Technology
9 Specialty Products to Help Your Clients Work Smarter, Not Harder
Feature: Small Business Specialty Tools
Jun. 02, 2010
From the June 2010 Issue
Today’s small businesses are learning how to run lean all of the time.
This isn’t necessarily a new reality, but the tight economy of the past
few years has certainly caused small business owners to be increasingly aware
of every dime they spend and every one they bring in. Both of these dimes are
equally important to the potential success of the business, but at the end of
the day you hope to have more in the “bring in” column than in the
other.
Fiscal responsibility is a good thing, of course, and always has been. But
working harder doesn’t always equal greater productivity or a stronger
bottom line. As the saying goes, sometimes it takes money to make money, and
sometimes you’ve got to spend in order to achieve better savings in the
long term. The key is to ensure that these expenses are investments that will
result in better efficiency, productivity or other positive effects that will
produce the most beneficial return on the small business’ investment.
There are simply too many technologies on the market that promise to help
businesses run more efficiently to possibly cover them all here. And no one
has the time to weed through all of them, especially when each one may have
greater or different benefits depending on the kind of small business for which
it is used. For accounting professionals whose small business clients often
turn to them for technology advice, this can be particularly challenging. That’s
why, each year, we dedicate some of our time and space to highlighting a handful
(or two) of technologies that may be useful to some or all of your small business
clients.
Since your profession depends on your clients’ success, it’s in
your interest to help them find ways to run smarter. Likewise, it’s in
our best interest to help you help your clients. With this year’s roundup
of small business specialty products, hopefully we’ll achieve a win-win-win.
Target Small Business Type: Small and mid-sized businesses
with 1 to 1,000 employees, with expense tracking needs.
Overview: As its name would suggest, ExpenseWare is geared
toward tracking and reporting of expenses, but the system offers several additional
benefits for businesses. Since it is web-based, users can access it from anywhere,
which helps get rid of the excuse of lost receipts and paperwork because the
business or client expenses can be immediately entered as they are incurred.
ExpenseWare provides several customization features that let small and mid-sized
businesses set up the program to allow for expense allocations by category,
company departments, company clients, jobs/projects or other factors, as well
as the ability to split or itemize expenses. After entry and allocation of expenses,
a supervisor approval process can be used based on an employee’s position
and security level rights, with supervisors having access to reporting and the
ability to flag individual expenses, add comment or return the expense report
to the employee to clarify questions, with optional automatic email alerts that
keep staff and management informed of the process. After entry and approval,
the business’ bookkeeping or internal accounting team receives the expense
report in a format that allows data import and entry of transaction items into
QuickBooks or other small business accounting programs.
Potential Benefits: In addition to increasing the accuracy
of expense reporting and decreasing lost or forgotten entries, the automation
features in ExpenseWare can help speed customer expense collection processes
and the reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses by employees. Reports can be
imported into all small business accounting systems and, because it is web-based,
employees can enter expenses from anywhere, and managers can view reports and
make approvals from anywhere and at anytime.
Target Small Business Type: Generally any small business
looking to streamline payables management processes by electronically paying
invoices.
Overview: Bill.com was one of the first automated online bill
and payment management systems, providing a web-based utility that lets users
schedule invoice payments and have the rest of the payables process be automated,
with on-time payment guarantees and anytime, on-demand reporting.
With the simple system, a small business owner or manager can fax or scan
an invoice and upload it to the secure Bill.com service. After setting up basic
vendor information, including TIN, address, contact data, account, etc., scanned/faxed
invoices are assigned to clients and scheduled to be paid based on the contract
terms or invoice due date. Bill.com can be used in multi-user environments where
approvals are required, with the program automatically routing e-mail reminders
and sign-offs to responsible supervisors. After final payment approval, Bill.com
sends out payment to the vendor.
A recent addition to Bill.com is the ability for vendors to sign up to receive
their payments electronically directly into their banking account, which speeds
up payment and receipt for both parties, while also removing paper checks from
the process. Since mailed checks are vulnerable to theft and loss, not only
does this save the vendor a trip to the bank, but it also heightens their payment
security.
Bill.com automatically synchronizes with QuickBooks and Intacct, and reports
can be imported into any other accounting system, with invoice, payment, account
and other data directly routed into the payables and GL.
Potential Benefits: Automated bill management and online
payment to vendors helps reduce stacks of invoices, while also ensuring that
vendors get paid on time. The web-based system is extremely easy to use and
requires no contracts, and integration with QuickBooks and Intacct means it
seamlessly transfers data as necessary when the payments have been processed.
Target Small Business Type: Small businesses with reliance
on QuickBooks and Excel for their business management and reporting processes.
Overview: Every business has key financial data hidden among
the mountains of information in QuickBooks and other systems, but keeping up
with the most important data across multiple departments or through multiple
spreadsheets can be a challenge. That’s where Qvinci comes in, offering
easy-to-use and -understand financial management that is geared toward non-accounting
pros.
With Qvinci, all authorized staff at a business can look at the same key business
indicators, which are updated in real-time and displayed in dashboard views
for various levels of responsibility, including options specific to small businesses,
executive needs, business intelligence, financial accounting, QuickBooks reporting
and Excel integration. By using dashboards and always ensuring that users are
looking at the same live data, staff members are better able to collaborate
and work toward goals and objectives, as well as establishing metrics for improving
performance. Managers get better control over productivity, with quick overviews
of key indicators, activities, budget-to-actual reports, early warning indicators
and other reports.
Potential Benefits: Qvinci is available in several versions
depending on the number of staff and level of performance management small businesses
need. The system is ideally suited to businesses running QuickBooks, providing
owners, managers and investors quick, deep and meaningful insight into their
company’s performance over time and projected into the future. The dashboard
views not only bring this information to the forefront, they make the data understandable.
Target Small Business Type:
Businesses, especially small technology companies, with recurring billing to
their customers for services such as renewals, subscriptions or support fees.
Overview: For software companies and other technology providers,
recurring billing for service fees, support and maintenance are an integral
component of their revenue models, but they can be challenging to manage since
customer and financial data is often spread across multiple databases, spreadsheets
and billing systems. Relying on traditional accounting systems to manage these
functions can be time consuming and ineffective, with numerous errors. Users
can track and manage fees automatically, with the ability to increase or pro-rate
fees to modify for customer payment methods or your financial adjustment of
fees.
Re*Solution was designed to integrate with a business’ accounting software
to help automate revenue and support fee management. Starting with invoice processes,
users can easily track, report, forecast and evaluate information, while rules-based
access extends functions and management only to appropriately authorized staff.
The system includes e-mail-based billing and notices, web-based report sharing,
the ability to quickly import and export data and what-if budget scenario testing
tools.
Financial and management reporting options further offer value, with the ability
to track attrition, non-renewed products, sales, customer information and view
unearned revenue.
Potential Benefits: What really makes Re*Solution valuable
to businesses that rely on recurring revenue are several key features built
around these needs, including matrices for price variance for individual or
group, product groupings, tax and renewal information. The system also offers
automated renewals functions, down-line invoicing, pro-rating and generous customization
options.
Target Small Business Type: Self-employed earners and small
business owners paying quarterly estimated taxes.
Overview: Working for yourself can be an incredibly liberating
experience, but it can also be an educational one when it comes to taxes. For
new entrepreneurs who previously had been W-2 employees, this can be especially
so, as the realization that your income taxes and FICA contributions aren’t
automatically deducted. And wait, what’s with the self-employment tax
and having to pay the employer share, too? It doesn’t take long for a
newly self-employed person to figure out the errors they’ve made, usually
around the next tax filing season.
Fortunately, most self-employed individuals know they need to make quarterly
payments to the IRS in anticipation of the taxes they will owe. But knowing
doesn’t necessarily make the payments easier when it’s time to actually
cut the check each quarter. The Tax-Aside web-based calculator and reporting
system from DynaTax can help ease these burdens in several ways, first by helping
to properly calculate self-withholding in smaller periodic amounts, and also
helping to schedule these set-asides and get reminders of due dates and other
activity.
The system is based around the Periodic Estimated Tax Calculator, which simplifies
the process of finding how much a self-employed person should set aside based
on previous tax obligations, what part of the year they start planning and how
frequently (weekly, biweekly, monthly) they wish to have estimated payments
set aside. In addition to these calculations, the system offers the ability
to manage catch-up payments and factor in credits and overpayments.
The DynaTax system can even be set up to have these estimated tax payment
increments automatically transferred into an FDIC-backed and interest-bearing
account in their own name, until the quarterly payment is due. Then, the taxpayer
can make the quarterly estimated payment electronically through Tax-Aside.
Potential Benefits: Self-employed taxpayers are often vulnerable
to underpayment penalties and other issues when it comes to managing their quarterly
estimated tax payments. The Tax-Aside system makes managing the process much
more efficient, with reminders and alerts, the ability to pay electronically
from within the program, and even a scheduler feature for making weekly, biweekly
or monthly payments into a taxpayer-held self-escrow account. For many, the
thought of paying a smaller, pro-rated amount will be appealing, along with
less likelihood of penalties.
Target Small Business Type: Small businesses using QuickBooks
or Fishbowl Inventory (or both) who are seeking greater reporting functionality.
Overview: It seems like just about everyone uses QuickBooks,
for better or worse, and it is a good solution for most small businesses. But
many entrepreneurs find that the reporting options in QuickBooks fail to meet
their specific needs. That’s where XpandedReports comes in, providing
a comprehensive and flexible add-on to either QuickBooks or Fishbowl, allowing
greatly enhanced managerial reporting options.
Through direct integration with the accounting and inventory programs, XpandedReports
are much easier to use than Excel, letting users create dynamic or static reports,
save reusable report templates, quickly create pivot tables with a single click,
and easily combine data from multiple reports. Additional tools include superior
filters that maximize search efficiency, unlimited grouping options, memorization
features, strong import and export capabilities and greater customization.
Potential Benefits: Greater control over reporting can help
small businesses better meet the financial and managerial requirements of any
investors or lenders, while also greatly adding to the fiscal monitoring of
key business data. Starting at only $19.99 per month, the XpandedReports is
a cost efficient way to add more managerial control and gain deeper insight
into QuickBooks data.
Target Small Business Type: Businesses of any size looking
for a different office productivity system.
Overview: Microsoft has been the biggest player in the business
productivity software realm since the late 1990s. There are, however, many options
on the market. And the next largest is WordPerfect, which dominated the market
before Microsoft’s emergence. Not only is WordPerfect still around, but
it is becoming increasingly popular again, especially among professional services
firms. The new WordPerfect Office X5 suite is a full office workflow system,
providing outstanding word processing, spreadsheet functions, visual presentations
and email management. In other words, it does everything that Microsoft Office
does, but with a more streamlined workflow process, enhanced collaboration tools,
and greater PDF functionality.
The core of the system is its word processing, which offers full integration
with Microsoft documents, while giving users faster and more intuitive access
to tools for creating professional documents, letters, labels, brochures and
other business materials. The system’s spreadsheet functions are found
in Quattro Pro, which also integrates and works with any Excel files, but offers
additional tools for better managing spreadsheets and workbooks. The professional
level version of WordPerfect Office X5 also includes a strong database component.
Potential Benefits: WordPerfect offers a fully capable office
productivity system for significantly less cost than Office, while also offering
complete professional support and online collaboration capabilities. The system
is compatible with all Microsoft programs, including the SharePoint Server.