Cybersecurity for the Small to Mid-Sized Business

Even though small to mid-size businesses (SMBs) are a primary target for cyber attackers, they remain underprepared to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from an event. A 2017 report from the Ponemon Institute reported that 54% of SMBs had reported they suffered a data breach in the past 12 months, costing on average just over $1MM in direct expenses, plus additional indirect costs of over $1.2MM.

The numbers are staggering, but the realities remain: most SMBs lack proper budgets to implement the effective security controls that larger companies can afford, nor do they have the staff capable of protecting their technology. So, what can you do about it? Here are a few relatively simple solutions to get you started in the right direction.

1. Identify key risks

Before you can even begin to protect your SMB from cyberattacks, you need to first identify potential vulnerabilities, threats, and risks to your company. Vulnerabilities that most SMBs will find applicable to them are unpatched software, poor employee digital hygiene and unmanaged/unidentified devices on the company network. Cyber threats to most SMBs include the loss of proprietary data/intellectual property, loss of customer data, and loss of control over corporate technology assets.

Once vulnerabilities and threats have been identified, you can more fully understand the organization’s cyber risk. You should plan to patch software as soon as updates are available, encrypt sensitive data at rest, train your employees to detect potential social engineering tactics and phishing emails, and establish a policy prohibiting unmanaged devices on your company infrastructure. Once the policies are in place, make sure you are doing your best to regularly enforce them.

2. Educate Employees

Educating your employees about your key risks and cybersecurity policies is essential. According to independent researcher Ponemon Institute, the number one cause of a breach at SMBs was a negligent employee. Whether it be by clicking a link in an email, web-browsing at insecure websites, downloading software from unofficial sources, or accidentally sending an internal email to an unintended external party, your employees have more impact on the security of your organization than you might realize.

Employees should be aware of the policies you have regarding good digital hygiene, including prohibiting password reuse, safe web-browsing practices, and password length requirements.

While formal cyber security awareness training is ideal, it could be cost prohibitive for smaller businesses. The US Department of Homeland Security’s “Stop. Think. Connect.” campaign, however, is a free resource with sample fliers and internal communications to help you get started.

3. Deploy an endpoint monitoring solution

Detection and remediation is essential to your SMB’s security posture. Monitoring and updating all your endpoints is not at difficult as it used to be; a number of reasonably-priced, cloud-based solutions are available. Earlier this year, PCMag reviewed 10 of the industry leading endpoint protection platforms for small businesses, starting as low as $1 per endpoint per month. These tools can provide anti-virus coverage, quarantine or remove malicious files, email filtering, URL protection, and patch management all in a web-based management console. If you only have room in your budget for one security tool, an endpoint protection solution is your best bargain.

4. Have a back-up plan

No one ever wants to plan for the worst, but as half of all SMBs reported they had suffered a breach, chances are you’ll need a recovery plan. A recovery plan is needed to outline how you will continue business operations in the event of a cyberattack. How will you process payments if your payment system is compromised? What happens to your intellectual property if all your systems are infected with ransomware?

One easy solution is to take regular backups of business-critical systems and data, and store them OFFLINE, so you can recover with relative ease in the event of an incident. You may want to consider building in redundancy in the event of failures. And most importantly, regularly test the solution to confirm it will work in the event you need it.

Cyber attackers have set their sights on small and medium sized businesses. But small businesses often lack the proper budgets, staff and expertise to secure themselves properly. By implementing a few basic solutions small businesses can greatly enhance their security posture. While this is not a comprehensive list of everything you can do to secure your SMB, we hope this provides you with a good place to start. Attackers will continue to target SMBs, and it’s in the best interest of both the consumer and the SMB to be protected. Additional resources are available through the Nations Cyber Security Alliance.

About Critical Defence

Critical Defence, LLC is a global provider of cyber security services including, but not limited to Assurance, Response, Compliance and Training. Additional information can be found at www.criticaldefence.com.

Editor's note: Melissa Derr is Director of Digital Forensics and Response at Critical Defence, LLC. We're delighted to share her expertise in cyber security with our audience.Even though small to mid-size businesses (SMBs) are a primary target for cyber attackers, they remain... Learn More

Editor's note: Melissa Derr is Director of Digital Forensics and Response at Critical Defence, LLC. We're delighted to share her expertise in cyber security with our audience.

Even though small to mid-size businesses (SMBs) are a primary target for cyber attackers, they remain underprepared to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from an event. A 2017 report from the Ponemon Institute reported that 54% of SMBs had reported they suffered a data breach in the past 12 months, costing on average just over $1MM in direct expenses, plus additional indirect costs of over $1.2MM.

The numbers are staggering, but the realities remain: most SMBs lack proper budgets to implement the effective security controls that larger companies can afford, nor do they have the staff capable of protecting their technology. So, what can you do about it? Here are a few relatively simple solutions to get you started in the right direction.

1. Identify key risks

Before you can even begin to protect your SMB from cyberattacks, you need to first identify potential vulnerabilities, threats, and risks to your company. Vulnerabilities that most SMBs will find applicable to them are unpatched software, poor employee digital hygiene and unmanaged/unidentified devices on the company network. Cyber threats to most SMBs include the loss of proprietary data/intellectual property, loss of customer data, and loss of control over corporate technology assets.

Once vulnerabilities and threats have been identified, you can more fully understand the organization’s cyber risk. You should plan to patch software as soon as updates are available, encrypt sensitive data at rest, train your employees to detect potential social engineering tactics and phishing emails, and establish a policy prohibiting unmanaged devices on your company infrastructure. Once the policies are in place, make sure you are doing your best to regularly enforce them.

2. Educate Employees

Educating your employees about your key risks and cybersecurity policies is essential. According to independent researcher Ponemon Institute, the number one cause of a breach at SMBs was a negligent employee. Whether it be by clicking a link in an email, web-browsing at insecure websites, downloading software from unofficial sources, or accidentally sending an internal email to an unintended external party, your employees have more impact on the security of your organization than you might realize.

Employees should be aware of the policies you have regarding good digital hygiene, including prohibiting password reuse, safe web-browsing practices, and password length requirements.

While formal cyber security awareness training is ideal, it could be cost prohibitive for smaller businesses. The US Department of Homeland Security’s “Stop. Think. Connect.” campaign, however, is a free resource with sample fliers and internal communications to help you get started.

3. Deploy an endpoint monitoring solution

Detection and remediation is essential to your SMB’s security posture. Monitoring and updating all your endpoints is not at difficult as it used to be; a number of reasonably-priced, cloud-based solutions are available. Earlier this year, PCMag reviewed 10 of the industry leading endpoint protection platforms for small businesses, starting as low as $1 per endpoint per month. These tools can provide anti-virus coverage, quarantine or remove malicious files, email filtering, URL protection, and patch management all in a web-based management console. If you only have room in your budget for one security tool, an endpoint protection solution is your best bargain.

4. Have a back-up plan

No one ever wants to plan for the worst, but as half of all SMBs reported they had suffered a breach, chances are you’ll need a recovery plan. A recovery plan is needed to outline how you will continue business operations in the event of a cyberattack. How will you process payments if your payment system is compromised? What happens to your intellectual property if all your systems are infected with ransomware?

One easy solution is to take regular backups of business-critical systems and data, and store them OFFLINE, so you can recover with relative ease in the event of an incident. You may want to consider building in redundancy in the event of failures. And most importantly, regularly test the solution to confirm it will work in the event you need it.

Cyber attackers have set their sights on small and medium sized businesses. But small businesses often lack the proper budgets, staff and expertise to secure themselves properly. By implementing a few basic solutions small businesses can greatly enhance their security posture. While this is not a comprehensive list of everything you can do to secure your SMB, we hope this provides you with a good place to start. Attackers will continue to target SMBs, and it’s in the best interest of both the consumer and the SMB to be protected. Additional resources are available through the Nations Cyber Security Alliance.

About Critical Defence

Critical Defence, LLC is a global provider of cyber security services including, but not limited to Assurance, Response, Compliance and Training. Additional information can be found at www.criticaldefence.com.

The Who, What, and How of a Successful Accounting Software Upgrade

These numbers, collected by Adam Bluemner for FindAccountingSoftware.com, might make you question whether you should risk upgrading your digital tools. Certainly such a major decision requires a sober look at the realities, with the possible expense of a bad software roll-out being measured against the ongoing expense of less effective tools. But even more consideration should be invested into preparing for success.

That's the help provided by Bluemner's article, "How to Ensure Success in Your Accounting Software Project." He points out that a company doesn't have to stress out if they don't have a giant-sized budget or a brute-force legion of tech staff to make an accounting software implementation go well. Concentration on solid project management is the key. Bluemner highlights the Standish Group's MVP factors: executive management support, user involvement, and optimization.

Executive Management Support

This is more than just getting permission. Support from top members of your organization will not only help remove roadblocks for a software upgrade, but will also ensure that any planned upgrade is lined up well with the larger vision of the company's progress. It's never good when the shiny, new accounting program zigs, but the company overall needs to zag.

To help get this executive support, you can explain a few vital factors about upgrading an accounting software. Modern tools maximize efficiency, automating repetitive processes. This can create an impactful cost reduction, which most decision-makers will find attractive. (For help in estimating this ROI, you can use FindAccountingSofware.com's calculator.) Also, while some IT projects deal with unproven technology that makes it hard to predict the results, most accounting software packages have been deployed many times, making this a low-risk upgrade.

User Involvement

While high-level employees can offer guidance on direction, the front-line employees are often the best source of information about benefits that can come from automation. The repetitive or complex processes they deal with each day are what you'll want the new accounting system to address. So these folks are the best place to get input on what the ROI from an improved software package can be. Also, you can invite them to participate in software demos. These users will be able to point out weaknesses and strengths, and respecting their expertise will increase their interest in helping the project succeed.

Optimization

This refers to an optimized project — one with careful plans and focused scope. These preparations might seem to delay getting things done, but they can have a crucial benefit once the ball starts rolling. You should organize a needs analysis interview to verify the key requirements for the new accounting system. This also enables you to identify the fundamental baselines:

• Scope — What functionalities are high and low priority for your company? What benefits will each of these features bring to your business?
• Cost — To meet your functional needs, what is the estimated cost?
• Timeline — How long will the deployment take, including installing, configuring, and training?

Bringing experts into this conversation is one of the best ways to make sure these measures are relevant and accurate. And the best vendors will provide this type of consultation as a free service.

You don't have to leave your project's success or failure up to a roll of the dice. With diligent preparation, you can be sure that deploying a new software system — whether it's accounting, CRM, or ERP — will be a win.

One of the complicating factors for a new system is integration with other legacy software; not being fully integrated is also one of the most common causes of inefficiencies. While updating the accounting package will have definite benefits, bringing all the operational software up to par at one time greatly enhances those benefits. aACE 5 is a robust yet affordable business operations suite that includes accounting, CRM, ERP, and more. As an easily customizable, cross-platform solution, aACE 5 can help streamline the flow of information for companies in professional services, wholesale distribution, light manufacturing, or other industries.

If this information we've shared makes sense to you, as sharp small and mid-sized business owners will recognize, then the next step is to find out more. Our past clients are almost unanimous in calling aACE 5 a five-star product, as you can see in our Capterra reviews. We've devoted many hours to understanding and supporting their unique business needs and we're willing to do the same for you — SME's like yours are a vital part of the American economy. So before the distractions of the day make you lose track of this opportunity, contact our sales team for more information.

"In 2008, our company began searching for a technology partner that could help us migrate our 'closed' accounting software to an integrated, FileMaker-based solution. Our project required a high level of detailed data conversion with tens of thousands of records. The success of this migration was highly dependent on finding the right skill-set. [aACE Software's] attention to detail and ability to understand our goals was exactly what we needed. With insight and understanding, they helped us make one of the most significant technology updates in our company history!" ~ Bryant Wilson, CEO, On Hold Co.

In 2013, Michael Krigsman estimated that the global cost of failed IT projects was around $3 Trillion. The stats from the year before, according to the Standish Group, estimated that 1 out of every 6-7 IT projects ends in failure. These numbers, collected by Adam Bluemner for... Learn More

In 2013, Michael Krigsman estimated that the global cost of failed IT projects was around $3 Trillion. The stats from the year before, according to the Standish Group, estimated that 1 out of every 6-7 IT projects ends in failure.

These numbers, collected by Adam Bluemner for FindAccountingSoftware.com, might make you question whether you should risk upgrading your digital tools. Certainly such a major decision requires a sober look at the realities, with the possible expense of a bad software roll-out being measured against the ongoing expense of less effective tools. But even more consideration should be invested into preparing for success.

That's the help provided by Bluemner's article, "How to Ensure Success in Your Accounting Software Project." He points out that a company doesn't have to stress out if they don't have a giant-sized budget or a brute-force legion of tech staff to make an accounting software implementation go well. Concentration on solid project management is the key. Bluemner highlights the Standish Group's MVP factors: executive management support, user involvement, and optimization.

Executive Management Support

This is more than just getting permission. Support from top members of your organization will not only help remove roadblocks for a software upgrade, but will also ensure that any planned upgrade is lined up well with the larger vision of the company's progress. It's never good when the shiny, new accounting program zigs, but the company overall needs to zag.

To help get this executive support, you can explain a few vital factors about upgrading an accounting software. Modern tools maximize efficiency, automating repetitive processes. This can create an impactful cost reduction, which most decision-makers will find attractive. (For help in estimating this ROI, you can use FindAccountingSofware.com's calculator.) Also, while some IT projects deal with unproven technology that makes it hard to predict the results, most accounting software packages have been deployed many times, making this a low-risk upgrade.

User Involvement

While high-level employees can offer guidance on direction, the front-line employees are often the best source of information about benefits that can come from automation. The repetitive or complex processes they deal with each day are what you'll want the new accounting system to address. So these folks are the best place to get input on what the ROI from an improved software package can be. Also, you can invite them to participate in software demos. These users will be able to point out weaknesses and strengths, and respecting their expertise will increase their interest in helping the project succeed.

Optimization

This refers to an optimized project — one with careful plans and focused scope. These preparations might seem to delay getting things done, but they can have a crucial benefit once the ball starts rolling. You should organize a needs analysis interview to verify the key requirements for the new accounting system. This also enables you to identify the fundamental baselines:

• Scope — What functionalities are high and low priority for your company? What benefits will each of these features bring to your business?
• Cost — To meet your functional needs, what is the estimated cost?
• Timeline — How long will the deployment take, including installing, configuring, and training?

Bringing experts into this conversation is one of the best ways to make sure these measures are relevant and accurate. And the best vendors will provide this type of consultation as a free service.

You don't have to leave your project's success or failure up to a roll of the dice. With diligent preparation, you can be sure that deploying a new software system — whether it's accounting, CRM, or ERP — will be a win.

One of the complicating factors for a new system is integration with other legacy software; not being fully integrated is also one of the most common causes of inefficiencies. While updating the accounting package will have definite benefits, bringing all the operational software up to par at one time greatly enhances those benefits. aACE 5 is a robust yet affordable business operations suite that includes accounting, CRM, ERP, and more. As an easily customizable, cross-platform solution, aACE 5 can help streamline the flow of information for companies in professional services, wholesale distribution, light manufacturing, or other industries.

If this information we've shared makes sense to you, as sharp small and mid-sized business owners will recognize, then the next step is to find out more. Our past clients are almost unanimous in calling aACE 5 a five-star product, as you can see in our Capterra reviews. We've devoted many hours to understanding and supporting their unique business needs and we're willing to do the same for you — SME's like yours are a vital part of the American economy. So before the distractions of the day make you lose track of this opportunity, contact our sales team for more information.

"In 2008, our company began searching for a technology partner that could help us migrate our 'closed' accounting software to an integrated, FileMaker-based solution. Our project required a high level of detailed data conversion with tens of thousands of records. The success of this migration was highly dependent on finding the right skill-set. [aACE Software's] attention to detail and ability to understand our goals was exactly what we needed. With insight and understanding, they helped us make one of the most significant technology updates in our company history!" ~ Bryant Wilson, CEO, On Hold Co.

UK Analysis of Customer Interests Shows Embarrassing Marketing Misfires

According to one observer, there seems to be a significant disparity between what companies are trying to promote for technology improvements and what customers feel would actually be a valuable enhancement. Code is a company based in Manchester, England. They specialize in helping companies offer the most valuable digital products and services possible. To do this requires staying in touch with what makes a digital product/service valuable — that is, what customers are interested in. At the end of 2016, they made some observations and predictions about tech trends. Then they had the humility at the start of 2017 to double-check their claims against reality.

The resulting infographic shows a noteworthy disparity: digital promotions are talking about one thing while the actual consumers sampled want to hear about something else. The most striking example of this disconnect is a comparison of the number of late 2016 news mentions versus the level of customer interest about augmented reality tech:

• 24,200,000 mentions in news coverage — the most prominent topic
• 12.9% of customers interested — the least interesting topic

 The immediate conclusion is that folks who spend their days watching the tech scene aren't the most in-tune with customer interests. This means that if your small or mid-sized business isn't already developing a virtual reality aspect of your products or services, you're probably just fine. No matter what the hype, buzz, and gurus might say.

In fact, the survey by Code gives some excellent advice on what you should focus on. The clear majority of customers said they want to see improvements to existing offerings. For different companies, this will mean something unique. Obviously, a light manufacturing company, a professional services business, and a retail organization won't be able to make the exact same improvements. But every SME can use the same principles to start gathering input from your clients and use that feedback to guide improvement.

From the Code survey, some additional, generally applicable findings are that consumers want:

• more responsive customer service
• better information about what they're buying
• less intrusive tech
• more convenient interconnections between their various online accounts

This final preference from consumers is just as relevant to your own staff. Outside of work, they are consumers, so they understand that technology can be designed to be clean, clear, and easy to use. Those expectations transfer over to the tools they use on the job. If your business operations software doesn't facilitate their work, then its causing needless friction and reducing your team's effectiveness.

aACE 5 is an outstanding example of software developed based on user feedback and organized for clean, straightforward functionality in accounting, CRM, and ERP. It integrates every aspect of your business, ensuring that information from the warehouse is usable by staff in the accounting office and the leaders in the strategic planning session. aACE 5 is built on FileMaker, so it runs smooth on Mac and PC, on desktop and mobile. It can be customized easily to integrate the unique, hard-won expertise that you've accrued through your past years of business.

This powerful functionality is paired with competitive pricing that makes it a compelling alternative to open-source solutions like xTuple, browser-based solutions like NetSuite, or client/server solutions like QuickBooks, Dynamics, and Sage.

Get more answers about how aACE 5 can accelerate your business velocity today.

"Their system covered our work process from start to finish. aACE has the ability to support our company, help us manage our business as we continue grow, and be easily customized to our workflow." ~ Lili Hall, President, KNOCK Inc.

The worst thing you can do, when your customers want to talk about one thing, is to force a conversation about something else. And it's obviously not a very nice way to talk with your co-workers, neighbors, or family. However the tech industry may be making this kind of gaff with its marketing.... Learn More

The worst thing you can do, when your customers want to talk about one thing, is to force a conversation about something else. And it's obviously not a very nice way to talk with your co-workers, neighbors, or family. However the tech industry may be making this kind of gaff with its marketing.

According to one observer, there seems to be a significant disparity between what companies are trying to promote for technology improvements and what customers feel would actually be a valuable enhancement. Code is a company based in Manchester, England. They specialize in helping companies offer the most valuable digital products and services possible. To do this requires staying in touch with what makes a digital product/service valuable — that is, what customers are interested in. At the end of 2016, they made some observations and predictions about tech trends. Then they had the humility at the start of 2017 to double-check their claims against reality.

The resulting infographic shows a noteworthy disparity: digital promotions are talking about one thing while the actual consumers sampled want to hear about something else. The most striking example of this disconnect is a comparison of the number of late 2016 news mentions versus the level of customer interest about augmented reality tech:

• 24,200,000 mentions in news coverage — the most prominent topic
• 12.9% of customers interested — the least interesting topic

 The immediate conclusion is that folks who spend their days watching the tech scene aren't the most in-tune with customer interests. This means that if your small or mid-sized business isn't already developing a virtual reality aspect of your products or services, you're probably just fine. No matter what the hype, buzz, and gurus might say.

In fact, the survey by Code gives some excellent advice on what you should focus on. The clear majority of customers said they want to see improvements to existing offerings. For different companies, this will mean something unique. Obviously, a light manufacturing company, a professional services business, and a retail organization won't be able to make the exact same improvements. But every SME can use the same principles to start gathering input from your clients and use that feedback to guide improvement.

From the Code survey, some additional, generally applicable findings are that consumers want:

• more responsive customer service
• better information about what they're buying
• less intrusive tech
• more convenient interconnections between their various online accounts

This final preference from consumers is just as relevant to your own staff. Outside of work, they are consumers, so they understand that technology can be designed to be clean, clear, and easy to use. Those expectations transfer over to the tools they use on the job. If your business operations software doesn't facilitate their work, then its causing needless friction and reducing your team's effectiveness.

aACE 5 is an outstanding example of software developed based on user feedback and organized for clean, straightforward functionality in accounting, CRM, and ERP. It integrates every aspect of your business, ensuring that information from the warehouse is usable by staff in the accounting office and the leaders in the strategic planning session. aACE 5 is built on FileMaker, so it runs smooth on Mac and PC, on desktop and mobile. It can be customized easily to integrate the unique, hard-won expertise that you've accrued through your past years of business.

This powerful functionality is paired with competitive pricing that makes it a compelling alternative to open-source solutions like xTuple, browser-based solutions like NetSuite, or client/server solutions like QuickBooks, Dynamics, and Sage.

Get more answers about how aACE 5 can accelerate your business velocity today.

"Their system covered our work process from start to finish. aACE has the ability to support our company, help us manage our business as we continue grow, and be easily customized to our workflow." ~ Lili Hall, President, KNOCK Inc.

3 Signs Your Business Has Outgrown QuickBooks

When you started your business, you probably found that QuickBooks was fantastic at meeting your early needs. It’s affordable, easy for one person to manage, and adequately handles the volume of financial transactions a typical new business needs to make. But as your business grows, you might find that your software is beginning to fit less like a glove and more like a cheap suit — one that’s a size too small.

Clear signals that your business has outgrown QuickBooks include:

• Data that’s spread out haphazardly across several solutions and spreadsheets
• Multiple users having trouble trying to work in the system at the same time
• Complex reports that take too long to pull or require the use of outside spreadsheets

Don’t ignore the signs. Read on for key questions to ask yourself when determining whether your business is ready to take the next step in software solutions.

Data, Data Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink

Do you feel like your data is stranded on isolated islands? Does your software act as a bridge between each department, or is your information spread out across multiple spreadsheets and solutions that don’t talk to each other? If you’re faced with the latter, you may find that you’re struggling to get day-to-day work done efficiently. Storing information in multiple places means that each system needs to be updated separately every time something changes that can’t be tracked entirely in QuickBooks — and all of that extra data entry creates more opportunities for human error. Imagine trying to take a complete picture of your company’s finances. If you’re pulling information from a patchwork of scattered sources, can you really be sure that what you’re seeing is accurate?

Too Many Cooks in the Software Kitchen

While QuickBooks is excellent for an owner-operator scenario, offering an easy-to-use solution that isn’t too complex for one person to handle, a multi-user environment brings added complications that could put stress on your software. As you scale your business, your growing company may find itself constrained by the limitations of its accounting solution. Are your employees tripping over each other trying to enter transactions throughout the day? Do you find yourself paying thousands of dollars for outside accounting services that still don’t provide the kind of visibility into your data that you need to make the best possible decisions? If you’re thinking of bringing on a CFO in the near future, you’ll also want to ensure that you have the tools they’ll need to succeed. And if you’re not quite ready to add a C-suite executive, a more robust accounting solution could help you operate more effectively without the added expense of a senior-level hire.

The Shallow End of the Reporting Pool

The larger your business grows, the more intricate it becomes and the more information you need in order to stay on top of it. Calculating complex sets of data — for instance, to forecast inventory requirements based on what’s quoted in your sales pipeline or pay your sales staff commissions based on actual margins — may be another trouble spot, forcing you to add even more islands to your sea of disparate information. Do you find yourself relying more and more on Excel to support multiple sophisticated workflows like made-to-stock inventory, drop shipping, or back orders? Are financial statements that were once a snap now taking longer to pull together as the system struggles to keep up with larger volumes of information? And if you want to report on multiple companies at the same time in the same report, are you wasting time mixing and matching data from different reports to make it happen?

Does any of this sound familiar? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to one or more of the questions I’ve posed, it could be time to reconsider your company’s relationship with QuickBooks. It might be a little overwhelming to realize your software solution has become more of a problem. The good news is, you have options — yes, even ones that a small or midsize business can afford. Contact me to learn more about how to select the business management software that’s right for your growing company.

About the Author

With 20 years of experience in implementing ERP and CRM solutions, Bryan Anderson is committed to helping every business, from the smallest Mom-and-Pop shop to the largest multinational corporation, find the tools they need to thrive. He has worked with over 200 clients using solutions such as Microsoft Navision and Great Plains, Oracle Financials, SAP, aACE Software, Salesforce, and more.

Bryan has spent the last several years developing custom application solutions and implementing ERP systems in the manufacturing, distribution, professional services, and field service industries. He’s now the managing member of All Solutions 360, LLC, an information technology consulting firm dedicated to implementing the best technical solutions to nagging business problems.

Bryan has an MBA in Marketing, Logistics & Transportation from the University of Tennessee and a BS in Finance & Marketing from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In addition to starting his own companies, he has previously worked for General Motors, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and Microsoft Value Added Resellers.

Bryan can be reached at banderson@asthree60.com.

Editor’s note: Bryan Anderson is a Managing Member of AS360, aACE’s longest-running partner. We are delighted to share his 20 years of experience implementing software upgrades for QuickBooks users with our audience. When you started your business, you probably found that QuickBooks was... Learn More

Editor’s note: Bryan Anderson is a Managing Member of AS360, aACE’s longest-running partner. We are delighted to share his 20 years of experience implementing software upgrades for QuickBooks users with our audience.

When you started your business, you probably found that QuickBooks was fantastic at meeting your early needs. It’s affordable, easy for one person to manage, and adequately handles the volume of financial transactions a typical new business needs to make. But as your business grows, you might find that your software is beginning to fit less like a glove and more like a cheap suit — one that’s a size too small.

Clear signals that your business has outgrown QuickBooks include:

• Data that’s spread out haphazardly across several solutions and spreadsheets
• Multiple users having trouble trying to work in the system at the same time
• Complex reports that take too long to pull or require the use of outside spreadsheets

Don’t ignore the signs. Read on for key questions to ask yourself when determining whether your business is ready to take the next step in software solutions.

Data, Data Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink

Do you feel like your data is stranded on isolated islands? Does your software act as a bridge between each department, or is your information spread out across multiple spreadsheets and solutions that don’t talk to each other? If you’re faced with the latter, you may find that you’re struggling to get day-to-day work done efficiently. Storing information in multiple places means that each system needs to be updated separately every time something changes that can’t be tracked entirely in QuickBooks — and all of that extra data entry creates more opportunities for human error. Imagine trying to take a complete picture of your company’s finances. If you’re pulling information from a patchwork of scattered sources, can you really be sure that what you’re seeing is accurate?

Too Many Cooks in the Software Kitchen

While QuickBooks is excellent for an owner-operator scenario, offering an easy-to-use solution that isn’t too complex for one person to handle, a multi-user environment brings added complications that could put stress on your software. As you scale your business, your growing company may find itself constrained by the limitations of its accounting solution. Are your employees tripping over each other trying to enter transactions throughout the day? Do you find yourself paying thousands of dollars for outside accounting services that still don’t provide the kind of visibility into your data that you need to make the best possible decisions? If you’re thinking of bringing on a CFO in the near future, you’ll also want to ensure that you have the tools they’ll need to succeed. And if you’re not quite ready to add a C-suite executive, a more robust accounting solution could help you operate more effectively without the added expense of a senior-level hire.

The Shallow End of the Reporting Pool

The larger your business grows, the more intricate it becomes and the more information you need in order to stay on top of it. Calculating complex sets of data — for instance, to forecast inventory requirements based on what’s quoted in your sales pipeline or pay your sales staff commissions based on actual margins — may be another trouble spot, forcing you to add even more islands to your sea of disparate information. Do you find yourself relying more and more on Excel to support multiple sophisticated workflows like made-to-stock inventory, drop shipping, or back orders? Are financial statements that were once a snap now taking longer to pull together as the system struggles to keep up with larger volumes of information? And if you want to report on multiple companies at the same time in the same report, are you wasting time mixing and matching data from different reports to make it happen?

Does any of this sound familiar? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to one or more of the questions I’ve posed, it could be time to reconsider your company’s relationship with QuickBooks. It might be a little overwhelming to realize your software solution has become more of a problem. The good news is, you have options — yes, even ones that a small or midsize business can afford. Contact me to learn more about how to select the business management software that’s right for your growing company.

About the Author

With 20 years of experience in implementing ERP and CRM solutions, Bryan Anderson is committed to helping every business, from the smallest Mom-and-Pop shop to the largest multinational corporation, find the tools they need to thrive. He has worked with over 200 clients using solutions such as Microsoft Navision and Great Plains, Oracle Financials, SAP, aACE Software, Salesforce, and more.

Bryan has spent the last several years developing custom application solutions and implementing ERP systems in the manufacturing, distribution, professional services, and field service industries. He’s now the managing member of All Solutions 360, LLC, an information technology consulting firm dedicated to implementing the best technical solutions to nagging business problems.

Bryan has an MBA in Marketing, Logistics & Transportation from the University of Tennessee and a BS in Finance & Marketing from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In addition to starting his own companies, he has previously worked for General Motors, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and Microsoft Value Added Resellers.

Bryan can be reached at banderson@asthree60.com.

SMEs Benefit from Enterprise-Level Tools

In this vein, SmallBizDaily.com has made it their business to help SMEs accomplish more with limited resources. The blog post titled "How Tech and Data Can Transform Small Businesses" continues this effort. Jen Cohen Crompton, a guest author from The Neat Company, discusses how a technology refresh can boost your productivity. She frames the possibilities into five basic areas:

1. Modern data storage: Paper archives in filing cabinets and reminders on sticky notes should be replaced with digital and cloud-based options. Modern solutions allow you not only to store more business information, but also to have quicker, easier access to those records. Quality enterprise content management (ECM) systems can make searching for documents as easy as using Google.

2. Modern accounting workflows: Nothing crunches numbers as well as a computer. You may be surprised at how much automation can be provided by today's accounting software packages. Letting a machine track receipts and calculate margins reduces errors, maximizes efficiency, and enables you to focus on tasks that are more valuable.

3. Modern data collection: With a smartphone camera and a small app, you can immediately digitize your records. An easy process of taking a picture, converting the image to PDF, and extracting the data can increase visibility and responsiveness in your organization.

4. Modern contacting: With today's demands for attention pressing on your potential customers, emailing them direct is likely to get lost in the churn or sent to the spam folder, calling direct may result in your number being blocked as a telemarketer, and contacting face-to-face, while ideal, may not be possible when your leads are scattered across the nation. Using customer relationship management (CRM) software can help you get better results. A powerful CRM system can analyze public social media activity to help you identify the warmest leads.

5. Modern work: Your employees have their own personal tech and they know what modern information and communication systems can provide. They know what kinds of work require a physical presence at the office and what assignments can be completed via telework. When you enable them to make the most of their time instead of requiring a commute across town, you can boost their morale and reduce your overhead.

With these pathways open to your business, it may take some strategic planning to set the best course forward. A professional services company may need an immediate upgrade to data storage tools, while manufacturing or retail might need to consider telework policies for certain staff. Each time you invest in modernizing your organization though, you'll soon see the dividends.

An ideal technology investment is one that solves multiple needs with one solution. aACE 5 is an affordable yet comprehensive business operations suite. It offers robust accounting workflows and automation, mobile apps for productivity, and a thorough CRM package. Built on FileMaker, aACE 5 operates on both Mac and PC systems, and it can be customized to your company's unique business situation. Learn more about modernizing your tools with the aACE 5 advantage.

"Coming off Quickbooks, we found that QB just wasn't offering us all the flexibility and horsepower we needed from an ERP. It needed to handle all the complexities of our day to day operations, give us the reports we needed, integrate into our existing process — and then fade into the background as everyone became comfortable with it to get the job done. aACE has done all that." ~ Derek Navratil, IT Administrator, Janibell Inc.

Technology helps level the playing field. Whether it's with hand tools, power tools, or digital tools, technology makes it possible to do more than we could otherwise. In this vein, SmallBizDaily.com has made it their business to help SMEs accomplish more with limited resources. The blog post... Learn More

Technology helps level the playing field. Whether it's with hand tools, power tools, or digital tools, technology makes it possible to do more than we could otherwise.

In this vein, SmallBizDaily.com has made it their business to help SMEs accomplish more with limited resources. The blog post titled "How Tech and Data Can Transform Small Businesses" continues this effort. Jen Cohen Crompton, a guest author from The Neat Company, discusses how a technology refresh can boost your productivity. She frames the possibilities into five basic areas:

1. Modern data storage: Paper archives in filing cabinets and reminders on sticky notes should be replaced with digital and cloud-based options. Modern solutions allow you not only to store more business information, but also to have quicker, easier access to those records. Quality enterprise content management (ECM) systems can make searching for documents as easy as using Google.

2. Modern accounting workflows: Nothing crunches numbers as well as a computer. You may be surprised at how much automation can be provided by today's accounting software packages. Letting a machine track receipts and calculate margins reduces errors, maximizes efficiency, and enables you to focus on tasks that are more valuable.

3. Modern data collection: With a smartphone camera and a small app, you can immediately digitize your records. An easy process of taking a picture, converting the image to PDF, and extracting the data can increase visibility and responsiveness in your organization.

4. Modern contacting: With today's demands for attention pressing on your potential customers, emailing them direct is likely to get lost in the churn or sent to the spam folder, calling direct may result in your number being blocked as a telemarketer, and contacting face-to-face, while ideal, may not be possible when your leads are scattered across the nation. Using customer relationship management (CRM) software can help you get better results. A powerful CRM system can analyze public social media activity to help you identify the warmest leads.

5. Modern work: Your employees have their own personal tech and they know what modern information and communication systems can provide. They know what kinds of work require a physical presence at the office and what assignments can be completed via telework. When you enable them to make the most of their time instead of requiring a commute across town, you can boost their morale and reduce your overhead.

With these pathways open to your business, it may take some strategic planning to set the best course forward. A professional services company may need an immediate upgrade to data storage tools, while manufacturing or retail might need to consider telework policies for certain staff. Each time you invest in modernizing your organization though, you'll soon see the dividends.

An ideal technology investment is one that solves multiple needs with one solution. aACE 5 is an affordable yet comprehensive business operations suite. It offers robust accounting workflows and automation, mobile apps for productivity, and a thorough CRM package. Built on FileMaker, aACE 5 operates on both Mac and PC systems, and it can be customized to your company's unique business situation. Learn more about modernizing your tools with the aACE 5 advantage.

"Coming off Quickbooks, we found that QB just wasn't offering us all the flexibility and horsepower we needed from an ERP. It needed to handle all the complexities of our day to day operations, give us the reports we needed, integrate into our existing process — and then fade into the background as everyone became comfortable with it to get the job done. aACE has done all that." ~ Derek Navratil, IT Administrator, Janibell Inc.

Avalara Reading Between the Lines on 2017 Sales Tax Amnesty

Deciding whether that possible headache is worthwhile is a gamble each business needs to evaluate.

To clarify the details and help you make this decision, Avalara's Scott Peterson has analyzed the amnesty offer, suggested nine incisive questions you should ask about it, and also provided the answers. Even if you don't currently sell any of your products through a marketplace, it can be valuable to learn about this latest development in how states are pursuing tax funds.

Context for a decision like this is crucial, so the Avalara advice begins by sketching out the larger picture around the amnesty decision. Peterson notes that inter-state collaboration on tax forgiveness is fairly rare; however, he later points out that many states organize their own amnesty or voluntary disclosure programs. This current program is the largest to date, with full participation by 23 states and limited offerings from five others. Another unique feature of this effort is that all eligible back taxes will be waived for any business with qualifying tax obligations (that is, taxes from nexus based on inventory stored in a fulfillment facility), whereas these programs usually only apply to registered taxpayers and typically only disclaim the penalties and interest on the tax monies.

The crux of the gamble is this: registering for the program will remove the expense of past taxes and a possible audit from marketplace sales, but it will also establish a clear, on-going tax obligation for your online marketplace sales.

The key points of this amnesty offering that Peterson clarifies move from more general information to central questions of the risks involved with each option:

1. Who does the tax amnesty impact? Any business using a marketplace provider (such as Amazon or eBay) with inventory in the affected states.

2. What states are participating? Peterson lists the 28 states (plus the District of Columbia) that are involved with this Multistate Tax Commission (MTC).

3. Do I really have to register and collect sales tax? Yes, according to the relevant state laws and definitions.

4. What about income tax? This tax obligation has more variability across states and can't be easily generalized.

5. How does tax amnesty work? Between August 17 and October 17, you can apply to collect sales tax or to exempt from income/franchise tax and the unpaid back-taxes, penalties, and interest will all be waived. However you will be registered as an organization clearly required to collect and remit these taxes going forward.

6. What are the risks of participating in the amnesty plan? It requires time and resources to maintain accurate tax collection and payments, and increased costs are never pleasing to customers.

7. What are the risks of not participating? You may some day be audited and forced to pay these taxes, penalties, and interest, and state agencies are investing more resources into identifying and collecting these funds.

8. What are my other options? Hope to not be audited before you can take advantage of another amnesty or voluntary disclosure offering.

9. How do I learn more about the tax amnesty program? Talk with your trusted tax advisor, a representative of the MTC, or the Avalara hotline (phone or email) focused on this amnesty offering.

While the obvious numbers-based decision is to not let taxes erode your profits, the chance of future audits and the relevant ethical issues may weigh more heavily for your company. Whether your company is involved with manufacturing, distribution, or professional services, this is just one example of the challenging decisions that are part of the adventure of being an entrepreneur.

To offset the difficulty of tracking sales tax and the danger of not tracking it, you can invest in software solutions like AvaTax. And to further streamline your operations, this outstanding tax automation package can be integrated directly to your accounting / CRM / ERP suite. aACE Software provides a comprehensive yet affordable system with proven AvaTax integration. This robust business solution can not only bring peace of mind and a reduced burden for managing sales taxes, but can also provide increased visibility, accuracy, and velocity in your operations.

Learn more today about the synergy of Avalara tools and aACE 5.

"I feel the whole aACE package is customized and tailored to my needs." ~ Todd Breedlove, Vice President, Knight Hardwood Flooring Inc.

Sales tax obligations are often complex and can cause headaches for small and mid-sized businesses, especially when marketplace fulfillment arrangements are involved. So while an offer of amnesty for uncollected sales tax sounds like a nice gesture, it's not surprising that the details are complex.... Learn More

Sales tax obligations are often complex and can cause headaches for small and mid-sized businesses, especially when marketplace fulfillment arrangements are involved. So while an offer of amnesty for uncollected sales tax sounds like a nice gesture, it's not surprising that the details are complex. And they could cause a headache.

Deciding whether that possible headache is worthwhile is a gamble each business needs to evaluate.

To clarify the details and help you make this decision, Avalara's Scott Peterson has analyzed the amnesty offer, suggested nine incisive questions you should ask about it, and also provided the answers. Even if you don't currently sell any of your products through a marketplace, it can be valuable to learn about this latest development in how states are pursuing tax funds.

Context for a decision like this is crucial, so the Avalara advice begins by sketching out the larger picture around the amnesty decision. Peterson notes that inter-state collaboration on tax forgiveness is fairly rare; however, he later points out that many states organize their own amnesty or voluntary disclosure programs. This current program is the largest to date, with full participation by 23 states and limited offerings from five others. Another unique feature of this effort is that all eligible back taxes will be waived for any business with qualifying tax obligations (that is, taxes from nexus based on inventory stored in a fulfillment facility), whereas these programs usually only apply to registered taxpayers and typically only disclaim the penalties and interest on the tax monies.

The crux of the gamble is this: registering for the program will remove the expense of past taxes and a possible audit from marketplace sales, but it will also establish a clear, on-going tax obligation for your online marketplace sales.

The key points of this amnesty offering that Peterson clarifies move from more general information to central questions of the risks involved with each option:

1. Who does the tax amnesty impact? Any business using a marketplace provider (such as Amazon or eBay) with inventory in the affected states.

2. What states are participating? Peterson lists the 28 states (plus the District of Columbia) that are involved with this Multistate Tax Commission (MTC).

3. Do I really have to register and collect sales tax? Yes, according to the relevant state laws and definitions.

4. What about income tax? This tax obligation has more variability across states and can't be easily generalized.

5. How does tax amnesty work? Between August 17 and October 17, you can apply to collect sales tax or to exempt from income/franchise tax and the unpaid back-taxes, penalties, and interest will all be waived. However you will be registered as an organization clearly required to collect and remit these taxes going forward.

6. What are the risks of participating in the amnesty plan? It requires time and resources to maintain accurate tax collection and payments, and increased costs are never pleasing to customers.

7. What are the risks of not participating? You may some day be audited and forced to pay these taxes, penalties, and interest, and state agencies are investing more resources into identifying and collecting these funds.

8. What are my other options? Hope to not be audited before you can take advantage of another amnesty or voluntary disclosure offering.

9. How do I learn more about the tax amnesty program? Talk with your trusted tax advisor, a representative of the MTC, or the Avalara hotline (phone or email) focused on this amnesty offering.

While the obvious numbers-based decision is to not let taxes erode your profits, the chance of future audits and the relevant ethical issues may weigh more heavily for your company. Whether your company is involved with manufacturing, distribution, or professional services, this is just one example of the challenging decisions that are part of the adventure of being an entrepreneur.

To offset the difficulty of tracking sales tax and the danger of not tracking it, you can invest in software solutions like AvaTax. And to further streamline your operations, this outstanding tax automation package can be integrated directly to your accounting / CRM / ERP suite. aACE Software provides a comprehensive yet affordable system with proven AvaTax integration. This robust business solution can not only bring peace of mind and a reduced burden for managing sales taxes, but can also provide increased visibility, accuracy, and velocity in your operations.

Learn more today about the synergy of Avalara tools and aACE 5.

"I feel the whole aACE package is customized and tailored to my needs." ~ Todd Breedlove, Vice President, Knight Hardwood Flooring Inc.

Six Tips from UK Report Help SMBs Scale Up

For our take on these six important factors, read on:

1. Commit to Grow - The starting point is the entrepreneur's will and ambition. This isn't to say anything belittling about small companies. Each business owner will be satisfied with a different balance of lifestyle and time spent supporting that lifestyle. The fact remains that a company won't grow on its own. In order to scale up, the company leaders must want to grow, create goals for growth, elaborate on plans for growth, and accomplish each step along the way.

2. Build a Broad Management Skillset - That commitment to grow is clearly a significant labor. It can't be handled by a single company founder. While the expertise and experience gained from starting a company will always be valuable, continued growth requires more. The founding members of an organization need to be looking for additional people to bring into the team. These supporting players will contribute more diverse experience and more varied skills. This team-building should obviously proceed as the needs of the company direct — there's no sense in hiring a great IT director if what the company currently needs is stronger marketing. And while business management degrees provide a solid set of general skills, you may find that someone with an accounting, banking, or other background might have the unique insight needed for certain roles.

3. Build Collaborations - Building a capable, resilient team doesn't end with the people on your payroll. Instead, a growing organization needs to reach out to other groups and build strong, reliable relationships with them. Partnerships may come in varying degrees of formality, from a contracted vendor to regular conversations with a mentor in another, more established company. It's easy to see how service providers, sales channel partners, and suppliers fit into this valuable network. But ideally an entrepreneur will recognize that customers are an important part of that same network. Besides just purchasing your product or service, these folks, who are clearly willing to invest in your growth, can be a source of feedback and market information. As you go beyond the basic transactions with clients, you may find that some of them become your most helpful promoters. In fact, the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Methodology highly recommends this approach.

4. Establish Standardized Processes - The old adage is that getting something done right requires that you do it yourself. But this is no way to promote your company's growth. As your organization becomes more busy, you can't do everything yourself. Nor can a team of founding members. The solution is to establish clear, standardized, repeatable processes, then delegate those tasks to your team. Of course, this requires several important tasks of a higher level of complexity — documenting processes, selecting staff, training, and supervision. But the result is additional time for you to focus on even more sophisticated and valuable work. One way to ensure that this effort is a success is to invest in software that the entire team can use, integrating finances with inventory and customer outreach.

5. Identify Core Competence - Similar to documenting processes, scaling your business requires documenting other details, especially crafting a description of what actually IS your business. In early stages, flexibility and adapting to customer interest can serve you well; however, when your organization is expanding, it will require some disciplined decision-making. And that will require prioritizing opportunities and resources around the things that are most important. These core competencies will often grow from the unique expertise that you bring to the market. When your entire team knows what you can do better than all the competition, it simplifies the strategic choices that will sustain your growth.

6. Articulate Competitive Strength - Going one step further, securing ongoing profitability requires not only that you know what your business is, but that you know how well your business is doing. Objective numbers can be useful here, but even more helpful can be a subjective perception of your company, as seen by your customers. With everything that passionate entrepreneurs know and want for their businesses, it can be hard to understand how people outside the company perceive it. But appreciating their perspective is vital, since they are people funding the venture. Don't be chained to your own definitions of quality and success; seek out what your current and prospective clientele feel is the competitive advantage you hold. Once you have a sense of that value proposition from the customer's point of view, you can connect it to your internal processes, adapting to better fill the demand.

You can use these six guidelines to help navigate the sometimes confusing options that confront any business at a time of growth. With a solid foundation of motivation, skillsets, collaborative relationships, processes, and competitive awareness, you'll be ready to ensure that your growth is steady and continuous.

To get more details about these recommendations from Barclays, Cambridge, and Oxford, download a full copy of the report.

As noted in this research, the ability to successfully scale your business can be optimized by the right software. Every business, from professional services to light manufacturing, includes a combination of general processes and unique features. The ideal business software solution will provide support for both aspects of your company. aACE 5 provides exactly this kind of support. The out-of-the-box functionality covers a majority of business accounting, CRM, and ERP needs. And because aACE 5 is built on FileMaker, it is simple and affordable to customize. We can identify your company's unique expertise and codify it into an app that integrates perfectly with the rest of the system. The personalized aACE 5 solution for your SMB is cross-platform, mobile-enabled, and ecommerce-ready.

Contact us today to learn more.

“Most companies of our size buy a software package and change the way they run their business to fit that package. We have been lucky enough to work the other way – aACE started with a basic structure, which was then tailored to our specific way of working.” ~ Peter Osbourne, President, Special EFX Ltd.

In an unusual collaboration, Barclays, Oxford, and Cambridge prepared a report last year on how small businesses can best prepare to scale up. Barclays is one of the most prestigious banks in Great Britain. This reputation may have been helpful in getting the two rival universities to work... Learn More

In an unusual collaboration, Barclays, Oxford, and Cambridge prepared a report last year on how small businesses can best prepare to scale up. Barclays is one of the most prestigious banks in Great Britain. This reputation may have been helpful in getting the two rival universities to work together. However the negotiations took place, the report brings together excellent insight from these top-tier institutions. And Philip Salter, a contributing writer for Forbes.com, has publicized a summary of key details.

For our take on these six important factors, read on:

1. Commit to Grow - The starting point is the entrepreneur's will and ambition. This isn't to say anything belittling about small companies. Each business owner will be satisfied with a different balance of lifestyle and time spent supporting that lifestyle. The fact remains that a company won't grow on its own. In order to scale up, the company leaders must want to grow, create goals for growth, elaborate on plans for growth, and accomplish each step along the way.

2. Build a Broad Management Skillset - That commitment to grow is clearly a significant labor. It can't be handled by a single company founder. While the expertise and experience gained from starting a company will always be valuable, continued growth requires more. The founding members of an organization need to be looking for additional people to bring into the team. These supporting players will contribute more diverse experience and more varied skills. This team-building should obviously proceed as the needs of the company direct — there's no sense in hiring a great IT director if what the company currently needs is stronger marketing. And while business management degrees provide a solid set of general skills, you may find that someone with an accounting, banking, or other background might have the unique insight needed for certain roles.

3. Build Collaborations - Building a capable, resilient team doesn't end with the people on your payroll. Instead, a growing organization needs to reach out to other groups and build strong, reliable relationships with them. Partnerships may come in varying degrees of formality, from a contracted vendor to regular conversations with a mentor in another, more established company. It's easy to see how service providers, sales channel partners, and suppliers fit into this valuable network. But ideally an entrepreneur will recognize that customers are an important part of that same network. Besides just purchasing your product or service, these folks, who are clearly willing to invest in your growth, can be a source of feedback and market information. As you go beyond the basic transactions with clients, you may find that some of them become your most helpful promoters. In fact, the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Methodology highly recommends this approach.

4. Establish Standardized Processes - The old adage is that getting something done right requires that you do it yourself. But this is no way to promote your company's growth. As your organization becomes more busy, you can't do everything yourself. Nor can a team of founding members. The solution is to establish clear, standardized, repeatable processes, then delegate those tasks to your team. Of course, this requires several important tasks of a higher level of complexity — documenting processes, selecting staff, training, and supervision. But the result is additional time for you to focus on even more sophisticated and valuable work. One way to ensure that this effort is a success is to invest in software that the entire team can use, integrating finances with inventory and customer outreach.

5. Identify Core Competence - Similar to documenting processes, scaling your business requires documenting other details, especially crafting a description of what actually IS your business. In early stages, flexibility and adapting to customer interest can serve you well; however, when your organization is expanding, it will require some disciplined decision-making. And that will require prioritizing opportunities and resources around the things that are most important. These core competencies will often grow from the unique expertise that you bring to the market. When your entire team knows what you can do better than all the competition, it simplifies the strategic choices that will sustain your growth.

6. Articulate Competitive Strength - Going one step further, securing ongoing profitability requires not only that you know what your business is, but that you know how well your business is doing. Objective numbers can be useful here, but even more helpful can be a subjective perception of your company, as seen by your customers. With everything that passionate entrepreneurs know and want for their businesses, it can be hard to understand how people outside the company perceive it. But appreciating their perspective is vital, since they are people funding the venture. Don't be chained to your own definitions of quality and success; seek out what your current and prospective clientele feel is the competitive advantage you hold. Once you have a sense of that value proposition from the customer's point of view, you can connect it to your internal processes, adapting to better fill the demand.

You can use these six guidelines to help navigate the sometimes confusing options that confront any business at a time of growth. With a solid foundation of motivation, skillsets, collaborative relationships, processes, and competitive awareness, you'll be ready to ensure that your growth is steady and continuous.

To get more details about these recommendations from Barclays, Cambridge, and Oxford, download a full copy of the report.

As noted in this research, the ability to successfully scale your business can be optimized by the right software. Every business, from professional services to light manufacturing, includes a combination of general processes and unique features. The ideal business software solution will provide support for both aspects of your company. aACE 5 provides exactly this kind of support. The out-of-the-box functionality covers a majority of business accounting, CRM, and ERP needs. And because aACE 5 is built on FileMaker, it is simple and affordable to customize. We can identify your company's unique expertise and codify it into an app that integrates perfectly with the rest of the system. The personalized aACE 5 solution for your SMB is cross-platform, mobile-enabled, and ecommerce-ready.

Contact us today to learn more.

“Most companies of our size buy a software package and change the way they run their business to fit that package. We have been lucky enough to work the other way – aACE started with a basic structure, which was then tailored to our specific way of working.” ~ Peter Osbourne, President, Special EFX Ltd.

4 Tips for Improving Shipping to Make Sure Growth Leads to More Growth

To ensure your company growth is solid, you need to address shipping proactively. SmallBizDaily.com has identified areas where you can take concrete steps to improve your shipping processes. This site has some great advice for entrepreneurs and this post written by Emma Sturgis is no exception.

The initial warning about company expansion bears repeating. No one likes to be "vulnerable," yet the exposure to risk is interwoven with progress. Ignoring the possible dangers is inviting them to trip you up. However with careful consideration of these four aspects of your fulfillment process, you will be able to transform vulnerabilities into strengths.

1. Get the Tools for the Job

The first step in shipping excellence is an investment in ERP. With a strong enterprise resource planning package, you'll have optimal insight into your inventory and order tracking. These tools can seamlessly integrate sales, operations, and accounting. And a comprehensive solution like this gives you not only increased visibility, but also workflow automation (more on this later), plus a reduction in data entry errors. Increase the speed and accuracy of your daily operations with high quality inventory management software.

2. Put the Tools to Work for You

When you find and implement good software, it can work hard for you. Contemporary consumers like to be able to quickly find answers on their own, which is one feature a robust CRM package provides. You can integrate it with the ERP system and let customers follow up on their own orders, read support materials, and reach out to your staff when needed. Likewise, automation of repetitive tasks can free up time and resources for you. Why have the system tell you inventory is low when you can have it automatically tell your supplier how much you want to order? You can use these tools to also track relationships with vendors, partners, and other business contacts.

3. Hire Experts

In basic economics, we learn that the division of labor maximizes efficiencies. Luckily there are people who specialize in administrative services and drop shipping. Outsourcing certain tasks can help you concentrate on the activities that will help your climb continue.

4. Refine Your Operations

A little bit of documentation can go a long way when it covers what your staff needs to do in complicated processes or unexpected developments. In addition, the process of thinking through these scenarios can help you know what it is you don't know about your industry and operations. Your investment in a robust business software solution can also benefit on this front. Business intelligence is vital, and the starting point of this intelligence is knowing exactly what your company is doing. An integrated accounting/CRM/ERP package puts this data right in your hands, showing you where the company is lagging and what efforts are excelling. With this knowledge, you can make strategic decisions to hone your business and continue the growth.

As sales increase, don't let the excitement distract you from the more valuable goal. Each transaction is the opportunity to create a long-lasting relationship with the client. Why settle for one sale now when strong fulfillment and customer care can earn you the client's future purchases? Earning this trust will partly depend on the effectiveness of your shipping processes.

Sharp business owners will recognize the larger pattern in this advice from SmallBizDaily.com — high quality resources are a powerful investment. The best software and staff will not only support your efforts, but will also help you improve operations.

aACE 5 is designed to accelerate your business velocity this way. It is powerful business management software that allows you to manage operations in a single, complete, cross-platform solution. Our satisfied clients say that, for their growing companies, aACE outperforms competitors such as Microsoft, AcctVantage, and NetSuite. Our mobile apps and ecommerce integration add to the aACE 5 value proposition, as well as our easy, affordable customizations.

"We switched to aACE at the end of 2011, and cannot even imagine (or remember) life before aACE. The system has streamlined our business operations to a level that we never thought possible. We have been able to trim our headcount in several areas, and achieve efficiencies we thought were only possible in dreams. The pre-sales process is very thorough and they work very hard to tailor the system to your business needs." ~ Doug Jacobs, President, Restylers' Choice

Growing your business is exciting, even though it demands new efforts and tough decisions. One of the most precarious business processes to build out is shipping. If you coast by just doing what you have always done while your customer base increases, it can create problems. When the demand for... Learn More

Growing your business is exciting, even though it demands new efforts and tough decisions. One of the most precarious business processes to build out is shipping. If you coast by just doing what you have always done while your customer base increases, it can create problems. When the demand for your product increases, you have to make sure every delivery goes as smooth as possible for your new clients. But that's easier said than done.

To ensure your company growth is solid, you need to address shipping proactively. SmallBizDaily.com has identified areas where you can take concrete steps to improve your shipping processes. This site has some great advice for entrepreneurs and this post written by Emma Sturgis is no exception.

The initial warning about company expansion bears repeating. No one likes to be "vulnerable," yet the exposure to risk is interwoven with progress. Ignoring the possible dangers is inviting them to trip you up. However with careful consideration of these four aspects of your fulfillment process, you will be able to transform vulnerabilities into strengths.

1. Get the Tools for the Job

The first step in shipping excellence is an investment in ERP. With a strong enterprise resource planning package, you'll have optimal insight into your inventory and order tracking. These tools can seamlessly integrate sales, operations, and accounting. And a comprehensive solution like this gives you not only increased visibility, but also workflow automation (more on this later), plus a reduction in data entry errors. Increase the speed and accuracy of your daily operations with high quality inventory management software.

2. Put the Tools to Work for You

When you find and implement good software, it can work hard for you. Contemporary consumers like to be able to quickly find answers on their own, which is one feature a robust CRM package provides. You can integrate it with the ERP system and let customers follow up on their own orders, read support materials, and reach out to your staff when needed. Likewise, automation of repetitive tasks can free up time and resources for you. Why have the system tell you inventory is low when you can have it automatically tell your supplier how much you want to order? You can use these tools to also track relationships with vendors, partners, and other business contacts.

3. Hire Experts

In basic economics, we learn that the division of labor maximizes efficiencies. Luckily there are people who specialize in administrative services and drop shipping. Outsourcing certain tasks can help you concentrate on the activities that will help your climb continue.

4. Refine Your Operations

A little bit of documentation can go a long way when it covers what your staff needs to do in complicated processes or unexpected developments. In addition, the process of thinking through these scenarios can help you know what it is you don't know about your industry and operations. Your investment in a robust business software solution can also benefit on this front. Business intelligence is vital, and the starting point of this intelligence is knowing exactly what your company is doing. An integrated accounting/CRM/ERP package puts this data right in your hands, showing you where the company is lagging and what efforts are excelling. With this knowledge, you can make strategic decisions to hone your business and continue the growth.

As sales increase, don't let the excitement distract you from the more valuable goal. Each transaction is the opportunity to create a long-lasting relationship with the client. Why settle for one sale now when strong fulfillment and customer care can earn you the client's future purchases? Earning this trust will partly depend on the effectiveness of your shipping processes.

Sharp business owners will recognize the larger pattern in this advice from SmallBizDaily.com — high quality resources are a powerful investment. The best software and staff will not only support your efforts, but will also help you improve operations.

aACE 5 is designed to accelerate your business velocity this way. It is powerful business management software that allows you to manage operations in a single, complete, cross-platform solution. Our satisfied clients say that, for their growing companies, aACE outperforms competitors such as Microsoft, AcctVantage, and NetSuite. Our mobile apps and ecommerce integration add to the aACE 5 value proposition, as well as our easy, affordable customizations.

"We switched to aACE at the end of 2011, and cannot even imagine (or remember) life before aACE. The system has streamlined our business operations to a level that we never thought possible. We have been able to trim our headcount in several areas, and achieve efficiencies we thought were only possible in dreams. The pre-sales process is very thorough and they work very hard to tailor the system to your business needs." ~ Doug Jacobs, President, Restylers' Choice