Category: software

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Controlling SaaS Inflation

The cost of everything is going up, and that is as true for businesses as it is anywhere else. From office space and salaries to vendors and suppliers, everything is hitting the bottom line harder than before. For businesses invested in online application services and Software-as-a-Service solutions, the rising cost of usage is outpacing other expense categories at a fairly high rate.

Consider that many small businesses start with whatever is cheapest and easiest to use, which usually means a web-based solution. From there, the business cobbles together it’s IT by using a variety of applications and services and eventually ends up with a tangled web that can be difficult to straighten out.

Even larger enterprises find that shadow IT implementations and web-based application services make their way into the mix, costing companies greatly through unmanaged subscriptions, lack of vendor management, and missed opportunities for consolidation of resources.

Covid and remote work requirements fueled a lot of the growth in SaaS adoption as businesses implemented solutions and services to support a distributed workforce. Leaving millions of square feet of office space unused while at the same time investing in remote and mobile work, businesses have had a hard time of it.

According to an article on CFODive, “Software inflation has remained “stubbornly high” this year at a rate of 8.7% — more than double the inflation rate as measured by the consumer price index in the U.S., according to research conducted by London-based Vertice, a software-as-a-service and cloud spending management company.”

In 2023, SaaS inflation increased by 8.7%, meaning the same unchanged set of SaaS products will cost businesses significantly more than it did a year ago.

Vertice.one SaaS Inflation Index report


The Vertice report indicates that sales software, finance software and productivity tools represent categories of software that saw inflation rates of over 10% as compared with 2022. Another uncomfortable reveal from the report is that most software companies simply hiked their prices, and in some cases, they hiked them up a lot (23% increases, for example). The rising cost of Software-as-a-Service, referred to as SaaS Inflation, is a lot higher than with other products.

Part of the problem may be the global nature of online application services and SaaS companies. Costs of operations and the pricing of the product may be consistent across geographies, yet different regions will experience inflation in costs of other goods and services based more on regional factors. The result is a SaaS inflation rate higher than the consumer inflation rate. Yet even in areas where the SaaS inflation rate seems to be more in line with consumer inflation, it’s still a lot higher than many other categories of products and services. Only food and beverages compete at similar levels of price inflation.

Another part of the equation is the value for the dollar. Everyone knows that a dollar today buys less than it did last year. At the grocery store, this shrinkflation is obvious when an item is now more expensive, and you get less for the same price. With SaaS, the shrinkflation may not be quite as obvious. License packages change, features are introduced (or removed), and the value to the customer can change dramatically over time while the rates simply increase.

There are some important steps a business can take to minimize the impact of SaaS inflation, and it all starts with knowing what you have and how you use it. Reducing or eliminating shadow IT and implementations outside of general governance, consolidating vendors and licensing, and reducing redundancy in functionality and process support are key areas to focus on to control the spend.

Mendelson Consulting has experienced consultants that can work with your business to understand your needs and evaluate your options, helping to find the right solution for the problem while minimizing sprawl and spending.

Whether you rely on Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, or any other -as a service solution, the Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh cloud services teams can help you do more with your investment.

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MISys Manufacturing Leverages Microsoft Azure Cloud with MISys on Azure

MISys Manufacturing software is designed for small to medium sized manufacturers, providing low cost of ownership and a flexible, modular design. When a business needs to add inventory management, purchasing, MRP, forecasting and scheduling, MISys is the solution that delivers the functionality. Noobeh cloud services has always provided hosting and managed services for MISys and MISys EXT on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Now, MISys Manufacturing has new options to take even more advantage of the power and flexibility of the Microsoft Azure cloud platform:

MISys on Azure

The new cloud deployment options for MISys Manufacturing provide direct support for Microsoft Azure databases and app services. Customers can use their own self-managed Azure subscriptions and the MISys installer can provision the app and database to get it all going. Noobeh helps businesses get started with the Azure cloud, assisting with the setup and deployment of services on the most secure, scalable, and agile platform available. Noobeh services delivered on Microsoft Azure take full advantage of the Microsoft cloud platform and all it has to offer.

While the primary focus of MISys releases starting with v6.4.5.0 have been to have an installer-assisted deployment with Microsoft Azure, the complexity of Microsoft and Azure account and subscription setup can be daunting for even experienced technicians. Noobeh simplifies these processes by assisting businesses with the creation of the accounts and the provisioning and preparation of the services necessary to support a MISys on Azure installation.

Each Noobeh MISys on Azure customer gets their own absolutely private Azure tenant account, which ensures that there is no co-mingling of resources and no possibility of interactions between customer accounts. And Noobeh deploys services with the resources necessary to deliver the right solution for each business client, knowing that adjustments can always be made as business needs change.

MISys Manufacturing can be implemented in a variety of configurations, allowing each deployment to meet the specific needs of the client. Noobeh helps companies deploy MISys Manufacturing software in all its forms, handling the installation and technical configuration whether on-premises, exclusively cloud-based, or hybrid.

Cloud Server | Cloud Database | Cloud Desktops | Cloud Everything

With Noobeh and MISys, you can choose from configurations that keep the desktop/client software local or cloud, have your database on your cloud server or just have a cloud database, or combine the benefits of managed desktops and data by putting the entire system in the cloud.

No matter what accounting solution you use with MISys, Noobeh has an answer for that, too. We’re specialists at hosting QuickBooks and Sage desktop products, and work with businesses using QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct and other web-based solutions. You need your MISys installation and your accounting software to work together? We’ve got that delivery model.

With MISys on Azure and Noobeh, business owners have the assurance that their software can be deployed in a model that meets with their specific needs and budget, and with the flexibility to change and grow along with the business.

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QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 2024 Security Improvements: Now with 256-bit encryption

Intuit’s release of QuickBooks Enterprise and other desktop editions for 2024 have a variety of new features, and among them is an improved level of security for your business data. Upgrading from 128-bit encryption, QuickBooks Desktop 2024 now has AES 256-bit encryption.

256-bit encryption is the strongest and most robust encryption standard commercially available. It’s widely used because it’s virtually impenetrable to brute-force attacks. 256-bit encryption is an encryption technique that uses a 256-bit key to encrypt and decrypt data. Plain text is converted to a cipher, and the encryption key is required to decrypt the data and return it to readable plain text.

256-bit encryption is used in most modern encryption algorithms, protocols, and technologies, including AES in wireless security, processor security, file encryption, and SSL/TLS.

According to Intuit, “You can be confident your data is protected with our enhanced security using industry-leading AES 256-bit encryption. QuickBooks safeguards your reputation by protecting critical customer and vendor data, such as business financials, banking information, and credit card details.

This means we translate your information into a code that only we can read to make sure only you and Intuit have access to your information. The type of encryption we use is called AES-256 (Advanced Encryption Standard with 256-bit keys) and it ensures the highest level of cryptographic security.”

With a series of robust security steps and a complex 256-bit decryption key, AES 256-bit standard is nearly impossible to break using brute-force methods and has been approved for the handling of confidential data by the U.S. Government.

A brute force attack is when a hacker tries different combinations until they arrive at the correct combination – the key. The larger the key size, the more difficult it becomes to break the encryption. We’re talking about 256-bit keys. There are 984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,936 (that’s 78 digits) possible combinations. Even if you use Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay-2), which was the 4th fastest supercomputer in the world in 2022, it will take millions of years to crack 256-bit AES encryption.

In case you’re interested: The fastest supercomputer in the world, ranked in June 2023, is Frontier, an HPE Cray EX system run by the US Department of Energy, Frontier incorporates 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ CPUs representing 8,730,112 cores that have been optimized for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI with AMD Instinct™ 250X accelerators and Slingshot-11 interconnects. Its HPL benchmark was 1.194EFLOPS (EXA – 1 quintillion – floating point operations per second). (via networkworld.com). Frontier is faster than Tianhe-2, so breaking the key could take a little less time.

Breaking encryption with no known flaws is kind of like guessing a password. If you make enough guesses, you might eventually get the password right. With strong encryption, this can take a long time. AES-256 is the most secure version of AES and is virtually unbreakable by brute force based on current computing power. It’s also considered quantum-resistant, which means that quantum computers aren’t expected to crack the cipher.

How long would it take to crack 128-bit encryption using a brute force attack? Most security professionals would answer “1 billion years”, but that’s just an estimate. A machine that can crack a DES key in a second would take about 149 trillion years to crack a 128-bit AES key. According to researchers, with the right quantum computer, AES-128 would take about 2.6110^12 years to crack, while AES-256 would take 2.2910^32 years. For reference, the universe is currently about 1.38×10^10 years old, so cracking even an AES-128 encryption with a quantum computer could take hundreds of times longer than the universe is believed to have existed.

While Intuit is improving the security of the information it stores and transmits between its systems, your company should be equally concerned with the security and protection of all your business applications and data. Using strong password policies, multi-factor authentication, and SSL for secure web app access, Noobeh’s QBonAzure services provide layers of protection on top of the $20Bn in security investments made by Microsoft.

We take data security seriously, providing solutions to address access, security, privacy and protection for business applications and data. When your QuickBooks Enterprise deployment needs a solid foundation that offers agility and performance as well as strong platform security, we have that.

Visit MendelsonConsulting.com/cloud to learn more.

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When a Business Outgrows QuickBooks Enterprise

Small and midsized businesses use QuickBooks software to manage finance and operations. Since growing past 90% market share in 2008, Intuit QuickBooks proved over the years that businesses adopt accounting and finance software if it is affordable and easy to use. While Intuit’s focus today may be on gaining market share with the web-browser-based QuickBooks Online edition, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise continues to serve the needs of companies requiring more robust functionality than QuickBooks Desktop Pro/Premier or QuickBooks Online editions offer.

Over the years the QuickBooks product line has grown to support larger businesses, with the Enterprise edition scaling to 40 users and boasting a load of features that fully support operational processes. Inventory management, order processing workflows, construction management, and other features give encouragement to businesses needing support for more complex processes. QuickBooks Enterprise allows the flow-through of product use knowledge, stored data and integration with other business solutions to be seamless and consistent when moving up from QuickBooks Desktop Pro or Premier editions.

When a business finds that it may be outgrowing the capabilities of QuickBooks, it does not necessarily have to abandon the product line in lieu of a larger framework such as with alternative ERP systems. While the larger web-based systems may boast greater capabilities, they often come with much greater cost of service and implementation.

For businesses invested in QuickBooks Enterprise, it makes sense to look at alternative technical or platform solutions to address certain operational needs rather than shifting to different finance and operations software. The cost and complexity of an entirely new ERP software implementation is often more burdensome and costly than is needed to meet the real business demand. Also, the value found in business data can be lost when converting from one solution to another, and the cost of change is often so burdensome that many businesses simply abandon their projects if they even get started.

When using QuickBooks, at times it is the platform — the local network, computers and server — that is not geared to handle more users, processes and applications working with QuickBooks and a more robust and agile situation is required. Businesses should also explore integrations or extensions that can address the functional requirements, supporting advanced and complex workflows with greater agility while retaining the full value of the historic data.

Some challenges with QuickBooks may indicate a business needs a more robust and scalable solution, but that does not necessarily indicate that the business has truly outgrown QuickBooks. Instead, it may be a situation best handled by extending QuickBooks through application integration with a more robust subsystem to address specific business needs, to add scalability, and to build on the existing history and business intelligence previously developed in the enterprise.

Large transaction volume, extensive inventory management, or performance issues can easily create the impression that a business has outgrown QuickBooks Enterprise. In most cases, these conditions are overcome by extending QuickBooks with solutions geared specifically to handle the complexities and volume of heavy inventory management processes. These solutions not only address the in-depth functionality required, but also tend to utilize more agile and robust database structures that can scale far beyond the capacity of any QuickBooks edition alone.

Some businesses wishing to provide more advanced reporting and analytics, along with delivering realtime insights, may initially consider QuickBooks reporting to be insufficient for their needs. Yet there are integrations available which make QuickBooks financial and operations data as accessible and usable as the most robust enterprise applications. Satisfying the need for highly customized reporting and analytics far beyond QuickBooks standard reporting, these solutions create visibility and give meaning to QuickBooks data in ways that cannot be accomplished within the application alone.

Mendelson Consulting understands how businesses can outgrow the core functionality of QuickBooks and provides the tools and solutions to address growth in practical ways that do not diminish the value of data, training and operational intelligence that has been so costly for the business to acquire. We help businesses expand their capabilities and improve efficiency without losing their investment in QuickBooks, addressing the needs of growing and complex businesses without forcing the change to more extensive and expensive solutions.

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QBonAzure: QuickBooks on Microsoft Azure Delivers Great Success for Small Business


For any business, the resilience and agility of IT systems can mean the difference between performing adequately and performing with great success. When a business elects to run their QuickBooks applications and data on the Microsoft Azure cloud via QuickBooks on Azure (QBonAzure) from Noobeh, they gain numerous advantages not available with locally installed IT.

Microsoft Azure is a highly available platform, meaning that it has built-in redundancy to ensure that applications and data are always accessible, even in the event of a hardware failure. Businesses running on the platform never have to worry about whether or not their server is aging and may fail due to hardware issues.

The platform also allows Noobeh to easily scale each client’s system up or down as needed, without the need for additional installation work. This allows each client business to quickly respond to changes in demand and grow their operations as needed.

With Microsoft Azure, Noobeh can provide from a broad range of security features that are built-in as well as enhancing protection with advanced features and services from Azure, Microsoft 365 and more. This all goes to help protect against data breaches and unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Azure has a global footprint, with data centers in multiple regions around the world. Noobeh provides services from all US-based Microsoft Azure regions, allowing businesses to host their QuickBooks in the location closest to their users, reducing latency and improving performance.

Azure also offers a wide range of services that may be integrated with QuickBooks or other business data, such as analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. This allows businesses to gain deeper insights into their financial data and make more informed decisions.

For businesses focused on compliance, Azure meets a wide range of industry standards and regulations, such as HIPAA, SOC 2, and PCI DSS. This can help businesses meet their compliance requirements and avoid penalties.

Overall, hosting QuickBooks on the Microsoft Azure platform can provide businesses with high availability, scalability, security, global reach, integration, and compliance advantages that can help them run their operations more efficiently and effectively.

Noobeh cloud services and QuickBooks on Azure utilize only the Microsoft cloud for their client deployments so that each business client has the benefits of big enterprise technology without the big enterprise price.

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4 Rules of Thumb for Better IT Security

Your business is a target. The simple fact of being in business makes it so. There are a lot of bad actors out there who will go to great lengths to get your personal and financial information, and they have many different and innovative approaches to get it. There are some small steps any business can take to make a big impact in protecting business data.

Here we present our 4 Rules of Thumb for better IT security; a starting place if you’re looking for somewhere to begin.

We can’t stress enough that every business should make it a priority to implement some basic information/technology security standards and regular employee training. Having more discussion on the subject helps everyone in the company learn and shows that management is paying attention. Remember that business data isn’t just word documents and spreadsheets. It’s banking and financial and other information, employee information like social security numbers and direct deposit info, customer, vendor information and more. For even a small business, the possibility data exposure or loss isn’t trivial.

NOOBEH cloud services works to keep your QuickBooks on Azure cloud deployment more secure in a variety of ways, but we always start with a few essential policies. These rules and policies can mean the difference between a small IT annoyance or catastrophic failure and data encryption, loss, or exfiltration. If you haven’t implemented these four essential policies in your business IT environment, today is the day to start.

  1. Always use strong passwords, at least 10 to 12 characters, and make them complex. Require passwords to be updated periodically. Don’t reuse passwords and avoid common words or phrases.
  2. Don’t let users operate with permissions greater than required. In applications, consider restricting functionality based on the role or job requirements. On servers and PCs (Windows, Mac, whatever), make sure users are operating as “standard” users rather than system administrators. When you reduce the permissions granted to users you prevent their accounts from performing possibly harmful actions in the system, like installing malware or damaging programs, modifying settings, or even creating backdoor user accounts.
  3. Control user account information and manage it closely. Simply knowing what user accounts exist can give hackers and phishers enough information to begin targeting logins and applying methods to crack them. Part of this includes making sure to remove or disable accounts for user accounts that are no longer needed. Every unused account that remains enabled is just another point of vulnerability. Protect system and administrative accounts and directories (like Microsoft Active Directory). Make certain that you only grant access to sensitive system and account information when absolutely necessary, and only to a completely trusted source. Also make sure to have at least one “break the glass” (back door) admin account you can use if the regular administrative account(s) become compromised.
  4. Limit the installed software to what is needed for the business and keep it current. Make sure operating systems and applications are up to date, and keep browsers and plugins updated to make sure they don’t become the weak link.

Cyber criminals are delivering waves of cyber-attacks that are both highly coordinated and far more advanced than ever before seen. Endpoint attacks have become complicated multi-stage operations, ransomware hits small business and enterprises alike, and stealth crypto mining got criminals into unsuspecting corporate networks. The year has been awash with massive data leaks, expensive ransomware payouts and the realization of a completely new and extremely complicated threat landscape. The bad guys have upped their threat game in a big way.

Diligence is required to help protect valuable business information assets. Following these four rules of thumb will help the business avoid becoming easy prey and can provide a foundation for greater system security and a more streamlined approach to identity management, applications and access.

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J