small business performance – Page 7 – Cooper Mann Consulting

November 22, 2016August 13, 2018

Robots are just automation you didn’t know you needed

tall-tower-vancouver
There is a big trend in software integration these days which involves automation – turning connected systems into free-flowing conduits for data to move intelligently into and out of with ease. Well, maybe not quite that, but the key is the unattended and intelligent movement of data from one system to another. People don’t have to get involved in order for the information to flow from one system to another… it just goes by itself. Like a robot.

Having software and systems connect to one another isn’t new at all, and businesses have for many years recognized the value of being able to have information entered in one system available in another. Entire ERP frameworks have been created based on this concept of entering data once and using it in many ways. The trick is when there is more than one system or software product involved.

A simple example might be someone who owns a web store and does their bookkeeping with QuickBooks Premier. The webstore isn’t running QuickBooks; it is running an e-commerce solution or shopping cart system that allows customers to buy things online. However, the webstore does create sales orders and charge transactions, and may even have to manage an inventory of saleable items.

Getting the information from the webstore to QuickBooks and vice versa is often a task business owners take on, either by entering the information manually themselves or hiring and employee to do it. This manual re-entry of information introduces a large potential for errors in the data entered and is time-consuming and costly.

“It was just awful,” said David Clothier, treasurer of the Knoxville, Tenn., company, which operates more than 500 Pilot Flying J truck stops nationwide. “There were humans everywhere.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-bookkeeper-is-a-robot-1430776272

Rather than having a person re-type the information from one system into another, software-based integration programs may be available to help users map the data and move it from one solution to the other. Using a software program to transfer the information is much faster and reduces the error rate, increasing the overall value and usefulness of the information.

Automation isn’t the only requirement that makes this all robot-like. The additional requirement is the intelligence. If people still have to get directly involved in order for something to happen, then all the happening is still based on human performance. No robots here.

Intelligent integration of information occurs when the systems on both ends are capable of making decisions and acting on them. For example, a business might use a solution that allows vendors to submit their invoices electronically. Through a base of rules that match invoices to requests and approvals, the system is able to issue payment and record the transactions automatically and without human intervention, saving hugely on personnel and processing costs. Robots (the automation solution) wouldn’t make up all the rules, but could follow them repetitively and without question once established.

…software can help businesses operate more effectively. “If you think like a human, there are only certain things you can do. When you think like a robot, many things are possible.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-bookkeeper-is-a-robot-1430776272

It isn’t a new paradigm for building businesses – this doing of things a bit smarter than before and leveraging technology to get more done in less time. The difference is that the pace of change is increasing, giving businesses less time to stand by and rub the chin and consider whether or not this new fangled technology makes sense. Robots, you say? Meet your new part-time bookkeeper.

jmbunnyfeet Make Sense?

May 23, 2016

Taking Action to Expand Overtime Protections | whitehouse.gov

The Department of Labor is finalizing a rule to update overtime protections for workers. “In total, the new rule is expected to extend overtime protections to 4.2 million more Americans who are not currently eligible under federal law, and it is expected to boost wages for workers by $12 billion over the next 10 years.”

Source: Taking Action to Expand Overtime Protections | whitehouse.gov

This is a difficult subject for everyone involved – workers and business owners alike. Increases in minimum wage, increases in employee health care costs, and adjustments to wage and hour regulations all serve complicate and cost businesses more. Fair payment for time worked, a living wage, and protections for workers from employer abuse are things that are expected – deservedly so – by employees. Definitions vary, as do circumstances, so a one-size rule never really fits all and someone, somewhere, feels the burn.

A USA Today article on the subject describes Labor Secretary Thomas Perez as saying “the salary threshold was originally intended to exempt high-paid executives but instead has denied overtime to low-level retail supervisors and entry-level office workers who often toil 50 to 70 hours a week.”

On the other hand Dan Bosch, head of regulatory policy for the National Federation of Independent Business, was described as saying that “many small businesses can’t absorb the added cost and will instruct employees to work no more than 40 hours a week, bringing on part-time workers to pick up the slack”. From Trey Kovacs, policy analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute: “The Obama rule puts a huge cost and regulatory burden on employers, who will face pressure to cut back on benefits and full-time employees”.

A bill was introduced on Thursday by Republican congressional leadership hoping to block the proposed overtime rule. The proposed legislation, Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act, is intended to ensure that the Department of Labor takes a “balanced and responsible approach to updating federal overtime rules.” Sponsors of the legislation include members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Part of the bill’s consideration may be the burden of record keeping and information management that just keeps growing ever larger. The current DOL changes, for example, now suggest that businesses must keep time and attendance records in detail for their salaried employees who might qualify for overtime compensation. Getting employees to keep time cards or complete timesheets may not be an easy thing to do, yet punching a timeclock and tracking their hours may become their new normal. Some employers, on the other hand, will elect to simply raise workers’ base pay to the new threshold, avoiding paying the overtime and skirting the need to keep detailed time records.

The extension of overtime protection to another 4.2 million Americans, and boosting wages by $12 billion over the next 10 years is the expectation for the new rule’s impact, although opponents suggest that employment (and employers) will suffer, reducing their workforces while absorbing costly HR management processes just in order to comply.

The rule is likely to touch nearly every sector of the U.S. economy, with the most notable adjustments occurring with nonprofits, retailers and hospitality (hotel and restaurants), as these are the industries generally having management-level workers whose salaries are at or below the new threshold. Whether the outcomes of the rule will be as expected remains to be seen, but it is certain that many businesses must now put in place software, systems and processes which will help not just help them comply with new wage and hour rules, but deliver enough intelligence to support better personnel management, employee scheduling and labor cost containment.

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April 25, 2016March 31, 2017

Run Your [New, Small, Growing] Business from Anywhere

The office for a small business used to be where all the work got done. The hub of activity and productivity for a small business, the office was where you could connect with team members and co-workers and generally keep on the same page with what was going on in the business. Customer orders are taken, those orders are fulfilled, and bills are paid – all from the small business office. Yet today’s small business isn’t tied to the office location any longer.

Mobility and the cloud now provide businesses with mobile office options that allow users to get their jobs done no matter where they happen to be. Business moves at a fast pace, and mobility and remote access solutions help companies be more nimble. Collaborating while on the go and exchanging ideas and concepts quickly helps businesses be more agile and better-able to meet changing customer needs. Successful small business owners leverage mobility and action to beat the competition.

The cloud and Internet-based computing lets small businesses access and benefit from IT solutions that were previously only available to enterprise organizations. Better IT means being more competitive, giving smaller businesses a leg up and positioning them among even the largest of competitors. For the business owner, the freedom of being able to manage the entire business from anywhere delivers a freedom and flexibility previously unimagined.

Here are some ways hosted and cloud-based IT can help small businesses overcome everyday business challenges:

Reduce or Eliminate the Need for a Physical Office

Starting a business is tough, and many small business owners decide to use their own homes as a business location rather than forking over a bunch of lease money to a commercial realtor. Using hosting application services and cloud technologies can help keep team members and co-workers working together, no matter where they are located. Many businesses are able to get off the ground and operating successfully without ever having an established office.

Work when it Works for You

Remote desktops and hosted applications deliver functionality to users no matter where or when they need to work. With ready access to everything needed to get the job done, workers are able to be productive even when they’re not at a desk (or even a computer!). Smartphone and tablet apps can make working from a mobile device highly effective, extending productivity and capability to workers whenever and wherever it is required.

Keep Everyone on the Same Page

When systems are centrally located and accessed, it is easy to keep everyone on the same version, the same edition, and the same page. No matter where users are located, documents and application data are kept in sync, ensuring that everyone is working on the most current information available. Mobile access to applications and data keeps information from being distributed to various devices, making revision control easier and providing better protection for valuable business information.

Mobile computing and the cloud make it easy for small businesses to have better IT that enhances productivity and supports growth. Reducing capital costs and exchanging large technology investments with affordable monthly subscription service gives small businesses the boost they need to implement the solutions and services which will develop and improve collaboration, streamline workflows, and reduce overhead costs while enabling a fast-paced and agile business ready to meet any challenge.

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February 19, 2016February 19, 2016

Is this email legitimate? QuickBooks Payroll ACH ID Changes go live on the 22nd!

Trusted QuickBooks Advisors – here’s another thing for you to help your clients with

Intuit recently sent an e-mail to QuickBooks Online Payroll (QBOP) and QuickBooks Full Service Payroll (QBFSP) customers about an ACH ID change. It kind of looks like a phishing thing, but it is really a legitimate email from Intuit, and it is important to pay attention if your company uses the impacted services and a banking feature called “debit filtering”. There isn’t much time to act, either, because the changes go live in 3 days (February 22, 2016).

Impacted services are QuickBooks Online Payroll and QuickBooks Full Service Payroll, so it is pretty important to address. Nobody wants their business payroll processes interrupted, and this could easily do just that.

Intuit has added some new ACH ID numbers for use with direct deposit and other processes which work with the bank, so customers using a fraud-prevention method known as “debit filtering” will need to contact their banks to add the new IDs or their bank transactions will fail.

Debit filtering allows customers to tell their banks which ACH IDs are allowed to perform transactions with the bank account, like removing or depositing funds. It is an extra level of fraud security that protects the bank account from unauthorized access, but it is also something that can work against the business if it is not managed. In this case, contacting the bank to add the new IDs is critical to keeping things processing and flowing smoothly. It is also important that the old IDs not be removed yet, as they may be tied to historic transactions that must be tracked and reported on for tax and other purposes.

“Is this really from Intuit? It seems like Intuit would have a better way to make such changes than to ask millions of subscribers to contact their bank”

Source: Is this email legitimate? ACH ID Changes; – QuickBooks Learn & Support

QuickBooks users don’t have much time to reach their banks and supply the new IDs, so pull the email out of the SPAM folder and call the bank right away. Intuit won’t be sending notices to the banks, and they have no authority to add different IDs to your approved list, anyway… which is a good thing. If just anyone could add an approved ACH ID on your account, then just anyone could get to your funds. Better to make the phone call yourself.

jmbunnyfeet Make Sense?

December 2, 2015February 3, 2016

Franchise FUD: Browning-Ferris Industries, the NLRB, and Joint-Employer Status

iconic An August decision by the NLRB is likely to have a broad impact in the coming years, forcing a great deal of change in how many businesses do business. While the issue may be under the radar for some business owners, those in the franchise industry are paying very close attention – which makes sense because the ruling could easily be construed as the beginning of the end for the franchise business model. At stake are the definition of “employer” and the determination of who is really responsible for the workers.

The issue stems from a 3-2 decision by the NLRB on a case involving Browning-Ferris Industries of California. Browning-Ferris Industries is a waste management company that contracted with another company – Leadpoint – to supply employees to perform a variety of work functions. Under the NLRB ruling, it was determined that Browning-Ferris was a joint employer with Leadpoint. What is interesting in this case (and where the FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt – come in) is that “indirect control” of the employees became the primary factor determining whether a joint employer relationship existed under the National Labor Relations Act. Going against years of precedent, the board ruled that Browning-Ferris and Leadpoint were jointly employing the workers.

In the decision, the Board applies long-established principles to find that two or more entities are joint employers of a single workforce if (1) they are both employers within the meaning of the common law; and (2) they share or codetermine those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment. In evaluating whether an employer possesses sufficient control over employees to qualify as a joint employer, the Board will – among other factors — consider whether an employer has exercised control over terms and conditions of employment indirectly through an intermediary, or whether it has reserved the authority to do so.

https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-browning-ferris-industries

There are many who believe Browning-Ferris is a precursor to the pending proceeding against McDonald’s Corp. in which the NLRB general counsel charges McDonald’s Corp as a joint employer of its franchisees’ employees. Possibly in response to outcries of wage inequality and fast-food worker strikes to force an increase in the minimum wage, the NLRB seems to be adjusting its definitions in favor of the movement and may inadvertently destroy the foundations of the franchise business model according to some.

Clearly the franchise business model is in the crosshairs. In an article published on Law360 by David J. Kaufmann, Breton H. Permesly and Dale A. Cohen, the authors cite from the June amicus brief on the Browning-Ferris proceeding, in which NLRB General Counsel Richard F. Griffin Jr “directly addressed and attacked franchising, claiming that it was merely an “outsourcing arrangement” and insisting that franchisors are the joint employers of their franchisees’ employees because franchisors can exert significant control over the day-to-day operations of their franchisees”. No ambiguity there.

There have always been questions when workers are classified as contractors, forcing regulatory agencies to delve into the details of the relationship to determine whether or not independence actually exists. But this decision changes things in a big way. From Unions gaining more strength in forcing contracting organizations to participate in bargaining processes, to franchise businesses electing to run only company-owned locations to minimize exposure and risk, there is likely to be some troubling times for businesses large and small in the coming months and years as the new definitions take hold.

jmbunnyfeet Make Sense?

here’s a shortlink to this article http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-Om

September 30, 2015October 1, 2015

Why Offering Anytime, Anywhere Work Works

An Anytime, Anywhere Work Survey was completed by ConvergenceCoaching, LLC this spring, and they’ve published the results. In the survey, they asked firms to provide feedback on the results of flexible work programs, asking for both the good and the bad aspects of having an anytime/anywhere working model. It isn’t much of a surprise that the positive outweighed the negative, given the popularity of cloud computing and mobile working models.

The benefits of providing flexibility where and when people work is something that many businesses are just realizing. It took a while for the idea to catch on (and for the technology to catch up) but enterprise and small business alike are now taking advantage of flexible work programs to improve employee morale and the business bottom line. Keeping employees happy and engaged is critical to running and growing a successful business, and providing a level of flexibility in work programs can deliver a big boost to worker satisfaction.

Supporting a flexible work environment and mobile employees takes some additional attention to detail, especially when it comes to communication. If workers aren’t certain of their responsibilities and boundaries, then expectations may not be fully met. Training and communication become key elements in the business, making sure that employees understand what to do and how to get it done before they are allowed to operate remotely and with less on-site support.

There may also be some workers who feel that disconnecting is not an option when they are allowed some flexibility in hours and place of work. Often electing to error on the side of caution, these users may put in more hours than usual simply to make sure that their work and contribution is recognized. It is the “out of sight, out of mind” scenario they play over and over again, fearing that they will be forgotten or their usefulness minimized simply because they are not present in the office. On the other hand, many workers describe being more effective in their jobs because they’re able to focus better and find themselves to be more creative or efficient when working away from the office. The company must provide clear lines of communication and work validation which support offsite employees and allows workers to embrace the freedom an anytime/anywhere approach offers if they want positive and productive results.

The survey demonstrated that businesses offering flexibility in work programs saw improvement of employee work/life balance and better overall morale than those offering no such flexibility. Building and improving trust among teams was another cited benefit, as was the positive impact to the job of finding and retaining staff. I think the best attribute of the Anytime/Anywhere working model listed from the survey was “It is worth it!”. Maybe it’s just because I agree.

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Source: Why Offer Anytime, Anywhere Work? | ConvergenceCoaching, LLC