Tag: business

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Accessing Small Business Leadership and Development Resources: More for the growing concern

Accessing Small Business Leadership and Development Resources: More for the growing concern

There are a lot of resources available for people who want to start a small business.  From business plans to funding websites to guides on entrepreneurship, the available pool of information on starting up and growing a business is huge.  So huge, in fact, that many small business owners fail to find the things they really need to help them grow the business, expand operations and hire more employees.  While entrepreneurship and starting a business is the first step, the economy grows and flourishes when small businesses grow and flourish.  This is why the site SmallBusinessLeadership.com was started in cooperation with the America’s SBDC.

Among the available resources for small business owners is the Association of Small Business Development Centers, or America’s SBDC.  These association offices are found throughout the country, and represent a wealth of support for small business which is, as we all know, the fuel powering the American economy.  A report authored by James Chrisman, PhD investigated the economic impact of the Small Business Development Center counseling activities in the US in 2010-2011, and found that the centers are indeed instrumental in supporting small business success.

Among the findings is an analysis of the contribution SBDC long-term clients made to the economy, finding that these businesses “added $6.8 billion in incremental sales and 75,166 new jobs to the nation”.  The investment in helping startups and entrepreneurs also demonstrates clear success, with “59.2% of all pre-venture clients” starting a business within one year of receiving counseling from the SBDC.

But the success with SBDC isn’t all about starting up and expanding business– it’s about retaining people (jobs) and sustaining revenue, too.  With economic challenges facing every business owner, the ability to simply maintain the operation at existing levels often becomes the biggest job of all.  In this area the SBDC also performs well for business clients, and estimates that “83,268 jobs were saved and $7.3 billion in sales revenues were maintained as a result of the [SBDC] counseling”.

And talk about fueling the small business economy!  Businesses need financing and capital to operate and grow, and as a direct result of the assistance they received from the SBDC “approximately $3.3 billion in capital” was raised by SBDC business clients, according to report estimates.  Not too shabby when you consider the difficulties many businesses are having with obtaining financing through commercial banks and other funding sources.

There is no argument with the value the SBDC brings to the small business community.  What may be a challenge, however, is finding those resources and getting involved with the information and people who can really make a difference for a business owner in a particular region or area.  While there may be SBDC counselors in the area, there is no guarantee that there’s an easily searchable website or method of gaining a little DIY education without making an appointment.  SmallBusinessLeadership.com addresses this challenge by providing location-specific access to SBDC and other resources for business owners who wish to find experts and insight relating to their particular locale or situation.  Additionally, visitors to the site can explore the varieties of content made available from SBDC offices and small business experts, ranging from success stories and case studies to tips for marketing the business, approaches to improving business process support, or even finding technologies or services to solve specific business problems.

Starting or growing a business isn’t something you do alone.  It takes a committed team from the development of the first idea through to the hiring of employees and expansion to new locations.  Working with America’s SBDC and leveraging the knowledge and resources available via SmallBusinessLeadership.com, business owners across the country will find new ways to build stronger foundations for the business, and to develop leaner and more sustainable operations than ever before.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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My Love/Hate Relationship with Partner Programs

My Love/Hate Relationship with Partner Programs

originally published on LinkedIn
 

I love Partner programs. You know, those business opportunities to get involved with a product or solution and earn revenue selling it to your customers. Particularly when the opportunity is attached to something you already do for a living, a partner program can represent a way to gain new competencies, new customers, and new revenue streams. Then again, I hate partner programs just a little bit, too.

When a business becomes a business partner, there’s an expectation that something will occur that benefits both participants (hence the word “partner”). Each side is supposed to benefit in some manner from the relationship. In the case of the partner program, the expectation is that the partner will sell the product or service to customers and gets compensation on sold deals in return. There may be marketing, lead generation, reseller pricing, training and other elements involved, but the relationship is generally one of “you sell my stuff and I’ll comp you for it”. The manufacturer gets more sales, and the partner gets products that customers buy, meaning revenue for the partner and the manufacturer. Sounds like a good deal.

Here’s why I hate partner programs at times: they tend to shift the focus from what a customer needs to what the partner can earn revenue on selling. For a product or solution-based business, this may not be a bad thing, as the business is in the business of selling product. For a consulting business, however, it can be quite problematic if the consulting team isn’t clearly focused on meeting the customer need rather than pushing product.

There’s an old saying that “if all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail”. Some consulting firms inadvertently fall into this situation, where they have their favored solutions (perhaps solutions they earn revenue from selling), and they automatically try to apply that solution to each and every customer engagement, whether it makes sense or not.

This happens time and again and not just with consultants, but also with accounting and bookkeeping professionals. Having developed an understanding for, and processes and procedures for working with, a particular business accounting product, the firm tends to make that product a standard recommendation for all clients. In this case the firm may not be literally reselling the solution for revenue, but has certainly “partnered” with the solution in the context that their ability to earn revenue becomes directly tied to the solution they want their client to purchase.

Partner programs can be hugely valuable to both the manufacturer and to the partner channel, and the value of having skilled “feet in the street” supporting and promoting the solution has been proven many times over. But accounting professionals and business consultants should take care when considering their possible participation in these types of programs, and be realistic about how that relationship fits in to the nature and quality of the service delivered to customers. The program may fit well with the needs of the practice, driving new revenue opportunities in new or existing areas of business. On the other hand, it may end up being a distraction, turning the focus from providing great client service and satisfaction to selling a product or solution just to earn an additional buck on the deal.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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Accounting for Point of Sale

Accounting for Point of Sale

There are a lot of solutions available to help retail businesses get business done.  From touch screen technology to mobile credit card and payment processing, retailers have many choices when it comes to selecting the right technology for the establishment.  But even the best point of sale system can lack the critical element that makes it truly valuable for the business.  This critical element is integration to a trusted accounting and finance solution.  While the POS system may include a level of basic accounting functionality, the reality is that a dedicated financial application will perform better in the long run.

Just as specialized line of business applications are used to handle operational functions, the financial application should be considered to be the “line of business” solution for the accounting and finance department (even if it is a department of one). This system not only services essential processes like receivables management, bill payments and bank account reconciliation, it serves as the basis for payroll, financial, tax, performance and other reporting. Further, the financial systems are often the first and primary source of analytical data, illuminating KPIs and cash flows and ultimately the business value.

The point of sale application generally handles the selling of and payment processing for goods and services sold by the business.  Whether it is composed of registers and terminals connected to a host system, PCs running POS software, or mobile phones and tablets running mobile payment processing apps like Square or GoPayment, point of sale addresses the retailers need to capture and record sales and payment information, sometimes customer information, and often inventory information.

The data from the POS solution must make it to accounting in some manner, yet point of sale applications are too-often approached as a standalone business requirement, somehow disconnected from other aspects of the business including the back-office.  Sales and items may be recorded in the POS system, yet only summary sales data ends up being re-keyed into the accounting system.  Centralized inventory management is all but nonexistent in these cases, and gross sales total are often recorded rather than individual transactions and receipts being transmitted to the accounting system.  The process of re-keying information from the POS to accounting systems is not only an efficiency-killer, it is also introduces a great potential for errors.  When the business elects to conserve on data entry and post only summary information to the accounting system, valuable detailed sales and transaction data may be lost.

The right approach to bringing point of sale together with accounting is to automate the process of integrating POS data with accounting on a regular basis – with AUTOMATION being the key.  Rather than establishing a process that requires manual entry of information from either system, a data integration solution is the best approach, with an import/export solution running second. The point is the elimination of manual re-entry of information.

There are numerous tools available that can take formatted POS data and import it into products like QuickBooks, for example, where it can be properly accounted for.  While QuickBooks Point of Sale integrates with QuickBooks desktop products, other POS solutions can also connect with QuickBooks if the right integration tool is selected, and there are quite a few available.  Check with the POS vendor and ask about a direct integration with QuickBooks desktop or whatever financial system you use. If there isn’t a packaged integration solution available, then check out products like Transaction Pro Importer, which can automate a variety of data import processes and ease the burdens moving external data into QuickBooks.pointofsale

The other factor in getting point of sale data to accounting is actually getting it there… transporting the data from the POS location to where the accounting system lives.  In many situations it is not desirable to keep the accounting system on the same computers as the point of sale systems, and in some cases it isn’t even possible.  But there is generally a way to get the information in a form that makes it possible to transmit it in some manner.  Among the most popular approaches to solving the “getting the POS data from here to there” problem is to use a data sync solution like Dropbox.

If the point of sale data can be exported or output to a file on a PC hard drive, then it may be able to be stored in a Dropbox folder on that PC.  At the home office where the accounting system resides, the operator would access the sync’d files from the local PC Dropbox folder and import the data to QuickBooks.   For QuickBooks Point of Sale there is an option to create a “mailbag” of sorts from the POS data of a remote store, which QuickBooks POS at the home office would pick up from the Dropbox folder and push to the QuickBooks financial application.

For businesses using POS systems like Micros or POSitouch and others, there is likely a service or application that will produce the POS data for import to QuickBooks or other financial system, pulling POS data files placed in the Dropbox folders by the POS app or performing the function as a web service or SaaS integration.

While I am a big fan of application hosting services and running QuickBooks desktop editions in the cloud, I’m also a realist and recognize that many POS solutions either can’t or shouldn’t be hosted.  There are situations where a hosted point-of-sale makes a lot of sense, and then there are cases where no bandwidth or proprietary hardware-based solutions make hosting not even an option. That doesn’t mean that the financial systems shouldn’t be hosted, though, and there are numerous ways to get the sync’d POS exports to the hosted QuickBooks environment, for example.

The key for retailers is to make sure there is a solid process for getting detailed and accurate POS information into the accounting system on a regular basis.  Manual entry is never the best answer.  With all of the technology and tools available, manually re-entering sales information is a waste of time and is likely to produce errors.  The better answer is to use an approach that automates the regular collection of point-of-sale data from all sources, delivering the data in a regular and consistent manner to accounting, and providing the basis for end-to-end automation supporting the integration of the point of sale system data with the rest of the business accounting.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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Justifying the IT Budget: the Cost of Not Spending

it_spend“Competitive and ever-increasingly sophisticated in the marketplace”[1] describes a company positioned for long term business survival.  Complacency takes the business nowhere but into irrelevance-land, which I think we can all agree is not where most business owners wish to end up…  it makes selling the company slightly more challenging.  Even in markets which were once firmly held to be localized are now open to new – and new kinds of – competitors, due in most part to advancements the development of information technology (IT) as well as how it is applied.  These days, competition is globally facilitated rather than locally, and it’s becoming the standard approach.  Welcome to the cloud.

New paradigms in IT capability and use are spawning huge shifts in what were broadly recognized normal or traditional business approaches.  This realization has created the need for businesses to radically change their view of IT investment and the value of IT within the organization and operation.  Yet IT is rarely an area which gains a strategic focus for investment within most businesses, and is frequently considered to be like a pencil or a particular chair… something the business needs but which has little impact on the company’s ability to compete better.  Au Contraire, Mon Frère:  Information technology is at the heart of business competitiveness, but justifying the desired investment is the great challenge.  Maybe it’s because the focus is always on the great benefits to be achieved with the spend, rather than looking realistically at the impact of not doing it well or at all.  Especially with information technology, there is a large potential cost to be paid for not spending adequately.

While business operations are sustained through IT involvement, economic pressures continue to weigh down business interest in funding IT operations. (which is weird, as there is a lot of evidence that the good bet is on those who do just the opposite). This regular spending reduction and cost control plan has good intentions of reducing the overall cost of business operations. The unfortunate reality is that operations are less efficiently sustained and are even more frequently unable to create or manage any level of growth. Reducing all IT spending is only useful when profitability is also improved and quality is maintained, unless it is an effort to simply stay afloat as revenues decline (and it’s recognized that quality will decline as well). But reducing costs does not help the business seeking to remain competitive in a rapidly changing marketplace, and pulling the pins out of the department primarily responsible for at least keeping things currently in operation operating serves only to chip away at the once-solid foundation. It’s a real problem, this difficulty with increasing interest and justifying increased funding for business information technology. And it all stems from the inability of organizations to clearly and with tangible benefit cost justify the investment.

It is this justification – demonstrating IT investment as a strategic asset presenting an advantage over competitors and positioning the business for future success – which requires effort and analysis to fully describe. Information technology is not a set of servers and software, and it is not websites and portals. It’s not click thru rates or SEO scores. Well, it’s all of that, but it is none of that. There is so much to consider and incorporate, and there are many degrees of success which might be experienced along the way. Information technology is a fundamental requirement in each and every business, and dependency upon it is increasing at a startlingly rapid pace, yet we still can’t quite figure out how to put it all on paper with provable numbers.

It might be easier to forecast in little departmental or functional pieces, but that doesn’t provide a total picture of the enterprise. And it’s often really difficult to quantify the impact of not doing something, or doing it only OK rather than really well. When this data does present itself, it often comes too late and in the form of a comparison to the competition, revealing where the business just didn’t meet the mark as compared to others in the same space.

It all boils down to businesses coming to the realization that information technology investment must be made on a continuing basis. The justification for IT funding must be made, and that justification must necessarily be balanced against the potential implications and impacts of not implementing. This is the only formula which can ultimately describe the value of IT investment in the business.

Make Sense?

Read the entire article on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140624161243-633314-justifying-the-it-budget-the-cost-of-not-spending

 

[1] A model for investment justification in information
technology projects: A. Gunasekaran et al. / International Journal of Information Management 21 (2001) 349–364
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QuickBooks and Dropbox? Yeah… no.

mobile cloud dataHaving your data available from anywhere is awesome.  Storing files in the cloud and being able to sync them with files on the computer is a great way to make sure the files are centrally available regardless of which machine you use to access them with.  Dropbox is among those favored solutions which provide users with the cloud drive storage and an ability to seamlessly sync those files to various computers.  It’s pretty cool, but let’s face it: not every type of file loves living in a Dropbox or sync folder.  Particularly for folks who want to be able to store and sync their QuickBooks and other business files to the cloud, there are a few things to be aware of when using these nifty sync solutions.

A file is not always just a file.  What do I mean by this?  Well, there are lots of different types of files an application might store and use, and not all of them work the same way.  For example, Word documents are files that only one person can actually work on at a time – there’s no actual “multi-user” functionality when it comes to a Word doc.  You either get the file in a state that allows you to make changes to it, or you get it in ready-only mode.  Document files like this – Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs and text files – work great with sync solutions. This is because the type of file being sync’d is designed to allow only one person at a time to have it open and editable.  You sync it to your computer, work on the file, and then sync it back.  It’s pretty straightforward.

The file that isn’t just a file is a database – a file or series of files that make up a complete data set, and which have some type of database manager or other framework keeping track of things.  It’s this type of solution that often has problems working in a sync folder or system.  An Outlook data file (a .PST file) is a type of file which fits into this category.  While the Outlook file isn’t generally viewed as a multi-user data file or a database file, it is being communicated with and written to by various processes while the application is running.  There is information being added to the file as emails are received, even while the user may be writing an email or entering a calendar appointment.  The point is that there are multiple types of data elements being updated all the time and by various processes.  This type of file is always in use and getting changes, so there really isn’t a point in time when it’s closed and available to make copies of, which is what has to happen for a proper sync.    And, because the sync solutions often try to sync incremental file changes, there is a big possibility of ending up with a damaged file because some changes were properly written where others might not be, ending up with file conflicts and corrupt data.

A QuickBooks company file is also a database file, so the same issues around syncing an Outlook data file exist with QuickBooks.  When the QuickBooks software is open and a company file is being worked on, the file may get incremental changes throughout the work session.  As each of these little changes happens, the sync program may attempt to copy those changes to the file in the cloud.  Because the QuickBooks file is constantly being updated, the attempt to incrementally sync updates to the file in the cloud can easily cause damage and corruption to the file.  Folks who have attempted to fake a sort of multi-user access to QuickBooks data files by using Dropbox or other sync services quickly find that the system isn’t going to work for them that way.  Further, they often find that the QuickBooks data files can get pretty screwed up trying to manage the live company file in this manner.

 

The only way to use QuickBooks, Outlook and similar types of data files with Dropbox is to recognize that the sync folders are only viable as a backup storage location for the files, not the place where the actual, working data files can be stored.  If using an application such as QuickBooks, businesses should store the “working copy” of the file in the documents area on the machine, and then backup or copy the data file to the sync folder periodically.  Placing the backup files or file copies in the sync folder allows them to sync to the cloud, storing them as offsite backups in case you need them, and allows the file to remain where it can be used by the application.

Businesses who need access to QuickBooks applications and data from different computers or locations may want to consider checking out hosting services as an alternative to a sync solution. Hosting solutions can help businesses get their software and data available anytime, anywhere either from their own PC or from a secure environment so they can access their QuickBooks applications and data from any Internet-connected device.

When a company wants to keep backup copies of their information in the cloud, a sync service might be an okay solution.  For folks who need to be able to access a live file and applications from a variety of locations, or if multi-user access is required (especially if those users are in different locations), then a full hosted solution might be the better answer.  Hosting the applications and data in the cloud is a great way to get the company connected, and it’s a far better alternative to pretending the system can be multi-user when it really can’t.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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The CPA for Small Business: Proactive, Responsive, and Helps Paint a Beautiful Picture

chartI once read an article written by Doug Sleeter which describing the findings of a published report titled What SMBs Want from Their CPA.  The report was a summary of results from a study conducted by The Sleeter Group, and was intended to help accounting professionals understand the factors in the market which influence business use of professional accounting services.  While adoption and use of technology was not named as the top item on the list, capabilities which can be rendered only if such adoption occurs were.  In short, it’s not the technology that clients demand, but the level of service that professionals can only deliver by embracing advancements in technology and applying them to the client engagement.

The report and article placed a specific focus on trends relating to technology adoption and use in the professional practice, and establishes a foundation for firms to understand why technology is and always has been a key factor in the success of the CPA-client relationship.  It’s not that the accounting professional must become a skilled technologist and promote high technology to the client.  Rather, the success factor rests with the firm’s motivation to implement technologies and tools which will improve their ability to deliver more (and more valuable) service to the client in a more direct and timely manner.

The survey’s two critical questions posed to small business owners who use the services of a CPA were 1. What factors played a role in your decision to leave your former CPA?, and 2. What types of services would you like to receive from your CPA?   Both questions are pretty straightforward, and the top responses from surveyed SMBs were equally unambiguous.

To the first question (factors playing into a decision to leave former CPA), the top two answers indicated that reactive and/or unresponsive are the problems which ultimately cause a small business owner to change accounting professionals.  The top response was “Former CPA didn’t give proactive advice, only reactive”.  The close second response was “Former CPA had poor responsiveness”.

Unfortunately, these responses more than accurately describe many professional firms and their approach to client service.  These firms are perfectly content with waiting for clients to deliver after-the-fact information, delivering reports long after their relevance has past, and providing no sense of urgency in helping clients address business issues facing them here and now.  These firms are content to work with their write-up and trial balance solutions, depreciation and amortization and tax products – and give little consideration to how they could adjust their operation to a better, more relevant and rapid delivery of service and insight to the client.

The second question, “What services do SMBs want from their CPAs?”, was met with the same responses professionals have been hearing for years; small business owners need help with business planning and business strategy and they wish the help would come from their CPA.   It is surprising how many accounting professionals list business planning and strategy among the services they promote on their websites, and then just sit back and wait for clients to ask.  Communication with clients remains relegated to annual reminders for tax information, or maybe slightly more frequent notes about other tax or compliance work to be done.  It may be a bit unfair to place all the blame on the professional.  Regulatory and reporting impacts on business are increasing and are increasingly complicated.  Many professionals find it challenging enough simply to keep up with changes relating to the services they currently and regularly provide.

This is where practitioners should seriously take notice, and accept that the ability to meet changing market and customer demands is by intelligently leveraging technology to accomplish what people and process cannot do alone.

  • It takes information technology to speed up the bookkeeping, accounting and reporting processes; technology is required to help turn information into useful and relevant data;
  • technology facilitates the faster collection of information from and the delivery of information to clients;
  • technology is applied to reflecting numbers as pictures and helping users visualize the meaning of the data, and
  • technology enables the collection and analysis of “big data”, which leads to AI advancements and greater intelligence delivered through the applications businesses use.

The Sleeter Group report clearly demonstrated that small business owners continue to need and want more than just tax returns and post-facto reports from their accounting professionals, and that the lack of attention in these areas pose a direct threat to the small business/CPA relationship.  Professionals can remove the threat by working closer with their small business clients, applying technology and process controls to get better information in a more timely manner, and returning the result with greater insight.  Be proactive and be responsive, and apply the necessary technologies and business philosophy to get there before the client base looks for satisfaction elsewhere.

I’ve said before that small business owners don’t care about the numbers, they care about the picture the numbers paint, and they care about getting to a place where the picture is absolutely beautiful.  With the right tools in place, their CPA can help guide them there.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J