Free Up Cash in a Small Business with Technology: From Invoicing Software to Inventory Management Software

Free Up Cash in a Small Business using Technology

How to free up cash in your small business? If you own a small business, you have to juggle all sorts of things to properly manage your company’s cash flow. You may feel particularly strained if your company makes a profit, but you still don’t have enough cash freed up to pay your dues on time. Fortunately, you can develop an effective system of software and technology including inventory management software to help you work cash flow in your company’s favor.

If you want to free up cash and before you invest in any software, you should get to know your cash conversion cycle pretty well. The cash conversion cycle measures the duration it takes for your company to turn money spent on inventory, production, and sales efforts into actual cash. The cycle comes to an end when you have collected money from customers and have used that money to pay for all your business related obligations. Calculating how many days your cash conversion cycle lasts is very beneficial. Doing so allows you to start coming up with ways to speed up the cycle and get more cash flowing into your company quicker.

Free up Cash with your Receivables Management

Once you have calculated your company’s cash conversion cycle, you are ready to start evaluating your accounts receivable practices. You need to get your customers to pay you on time, before it’s time to pay your own bills. In essence, you need to reduce the collection cycle. You can do this with some high quality invoicing software. Software of this kind provides you with detailed information about which of your customers are not paying you on time. You just have to enter in information about your customers’ accounts each time one is opened. This software allows you to know which customers to contact about late payments. If a customer consistently pays you late, you’ll easily be able to identify that pattern. Then, you can direct your efforts to sending the customer email reminders about payment due dates or charging penalty fees for late payments to discourage such undesirable behavior in the future.

Pay some attention to your accounts payable practices too. This is another place to look to free up cash. It can be a disaster if you have to make payments before you’ve received a good chunk of your monthly payments from clients. It’s best to find some suppliers that will give you payment plans that are flexible. Always, always, always pay your bills on time, though. If you want your company to grow in the future, you’re going to need good credit. As a business owner, it is integral for you to focus on protecting your company’s credit rating.

If you want to pay your bills efficiently, it’s a pretty good idea to set up an electric funds transfer system with your bank. This system allows you to pay suppliers on due dates, rather than quite a few days before due dates. Technology has made electronic funds transfers easier. You simply need to log on to your online or mobile banking account, and you’re a few clicks away from making an easy, fast payment.

Free up Cash in your Inventory

You also need to free up the cash that is tied up in your inventory as much as possible. Essentially, you need to reduce your inventory. Many business owners find inventory management software useful because it helps them keep track of their total inventory costs throughout the year. This allows them to always know how much inventory they have at any given time and how much time particular inventory sits in stock. When they use the software, they simply need to enter in information about what they are ordering from suppliers, how much it costs, and what they have in stock.

This software can actually save business owners money because it allows them to have better timing when it comes to ordering things, so the company never spends extra money ordering unnecessary inventory. Additionally, the software helps business owners figure out what they are selling the most of and what is not making a profit. This knowledge can help owners figure out what products may be eating up money unnecessarily because they are kept in stock for too long. Once those slow-moving, unpopular products are identified, the company can choose to stop carrying them or carry less of them.

Business owners always have to direct their attention to the management of cash flow. To manage your company’s cash flow, figure out ways to see more cash flowing into your company faster. Create accounts receivable and accounts payable practices that work for you. And try out some inventory management software and other technological tools to make your life as a business owner easier. Managing your cash flow properly will guarantee that you have enough money to pay your bills on time, and that’s definitely a good thing!

New CRM Software Blog

CRM Software

Using CRM Software (Customer Relationship Management) companies can accelerate the sales process. This means that they can generate more leads, work those leads through a pipeline and convert them to buying customers in a more efficient manner.

The key components of a good CRM Software are:

1. Marketing Automation
2. Lead Management
3. Customer and Contact Management
4. Sales Opportunity Management
5. Customer Service Management
6. Analytics and Reporting

All of these together create a solution that helps a business manage the customer life-cycle from a lead, through a repeat buying customer, to an ongoing relationship with world-class support tools. A CRM software that is well suited for a company can enable the company to increase sales and build more enduring customer relationships.

CRM Software Blog

We are happy to announce that our Sister CRM site is now live http://www.crmsoftwareblog.net This site will explore all aspects of Customer Relationship Management.

The new site explores the various CRM Software offerings, their use, provides tips and best practices, and other resources to help make better decisions around the selection, implementation and use of CRM Software. Find out what market leading CRM Solutions such as Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle CRM, Saleslogix, and others are doing and how customers are using these solutions.

Visit the CRM Software Blog to learn more.

7 Tips for ERP Software Selection

As outlined in our global research of 1300 global ERP implementations, enterprise software initiatives often take longer and cost more than expected, while failing to deliver expected business benefits. A common root cause of these challenges is force-fitting an ERP solution that is not a good fit for your organization. This presentation summarizes seven tips to ensure you select the right ERP software for your organization.

How not to implement and use ERP software

ERP Software done correctly can be a great tool for improving a business. Done badly, it can demoralize employees and drive down business results.

Case-in-point:

How not to implement and use ERP software — ERP Software should enable business processes, not torture the employees.

“My experience with SAP was of an all-purpose integrated business solution. At the beginning of the day, I clocked in using an SAP applet. Next, I would go through a set of SAP generated planned-production orders, direct work orders, or reported directly to my supervisor. After looking through the routing information (generated through SAP), I would complete the specified task. When the task was complete, I would “clock-off” on the job, which entailed bringing the PPO to a computer, scanning it into an SAP applet, and entering my badge number (employee ID). Another thing I found interesting was the request to clock off on all activities. Even if I had only swept or scraped tape off the floors (it was a slow summer), I was asked to clock off on something called “lean labor.” I found this curious, though I suppose from an efficiency standpoint it was very important. To refer back to these “value-chains,” it is important to know exactly what every employee, piece of inventory, and work order are doing at any given time. Whether it is benig worked on, working on something, or finished, this real-time updating system allows everyone company-wide to see which projects are in progress, which are complete, and which have not been touched. Also from a managerial standpoint, it is important to see how much work each individual employee is doing and how well they are performing, not to mention that employee’s ID will always be attached to that job if future concerns arise.

Now from a business standpoint this is all well and good. But what about the employee? A lot of days, clocking and clocking out I felt as though it did not matter whether or not I was even there. There were simply no jobs to be done for entire weeks at a time, but that did not change that I had to “clock out” for certain jobs. Of course, a business wants to make sure that all of its employees are being as productive as possible, but clocking out on cleaning out the same area 3 times during a week seemed redundant and absurd. Not to mention clocking out on an activity such as “material handling” or “lean labor” is fairly arbitrary. This of course necessitated a manager to scold me when my productivity levels fell (ie playing Frisbee with a cardboard box in the back). It is important to note that I was simply summer-hired as well. Working full time at a job as a number would eventually get fairly tedious. As one of my co-workers noted to me, they had simply clocked in and clocked out for a couple of weeks and clocked off on none of the jobs they were doing. No one said anything to him. So who’s checking these jobs?” – Andrew Mellino

Implementing technology to collect data is one thing, but ERP should not be just about the numbers. ERP ideally should be “process improvement enabled by technology.” It should not be a tool to harass the employees. This is a key concept to understand when implementing and going through the design phase. Which processes are broken and which processes are working fine. Once you have defined that, then see where the ERP software can enable best business practices. It is essential that the employees have a buy in and provide feedback to this step.

If you get the employees to buy into the implementation and how it will change their jobs, you will gain the benefits of higher utilization of the system and overall better adoption. If you fail this step, you will have a failed ERP implementation. There is a saying that you should “drive data collection to the source.” This means that you should have the person who is directly responsible for the source of that data be the one who is entering it. When the ERP system is not implemented with the employees in mind, the employees will be unmotivated to use the system, ensure that the data is accurate, or even bother to put in correct information.

With the help of your line employees, design in best practices and work with them to build a system that they will use and will benefit not only them by making their jobs easier, but also benefit the whole company by driving positive results.

Hardware And Software

Computer slowness can be caused by the variety of points among which can be 2 categories: hardware or the software. The computer hardware is physical part of computer system, for example, a parent payment, the processor, memory etc. The computer software is all programs and the appendices established on the personal computer. The software includes operating systems, as Microsoft Windows XP or Vista and all appendices, such as Microsoft Office, Photoshop etc.

It is necessary to check up:
* Start of programs
* Protection against viruses and espionage scanning
* Hard Drive Out Of Space
* Fragmentation of a hard disk
* Bad sectors or the damaged files
* The Overheat because of a dust

The most widespread reason of the slow computer is not necessary appendices in a background mode. When new program appendices are established many times over they will be adjusted on the beginning automatically at computer loading.

These appendices are not always necessary, and will occupy a part of operative memory of the computer (RAM) which in turn, will slow down computer work downwards. To check up that the appendix will be started automatically, presses button “Start-up”, then press the button to Execute, and then press the button APPRX. After system Configuration Utility is opened, press the insert Automatic loading.

Cancelling of any programs on the insert will not delete them from the computer; it will be simple to hold them from automatic start each time. I recommend cancelling all appendices, which you do not need. If you see the software which does not recognize it there can be instructions from virus espionage programs.

If your computer works slowly, it, most likely, is infected by a virus and / or espionage programs. Everyone should have the anti-virus software established, updated and works for all times.

You should hold it always updated, and regularly scan system on presence of viruses. The majority of anti-virus programs do not check on presence of espionage programs so if your computer is infected by espionage, you should download specialized removals of the espionage software. There are 2 programs, which I use all the time, Spybot and Adware; they are absolutely freely to use. After loading and installation of these programs, make necessarily execute updating and scanning of all computers.

If files are stored on your computer on the rigid disk they are not always stored in the most effective way and can become fragmentary character.

For start of the utility of a defragmentation press button “Start-up” choose Programs-> Standard-> system tools-> Disk Defragmentation. Defragmentation process can occupy from 5 minutes till several hours. I recommend to make defragmentation of a hard disk of the computer once in a month.

One more reason of the slow computer can be damaged file system or bad sectors on a hard disk. Bad sectors can damage the file system which can slow down work of the personal computer or even keep its display.

Now they are all over the world – the diverse and versatile computers. No matter if you need them for game or work or for serious industrial processes, in any case the computer hardware must be top quality.

But this computer hardware is flooded with all sorts of offers. That is why it’s vitally important to visit this blog and read computer hardware tips that will help you to choose great stuff for your computer.

Today we are living in the world where information makes life easier.

That is why if you are properly armed with the information in your sphere of interest you can be sure that you will always find the solution to any bad situation. So, please make sure to get back to this web site on a regular basis or – the least time consuming way of doing it – sign up to its RSS. In such an easy way you will have your hand on the pulse of the latest info updates here. Blogs can be helpful, you just need to understand how to use them.

ROI from OEE Software

OEE measures the overall efficiency of a production line or that of a whole facility. OEE makes a worthwhile improvement towards the productivity of a manufacturing unit. Implementation of software systems invariably benefits the OEE score by up to 20% in the first year. It has been proven that improving the Overall Equipment Effectiveness by just 1% produces a significant variation in the machine’s through put and savings in the unit cost of the produced items.

The OEE score is calculated from 3 elements: Availability, Performance and Quality. Availability equals the percentage of uptime of each manufacturing or plant asset. Performance equals the percentage throughput compared with the target set for it. Quality equals the percentage of scrap. To get the OEE score, multiply Availability by Performance by Quality.

Latest Oee Amazon products

OEE for Operators: Overall Equipment Effectiveness (Shopfloor Series)

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a crucial measure in TPM that reports on how well equipment is running. It factors three elements —the time the machine is actually running, the quantity of products the machine is turning out, and the quantity of good output – into a single combined score. Directly addressing those who are best positioned to track and improve the effectiveness of equipment, OEE for Operatorsdefines basic concepts and then provides a systematic explanation of how OEE should be applied to maximize a piece of equipment’s productivity and recognize when its efficiency is being compromised.

Features…

OEE for Operators: Overall Equipment Effectiveness (Shopfloor Series)

Overall Equipment Effectiveness is valuable as a key performance indicator for factory supervisors. Whist the principles of the formula are simple, it can be extremely, highly complicated to calculate in in a working factory. Hence, special OEE software packages are normally used to acquire the data from each element of the manufacturing process and make the OEE calculation quickly. Typically this software is of a modular structure to give it maximum flexibility and allow it to fit with existing plant and data capture facilities and enterprise resouce planning system.

After the data has been capture and analysed, it is only useful once converted into reports that are reliable. OEE software from the main vendors gives a selection of reports that can be customzed and analyzed to faciliate the user to uncover what he is focused on.

OEE is accepted as the corner stone of lean manufacturing. via continuous improvements a manufacturing plant can become more energy efficient, improve productivity and decrease departmental silo-mentality as well as uncover and control risk. All aspects of manufacturing must comprehend the principles and practice of OEE and how it relates to the lean manufacturing principles as a key force for productivity manufacturing now and in the future.

The Future of Enterprise Software

The software industry seems to be confronting large-scale challenges as new models, including on-demand software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), are having an increasingly disruptive impact on the traditional, licensed software models. Use of SaaS is gaining ground with business process and applications professionals to outsource their key processes. According to Gartner, 25% of all software will be deployed with the SaaS model by 2011. Deutsche Bank predicts 50% by 2013. Does the SaaS model spell the end for the traditional perpetual license model in software? If so, will the established software vendors weather the transition? What are the implications for software innovation, the VC community and the entrepreneurs? Will the end customers have more bargaining power over the vendors or less going forward? What can the IT organization expect in quality and service of software? Join Marc Benioff, founder, chairman & CEO of salesforce.com, the world’s leading independent SaaS provider, and Hasso Plattner, co-founder, ex-CEO and chairman of SAP, the world’s largest business software company, as they face off on the future of enterprise software. Moderated by Quentin Hardy of Forbes. Churchill Club Great Debate on The Future of Enterprise Software ()04/03/08) with Marc Benioff, Hasso Plattner, Quentin Hardy

Watch more Enterprise Software Videos here

ERP Software Reviews now available

When selecting a software, one criteria is finding out what others think of the prospective system. This can include phone calls, site surveys and other data gathering. To make this easier, ERPandmore.com has opened up a new section for ERP Software Reviews. This new section isn’t only for ERP though, it includes CRM, Business Intelligence, and even Warehouse Management software.

We are in the early days though and not all potential software systems are there. That is why we need your assistance. If you have an ERP, CRM, BI, or WMS system and would like to share that knowledge with the world, please add it to the site and add your review! This is similar to Amazon.com or any other site, where you can rate the product. So please take a look and if you can contribute to this new site, please do so. Thank you!