Tag: microsoft azure

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Fix the Data, Then Let AI Scale It

For SMB’s Using Solutions like QuickBooks Online, Service Titan or Jobber, High-Quality Data Is Critical for AI

Many small and mid-sized businesses now run on a combination of operational and financial tools. A typical stack might be QuickBooks Online (QBO) for accounting plus Service Titan or Jobber for field operations. Noobeh helps these businesses centralize their data, making it available for analysis and AI.

What we increasingly find is that various AI vendors promise AI-powered forecasting, automation and insights, but AI does not create clarity on its own. When data across these systems is inconsistent or poorly structured, AI simply automates confusion. To get real value from AI, SMBs must first ensure their data is accurate, aligned, and trustworthy.

The Reality of Disconnected SMB Systems

For these small businesses, each system serves a different purpose. QuickBooks tracks financial transactions, revenue, and expenses, where Service Titan or Jobber manages the jobs, customers, technicians and billing. There may be problems lurking in these various systems, and it is often revealed when the data is centralized and made ready for reporting and AI-enabled analytics.

These problems arise when the same business concepts—customers, jobs, revenue, costs—are represented differently in each system. Common examples of this include jobs marked as complete in Service Titan or Jobber but not fully invoiced in QBO, or customers duplicated or named differently across platforms, or any situation where manual spreadsheet adjustments are needed to make the reports work.

Imagine training your AI on this data. It isn’t going to resolve the data issues or repair them, it will repeat them at scale.

A Practical AI-Ready Data Path for SMBs

Before deploying AI features across QBO, Service Titan or Jobber, our consulting teams help our clients focus on making sure the data is ready by cleaning and standardizing QBO financial data and ensuring jobs, customers, and invoices align across systems. Our cloud services team leverages Azure platform services to create automation and eliminate manual spreadsheets and workarounds. Then we centralize the data in Microsoft Fabric, creating a single source of truth allowing reports to be validated prior to laying AI on top. This approach turns AI from a grand experiment into a dependable business tool.

Trust Is the Real Measure of AI Success

AI only delivers value when business owners, finance teams, and operators trust the outputs. That trust comes from seeing numbers that reconcile, reports that make sense, and predictions that align with reality. When this alignment occurs through high-quality data, AI forecasts become credible and insights are explainable. Decision-making improves consistently.

Fix the Data, Then Let AI Scale It

AI can help SMBs compete with much larger organizations—but only when it’s built on a strong data foundation. QuickBooks Online, Service Titan, Jobber, and Microsoft Fabric form a powerful stack, but their value depends on data quality and alignment.

For SMBs, the winning strategy is clear: fix the data first, then let AI scale what’s already working.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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AI FOMO and Your Business

“AI FOMO” (Fear of Missing Out) has become a major force behind business adoption of artificial intelligence.

Rather than pursuing AI with a clear strategy, too many organizations are investing because of competitive pressure, media buzz, and fear of falling behind. This reactive approach often leads to rushed, expensive, and poorly executed initiatives that fail to create real value—and can even spark internal friction.

Surveys show that a large share of IT leaders and executives—sometimes more than 60%—acknowledge that FOMO significantly influences their AI adoption decisions. This fear is fueled by rapid technological change, assumptions that competitors are gaining an advantage, and limited understanding of what AI can and cannot actually do.

Implementing AI without thoughtful planning or alignment to business needs often results in wasted investments in tools that don’t address real problems. Projects may stall in the early stages or fail to produce any measurable benefit or return on the investment.

Among the biggest challenges with AI centers on data and trust.

When a business puts speed of development above quality and security, it can lead to data errors, AI “hallucinations” and just plain wrong answers that diminish trust in AI systems. Workers may already feel threatened or undervalued, which creates anxiety and slows tech adoption, so care must be taken to not prematurely introduce AI that may further erode trust in the technology.

I’ve always understood that technology isn’t just a tool, it can be a strategic advantage helping businesses gain in ways not previously available. The key is to move away from fear-based adoption and toward a deliberate, value-driven approach.

Start with identifying the real business problem. With AI, figure out what problems you need the technology to solve for you rather than asking what AI can do. Just because AI can do something doesn’t mean you want it to do it for you, or that it will deliver any real value to your process or operation.

Change for the sake of change makes no sense, so it is essential to understand if there is actually a problem that AI may be able to solve and that the benefits of the solution outweigh the cost to develop and the risk potentially introduced. Start small and have pilot projects in low-risk but high-impact areas of the business where the organization can learn and refine before scaling.

Among the most important aspects of AI in business is the data the AI works with. This is where many businesses fail in their initial attempts with AI development, due largely to the fact that data is siloed or segregated and completely unclassified or categorized.

For AI development to deliver effective business benefit, high-quality, organized data and solid data infrastructure are essential.

AI systems learn directly from the data they are given. If the data is incomplete, inaccurate, inconsistent, or poorly managed, the AI’s performance will reflect those flaws. AI models are only as good as their data because AI systems—especially machine learning and generative AI—identify patterns and make predictions based on training data.

Poor-quality data results in biased, unreliable, or incorrect outputs. High-quality data supports accurate, trustworthy, and consistent results. If an AI is trained on inaccurate or inconsistent information, it will learn (and repeat) those errors.

Shift from a fear of missing out to a fear of missing the advantages of AI.

The focus should be on maximizing AI’s potential to create a competitive advantage, taking strategic risks that are aligned with the business goals. Replace fear-driven decision-making with thoughtful, goal-oriented planning and turn AI into a meaningful source of long-term value and differentiation rather than an anxiety-inducing trend to chase.

Noobeh cloud services works on the Microsoft Azure platform, creating data platforms and delivering services that fuel and support AI development. Let us create the dynamic data infrastructure your business needs to develop the intelligence to propel you forward.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Unlock KPIs and Improve Reporting with QuickBooks

It is surprising how many businesses still keep boxes of 3×5 ledger cards with customer and vendor information on them. More likely than the card box, the business may be storing its essential customer billing and vendor product information in the accounting system because that is the system they have.

These growing businesses need a better system to capture more information that delivers greater detail for accounting and reporting purposes. Just as likely, the business has other information it should and possibly could be capturing but isn’t sure about what steps to take next.

When details that inform a process are not part of an integrated system, it creates greater potential for lost or inaccurate data. The larger the volume, the more difficult and error-prone managing the information becomes.  

Business needs more detailed information about… everything.

Businesses may need to track time for payroll or jobs or both, job tracking may be a requirement, inventory tracking or more detailed inventory management may all be areas for greater attention. Mendelson Consulting can help develop these capabilities by making sure the business is using the right software, and then enabling the functionality needed to support the workflow and capture more and better data.

No data means no KPIs.

More and better data means more information to fuel KPI reporting. Key performance indicators can reflect operational performance in a variety of areas and may help identify where improvements are required.

Using data from the accounting and operational systems, businesses of all sizes measure their effectiveness using KPIs to evaluate the successes – or failures – of their processes and activities.

Mendelson Consulting’s team of QuickBooks Enterprise Experts and ERP consultants provide guidance, implementation and training, and report development to get beyond bookkeeping to proper processes that result in good accounting data. Mendelson’s cloud services team – Noobeh – sets it all up on Microsoft Azure, where data connectors, data warehouses and Microsoft Fabric weave it all together.

Whether just starting out or an enterprise or franchise expanding at a national or global level, we help businesses do more with their systems and software. We understand each stage of business and how to help our clients reach their next best level.

jm bunny feetMake sense?

J

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Cloud and Digital are Transforming Business

Businesses, whether small or large, must change how they operate. They need to find ways to leverage the technologies and influences shaping society. Transformation is essential for companies to face today’s rapidly changing environment and embrace the opportunities it provides. This means mapping out a strategy and prioritizing activities which will fundamentally shift the operation towards greater intelligence and agility.

Digital transformation is about changing how businesses operate at a foundational level. It involves transforming processes and capabilities. This is done to leverage digital technologies across all strata of the business. 

Change in business is an ongoing process and not a one-time activity.

Transformational change is enabled in large part by cloud technologies. Cloud computing solutions are in high demand. They allow businesses to scale easily and affordably. They also provide the mobility and remote access that workers require. 

More fundamentally, cloud computing services improve collaboration by users. They also enhance collaboration by applications. This improvement enables seamless integration of functionality and data from various sources.

Microsoft Azure platform provides infrastructure and services previously available only to larger businesses and enterprise IT departments. Noobeh, Mendelson’s cloud services team, uses Microsoft Azure to deliver SQL data warehouses for structured data. It provides data lakes for the storage of unstructured and different data types. The Azure Data Factory and Microsoft Fabric are used to transport, transform, and weave it all together.

Converged wired and wireless networks and smarter telephony solutions deliver location and usage data that were not previously available to most IT departments. Today’s imaging technology can easily reduce a picture to searchable and identifiable metadata. The introduction of IoT brings an even further integration of data from virtual and physical realms. This enhances potentials for intelligence. It also improves understanding and interaction.

Mendelson Consulting recognizes that true transformation is guided by the vision and objective but is supported through operational efforts.

The collection of data for inspection and analysis is the first requirement. Only through the proper establishment of processes and workflow is the required information developed.

Mendelson Consulting partners with businesses to define the scope and strategy for advancing into the digital future. They take fundamental steps to introduce greater agility in platforms and services. These platforms and services support an ever-changing business environment. They also ensure visibility, which drives greater business intelligence and operational insight.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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For Franchise Business, Platform Agility Helps Deliver Customer Value

In every corner of the franchise world, businesses are talking about growing value. Customers are pursuing lower prices and are spending less, and the competitive marketplace often pushes businesses into a race to the bottom. With pressures coming from all sides – rising labor and supply costs, inflation and the cost of capital, changes in consumer spending habits – franchise operations are looking for ways to differentiate themselves and delight customers while supporting profitability and growth.

Value is not simply a discounted price on an item. To the buyer, value is often found in the quality of the product or service, and fast friction-free transactions made without errors. New bundles of products and offering new add-ons may also improve the customer’s value perception. The introduction of online and mobile ordering and partnering with third-party delivery services is not only an enhancement to the customer experience but can open new revenue streams by reaching new customers and serving current customers better.

Understanding where changes might be made to not only improve value to the customer, but also to the business and stakeholders, is the challenge. Only through close monitoring of operational and financial data will businesses understand what adjustments are needed to achieve the desired results. Yet the complexities of data collection, integration and reporting often pose barriers to exposing the information needed to fully inform stakeholders.

Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh Cloud Services understand that many franchise organizations are faced with challenges in identifying, collecting, combining and reporting on their operational and financial data. Working with Microsoft Azure and having team members and partners experienced in working with a wide variety of financial and operational systems, Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh help businesses create the foundations for flexible, agile and massively scalable data collection, storage and analysis.

From standardizing accounting systems and processes to establishing data lakes and foundations for data analysis and reporting, Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh have the range of services and solutions and partners to help support new, established and fast-growing franchise operations. Its about delivering more value… to our clients and to theirs.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Taking a Hybrid Technology Approach is Most Advantageous for Many Small Businesses

When discussing technology and cloud, most IT resellers and MSPs serving small businesses equate “cloud” with web-based applications (SAAS) and web-based file sharing and assume that any talk of cloud desktops means desktop-as-a-service (DAAS). Unfortunately, web applications and file sharing services, and especially DAAS, are often NOT the best or most advantageous solutions available to the SMB/SME organization.

Rather than taking an “all or nothing” approach to cloud, small businesses benefit more from a strategic combination of cloud servers and desktop software, a hybrid model where the business gains the best of both worlds.

It is sometimes frustrating that small business IT personnel are the drivers behind migrating businesses from desktop applications to their web-based counterparts.

Most SMB software purchases are solely handled by IT, disregarding other important stakeholders.

Capterra’s 2023 SMB Software Buying Trends Survey

These non-business users pave the way for moving the business to cloud-based applications rather than modernizing the platform for existing applications to enable improved processes and workflows. This is especially challenging for accounting and finance operations where the businesses are being encouraged to migrate without first considering the underlying business processes or the accessibility of the impacted and associated data.

Businesses have developed an appreciation for the stability and predictability of desktop applications, along with the recognition of the challenges of transitioning from a system that is deeply integrated into existing workflows. Training users and adapting the work while migrating to cloud applications can be complex and costly without delivering significantly new or increased business benefits.

Data control and security are also large considerations. Most desktop applications allow businesses to retain direct access to and control over their data. Sensitive information remains within their reach rather than under the direct control of a 3rd party SAAS provider from whom they must gain permission and access to retrieve their data.

Rather than pushing the business towards web-based application services, a hybrid approach that modernizes the server and network platform as well as the user working environment may make more sense and provide the organization with greater advantage. This allows businesses to leverage their investments in desktop software, processes, training, and data and still make significant operational improvements and transformations.

Even more, some businesses rely on specialized software that isn’t easily replicated in a web-based environment. Existing desktop applications, especially industry-specific or custom-built tools, may not have cloud equivalents. Migrating these to the cloud server platform allows for uninterrupted productivity even as the business transitions from local to cloud-based platform and operations. Employees comfortable with existing software can maintain productivity without significant adjustments.

Using a cloud server to replace on-premises servers and user desktops, and keeping desktop and network applications working more securely, with improved access and management is the hybrid approach most advantageous for small and medium size businesses.

Noobeh works with Microsoft Azure, providing cloud servers that are scalable so small businesses can adjust their computing resources based on demand. Whether it’s expanding during peak seasons or downsizing during quieter periods, cloud servers offer flexibility that on-premises machines can’t.

Businesses can continue to use the critical desktop application tools they rely on and retain direct control over their data at the same time. Sensitive information remains within their cloud network, but users can access it from anywhere.

This hybrid model combines the benefits of cloud servers, including scalability, cost-effectiveness, agility, and security, with the benefits of keeping existing desktop software, including functionality, stability, data investment and control.

A hybrid approach to modernization allows small businesses to leverage the advantages of both cloud servers and desktop software, tailoring their technology stack to the unique needs of their businesses and in a way that is most advantageous to the business.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J