Computers and Technology

Companies need efficient process, the focus of leadership and structure that can stretch to enable the company to grow safely as a massive 55% of businesses don’t make it to their fifth birthday. The commentators offer shallow explanations as to why this happens. I consistently see three key reasons why this tragedy occurs so often and to so many individuals with different backgrounds, education and knowledge.

The primary reason is lack of market understanding.

Refusal to look at the water ahead. For example Individuals have the idea, create the product and then expect the market to come and purchase. In this connected age there is no excuse for lack of investigation prior to spending any time and cash on creating a product until you have robust evidence there is a market.

The number two reason is lack of comprehension of fundamental facts about business.

A significant proportion of people starting a business know their trade, how to deliver a service or make a product, but not how to run a business.  Being able to understand and follow the numbers in the profit and loss or the balance sheet is an essential skill. The basic knowledge of accounting is rarely imparted coherently by the business publications, online resources and experts with the knowledge such as accountants and bookkeepers. Vendors such as Sage software and Intuit aggressively fool business managers with their messaging that their systems are the cure for all ills.

Small business accounting software isnt a complete answer.

Until recently ERP software solutions and packages were the privilege of corporations who had deduced that the back and front office systems need to be fused together to give a complete picture of the business. One software developer NetSuite had the foresight to see the opening in the market and started offering its small business ERP software. NetSuite pricing has since increased and put their solution out of the financial reach of small businesses.

The third reason companies don’t survive is because of a dirth of process and procedures that put in place the vital disciplines and continuity a business must have to work efficiently.

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You have probably heard of SAP software. It’s a software system used by a substantial number of medium sized and large enterprises all over the planet. The objective of the platform is to connect the entire company together and allow hundreds and often thousands of staff members to record, share and view knowledge concerning the physical and financial activities of the company. Large organisations are lead by savvy people who appreciate the strategic benefits of this type of software, such as how it can give them insight into why difficulties are occurring inside their organisation or where there might be opportunity for refinements.

This category of system is often known as ERP. It is very complex, very expensive and can take months and often years to deploy. An installation of ERP software can cost ten’s of millions of dollars but this doesn’t stand in the way of major businesses purchasing these applications.

Until recently software similar to this was not within reach or affordable for small companies. As a result small firms have not been aware of the substantial benefits that ERP systems can deliver. Small businesses have been wrongly convinced by predatory manufacturers like Sage Software and Intuit that small business accounting software is the solution. These packages most often have no capacity to permit their users to connect the whole enterprise or undertake common tasks such as customer relationship management.

The rise of Web based CRM software from vendors like Salesforce.com is a good example of the small business accounting software companies misleading or misunderstanding the market.

It is for this reason that small business ERP organisations like Salesorder.com have begun to make great strides in the market. They sell saas containing all of the major functionality a small company requires at very low cost. What is even more interesting is these applications are a cinch to operate and can be implemented in a short amount of time.

Now ERP packages are no longer the privilege of substantial organisations.

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Cutting your computing costs

I want to help you save Cash and I am never going to ask you for a penny in return.

Every year I save hundreds of dollars by not spending any money on software. I was evaluating a system to run my business and I was really disappointed to find Sage Software was going to leave me with no money to spend on the essential tools I need to get the job done. Most of the essential tasks I have to perform on a daily basis in my business are done using free software. So here is a skill they won’t teach you at business school. I know for a fact that most folk that work in small businesses dont know or practice the steps I share with you here.

Just follow these simple steps to find the free tools that are out there.

* Each working day spend 10 mins searching for a specific tool.
* Record your findings using the free service from evernote.com.
* Just ten minutes at the end of each day exploring the features of your findings.

It should take you about a month to find all of the tools you will ever need and be up and running on free software. To get you going here is a small sample of the tools I use every day to get the job done.

To make this even easier for you I have listed each tool (on the right) with an equivalent (on the left) you will definitely have to part money for and may well have heard for or even purchased.

Here we go:

Just type the name of the free product to the search engines

One system to manage customers and accounting

salesorder.com pricing: free Sage Software – really expensive and only does Accounting

Creating and writing Documents

Google Docs pricing: $0 Microsoft Office pricing – at least $100

Or

OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org)

Sharing ideas online

Bubbl.us pricing: $0 Mindjet pricing – at least $200

Making videos

Jing pricing: $0 Camtasia Studio pricing – at least $300

Teleseminars

DimDim pricing: $0 AdobeConnect pricing – at least $200/month

My thanks to the Sage Software incident for the inspiration!motivation to write this up and help you out.

Come back soon as I will be adding more insights here…

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My experience is bookkeeping is really unnecessarily complicated but after struggling with my bookkeeping problems for along period I found a very practical shortcut that I need to share with you. Everyone who starts or runs a business has ‘better’ tasks to perform than spend hours on their bookkeeping. Bookkeeping is one of those arduous tasks that many people enjoy doing but should be done on a consistent basis to avoid disaster.

I asked my bookkeeper for help and he convinced me I should use Sage Software which turned out to be a small business accounting software package. I just went out and bought the software without even contemplating if it would suit my needs. Looking back I am grateful I didn’t burn too much money on this as this system is arguably the worst and most complex application I have ever been faced with. OK my first piece of wisdom is that whenever you see the words accounting software proceed carefully as it probably means the designer is assuming you know a great deal about accounting.

I had to find an answer that worked for me so reluctantly I cancelled everything in my diary and set aside quality time to find a solution. It was really worth doing this as I discovered a more functional solution than I could ever of dreamed of called salesorder.com.

Arguably the best application I have discovered, salesorder.com works on the web and is really well designed and of course lets me work anywhere I can connect to the net. Better still and the third piece of guidance I want to tell you is that the team who work at salesorder.com are not just very knowledgeable of their system but they know a tremendous amount about the problems of operating a small business and have taught me the bookkeeping I need to know.

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