geometric shapes representing financial growth

Losing valuable business data is a terrible thing. It is worse when it’s done on purpose. Every business faces changes in accounting or operational systems over the lifetime of the company and these changes more frequently than not include losing data of some type. And that means losing business intelligence.

The frustrations of changing business systems are compounded the further into the business life cycle the change comes. Much of the historic intelligence of the business is derived from the earlier days of operation. This is data which reflects the stages and activities of the business over time. When a business reaches a point where data volume or list sizes force a systems change, much of that early historic data is ultimately abandoned. There is so much data to load into a new system that the task often proves too daunting for the company, so valuable historic detail information is lost and summary information is loaded into the new system.

As a business matures, and for the business to mature in a healthy manner, specific and detailed information must be captured and analyzed. Software addressing a broad view of the business, offering only generalized functionality and basic process support, will not provide a growing business with the operational support and resultant business intelligence needed at this level.

For example, a manufacturing business needs to fully understand and manage the manufacturing processes and materials supply chain to ensure profitability and consistent product quality. A retailer needs to know which products sell in which markets to ensure product stock and availability to key customers. And all this information is time-critical if the business is to make necessary adjustments in time to benefit from them.

In the end, it is the demonstration of well-defined processes, deep insight into the business operational metrics and financial performance, and the ability to effectively and accurately report on this information that creates a basis for provable business value.

Noobeh understands how important it is to not just collect the right data to support various processes, but to use that data to better understand operational and financial performance. As operations grow, so does the need to collect data from a variety of possible sources, from phone systems to time clocks and more. Even getting data out of the accounting system can be a challenge, but there is tremendous value in having transparency of business data.

From data warehouses to data lakes, Power BI and data visualization, we help businesses access their information and develop reporting that not only informs but helps deliver greater insight which leads to improvements in performance and profitability.

When information is power, we help owners and stakeholders gain mo power by being mo better informed.

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J

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Transform Your Business with M365’s Integrated Accounting Solution

The Best Alternative to QuickBooks May Be Part of a Fully Integrated Framework You Already Use

When looking at the business accounting and finance systems available in the market – particularly considering those which have earned a level of market share – there are visible gaps – big ones.

This is clearly reflected in the numbers, where Intuit QuickBooks leads in the small business market but has no reciprocal in the midrange or enterprise markets.

QuickBooks fits into that early space where the business is just starting out, but QuickBooks Enterprise can expand to keep more detailed customer, vendor and item information. Yet there often comes a point where a business has requirements that extend beyond the ability of the QuickBooks software.

Sometimes the mere thought of change is so terrible, usually based on a bad initial implementation experience, that the business uses the software far beyond what it was built to handle. In other cases, add-on solutions are adopted which offer more in-depth or complex capabilities to handle the growing business requirements. Both options may prove to be temporary solutions, meeting most functional demands as long as business needs don’t change.

If a change is in order, it makes sense to consider the benefits of using tools built on a familiar platform that is essentially a framework for designing exactly the system the business needs now, and which has flexibility and scalability enough to change as the business changes.

We understand that an integrated framework can provide much more scalability and support than a standalone solution.

We also recognize that, in today’s modern business, creating workflow efficiency and enabling user productivity are paramount.

While many products calling themselves ERP systems offer a broad range of functionality, integration, and data management capability, they often dictate more to the business how it must operate rather than revealing how it might operate.

Instead, we believe every business should have the opportunity to adapt their business software to make it easier for users to accomplish their work effectively while delivering the data and insight to guide the operation forward.

The need is for an entire tech stack and framework, not simply an application.

Competing ERP systems on the market typically address more and increasingly complex business processes while scaling to support larger business sizes. But the cost and complexity of these products, coupled with poor or too-expensive implementation services, is often the barrier to their adoption and retention.

In most cases, there is no small business version of the big business software, so the upgrade path is unclear and problematic.

Given the huge gap between the “typical” small business system and the upper-levels in the enterprise applications catalogue – the transition from very small to very large software is not likely to be made in a single step. Yet businesses can reduce the number of migration steps in the lifecycle of the company by moving to a flexible platform that can adapt and scale with the operation.

There are three things every business does: communicate, produce information, and keep score.

Microsoft places at the top with the first two, providing email and other communication tools used by businesses of all sizes around the globe, and creating the Microsoft Office family of productivity tools recognized and used by just about everyone.

In the third spot, keeping score, Intuit QuickBooks remains the clear winner. But when the business needs something beyond QuickBooks, or desires to have a solution that fits better, and maybe even integrates into their current M365 working environment, we can introduce the stakeholders to M365 Dynamics Business Central.

Business Central is part of the Microsoft 365 family of products.

Business Central is part of the Microsoft 365 family of products and is integrated with Microsoft Outlook directly, as well as the rest of the family of applications.

It is all able to be connected to the Microsoft Fabric, which weaves together the solutions and services that drive business operations around the globe.

Microsoft has the framework to provide the entire stack of applications, services and technologies working seamlessly together to deliver functionality and process support to fit the business and how it works.

When a siloed financial solution no longer supports the business requirement, or as operations become unworkable due to software that no longer fits the needs, connect with the experts at Mendelson Consulting to see what options are available.

There is never just one way to solve a problem, but there is usually a best way.

jm bunny feetMake sense?

J