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Accounting Integration
New Accounting Integration, and Much More
Only the large divisions of BIG companies have had a monopoly on full business systems that integrate accounting. But no more.
Why the Big Company Answer Fails
Small businesses and smaller divisions of large businesses have long eyed the systems used by their larger siblings. But there has been an insurmountable hurdle between those systems and what makes sense for smaller operations. The hurdle is made up of: systems analyst consulting fees, custom programming, large software cost, business downtime for installation, expensive (and sometimes temperamental) IT staff, training, and debugging. It’s not surprising that small business operations have been slow to embrace these stripped-down versions of bigger software. No responsible business manager would propose a solution that could cost more than the annual revenue of the operation.
How Much Can a Small Operation Buy?
Obviously, a solution must fit a small operation’s budget. Unfortunately, the big business software suppliers haven’t been able to field a solution that doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more. It should come as no surprise that an affordable solution came from SMALL business roots.
Is This Real Integration?
It is easy to say ‘Accounting Integration,’ but you know that there are many conditions that must be satisfied before you believe it is real. For instance:
• Before a transaction is imported into QuickBooks (for example), is there an opportunity to review the transaction?
• Will it import into product or service classifications that already exist?
• Will the transaction be assigned to the right customer account in QuickBooks?
The answer to these questions and many more is ‘Yes.’ But you will want to bring a list of your absolutely non-negotiable needs (bring your wish list too) to an online demo to see if this software fits your operation.
Checkerboard Software, Only a Partial Solution
Of necessity, most small operations have an array of software. Each piece does something needed, but other needs are not addressed. Nearly all of them are commercially available (non-custom). Attempts to assemble these pieces into a complete system for a business operation are exercises in frustration. Despite the best attempts of the software developers, one software package generally doesn’t communicate with another. Or, if they do communicate, it is an awkward and slow process. They normally weren’t designed for communication with other software.
Worse yet, when data from checkerboard software are compared, they don’t agree. You end up spending valuable time chasing discrepancies, and no time analyzing it for company decisions.
Pulling the Pieces Together
There is only one way to insure that figures will always agree, work from a single database. That is exactly what big operations do. If the data is entered one time, and that becomes the source for all operations, then there will never be a discrepancy caused by human error, differences in data entry, or in how data is managed. This program creates a single database. All other functions use this database. QuickBooks data is imported into this database, and in turn receives data from it – WHILE NORMAL BUSINESS ACTIVITIES ARE BEING CONDUCTED. No special data entry needed.
Grow or Stagnate
This adage has always been true, but in these uncertain times it could be revised to GROW OR DIE. You could ask, “Who wouldn’t want to grow?” Many are afraid to grow, knowing they couldn’t manage the result. Companies grow until they reach a limitation that prevents further growth. In some companies, that limitation may look like people or money, but might better be described as inefficiency, or slow response, or lack of business data. The checkerboard software solution, imposed due to budgetary constraints, contributes to all of these problems. The checkerboard software suite limits them.
Know More, Do More, and Beat Competitors
What does it take to beat your competitors? The real answer is seldom just lower price.
Dependable data, time-efficient tools, and instantaneous reports on how your business is doing; knowing which products or services make you money and which don’t – and why; improved communication with your customers and vendors; these can move you ahead of the competition, and give you more tools to prosper in these uncertain times – or at least stay even.
Not for Everyone
This software is no magic wand. Using it will force you and your employees to systemize your processes, but it will also give you tools to help. If you are willing to do the work, you will come to understand your business as you never have before. You will find things that must be changed – if you want to grow profitably. If your company cannot adapt to today’s new business environment, despite improved internal and external visibility (and some organizations cannot) then this program is not for you.
The Bridge to a Unified System
Think of it as all of the processes in a business that come after the CRM (Contact Relationship Manager) like GoldMine, but before QuickBooks or another popular accounting software. In a way it is bridge software between the two. Essentially, BestFit Business Mgr (BBM) contains all normal business operations and sends financial data to QuickBooks. We don’t have time or space to go into everything here, but it has marketing processes, quotation and proposal capability, service tracking systems, project management, order processing, and over 250 reports. Why is this important? Because, if you know more than your competitors and can work more efficiently, then you can take their business.
Low Price? Heard That One Before
First, the software is priced for a small operation. Second, there are NO other software programs needed to run this system than the ones you already have to run GoldMine (GM) and QuickBooks (QB) [We assume you have Microsoft Office]. BBM does not need any more hardware than you use to run GM and QB. If you read the fine print on other “Small Business” software you will find a long list of hardware and software needed to operate them.
So, the price is just the price, with no small print. And, this is a standard program, just like Word or Excel are standard programs. Just like those two programs, there are many options you can choose to tweak the software to fit YOUR business operation, but it arrives in a working configuration suitable for many companies.
Giving the Company a Competitive Edge
BestFit Business Mgr has all the usual features of a custom big business system, but is a standard program priced for a small business budget
Let’s review what BestFit Business Mgr (BBM) accounting integration does to help a small business:
• Complete business picture, overall and in detail – using Reports that are available any time.
• Fast transactions, even those between BBM and QuickBooks.
• Price discipline, using parts pricing and service rates imported from QuickBooks.
• Data security, of individual customer billings and payment history, allowing select users to view, but not change accounting data.
• Minimal data entry, by importing contacts both ways and converting quotations to orders with just a few mouse-clicks.
• Service billing, of work (both material and labor) imported into QuickBooks with just a few mouse-clicks.
• Project cost capture, of materials and labor to assess profitability, and bill clients.
• Fast order approval, with only a few mouse-clicks.
• Easy job costing, transportable to quotations.
• Bookings projection, for the next weeks or months, at the click of a mouse.
• Faster response, to customers by eliminating all the duplicated work, and automating business processes.
• Data integrity, ALL of your data will reside on YOUR server not on the Internet.
There are many more benefits than we describe here, but these make a major difference. These take your company from piecemeal work to a real business system, and give you an edge over similarly sized companies.
Will You Lead or Follow?
IDC forecasted that small and medium-sized businesses will invest $80.3 Billion by the end of 2012 in business applications like BestFit Business Mgr. This is a 10.6% compound growth rate. Will your company be one of those moving ahead of their competitors by investing in unifying software?
One More Thing
You might be wondering where you can see this product for yourself. I’ll get to that in a little bit. But before I do there was an interesting situation concerning a client listed on the stock exchange who rather late in a project requested a complete history of the project. In 9 months of work, they’d made no information requests. But now, it seemed this auditor had some concerns about how money was being spent on the project. Because the billed time had gone through BBM, all that was needed was a report showing the work notes. It took a few minutes to select the report and email it to the client. The auditor was happy, and the client relieved. Could this be useful for your company?
Simplify Doing Business
Unless you can extract yourself from DOING your business, so you can analyze it, you will find it nearly impossible to improve the health of your business. The only way to simplify your business is to automate it. Make it easier and SIMPLER for you to do business. If your company has GoldMine and QuickBooks, there is no easier way to automate it than BestFit Business Mgr. One user of BBM has said, “They will have to steal this program from me. I cannot think of going back to what I had before. It would be like being blindfolded, and having my hands tied behind my back.”
A Staggering Cost/Value Deal, But Don’t Take Our Word – Check It Our for Yourself
For a company with 20 seats, you might expect to spend $100,000 using big name software. You would probably also have to buy supporting software and additional hardware to allow that software to run (If you can afford everything so far). Now, think about all the benefits we described above. Our cost is only $695 per seat (no fine print). This is the least expensive solution and probably the one most suited to small operations. GoldMine already has a SQL license, so you don’t need to pay for that. No additional seats are needed for QuickBooks either. But don’t take our word for it, let your own research prove it.
The cost savings alone can pay for the software.
Schedule a demonstration to see how this might help your company
P.S.
Oh! Did we mention that you can use as much or as little of the program capabilities as you like, and that you can phase in different capabilities of the program as you go forward? And, that you can train your people in a safe, but very familiar, environment - a copy of your live database?
No string of words can possibly show you how this program can help your operation, but a demonstration, live or recorded, can come very close.
Summarizing the features:
BestFit Business MGR (BBM) has data exchange capability that allows it to be integrated with a number of accounting software packages. It contains routines for fast integration with two highly popular programs: QuickBooks, and MAS 90/200. Other accounting software will require some customization. Eliminate additional data entry via this integration. Accounting oversight is enforced throughout, and the accounting viewer only permits manipulation of the view - not the data itself.
Read-only reports to authorized BBM users - Allow operational personnel to download reports at any time. Control access to accounting and operational data down to the level of the individual. Use pivot-table analysis to construct custom reports.
Automatic Conversion of Quotes To Orders (Consistent with accounting rules) - Successful quotations can be converted into orders with a few key-clicks. They are imported into the accounting system following management's approval.
Automatic Entry of Billable Services to Accounting System - Services and materials used in support of these services can be converted from work tickets to billable entries directly from the management approval screen.
Automatic Entry of Project Billable Transactions to Accounting System - Project transactions can be made directly billable, and traceable to their project, following management review.
Click and Approve Order Process - Individuals having order approval authority are specifically granted sign-off rights in the software. Actions requiring management and accounting approval are displayed for the responsible party with all the relevant data shown. Approval takes only a few key-clicks. Special adjustments to billings take only a few more.
Integrated Job Costing - BBM contains a process which can rapidly assemble costs for multiple elements of a project. Manpower, materials, and external vendor cost estimates can all be collected for each many-faceted task of a job, and actual expenditures compared to the estimates.
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