Business Process Automation, also called Workflow Automation, is more accessible now than it ever has been with most businesses using some SaaS (software as a service) or web-enabled software. Automating routine processes can make you more efficient, improve accountability and standardize your customer interactions. Where do you start? Practice Kaizen...start by making one small, impactful change. Determine one process you think is (1) time consuming, (2) time-sensitive, (3) requires

It's a new year and time for new year's resolutions. A few years ago I started calling  them "goals" because a goal has, hopefully, a finite deadline. Resolutions often don't. As I sat here pondering what were my 2019 personal goals, I also starting putting together my business goals. And I came up with a fun way to match up common terms we use when creating personal goals and relating them to business. Here's what I came up with. 1. Managing weight. Just like we personally want to

I've been working with a client recently and we're getting ready to upgrade their Act! As part of the project, I asked my client what was their defined sales process.  And I got the answer I was actually expecting. There was none. Most of the sales reps had been selling this product line for years. They knew what to do. It just came naturally to them.  So I asked him were they planning on bringing anyone on board who was not familiar with the products or how they all sell.  He

[caption id="attachment_4711" align="alignright" width="300"] Is it legal to monitor employee emails.[/caption] Last week I got an interesting email from a client regarding the legality of monitoring and reading employee emails. There were some internal issues that were causing concern and they wanted to know what tools to use and how to go about implementing the process. Before looking into tools, I wanted to ensure that it was legal at all. The answers I found turned out to be a bit more

Last week, during my 3rd Act! Deep Dive, I talked about finding "gems" of data in your database and then taking actions on them.  It reminded me that I had written an article years ago about this topic. When I went and found it I realized it's still relevant and I've resurrected for a blog post today. This is the article with a few modifications to bring it current. In the past I have written articles and blog posts talking about drilling down into your customer data.  No matter

The theme of our newsletter this month is preparing for the new year. And most people will spend the end of the year preparing their New Years resolutions. It is also a good time to do the same thing for your business. And, for me, I believe it should follow the same rules that I apply to myself when creating my resolutions - make them realistic and achieveable. So many times we set goals that have no chance of being realized. The same thing applies for setting business goals. For example, if

Recently during a staff meeting, we had a discussion about QuickBooks data security features and how they compared to those in a competitive product. Specifically, a client did not like that a QuickBooks user could change a transaction from a prior year. Data integrity and accuracy is important to all business owners, but especially to small business owners. Misinformation in a business accounting file can result in inaccurate tax filings, re-direct business owner to miss fraudulent

We do a lot of spreadsheet reporting against a variety of data environments - for example ACT, Quickbooks, and other SQL vertical applications.  By default, Excel does not automatically refresh the data connections when you open the file.  You need to "turn on" this option.  Note, if the data being imported is a large amount, this will mean it will take longer to open your Excel file - which is why it is turned off by default. Here's what you do to turn it on.