Accounting Software Shreveport

What is the difference between a business process assessement and a needs assessment?  

These two terms are interchangeable and can go hand in hand.  We at Accounting Systems Consulting Group, LLC define a needs assessment as the initial intelligence gathered when a prospective customer is interested in replacing their accounting system.  This is a non-billable engagement offered by our team to assess the requirements of your back office accounting and front office customer facing teams.  During the needs assessment we determine the potential cost/benefit to our prospective customer in consideration of replacing the existing business management system or systems.  The needs assessment is a basic assessment to determine whether or not the prospective customer will benefit from a more detailed business process assessment.

The business process assessment is a tool used to reveal process improvement opportunities. Prior to selecting a new accounting system it is important to understand the degree the new system meets the business process automation objectives of each department within a company.  This can be achieved by asking a series of questions applicable to the individual departments and assigning a weight to each question answered.  The business process assessment can reveal "bottlenecks" within a particular department that are hindering the growth and efficiency of the business.

Step One: The technology project managment committee decides which questions apply to each department within the company.  
 
Step Two: The goal here is to get the people within each department engaged.  Each question is answered and given a weight of importance.
 
Step Three:  Analyze the data
 
Step Four:  Match the business process automation objectives of each department and match it to the functionality of each accounting system under consideration by creating a matrix.

Contact us to learn more about our complimentary needs assessment evaluation.

Is your company growing?

Are your ERP software users complaining about lack of functionality they require to efficiently accomplish customer service objectives?

If you answered yes to the questions above, here are some reasons your company will benefit from an ERP software needs assessment.

1. An ERP software needs assessment is a set of questions asked by an ERP software consultant to identify key issues in your companies business processes and business process automation.
2. An ERP software needs assessment can reveal human related issues versus software related issues within your company's business processes
3. According to source:  TGI http://www.tgiltd.com/erp-software-selection/erp-software-needs-analysis.html, "An ERP software needs assessment can be the foundation for preparing a complete ROI calculation and analysis.  The ROI analysis is the key to starting the software selection search off on the right track, because it builds the foundation for assessing and selecting the software for your organization's future."

Contact us to learn more about our free 30 minute ERP software needs assessment.

The business process assessment is a tool used to reveal business process improvement opportunities.  Many times companies have business process challenges that go undetected like termites invading the frame of a home.  The termites proliferate and cause more and more damage as time goes on and you may not be aware until it is too late!  It isn't until you get inside the walls to find that real irreparable damage has occurred.  Just like it is important to have your home checked every so often for termite invasion it is important to have your business checked as well. 

We recommend the following steps to perform a business process assessment:

1. Create a business process project management committee by selecting one member from each department of your company so every part of your company is represented.
2. Nominate a business process project management committee leader to manage the progress.
3. Develop a comprehensive business process analysis document to measure and assess the existing business processes.  This can be achieved by asking a series of questions applicable to the individual departments and assigning a weight to each question answered.  The business process assessment can reveal "bottlenecks" within a particular department that are hindering the growth and efficiency of the business.
4. Define your milestone and project projections.  Prepare a project time line.
5. Compare your current IT, accounting functionality against your needs and business process assessments.  Create a matrix comparing each business process need against the capable functionality of your internal personnel and accounting, human resource, customer-relationship-management systems.
6. Prepare a simple checklist to visualize whether your business process challenges are human related or software related.
7. If the business process challenges are human related than it may just be a matter of training. If the challenges are software related and can not be addressed with your current systems in place you may realize return-on-investment by replacing your dysfunctional software systems.
8. Prepare a simple checklist request for proposal and submit it to the paired down list of vendors. It is important to keep this simple, some vendors will not fill out lengthy requests for proposals especially if there is an independent software consultant involved.
9. Request product demonstrations.  Invite the RFP respondents who checked off the requirements meeting your needs to demonstrate their accounting system, human resource system, customer relationship management system etc.

Question:  How exactly is a Sage 100 ERP (formerly MAS 90, MAS 200) invoice created? 

Answer:  A Sage 100 ERP invoice can be generated in one of four ways.

Generally we will have an order placed in Sage 100 ERP either by the phone, imported or keyed-in.  Let's assume someone calls in and orders something, we take the order number, the order date, we'll create a Sage 100 ERP customer or choose an existing customer.  We enter a PO number if one is supplied, we apply a ship date, denote what warehouse it ships from, we assign the sales tax class, terms of payment, ship method and who placed the order.  Then we assign the product items to the order.  Once we assign the items to the order the tax is applied and the shipping is added if applicable.

4 Ways to Create a Sage 100 ERP Invoice

1. The simplest way to create an invoice is to go directly into Sage 100 ERP invoice data entry and invoice the sales order
2. Another way to turn a Sage 100 ERP sales order into an invoice is to communicate to the shipping department to ship the product.  Once the shipping occurs accounting can create the invoice to send to the customer.  
3. Another way to create a Sage 100 ERP invoice is to come directly into shipping data entry and the shipping department can indicate what items on the sales order were shipped.  This automatically creates a Sage 100 ERP invoice.
4. Another way to create a Sage 100 ERP invoice is to auto generate the invoice.  When we use the auto generate invoice feature we can invoice one or many sales orders at a time.

Please watch our short video tutorial demonstrating all 4 ways to create a Sage 100 ERP invoice from sales order entry.

Wish you had more control over your Sage 100 ERP Chart of Accounts?

You do.  As the person in charge of your company’s chart of accounts (COA’s), you can control new accounts and changes to existing accounts.  Always make a backup before making changes.

• Restrict the Sage 100 ERP Chart of Account (COA):  Account numbers can consist of the main number + segment(s).  To restrict how new accounts come into existence, turn the option for “on the fly additions” off in your general ledger options.  Now to create a new account, we would use the general ledger utility to “generate new accounts” based on valid main and valid segment combinations.  Further, restrict who has access to account maintenance.
•  Fix existing Sage 100 ERP accounts:  two utilities are available to assist you in either renumbering accounts or merging accounts.  Go to general ledger, utilities, and chose either Delete Accounts or Change Accounts.
• Correct account descriptions:  Some businesses like proper case while others prefer all upper case descriptions.    You can correct this in account maintenance.  Also, you may wish to correct segment descriptions in your descriptions for uniformity.
• Restructuring your COA:  you may find that you did not allow enough range of account numbers in any particular segment of your COA (for example, current assets).  You can modify this in setup, account group maintenance to expand or contract an account group.

If you need assistance, contact us!

Does your business consume valuable employee resources keying in orders? 

If so, consider two alternatives to this practice. 

One:  Set-up a Sage 100 ERP integrated e-commerce website that integrates the orders back into Sage 100 ERP.  Not only will you save time not entering orders, but you could also have invoice history on the site.  Customers can view their invoices online thereby culling down the customer inquiry phone call to your business. 

And two:  use EDI services with customers that are EDI-compliant.  This practice also integrates into Sage 100 order entry.  Now your valuable employee time can be spend adjusting and approving orders contracting your order processing time and making your business more profitable!  

If you need to accept card transactions in the field and away from a computer, let us set you up with a Sage merchant account and with Sage Mobile Payments.  Check out this demonstration....

Then visit us at www.ascgllc.com to contact us.

Question:  Can I flag customers on credit hold in Sage CRM?

Sage CRM uses the data in Sage 100 ERP (Formerly MAS 90 MAS 200) to flag customers on credit hold.  Based on permissions the Sage CRM user can be prevented from placing orders for customers on credit hold.  Also based on permissions, the user can collect on past due invoices in order to place a new order.  By using Sage CRM and Sage 100 ERP together, the back office and the front office are kept informed of important decisions to make in regard to customers.

Please watch our short video clip to learn more!

Selecting an accounting system is no small task.  There are so many accounting systems available which one is right for your company?  Today we'll discuss common accounting system selection mistakes and how to avoid them.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #1:  Failure to establish a solid technology project management committee.  Establish a manageable technology project management committee where each company department is represented.  It is important the needs of every part of the company are considered.  Try to keep this team under 7 members.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #2:  Failure to perform a detailed needs assessment with a qualified local accounting systems expert. Needs assessments can reveal performance needs, instrumental needs, conscious needs, unconscious needs, organizational needs, individual needs and causes for needs.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #3:  Failure to develop a comprehensive business process assessment.  This process documents the measurement and assessment of the existing business processes.  This can come in the form of a checklist defining a weighted value of importance to the individual business processes critical to the company.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #4:  Failure to define your milestone and budget projections.  It is important for the technology project management committee to prepare a project time line and prelimminary budget.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #5:  Buy on emotion instead of fact.  Everyone has opinions.  It is important to make a rational fact based decision based on your needs assessment and business process assessments.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #6:  Too much focus on the ERP initiatives and lack of focus on other important business initiatives.

According to a 2011 study conducted by Panorama Consulting Solutions titled: ERP Failures and Lawsuits: It's Not Just For the Tier 1 ERP Vendors, ERP failures for Tier II and Tier III ERP implementations are just as likely to fail as Tier 1 implementations from SAP or Oracle.  The reasons for failure can be related to employees having trouble acclimating to the new system, versus malfunctions in the software itself.  So the goal is simple:  choose the right local accounting systems expert and the right accounting system by matching company needs to the software capabilities and including every department in the fact-based decision making step-by-step accounting systems selection process.

Picture available on Hiking Artists.com Flickr photostream

We are excited to announce our new video on Sage CRM Sage 100 ERP highlighting how to manage contacts and more...

• How do I add contacts in Sage CRM?
• How do I send a mass email to a group of contacts in Sage CRM?
• How can I see Sage 100 ERP contacts displayed in Sage CRM?
• How can I select a group of contacts to be reflected in Sage CRM?

Watch our quick video overview to learn more!