Tag: small business performance

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Building Smarter Businesses

Achieving Growth, Efficiency and Sustainability Through Greater Business Intelligence

Every business needs to know how they’re doing so they can find ways to do better. This is what business intelligence is, and it’s the key to taking advantage of new opportunities and building success.

Consider the IBM commercials that were aired, about developing models for the prediction of traffic conditions in Singapore and “infusing intelligence into the systems and processes that make the world work”.   What they’re saying makes sense, but most business owners would likely say that it addresses bigger issues and doesn’t really speak to them. Yet those messages are for even the smallest of enterprises because you must really understand what’s happening in a business – and how it’s happening – to improve and excel.

The ability to leverage technology to collect data and analyze it in real time can make a huge difference, whether it is in a small business or a global system. With an intelligent approach to enabling the enterprise, we can build smarter and stronger businesses.

“Together, we have to consciously infuse intelligence into our decision-making and management systems, not just infuse our processes with more speed and capacity . . . We are moving into the age of the globally integrated and intelligent economy, society and planet. The question is, what will we do with that?”

former IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano

Business software and systems have reached the point where data collection and raw business intelligence is being gathered in real time by businesses small and large. This is where businesses must transform, replacing paper-based systems with digital workflows and enabling the collection of real-time information as data for analysis.

Forward-thinking accounting and finance professionals realize that accounting is not simply the final resting place for after-the-fact financial data. The finance department is where collected data is turned into actionable information, and information is power.

The competitive landscape for businesses of all kinds is changing along with the progress and adoption of technology.  Business owners and accountants should learn to use the tools which will help them find the patterns and trends in the system that help to forecast more accurately.

Working with NOOBEH cloud services and Mendelson Consulting, accounting professionals and business owners can implement the agile platforms and connected technologies to help achieve the benefits of growth, efficiency and sustainability envisioned by the Smarter Planet initiative.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Better Platform, Better Data, Better Performance

Information management paradigms are rapidly changing, so businesses seeking to achieve maximum performance and profitability must look at increased efficiency and innovation in their IT platforms. Cloud platforms help business operations to be more effective and agile, supporting the various processes and workflows which make up the operation. From finance to order processing, shipping and customer service, the platform needs to be flexible enough to handle the wide variety of needs of the company.

Today’s technology-enabled flow of business opportunity requires modern infrastructure and IT services. Where many would believe that web-based applications and “cloud” versions of software solve the problem, more often the business finds the solution lacking features and usefulness. Tried and failed plug-ins and extensions may leave the system attached to a spiderweb of connections and services behind the scenes, reducing or eliminating the ability to fully control the flow of data to or from the system.

The real issue to address is the infrastructure and IT foundation, not just the applications. Certainly, the software matters greatly, but too often businesses believe they must migrate to new applications and adopt new processes simply because they wish to have remote access and more flexibility in how and where users and information connect.

Cloud platforms and services enable many things for a business, not the least of which is collaboration and co-working. With centralized access to applications and data, workers can get the information they need regardless of where they are, and the workflows and processes may be improved and expanded because all users can participate as required.

Enabling connectivity for the platform is as essential as for the applications. When applications and processes can connect seamlessly, the data flows through the business better and there’s less chance of it getting damaged or lost. Re-keying data increases the opportunity for errors, and manual import/export processes can fail due to simple mistakes. With the right integration and sync tools and an IT platform that fully supports them, the business can improve the speed and accuracy of data moving throughout the system.

There is a growing need for accounting and business professionals who understand how these data connections can work and assisting businesses with selecting and implementing the right ones. This used to be more in the domain of the CIO, information systems guys and data analysts, but it is falling more to the accounting and finance teams these days.

For many years, accounting and finance were just the final dumping ground for after-the-fact financial data. Operationally, things could be humming along in the business and looking just fine, but the business was losing money, and nobody knew it before it was too late. Now, business owners and managers have come to understand that virtually EVERYTHING in business has a financial impact and leaves an imprint on the business: every action and activity, every relationship and interaction.

When cloud platforms, applications and integrations are in place for the business, business intelligence comes not just from after-the-fact silos of historical data, but from current and real-time information that is the key to unlocking a deeper understanding of business performance.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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For Accounting Professionals: Private Hosted Solutions and Helping Clients Cope with the New Normal

Accounting professionals have an opportunity right now to help their business clients through the difficulties presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. With work-from-home mandates and increasingly fluid reporting requirements to support grants, loans and loan forgiveness, business owners need all the support and good advice they can get.

The global pandemic is changing the landscape of business worldwide. Many small businesses in the US have either closed or are on the brink, looking for ways to keep the doors open and employees paid. Supply chains are strained, distribution has slowed, and workers are being asked to work from home if possible.

These are challenging times, but the guidance and support you can provide to your business clients can be just what they need to help keep the doors open and workers producing. Remote access, cloud hosted applications and data, and real-time accounting support and management reporting are the weapons you and your clients will use to fight the conditions that are currently working against you both.

Help your clients deploy cloud hosting services for their entire business.

Running applications and storing data on an in-house network increases the cost and complexity of supporting a remote or mobile workforce, for you and for your clients.

Remote access and supporting work from home requires that users have the means to communicate with each other and to collaborate on the work. Tools to support communication and collaboration are critical when the workforce is distributed, operating from a variety of locations and with whatever device is available. Yet business owners, operators and managers may find that collaboration apps and other online tools don’t provide access to the applications and data required to do all their work.

To address the problem of working on client data, some accountants may install the client software and copy the data to their own in-house networks. This creates a situation where the accountant is paying for computing resources, space and management of client applications and data in addition to their own. This increases the cost of internal operations for the accounting firm and can impact internal system performance while also reducing overall productivity.

More to the point, this model only supports doing after-the-fact work for the client, which results in the data and reporting being outdated and far less useful to the client in supporting daily decision-making. This model also does nothing to help the firm with their own possible work-from-home needs even as IT support and on-site service becomes more limited.

Accounting professionals wanting to provide services to clients proactively rather than reactively must have real time access to the same applications and data that the client uses. The old fallback to remote control solutions is one approach, yet it is not really an optimum solution to the problem.

Remote control, like PCAnywhere, GoToMyPC or LogMeIn expose the professional to more of the client computing environment than is necessary, introducing risk and the potential for blame if something goes wrong. And remote-control solutions are single user, reducing productivity because the client can’t use their system while the accountant controls the computer. RC solutions also rely on the availability and function of the on-premises systems. If the on-prem systems aren’t turned on, up and running and accessible, then the remote user can’t connect.

It may be that online or web-based applications are an option, but for many businesses they aren’t really a viable solution. QuickBooks Online is simplified software and is not appropriate or usable for many businesses. The QBO subscription model is per-company, limiting options and reducing cost-efficiency for businesses with multiple entities. And QBO doesn’t address other business needs, such as working with documents and reports, and it can’t provide any access or support for other business applications. Even the ability to backup and preserve data is very limited without specialized services and tools.

Shared hosting service might be closer to the right answer, yet shared hosting is generally only useful for very small organizations and supports only core QuickBooks functions, so it can be as restrictive QBO. Shared infrastructure used by the shared hosting platforms can also introduce significant risk to every business on the platform because ransomware and malware can easily move through connected file systems and servers.

Compare shared services to a public pool where it is very easy to transmit from one person to another; in these networks an intrusion can end up spreading malware to the entire network and platform, resulting in days or even weeks of outages. Unfortunately, disaster recovery is often limited to recovery of the provider hosting platform and does not always include recovery of all customer data.

The best solution for business is private, managed cloud hosting service delivered on a trusted and proven platform like Microsoft Azure.

Hosting service that takes advantage of the Microsoft Azure cloud  platform allows the business to centralize access to all their important applications and data, making it possible to provide complete application functionality for all users no matter where they are located.

Using the Azure platforms means that security, fault tolerance, scalability and agility are designed into the solution rather than being extras from the hosting provider. Microsoft-managed datacenters and Microsoft-managed hardware means the experts in systems and security are handling the big stuff while the service provider focuses on what the client needs.

The virtualization technology enables the agility to meet changing business needs, scaling systems up or down if necessary. Massively scalable platform allows services to be right sized now without concern for future resource requirements (no buying ahead based on possible future needs). There are no arbitrary limitations placed on the applications or services the business needs to run on the cloud platform, and no fees for running more apps.

Making all the applications and data available to workers, when and where they need them, is the key to promoting higher levels of productivity while delivering the data management needs to support daily decision-making.

Now that you have access, provide pro-active support and help business owners and managers make the right decisions.

Better data and reporting to support business and finance management is more important than ever, especially when having the right information can mean the difference between keeping the doors open and closing shop for good. Whether the goal is to shore up finances to keep employees on staff or to create a cushion to help weather supply chain disruptions, businesses owners need quality financial and performance data in order to make the right decisions for the company.

Once the accounting professional has real-time access to client systems, they can work cooperatively in the data to ensure that the right information is available when it is needed. As business owners seek to take advantage of grants and loan programs available due to the pandemic, the financial and other performance data becomes even more essential in terms of developing qualification and eventually forgivability of the loan.

With timely access, proper reporting tools and regular support and oversight, business owners benefit from a closer working relationship with their accounting professionals. The additional support and proactive service is more necessary now than ever. For the accounting pro, an elevated relationship with client is being developed, where the services provided become more meaningful and the value of those services more evident.

Make sense?

J

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More Than Expenses: Manage the Purchase Process

For many business owners, just hearing the term “expense management” brings about visions of traveling employees with piles of receipts and vouchers to be organized, accounted and reimbursed for. The images are often fleeting, however – gone out of mind with no lingering thought because these business owners don’t have personnel who travel frequently, and they don’t have to deal with volumes of expense reports from employees. Expense management solutions aren’t anything these business owners are looking for.

Yet, what does happen every day is that equipment, materials, supplies and services are purchased to keep the business operation going. Calls are made to vendors; price quotes are developed, and purchase requests are typed up in Excel spreadsheets and piled on the owner’s desk for approval. The business owner rifles through the various requests and brings in the bookkeeper to help work through the decision of which items to authorize based on current cash availability.

Because the availability of working capital changes frequently with billings being sent out and receipts being deposited daily, the owner and the bookkeeper spend much of their time together figuring out which purchases to make and when. It is a continual and ongoing process, taking a lot of time and attention away from other important business matters.

Too often, thoughts of managing these efforts with more structure addresses only half of the issue – the purchase. Perhaps there are systems for planning for materials requirements and predicting when parts or supplies will be needed, but that is still just one side of the problem. The other side is paying for it. Factoring those purchasing plans into the cash requirements of the business and having a meaningful and effective way to monitor current cash and expected receipts as well as purchase requirements is essential. Resource and materials planning takes purchase planning, and purchase planning takes visibility into receivables, cash flow and cash availability.

Expense and purchase management processes generally involve three main steps: planning, tracking, and reporting.

As the process involves planning, it suggests a proactive rather than a reactive approach to cash management and purchasing activities. By bringing together all the critical data which describes inflows and outflows, the business owner can have the information necessary to not only forecast (plan) cash requirements but to also understand the availability of working capital.

Knowing ahead of time that traditionally slow paying contracts aren’t factored into immediately available cash is important and being able to adjust purchase schedules based on availability of funds is essential.

Where expense management may not be a big part of the business, managing cash flow and purchasing goods and services is, even in the smallest of enterprises. Make sure the business has the tools in place to help bring an additional level of intelligence to purchasing activities, and that those tools deliver the benefits of a structured (but not time consuming) purchasing approvals and proactive cash flow management process.

This aspect of business – expense management and purchasing processes – is an area where accounting professionals can be of great service to their business clients.  Providing high-value solutions that increase cash efficiency and facilitate cash and purchase planning helps the business function even as conditions change.

Make Sense?

J

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Better QuickBooks Hosting: Noobeh Cloud Solutions on Azure Help Businesses Avoid Data Loss, Improve Application Performance and Implement QuickBooks Integrations

They said back in 1999 that the desktop was dead, but desktop software is far from gone. In fact, application hosting services for products like QuickBooks desktop editions just keeps growing in popularity because it delivers the access, mobility and managed services businesses need.

Service providers have been hosting QuickBooks for years, and I’ve been right there all the way, ever since the model was originally developed. In fact, the company I worked with is still selling that original service model today while many other providers have come along to follow it and take advantage of the opportunity.

Using the cloud to support accounting and other business processes makes a lot of sense, and the best part is that it doesn’t require businesses adopt the online versions of the software that just doesn’t work as well. I have a background in accounting so I understand the issues of working remotely with clients, when the business is done in one place but the accounting is done in another. And I love the technology and finding ways to make it easier and more efficient to get small business accounting done.

The benefits of using hosted QuickBooks services are many.

Anytime/anywhere access and fully-managed service are among the most obvious benefits for QuickBooks desktop users, but the advantages of centralized information and applications, secure support for mobile and remote workers, and real-time integrations and analytics capabilities can be transformational for the entire business.  Having the means to affordably extend applications to the entire workforce and keep everyone working with the same data in real time can become the foundation for improved processes, greater efficiency and better business performance.

Among the key benefits of the application hosting model is the fact that businesses are not forced to adopt software subscription services or invest their data in web applications that do not provide the functionality or features required. Even more, the business can elect to move their hosted system back to in-house computers, because the hosting is simply an alternative platform for running the software the business owns. You can take your ball and go home if you don’t want to stay.

With all the benefits of hosting QuickBooks, there are also risks involved, especially when working with shared hosting platforms.

Shared hosting platforms are architectures where the service provider spreads the cost of their infrastructure across many customers to help keep the costs down. Using conventional technologies to create divisions between customers on servers, networks and so on, services providers can deliver at a lower cost when they are able to generate revenue from lots of customers for the same pieces of equipment. As more customers are added, more servers are joined into the network. After a while, there are many servers handling the customer load.

Unfortunately, the greater the number of servers, the more complicated and costly it becomes to update the platform. This is among the reasons why many service providers have aged platforms, with server operating systems that are going out of support and offering only legacy desktop views. In addition to compatibility and modernization, a big problem with allowing the platform to age is that it becomes less secure and more difficult to keep protected.

Protecting against disaster is not the same as doing backups.

Many hosted QuickBooks customers have been faced with the ugly reality that their service provider backups are not enough to recover from disaster. This is largely the fault of the providers and is somewhat by design.  Businesses hosting their financial and other business applications and data want to know that their information is safe and secure. Performing data backups is part of the promise of protecting customer data, so most customers believe that their service provider is backing up in a way that ensures the data can be recovered.

What most hosting customers don’t understand is that the provider backups are there to help the provider recover from disaster and not necessarily to get the customer back where they were.

Hosting companies know that they need to do backups so they can support customers when files get deleted or become corrupted. Hosting companies typically do regular backups of customer data, but they do not necessarily retain individual backup data sets and they often backup all customer data together. This means that the backup data is constantly being updated, and that fully restoring the data of just one customer may be problematic. Service provider backups are there to support the continued operations of the service provider and may not provide the level of archive or retention needed by the customer. Just to make sure their data is safe and recoverable, I strongly recommend that clients keep any hosted data archived in at least one other location off the host’s platform.

In just the past year, outages caused by malware have been experienced by service providers Cetrom, Skyline, Cloud9 and Insynq, demonstrating just how devastating an outage can be when the service provider doesn’t have adequate protections in place.

In many cases customers lost data because the service provider wasn’t able to recover it from compromised or nonexistent backups. Suggesting that customers should have their data backed up locally is never part of the marketing or onboarding with the QuickBooks host, but it is often the fallback position in times of trouble.

Perhaps the most troubling aspects of these provider failures are that many of the problems stem from the shared nature of the platform.

When we first started building QuickBooks hosting services the hardware and software to make it work was terribly expensive. To approach some level of affordability, a shared platform approach was developed. This allowed the service to scale while offering a lower cost of service to customers. When the services were initially developed, there was concern about protecting from viruses and Trojans, but the nature of malware in the wild was not nearly as troublesome as it has become. Things were manageable.

But technology has evolved and so have the threats and bad actors.

The smarter bad guys should be forcing platform providers to reconsider their shared management and delivery models.

Affordable computing resources are available from platforms like Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS, offering small businesses the opportunity to have not only powerful and scalable platforms for their business IT, but also offering a means of operating privately. Not being forced to operate in the same network or on the same VMs as other companies means not having to worry about the behavior of other people or applications in your business network. It also means that the focus is on recovering your system if disaster strikes, not on recovering the systems of hundreds or thousands of other businesses at the same time.

Considering the move to a more private cloud hosting solution is an important way to reduce risk and improve IT performance for the business.

When they were in-house, the networks were private and no other businesses were sharing the servers. Moving to the cloud should not radically change that profile, and should offer customers the same privacy from outsiders and the same flexibility to implement whatever applications the business needs.

The Microsoft Azure platform provides this capability and businesses can benefit without compromising the budget. With private accounts on the Microsoft Azure platform, our customers are able to take advantage of the current and emerging technologies while safely and affordably supporting their business requirements, which is something the shared platforms fail to offer.

Make Sense?

J

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Next Generation Accountants and Businesses

Understanding the value and application of information technology is the cornerstone of building a successful “next generation” accounting or consulting practice. Professionals are finding that new opportunities to engage with new and existing clients comes from closer involvement with client financial and operational systems. Collecting and analyzing data, integrating applications and automating data exchanges, and leveraging cloud platforms and services is rapidly becoming the next level of “standardized” service offered by many professionals.

The pace of change is increasing, which makes it increasingly important for business owners to wisely select their technology partners and solutions. While many accounting professionals consider themselves to be the business owner’s trusted advisor, their clients often seek advice on increasing efficiency and reducing costs from software and IT consultants instead.

Yet conditions will change and could force the client business to make adjustments that impact the applications and services supporting the operation. Do the solutions in place have the agility necessary to meet changing business needs, being adaptable enough to meet new conditions or orientations? This is where accounting professionals can help their business clients make the right choices to address current and potential future needs.

Even as information management paradigms continue to shift, accounting professionals can help their business clients achieve better business performance and profitability through innovating workflows and increasing process efficiency. Whether or not the existing systems lend themselves to these efforts remains the question, and represents an area where the professional could provide great value.

Accounting professionals should look at services they can provide to clients that have direct and meaningful impact on operational efficiency and resultant profitability.  These areas represent not simply cost and efficiency improvements, but speak to quality of service and sustainability as well, creating better and repeatable outcomes that can support the operation even as operating conditions may change.

Improving data collection and analysis provides the foundation for understanding more about the operation, and delivers the insight required to identify areas where performance might be improved and then to prove the outcome.

Automating data exchanges and imports, eliminating redundant entry and the potential for manual errors, establishes structure in processes which can then be streamlined to deliver consistent and predictable results.

Utilizing cloud platforms and services allows the business to utilize the infrastructure required to support operations while providing a level of affordable scalability that doesn’t push the business beyond its reasonable boundaries.

What this discussion touches on is the subject of digital transformation and what that really means for small businesses and the accounting professionals who support them.

Rather than performing the accounting and financial work as after-the-fact participants, accounting professionals should help their business clients take a new view of processes and activities performed throughout the business, identifying areas where new approaches can be applied to increase efficiency as well as agility, developing a stronger foundation for growth and profitability. 

From the adoption of paperless and electronic workflows to merging social media with marketing and support activities, digital transformation represents an ongoing effort within a business to fundamentally shift from manual processes to electronic exchange, and expanding considerations beyond physical boundaries to include the virtual, as well.

All of this represents new opportunity and enhanced value for the accounting professionals ready to help their clients become “next generation” businesses.

Make Sense?

J