Tips, Tricks & Tutorials: General Ledger Drilldown & Interactive Dashboard Linked Gadgets

Video tips, tricks and tutorials help you become more productive with your Sage Accpac ERP and SageCRM systems. Featured this month:

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General Ledger Drilldown

Researching the source of General Ledger account balances in your Sage ERP Accpac (Sage 300 ERP) Chart of Accounts is made easy by the access it provides to the underlying source information. Your ability to drilldown to the originating transactions is very powerful and in this tutorial, we take a look at this feature.
Duration: 4 min 20 sec

Interactive Dashboard Linked Gadgets

The SageCRM Interactive Dashboard is customizable by placing Gadgets on your workspace.  Some of these Gadgets can be linked together for dynamic filtering. In this tutorial, we demonstrate this feature by linking Company, Opportunity and Case list gadgets so that when we scroll through the Company list, the other gadgets are filtered by the selected company. Duration: 7 min 39 sec

Posted in CRM Videos, ERP Videos, January 2012, Newsletter, Tips & Tricks Videos | Leave a comment

Business Intelligence and ERP – A Match Made in Heaven?

Recently we have seen an evolution in business software.  Functions are consolidating and sharing data to make software even easier, and duplicate data entry a thing of the past.  Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Resource Planning software (ERP) are a prime example of that consolidation.

In 2009, the Aberdeen Group posted a report, “The ERP/BI Connection: Adding Value through Actionable Intelligence”   In it they state that, “BI tools have reached a level of maturity which can elevate executives from the depth of the details, bringing them to a higher operating level where they can add strategic value to the organization.  The ability to provide better decision support with integrated enterprise data is an important factor in turning data into actionable intelligence. The synergistic relationship between ERP and BIcan indeed be the perfect storm, igniting improved performance and visibility.”The ERP community responded and, two short years later, virtually every ERP offering has a BI option available.

How can you use this integrated technology?  The options are limitless.  Start by thinking about your business objectives and questions.  For example, if you are wondering what areas may be ripe for expansion, BI can grab your existing sales and quote data from ERP to display the items that are selling the most.  You can then drill down to see what areas of the country are buying the most of that item.  You may find that one areais rapidly expanding and deserves some additional resources, which might be able to be transferred from less profitable ones. You may already have a gut-feel for this, but BI can help you to confirm it and made a decision based on knowing the facts.

So, are BI and ERP a match made in heaven?  In short, yes.  You don’t have to struggle through linking two separate databases together because the hard work has already been done.  The data already lives in your ERP system and the integrated BI software can retrieve it easily and quickly to help you make informed decisions.

Ready to learn more? Register for our Business Intelligence webinar on Thursday, February 23rd at 9:00 central/10:00 Eastern.

Posted in Business Intelligence (BI), January 2012, Newsletter | Leave a comment

Top 5 Business Concerns Solved

While the economy trudges on, we see a sharper focus on areas of business that get a high return on investment.  Businesses are asking for tools to help them make better decisions, increase their sales and cash flow in a fiercely competitive market.  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can be the answer for many of these companies.  Here are the ways that ERP addresses your top 5 business concerns.

  1. Strong Decision Making. Making decisions is a difficult part of running a business.  You need the latest data at your fingertips to decide what product lines stay and which ones go, how you can reduce your expenses or where you should expand.  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software holds a massive amount of data about your business but it is not valuable unless you can interpret it.  Reports can give you visibility into your business in a variety of ways.  Whether you prefer to see a list of numbers or a dynamic dashboard, options are available to youto quickly get the information you need to make those business decisions.  The great news is that you can do most of the reporting without hiring a report writer.  The latest ERP software gives even the newest users the capability to create a dashboard that displays the information they are seeking.
  2. Increased Sales. Leads come into your funnel through your sales and marketing efforts but you don’t always know what happens to them once they have been entered. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, in conjunction with ERP, allows you to create a lead and then track it throughout the sales process.  Most CRM software has customizable sales cycles so that your sales and marketing team can keep trackas each step of it is completed.  Once a sale has been made, the ERP system can link to CRM and display outstanding sales orders and quotes without leaving the CRM application.
  3. Inventory Control. Losing inventory through theft or simple data entry errors can cost a distribution or manufacturing company thousands of dollars each year.  Today’s ERP has advanced inventory control options that record information about the item and its ideal placement in the warehouse.  When a new item is set-up, enter the item number, UPC number, units of measure and various costs and prices, then decide on a few bin locations.  Once the data has been entered, handheld units can be deployed with warehouse automation software.  This software is linked to your ERP system and has the ability to track what is received and where it is located.  Each item and bin location is scanned as it is shipped to verify that your employee is shipping the right item from the right location.  Inventory accuracy can jump to as high as 99% once a warehouse automation system is deployed.
  4. Staying Competitive. Knowledge is power where competition is concerned.  ERP can give you mission critical insights into your business as a whole.  When each department is on a disparate system, it can take weeks to assemble a consolidated data set.  With ERP, you can view the effect of a new competitor with a few clicks of a mouse.  Analyzing product sales and trends on a daily basis enables you to see what changes need to be made to beat out your competition.
  5. Increasing Cash Flow. Once an order is invoiced, the time to payment is critical.  ERP can help you increase the speed of collection by integrating credit card processing, giving you the ability to accept checks over the phone and auto-emailing your customers as a due date approaches. By giving your customers a variety of ways to pay, you avoid the “check is in the mail” response and speed up cash flow.

Is your ERP meeting these requirements for you? View this on-demand webcast “Telltale Signs You’ve Outgrown your Accounting or ERP Solutionto learn about:

  • How to spot the key indicators that tell you it’s time to move on
  • Assessing your unique business needs
  • Evaluating and selecting  the right ERP solution
Posted in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), January 2012, Newsletter | Leave a comment

How to Discover your Perfect Customer

Market Segmentation is an age old marketing practice that helps a business determine exactly who buys their product and how they go about doing it.  Behavioral, demographic, psychographic and geographic data is captured and analyzed to learn every aspect of your current and potential customers.  In the past, collecting that data often meant hiring a market research firm and spending thousands of dollars.  Not so anymore.  Business Intelligence (BI) in conjunction with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has tools to help you to map the needs, wants and patterns of your potential customers so that you can effectively capture business.

Behavioral data is critical to understanding the buying patterns your customers’ exhibit.  Let’s take the example of a company that sells solar panels.  They know that a customer calls for an estimate then either buys, compares or waits.  They don’t know all of the things that the customer may do before making the call for an estimate.  Do they research online, look on Angie’s List or refer to the yellow pages?  Your CRM software can be used to track your customers’ responses to these questions and, over time, a clear trend will emerge.  Understanding those patterns can help you to focus your marketing on the areas that work and track customers throughout the entire buying cycle.

Demographic and psycho-graphic information can help you to know exactly who is buying from you.  Where do they live?  How old are they?  What is their social class, lifestyle or personality?  Your existing customer base is the perfect source of this information.  Begin asking your customers specific questions that will narrow down the profile of your perfect customers.  Most CRM software has prompts for this data already built in.  Once you start asking, it’s just a matter of running a report or viewing a BI dashboard for the complete picture.

Geographical information may be the easiest to capture and report.  Where are your customers calling from?  Do you see concentrations in certain areas?  This component will tell you where to market your products.  BI can show you a real-time view of the geographic locations of everyone that has bought from you within a specified period of time.  If you find that most of your customers are focused in the Midwest, you might want to only market to that area of the country until expansion is necessary.

Capturing behavioral, demographic, psychographic and geographic information is only helpful if you have the technology to help you analyze that data.  Business Intelligence is a flexible tool that can combine all four factors into a master view so that your marketing can be targeted and timely.   Your marketing money will be spent on initiatives that are proven lead sources and your sales will reflect it.

If you enjoyed this article, you may want to review our white paper, “How Better Analytics can Lead your Business to Higher Profits”.

Posted in Business Intelligence (BI), December 2011, Newsletter | Tagged | Leave a comment

Reduce Lead Leakage Now

Keeping leads in your sales funnel is a real challenge.  If the lead is not an immediate opportunity, it gets lost in the abyss of your sales database never to be contacted again.  Studies suggest that almost 60% of leads that come into your funnel will buy from someone within the next 24 months.  That someone could be you or it could be your competitor.  It all depends on how well you are able to  nurture those leads throughout the buying process.

Leaked leads are one of two types:

  1. Cold Leads: These are leads that have inquired about your product or service but haven’t shown immediate interest.
  2. Warmer Leads:  These are opportunities that started then stalled somewhere in the sales process.

Whether the leads are cold or warm, a good percentage of them are qualified and need to be nurtured.  Your sales team already has the responsibility of managing and closing active opportunities and they don’t always know how to generate relevant lead nurturing emails or calls to the non-active opportunities.  According to MarketingProfs.com, “Nearly 80% of leads that Marketing generates are never worked on by sales, let alone turned into sales opportunities.”

The good news is that you don’t have to manage all of this manually.  CRM software can help by creating detailed profiles of customers and prospects over the course of the relationship.  This information can be stored, reported and segmented for future campaigns.  For example, you may want to record the prospects digital behavior (what have they clicked on or downloaded from our site?) or what phase of the buying cycle they are currently in.  Even if you don’t have all of that information at your fingertips, it’s a great goal to work towards.  Marketing lists can be recorded for future reference and CRM provides the option to re-use successful campaign lists as needed.

CRM can also be configured so that campaign responses trigger sub-lists for the next wave of the campaign, with successful responses moved to sales and non-responses kept on a reminder list (or removed if required). This enables the marketing team to deliver dynamic content that will continue to engage the prospect.

Don’t lose leads just because you fail to contact them.  This mistake is costly to your bottom line and completely unnecessary.  Use the technology available to automate your marketing in such a way that your prospects are continuously engaged and buying when the time is right.

Interested in seeing how CRM is used to automate marketing processes?  See this quick demo of Sage CRM’s Marketing Module:

Posted in December 2011, Newsletter | Leave a comment

Mobile Access and More with Sage CRM 7.1

Sales and marketing people are on the move and they need the ability to access and manage information from any device.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is following their lead and making the information more accessible and flexible with each release.  Sage CRM’s latest version, 7.1, is packed with features that help managers and employees make decisions from anywhere.

Mobile Access:

  • Sage CRM for iPhone® so you can update and access real-time customer information, view customer cases and manage opportunities and leads on the move.
  • Support for Microsoft® Office 2010 so you can share your Outlook® contacts, calendar, appointments and tasks with SageCRM.com v7.1

Dashboard Visibility

  • Sage CRM Interactive Dashboard for users to manage their business, priorities and key accounts from a single screen
  • Connect multiple gadgets on a single dashboard for a more dynamic and complete view of your customer data
  • Flexible gadget sizing enables users to re-position and re-size gadgets on their dashboard
  • Tailored company dashboards for key accounts can be easily created for focused account management
  • Custom dashboards can be easily created by users and configured with the key data they want to view

Dynamic Reporting

  • New Sage CRM Report Charts for even better insight on business performance
  • Incorporation of new FusionCharts 3.2 into reporting and dashboard areas
  • Charts with rotating, slicing and printing options available
  • Configurable, customizable and skin-able FusionCharts styles, fonts, backgrounds and legends

Marketing Workflow

  • Campaign Management with new marketing workflow and the ability to clone your most successful campaigns

Please contact us at info@axisgp.com to find out more about Sage CRM 7.1 female steroids

Posted in Customer Relations Management (CRM), December 2011, Newsletter | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Axis Global Partners Named 2011 Technology Pacesetter

Axis Global Partners is pleased to announce that they have been named a “Technology Pacesetter” for 2011. This is the fourth year that Axis Global Partners has been included on Accounting Today’s prestigious list of firms from across North America.

For the past 15 years, the Accounting Today Pacesetters list has represented top-flight resellers in the accounting and ERP software marketplace. Members of the list are firms that carry accounting software as a central part of their product line and that have demonstrated excellence in their field. Accounting Today’s editors’ choices are based on factors such as industry awards received; growth; innovation; customer service; participation in building the profession; and a firm’s general reputation in the marketplace.

“We are thrilled to be named a Technology Pacesetter for the fourth year in a row,” said Manny Buigas, Principal of Axis Global Partners. “We want to share this achievement with our loyal clients who continue to work closely with us to improve their business. We are so thankful to be honored by Accounting Today and hope to continue this for many years to come.”

“Receiving this award is a great honor.” states Tony Chiodo, Principal of Axis Global Partners. “The Axis team is dedicated to providing our clients with the knowledge they need to know how to leverage their technology and this award is a testament to that commitment for which we are very grateful.” arnold schwarzenegger steroidi

Posted in December 2011, News, Newsletter | Tagged | Leave a comment

What’s Involved in Payroll Processing and Year-End Compliance?

First and foremost, processing payroll requires accurate calculations of compensations, deductions, and taxes to be withheld. Failure to withhold enough can result in penalties and interest charges for the employer and unexpected tax bills for employees. It’s essential that tax payments are timely and accurate. Year-end reconciliation involves a careful review of payroll records and tax deposits to ensure that the company is in full compliance with all federal, state, and local revenue codes. Administrators carefully verify that:

  • General Ledger entries for the year match the payroll sums for the year.
  • The tax returns for the year also reflect accurate payroll sums.
  • Tax deposits for the year are in line with the data on the applicable tax return amounts.
  • W-2 totals equal the tax returns and payments.

One of the hardest tasks in year-end processing consists of the preparation and filing of tax returns. With thousands of tax localities in the U.S., even small businesses easily become ensnared in excessive reporting, and some must file many different tax returns. In addition to federal reporting, each state has its own rules, and so do many counties, cities, and school districts. Companies face a slew of requirements at year-end; here are just a few:

  • Companies report quarterly on federal income plus Social Security and Medicare taxes paid. The final filing of the year occurs during the year-end process.
  • Federal unemployment tax is reported at year-end.
  • Many state- and locality-specific income tax returns are due.
  • Separate forms may be required for any state unemployment or disability taxes paid.
  • By the end of January, employers must prepare and deliver W-2 forms to employees and 1099 forms to contractor

Click here to download your year end payroll checklist along with other tips on year end processing. anabolisant musculation

Posted in December 2011, Newsletter | Leave a comment

Sage Details Rebranding Roadmap

As announced in July during Sage Summit, the majority of Sage’s product names such as Accpac, Timberline, and even Peachtree will soon become a memory as major rebranding efforts will result in much of the software becoming the company name and a number.

Across Europe the Sage brand is widely known, and its products all have the Sage brand followed by a number. The company’s goal is to have North American products more in line with the rest of Sage, solidifying the company’s identity among its customers.

Product name changes in North America are expected to begin as early as April 2012 and will continue throughout the year.  Changes include:

  • Sage ERP Accpac > Sage 300 ERP
  • Sage Abra HRMS > Sage HRMS
  • SageCRM > Sage CRM

This only affects the name of the products and nothing else, so the great Sage solution you use now will simply have a new name.

Posted in Customer Relations Management (CRM), December 2011, Newsletter | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Tips, Tricks & Tutorials: Bills of Material & Lead Conversion

Video tips, tricks and tutorials help you become more productive with your Sage Accpac ERP and SageCRM systems. Featured this month:

View our Entire 

Video Learning Library

Adobe Flash Player is required

Bills of Material

The Sage ERP Accpac Bills of Material feature allows you to assemble a master item from component parts.  When an assembly is built, the component parts are removed from stock, the master item is added to stock and inventory costs are updated accordingly. In this tutorial, we walk you through the setup of a Bill of Materials then we run through the Assembly process to create the Master Item in our inventory system.
Duration : 9 min 56 sec

Lead Conversion

Once a lead has been qualified, it can be promoted or linked to a company in the main SageCRM database and then converted into a sales opportunity. In this tutorial, we walk you through the lead conversion process.
Duration : 6 min 34 sec

 

Posted in CRM Videos, Customer Relations Management (CRM), December 2011, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), ERP Videos, Newsletter, Tips & Tricks Videos | Tagged , | Leave a comment