Blog - ‘Hot Topics’
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
So you have the right contact info, you know all the right history. Your software should let you proactively reach out to your customers with the right message at the right time.
Now you can let the client know that it is “re-order time”, “pay attention time” or just “say hello time”.
But can your software really do this?
Treating customers right can benefit your customer and your sales
Armed with your customers’ information, you can individualize communications to customers to let them know they’re special, and at the same time drive repeat business with them. Special pricing, special promotions and “special client” programs that thank your customers while doing what you really want – selling to them.
Modern CRM packages allow you to dynamically adjust pricing and present offers based on sales history, profit history, and vendor pricing, allowing you to reward your best clients.
But you’ve got to have the right software
Yes, salespeople work hard to manage this “best price for best customer” relationship, but that’s an extra burden on them. They should spend their time selling instead of trying to analyze their customer history. That’s the role of a modern CRM application.
But if your software can’t deliver these numbers to you proactively, in very real time, its time to revisit your software.
Next Steps
What are your next steps? Will you continue to guess who are your best customers, or spend endless hours manipulating spreadsheets so you can get this information? Or will you invest in a state-of-the-art CRM system that does all this for you? Talk to us about what a CRM can do for you.
Tags: crm, customer relationship management
Posted in CRM, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
In our previous blog post we discussed the importance of identifying all the contacts within your customer’s organization. Get to know who all the players are, and expand your relationships within the companies you do business with.
But you can go beyond that. To really deepen your customer relationships it’s important to know their history.
How much do you know about your customers?
Do you manage every contact you have, including every prospect, every reference and every client? Do you “touch” these connections in a user-friendly, value-added manner, spreading knowledge and good will?
Can you easily find every contact you have ever had with these prospects, references and clients – what they have bought or sought, proposals you have given, prices you have charged, items purchased and the when and where of them?
Making your customers feel special
Knowing your customers’ history makes them feel special, like when you greet an old friend.
When you meet an old friend at the store, you can pick up where you left off. You ask them how their mother is, how their kids are doing, how the new job is treating them.
Knowing your customers’ history, with the help of a modern customer relationship management application, can help you generate the same effect: like you’re meeting an old friend.
You can make your customers feel special.
The soft benefits and the business benefits
Knowing this information can help you with the soft benefits of generating good will, letting your customers know you care, and engendering loyalty.
But there are some solid business benefits as well. Knowing their purchase history with your company, for example, can also help you predict how often they’ll buy in the future, and what else they might want to buy.
You can then focus your marketing efforts on current and past customers, increasing sales to your current customer base, without the attendant expense of acquiring new customers.
Maintaining your customer knowledge base is as important as maintaining your financial records. Maybe its time to devote more resources to client management and less time on rote, automatable bookkeeping tasks…
Tags: crm, customer history
Posted in CRM, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
In our last post, Get rid of non-integrated, archaic computer systems, we learned how labor costs are affected by the old, inefficient computer systems that host your your office software.
But is it just the owner’s job or the accounting department’s job to make sure the company stays profitable? In small and mid-sized companies every person should play a part.
Every salesperson, service provider, administrator and producer can understand their part in creating a profitable work environment. Cutting costs, measuring costs, being efficient and eliminating waste can be parts of every person’s job description. Every person in a small to mid-sized business contributes to a profitable bottom line.
When everybody pulls together for the bottom line, not only is the company is more profitable, but there is an added bonus: employees feel they’re contributing to the greater good.
Tags: bottom line, profitability
Posted in Accounting, Hot Topics | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
In our last blog post, Understand Labor Utilization, we talked about the importance of measuring your labor utilization rate, productivity and return on labor investment.
But let’s look at labor and maintenance costs related to the computing resources you use for your office systems.
If your systems are not shaking hands, throw them away. When the labor to run old, stand-alone systems is analyzed, you may have a much greater return on investment with a newer, simpler, integrated computer system. Every software application is not the same and different vendor solutions offer different benefits. But when labor costs are included in analyzing a solution, newer, faster, integrated packages will give you a greater return and provide the bottom line analysis that you so need.
You may know this already and have put it on the back burner. If profit is your primary motive, analyze the effect that labor and maintenance costs of your old, non-integrated systems have on your bottom line. You will want t move very quickly when you hold this information in hand.
Tags: accounting systems, integration, management systems
Posted in Accounting, Hot Topics | No Comments »
Friday, July 8th, 2011
In our last post we discussed the importance of keeping creating the controls that show the whole picture of your company’s finances.
This is important not only so you can know what’s going on within your company, but also so you can track your company’s progress against your company’s budget.
Don’t operate blindly. Know your fixed monthly costs for everything and anything. Price shop even when you think it isn’t necessary. Understand how more sales or less sales will affect your budget. Realize what is “optional” and separate these discretionary items from the must-haves. Measure budget to actual numbers on at least a monthly basis.
Key to this is having the right people staffing your bookkeeping department, which is the topic for our next post.
Tags: budgeting
Posted in Accounting, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
In our last post, Use a Customer Relationship Management Software, we discussed how a non-accounting software designed to manage the sales process can provide you with valuable information for accounting purposes as well.
All of the information you’ve gathered, including information from your CRM system, Job Costs, labor costs, taken together can help you form a complete picture of your company’s finances.
Some software packages have dashboards that show a recap of sales, purchase orders, payables and profit. Add your own controls to grab the information that matters to you and affects the bottom line. Just be sure that you are looking at a solid, complete view when you analyze the information. It could be a weekly wrap up once all labor, income and costs are entered. The important thing is having the information at your fingertips, and knowing that it is complete.
Having this information within easy reach allows you to compare your actual numbers to your budgetary numbers. We will discuss this next week.
Tags: accounting, reporting
Posted in Accounting, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
In our last post, Use a Job Costing System for every AR invoice that you create, we discussed the importance of using a Job Cost system so you can know the profits of every single job that you do.
But there are non-accounting tools that can help you get a more accurate view of how profitable you are, especially in your sales and marketing processes. A customer relationship management system, or CRM as it is more commonly called, can help you with this.
A CRM system allows you to analyze your sales leads, the time and cost of obtaining new sales, and enables you to see changes in buying patterns of your existing customers. Link this CRM software directly into your Accounting system so that you can analyze all lead generation programs and watch the profitability on a customer by customer, marketing activity and calendar basis.
A CRM system can also help you manage your sales process, from beginning to end.
Next post: Create the Controls That Show The Whole Picture.
Tags: accounting system, cost of sale, crm, sales cycle
Posted in Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Friday, June 24th, 2011
In our last blog post, Use a Time and Billing system for your employed service providers, we emphasized the importance of accounting for the time of production personnel and employed service providers to get an accurate view of labor costs. The idea is to provide you with a more accurate and real time view of your profit and loss situation.
But using a Job Costing system, and using it properly, will help you know the profits on every single job that you do.
Is there any cost of goods in your sales? If so, create purchase orders at the time that you enter your new sale. Automate the profit or loss calculations that each invoice will generate. This is the fastest way to find a problem with your costs, your prices, your overhead and your bottom line. Create the in-house controls that Job Cost systems allow so that you’ll know where you stand on each and every sale you make.
Labor costs. Cost of goods. Tracking these two will give you a more accurate view of your bottom line at any given moment.
Next, we’ll show you how using a Customer Relationship Management system will allow you to view customer acquisition costs, among other things.
Tags: accounting, cost of goods, job costing
Posted in Accounting, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
In our last post, Create a Safe Working Environment, we discussed the importance of being able to access your information from anywhere, at any time, in order to reap the benefits of an in sync, real time system.
By having information “at your fingertips,” you will not have to wait for answers from your accountant about vital information. Financials will be yours for the asking night and day! But do you know how much time your employees that are service providers are spending on their work, and how that affects your cost structure?
Account for time, which so affects your bottom line, and profit problems will show up much faster. Have your employees who are service providers and production personnel utilize time and billing and/or shop floor control systems. Know how your labor costs relate to each job, each invoice and each client.
You have your labor numbers; you pass your stats to a payroll system. Now, incorporate these numbers, “real time” in your bottom line calculation and you will get a much more accurate picture of your costs and bottom line.
Spend a little time to incorporate a Time and Billing system into your accounting software. You’ll be thankful you did.
Next tip: Use a Job Costing system for every AR invoice that you create.
Tags: time and billing, time tracking
Posted in Accounting, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
In our last blog post “Create and Maintain a Real Time View of your Business” we discussed the importance of keeping all your business processes plugged-in and synchronized so you can have a real time view of your business.
But, having this in sync, real time system won’t help you reap the benefits that you need unless it is accessible anytime, from anywhere.
Make it easy to get the information you need when you want it. Don’t rest on a relationship with a bookkeeper where you need to ask for this and ask for that. Learn to access your own information from afar, knowing that it is complete and accurate. Learn to work within your bank’s bill pay system, the on-line access to your payroll system, your vendor’s sites and your own website.
Technology makes it easy for you to access your systems no matter where you are.
So why are you still relying on your accountant to get you information on your finances? Accountants are great at what they do, but don’t let them be a bottleneck. Learn to access your information by yourself remotely.
Next post: Use a Time and Billing system for your employed service providers
Tags: accountant, accounting system
Posted in Accounting, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
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