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Dont overpay! Electronically reconcile your invoices

Automated accounting solutions are innovative and quite frankly, a necessity in today’s fast paced business environment. However, improper reconciliation of receipts to payments can cost companies real dollars every year.

Proper business controls require the matching of Purchase Order, to Receipt, to Vendor Invoice. However, it’s amazing how many times vendor invoices get approved and paid without this critical matching process being completed. This issue is frequently encountered during importing goods into the country, which results in improper reporting, causing over-payment of duties and taxes to the government.

With the help of Mercury E-Portal Solutions (MEPS), a WebSan subsidiary, companies can facilitate electronic filing of customs data to the Canadian government, in addition to the benefit of electronic reconciliation of vendor invoices to receipts.  Through the Customs Self Assessment (CSA) portal provided by MEPS, one customer realized a savings of over $50,000 per year in over-payments.

Contact MEPS today at 905-727-MEPS or info@meps.ca to learn how you can take advantage of importer friendly government programs to streamline your processes, save money and improve compliance.

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Why you need a WMS Volume 1: "Where/what is my inventory?"

It’s 4 pm on a Friday afternoon and your biggest client phones in a substantial order – do you know where your inventory is? Turns out 90% of the requested product just shipped and you had no idea since you did not have real-time stock levels. Now you’re stuck with calling the client back to tell them your original promise of next-day fulfillment has to be broken.

Many companies find themselves in the same above situation over and over again. Even though it’s 2009 and we don’t have the flying cars we were expecting, we should at least be providing proper customer service. The tech-savvy customer of today demands more from you; which means you do not get too many chances before you start losing customers. Customer loyalty is directly linked to customer service and profitability and if you have no idea what you have in stock then you will have service challenges. Having accurate visibility and control over inventory is only one of many important elements in a definitive warehouse management system (WMS) and is the factor we will touch upon in this volume.

A WMS is a systematical means to organize the efficient movement and storage of product (raw materials or finished goods) within a warehouse. It handles all the procedures involved in a warehouse operation from receipt to shipping. A common misconception is the belief that a WMS is used only in warehouse operations. When this happens, sales personnel who rely on accurate inventory numbers to do their job often end up in an awkward position of not knowing what to promise since they are not 100% certain of availability. Buyers who need to forecast inventory trends for future purchases cannot do this with confidence if the numbers are not precise. This directly results in either excess inventory or inventory deficiency. Excess inventory results in tied up cash and inventory deficiency causes fewer orders to be fulfilled.

In a warehouse where the WMS is required the most, having visibility of inventory delivers a slew of advantages not limited to:

• Efficient usage of limited storage capacity
• Knowing where inventory is in the warehouse leads to smarter decisions in inventory management
• Satisfying FIFO requirements
• It is crucial for manufacturers with date-sensitive goods to be aware of aging inventory
• Potential adaptations of various business models including JIT (Just-In-Time) and VMI (Vendor-Managed-Inventory)
• A WMS increases stock management control, which in turn allows organizations to put JIT and VMI practices in place
• JIT is an inventory strategy that lowers warehouse overhead through reducing the amount of inventory to essential levels
• VMI allows the vendor to take ownership for their inventory, freeing up cash flow and reducing stock-outs
• Theft prevention
• Keeping track of inventory by barcode or serial numbers acts as a deterrent against internal theft

To free up cash flow, reduce stock-outs and improve inventory visibility contact us now for a complimentary review of your warehouse operations.

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SMB Finance and Accounting Checklist: What you need to consider before you buy

By Pam Baker

Making a list and checking it twice is a particularly good practice when picking a product that manages your money. There’s no advantage to picking a solution off the shelf based on name recognition or price; if you don’t find the right product for your company, you’ll just pay for the mistake on  the back end.   Such  is always the  way  of accounting and finance. Read the fine print and know what you’re getting into, or regret it later.

Before you proceed into the marketplace with checklist in hand, you need to break out a pencil and scratch out the features your SMB (small- to medium-sized business) must have and those you don’t want. In other words, determine what accounting functions you need, how much staff you have available to work on accounting and their ability to operate the software. Also, assess whether your needs are likely to increase or decrease in the foreseeable future. The answers to these simple questions become your launch pad of basic things you need in a new accounting software product.

Your  core  list  should  stipulate  the  difficultly  of  implementing  certain  features  and capabilities. If your staff is small and overworked or their  computing skills are limited, you may want to stick with a simpler software product.

“QuickBooks is very user-friendly and doesn’t take a high level of accounting knowledge to use,” said Jennie Brick, senior finance and administration consultant at Pacific Training and Resources.  She noted that QuickBooks  is popular  specifically because  its  various modules are logic-based and easy-to-follow, and it is inexpensive.

Nevertheless  it’s  not wise to immediately jump to the conclusion that  QuickBooks is necessarily the best answer. Problems with QuickBooks include:

• The Apple Macintosh version of QuickBooks is not as sophisticated as the version for the Microsoft Windows platform,  though  Intuit  Inc.  is  working  on  upgrading the Mac platform, said Brick.

• QuickBooks does not allow for a “hard close,” which can be problematic. Its user-friendly nature also means there is a lot of room for mistakes and changes to previously entered data; a consistent  system of controls  needs to be in place to ensure data veracity.

Still, many small businesses opt for QuickBooks and an accountant to meet their total accounting needs, and do so quite successfully. That may be the right route for you, or it may cost you more in the long run with additional CPA (Certified Public Accountant) fees.

The best way to select an accounting product is not by price but by how you intend to use it. Inside Business Finance’s SMB Finance and Accounting Comparison Guide and the checklist below will help you determine the differences in the leading accounting software solutions.

To  ensure  you  actually  get  the  accounting  software  you  need,  use  this  checklist  to guide you past the bells and whistles to a bankable ROI (return on investment) for your accounting software:

• Determine a budget range.  Decide in advance what you can afford to spend on an accounting system.  Do not use this number as the figure to beat; instead, use your budget only to identify which software products are beyond your reach.

• Reporting is paramount.  These systems need to have flexible  financial  statement  reporting  tools  which  are easy  to  use.  Individual  modules  should  have  flexible reports and modifiable forms that can be easily changed by a user.  

• Get adequate training and support.  Learn  what training and local resources are available to assist you in using this product.

• Evaluate the audit trail, security and password controls. Small businesses tend to be subjec t to fraud. You need to  be  able  to  control  who  accesses  your  financial information.

• Determine access to information.   How easy is it to get the information out of your system should you decide to move to another application?

• Measure depth.  Any  solution  that  you  acquire  must be capable of meeting the needs of the company you intend to be in five years, not just the company you are today.

• Consider dashboards. SMB  owners  don’t  want to dig through an accounting application to get quick answers about  their  current  position,  so  good  dashboards  are critical to successful use. 

• Evaluate integration and extensions via third-party
applications. These solutions allow the core products to extend in  many  directions.  SMBs  should try to offload as  many  noncritical,  low-value  tasks  as  possible.  For example, they should consider products like SpeedTax, which manages sales tax compliance.

• Determine ability to support compliance. Be aware of the regulations your accounting is required by law to meet.  Ensure  the  product assists  or  outright provides support for your company so that you’re in compliance.

• Measure ability to integrate with heterogeneous
data sources. Rarely is it a good idea for accounting to remain an isolated func tion; it is far better to be able to integrate with  existing  or  future planned databases to optimize efficiency, speed and accuracy in reporting.

After investigating solutions according to these capabilities, you’ll be well on your way to finding an accounting software solution that’s right for your company.

Copyright © 2008, Tippit, Inc., All Rights Reserved

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