Tag: analysis

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Mo Bigger Data

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.

Mendelson Consulting 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.

jm bunny feetMake sense?

J

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Write it Once – The Value of Integration

It’s amazing how much time and energy continues to be spent on duplicate data entry and re-keying information generated by one system into another.  Human-based data entry is prone to errors, takes time, and carries with it the burdens of employee costs and resources.  It is a problem that businesses of all types have battled for years even though enabling solutions have been around for a while. 

Methods of integrating applications and data have existed for quite some time, and in recent years these methods have expanded to include a wide variety of platforms and more open standards-based approaches.  Even in the small business world, business owners using traditionally limited software products can enjoy sophisticated extensions and integration of their applications and business data.

To provide a simple example of the problem: when an individual writes a check, that check must be recorded for several purposes including the recording of the cost or expense as well as the reduction of funds in the bank account.  When a product is sold to a customer, inventory is relieved, sales are increased, accounts receivable or cash is increased, costs of goods sold are experienced, and customer activity is captured.  All of this information must be recorded, and the activity accounted for throughout the financial and operational systems and can represent a tremendous burden if not automated. This also means that data exists in a variety of places, increasing the challenges of information collecting and reporting.

 Cloud-based integration and infrastructure services such as DBSync and Microsoft Azure enable seamless collection, transformation, aggregation and storage of business data. Whether linking accounting with sales CRM or pushing financial and operational data to an Azure data warehouse for analytics, Noobeh and DBSync provide the data engine and the infrastructure to put it all together.

A small business owner’s situation offers a direct illustration. He sells computer parts through an ecommerce website.  Orders from this website are emailed to his order operators, who then turn around and re-key the orders into their accounting system where the inventory is also tracked.  Because of the increasing number of sales orders and product purchase orders to enter on a regular basis, there were three operators working in the department responsible for making sure website orders make it into the accounting system. Orders were frequently missed or misplaced, entry errors caused problems in accounting and product delivery, customer satisfaction went down, and the cost of handling web orders was increasing.

By implementing a single software solution, the company was able to not just address the current problem, but was set up to seamlessly increase business without increasing headcount. The solution was a system which takes transaction data from the ecommerce system and imports it into the accounting/ERP system. This single step allowed the business to reduce and redirect personnel costs, improve accuracy and timeliness of data entry, and increase customer satisfaction as well as overall business performance.

In even a small company, one piece of information may be used in a variety of ways and in a variety of systems. This complexity is found in simple business models as well as larger and more complex enterprises, revealing the value of integration solutions and automation tools at every level of operation.

Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh cloud services recognize that every business needs the right information at the right time to operate effectively. Our expert teams help businesses implement the solutions which bring business data together, empowering workers to be more productive and giving stakeholders the decision-support tools they need.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Are You Prepared for SQL Server 2008 End of Support?

 

Everything gets old eventually, and now it is official for SQL Server 2008.

03-2012sean-phone-328-e1377042261105On July 9, 2019, support for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will end. That means the end of regular security updates and general support for the product. Are you ready?

It took more than 10 years for Microsoft to end support for our beloved SQL 2005 and version 2008 has enjoyed a similarly long reign. But it’s over and you need to get used to the idea. Even more, you need to get upgraded to a new version of SQL so your systems can still be patched, updated and supported. With all the nasty exploits out there, letting your software get out of date is more of a business risk than ever.

With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated and frequent, running apps and data on unsupported versions can create significant security and compliance risks. The 2008 family of products was great for its time, but we highly recommend upgrading to the most current versions for better performance, efficiency, and regular security updates.

Now is a Good Time to Consider Azure

Microsoft is giving a present to businesses that want to migrate their workloads to Azure. For those customers that elect to take this as an opportunity to move to the Azure cloud, extended security updates will be available for free in Azure for 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of SQL Server and Windows Server to help secure workloads for three more years after the end of support deadline. Moving existing systems to the Azure cloud is a natural step in modernizing the business infrastructure and makes the next step of upgrading to managed database services and/or migrating to new Azure servers a lot easier.

Upgrading isn’t simply a matter of maintaining status quo, either.

Moving to new versions can be a foundation for new strategic capability and increasing overall business potential, powering new decision-making processes fueled by analytics and business intelligence.

The Microsoft Lifecycle Policy offers 10 years of support (5 years of regular support and another 5 years of extended support) for the 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of SQL Server and Windows Server. When the extended support period ends, there will be no patches or security updates, which always creates security risk.

If your business is going to remain competitive, you can’t rely on outdated systems.

Your business is tough enough to manage without having your systems work against you.  Software that prevents you from keeping up with demand, creates risk in compliance and security, and reduces operational performance is not what you need. Collecting, storing and rationalizing data takes power and speed, and securing your growing information warehouse requires vigilance in security and update management.

Use this opportunity to review your platforms and applications, and consider moving your on-premises or co-located systems to the cloud. The upcoming milestone is a great opportunity to transform applications and infrastructure to take advantage of cloud computing and the latest versions of SQL Server and Windows Server.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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Analysis, forecasts and modeling: What’s the point?

Analysis, forecasts and modeling: What’s the point?

financeIn today’s business world, risk, uncertainty and volatility are just par for the course – everyday realities of simply being in business.  Nothing is certain, they say, except death and taxes.  Yet there is a fine art to driving profitable growth in a business, and adapting to existing and emerging risk takes a great deal of experience, information and agility.  While planning and process development may occur at many levels within the organization, it is the FP&A (financial planning and analysis) capability which helps top performing businesses be top performers.

Financial planning and analysis are activities central to enterprise performance management (EPM) and must necessarily extend beyond finance.  Integrating various functional domains in the business (financial, operational and strategic), FP&A should bring data together from the various facets of the business and use the information to help structure and guide the organization toward meeting short-term and long-term goals.  Among the most critical of the duties of FP&A is calculating the financial impact, the monetary effects, of potential business decisions.  Everything in business means money, so there is always an impact to a decision.  With the right information supporting the decision, it is far more likely to have a positive impact and a level of sustainability.

While many CFOs may recognize the importance of performance measurement, planning and forecasting, a great many also believe the process isn’t very effective. The cause is frequently the divide between the various domains in the business and the information systems supporting them.  Operational data are distilled into summary financial information and fed to finance systems, losing much of the underlying intelligence that might be gained from analysis of the details.  Strategic development and planning may overlook certain volatile elements in the market, or may base successful outcomes on an expectation that conditions within the business will not change.  Finding ways to integrate the data from the respective domains into a comprehensive model is essential to developing a better and more robust forecasting and scenario-playing capability.  With the right information, analytics may be applied to all facets of management decision-making, anticipating and shaping business outcomes far more effectively than could be done without the insight.

Small business owners may believe that things like “predictive modeling” and “enterprise performance management” aren’t things they need to worry about, but the small business could use this information just as beneficially as a larger enterprise – perhaps even more as the insight could be the key to small business survival and growth.

Using analytics, the owner is able to adjust and re-align strategy in real-time to keep on the right path and goals clearly in sight.  Analytics can also help a business better understand what really drives revenue, working capital and profits.  Analytics can even help managers align compensation and strategy with business objectives, preventing compensation issues from outpacing business benefit.

There is a cost to growing a business, and some strategies might be more sustainable than others.  Time will tell, but it is great if the business owner has some business intelligence that might indicate what’s going to happen before it actually does.

Make Sense?

J

 

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Accounting for Custom Manufacturing

Accounting for Custom Manufacturing

Accounting and bookkeeping is a part of every business large and small, yet there are myriad details to work with and a multitude of possible approaches to addressing the requirement.  From a summary perspective, there are standards which are fairly easily met, providing the basics of sales and expense tracking and income reporting sufficient for basic tax and compliance work to be performed.  Yet accounting may go much deeper into the operational processes of the business, delving into the details of productivity and profitability in order to find and expose areas where the business might improve both.

mfgManufacturing, particularly custom manufacturing or ETO (engineering to order) is among those industry types that could benefit tremendously from a more intimate and detailed approach to accounting.  Unfortunately, it is often difficult to find experienced professionals with not simply a competence in working with manufacturing industry sector clients, but specifically with ETO process.  Building to order is one thing, but finding the way to improve efficiency and profitability when every job is a custom encounter takes additional skills and a lot of data.  Accounting professionals with these skills are needed to help these custom manufacturers grow, transform their businesses and make the overall operations more efficient and sustainable.

It seems logical that manufacturing and ETO space businesses are ripe for the same bridging of technology and analysis that the accounting industry started broadly approaching some years back.  With bookkeeping processes being more frequently outsourced to non-accountants, the accounting professionals saw increased pressure to find more efficient ways of doing things and had to find new value to deliver to clients.  Technology, data collection and analysis became the foundations for delivering on that new requirement.  With the established model and philosophy, bringing more operational aspects of client systems into the mix and extending the model end-to-end just makes sense.

It takes a combination of systems – from the core accounting solution to the manufacturing control or other operational systems, through to the analytical tools.  Leveraging hosting technologies and cloud service, businesses are finally able to bring the multiple work locations – shops, warehouses and business offices – together in a single software and technology platform, and collect the level of detail necessary to provide a comprehensive and true picture of the business.  The analytical tools then provide the means to explore the details and identify where improvements might be made or where previously unrecognized risk exists.

QuickBooks desktop editions remain among the most popular financial systems used by manufacturing and job shop applications, largely due to the effectiveness of connecting the operational applications to an accounting solution which proves highly workable and which has strong industry support.  Even with the emergence of QuickBooks Online (and the push by Intuit to get customers to adopt this web-based alternative to desktop-based software) the QuickBooks desktop edition products continue to provide more functionality and application support for these working models, as the ability to fully manage the information in the solution exists more in the disk based products than it does in a multitenant web-based application.  Accounting “mechanics” are able to see, access and work with all the data rather than simply view reports where only half of the transaction is visible – making detailed accounting and data analysis more readily available.

 

The key is to leverage the accounting professional, the right software tools, and the platform and delivery environment that allows it all to work in concert for the entire organization.  Add the QuickBooks hosting service so the participants can work more closely together.  Enabling the accounting professional and bringing them closer to their clients (and client systems) allows the deeper move into operational issues, creating the basis for both to receive new and more value from the relationship.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

 

 

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Why Accounting in the Cloud?

Why Accounting in the Cloud?

Business owners and managers need to keep close control of their financial data.  They need to know where they stand at all times, and having information available to make business decisions is essential.  When the financial information is in the office but the owner isn’t, how can wise decisions be made without access to supporting data?  They can’t, and that’s a problem.  The solution is simple: work in the cloud.

A cloud computing model properly applied to accounting and bookkeeping systems helps businesses of any size keep their financial data and accounting applications in a safe a secure environment, yet accessible to those who need it.  By locating the business applications and data in a protected central location, access to programs and data sets can be provided to authorized users regardless of location or computing platform.  For a small business owner, this means that working from home or on vacation can be as productive as working in the office.  In larger businesses, cloud-based accounting means the accounting department, CFO and financial advisers might all access the same financial records and applications no matter where they work from.

Cloud computing and hosted application models applied to accounting and bookkeeping represent a viable option for managing, securing and providing access to critical financial information.  Businesses outsourcing their accounting or bookkeeping work find that cloud based approaches offer workflow and process efficiencies to help get the necessary information in the hands of those who need it, quickly and efficiently.

Keeping accounting and bookkeeping systems safe yet available, providing business decision makers with the flexibility of accessing their financial data from anywhere and at any time is a highly valuable service. Accounting and finance professionals can act as the trusted adviser to their clients, providing important business insight and information, with guidance in developing cloud computing and online accounting approaches being among the benefits the firm offers.   Working closer with clients allows professionals to produce better, more accurate and insightful results.   Cloud computing models remove distance barriers and allow professionals and their clients to work more collaboratively with applications and data than ever before.

Many firms are just recently discovering the relationship between technology adoption and business competitiveness.  Those that embrace new computing paradigms gain the ability to meet client requirements in innovative, efficient and timely ways while those that do not adopt these new models continue to struggle, unable to communicate value and differentiation in their service offerings.

There are some recognized truths in business, and one is that is isn’t what you know but who you know.  Another truth, an understanding that is just now being fully recognized, is that it’s not what you do, but how you do it that matters.  Accounting and bookkeeping for business is absolutely an area where cloud computing and the wise application of technology and service can improve cost efficiency, accuracy and turnaround times, allowing the firm to provide a higher level of service to clients.  Accounting in the cloud is a technology-enabled approach which propels the firm into an entirely new range of capabilities and potential service offerings, reaching higher levels of performance and profitability.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetMake Sense?

J