How Many Customers Owe You Over $5K For Over 90 Days? - "Focus Reports"

You have a loan payment or a big payroll coming up. The cash is not there. You pick up your AR Aging Report, to look at what should be collected and it's 100 pages long. You feel a migraine coming on.

I see this problem everyday. Business owners and managers flooded with computer reports that give them to much or to little information.

Take a simple but essential report like your AR aging report. Given the default paramters, most software packages will just happily print out everything. There has got to be a better way. And, there is.

So ask the question, make the demand, I want an AR aging report that will give me only a list of all customers that owe me over $5,000 for over 90 Days?  While you're at it give me their phone numbers and date of last payment.

Hot Tech at NY 2010 Small Business Summit

Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com rocked the house, as always, presenting the winners of this year's "sizzling" Hot Tech awards.  With CRM expert, Brent Leary, Ramon showed some of the latest and greatest new technologies.

The seven winners were selected from over 60 entrants.

Small Office Home Office Technology

Many great businesses start in a home office; grow to a small office, and then build to large successful enterprises. Think of Apple, HP, and Google to name a few obvious examples. There are thousands of companies with less recognition who have started small and grown large. You could be the owner and CEO of a large company some day. On the other hand many businesses start small, stay small and are very successful and profitable as well.

In either case, it pays to look at your long term goals when planning the purchase and implementation of technology for your company.

For example, if you are buying a new computer for your office you may be inclined to buy the computer with the lowest price, but that computer will probably be equipped Windows 7 Home Edition which is fine if you are working alone. If a business with employees is in your plan Windows 7 Proffesional is a better choice. That version offers greater networking capability allowing you to connect your computers and share information more easily which is essential to a growing business.

What Is Your Technology Plan?

What are "Patches" and are they important to you.

We often see news reports of Microsoft and other software publishers releasing "Patches" or "Security Patches" for their software.

A few days ago in the news we saw, "Microsoft Fixes Eight Flaws In Excel", or yesterday "Microsoft warns of zero-day IE hole on Patch Tuesday." These can sound pretty scarry and you may be wondering what do these headlines mean and are they important to me?

Simply stated, a Patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems, software bugs.

A Security Patch specifically addresses fixing security vulnerabilities.

Patches can also include updates in functionality, changes is supporting data or help files and are intended to improve the usability or performance of your software. Practically all software publishers release patches, or what they call updates.


However, though patches are meant to fix problems, poorly designed patches can sometimes introduce new problems.  So what is the best way for you to deal with patches?

What is ERP? Not Wyatt?

When I see ERP I think of Wyatt Earp, don't ask me where that comes from. Maybe from watching too many cowboy shows on TV when I was young. While Wyatt Earp and ERP are not actually pronounced the same I see an analogy here.

Wyatt Earp is a legendary lawman of the turn of the 20th century back in the Wild American West. He was noted for his exploits and adventures and was one effective sheriff and entrepreneur. He got things done.

ERP on the other hand is short for Enterprise Resource Planning, the main type of software used for running businesses, small and large. The term and abbreviation was once pretty much reserved for high end tier one systems but now is applied to every thing, from QuickBooks and Peachtree on up to Accpac, MAS 90, 200, 500 or Dynamics.

ERP software should be an very effective sheriff for your business and help you get things done but often it is not. The problem is:

Contemplating Changes In Your Business?

As a business owner or manager you are no doubt contemplating changing the way you do business. You're wondering whether change is really necessary. I think the answer to that quesion is certainly yes for at least these three obvious reasons.

1. The economy of the United States, the entire world for that matter, has changed. we will never go back to the money traffic of the last decade.  That is not to say there are not plenty of opportunities for success and prosperity. In fact for many there will be greater opportunities than ever before.

2. We are now in what I call the post Web 2.0 era, a time of vast change. So rapid that, for many what was called Web 2.0 passed by without them ever knowing what it was. We are now in what some call the era of "Social Web",  "Network Culture" or "Mobile Web." Frankly, they have not really come up with a good name yet.  But what is happening as a result of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and their hundreds of offspring is nothing short of amazing. These mediums are taking business in directions we never conceived of before. It begins to be explained in this article, What's Next After Web 2.0? Here's What You Told Us... Also, the people  of Gen X,Y & Z are charting their own course, as a result the world of business has become a very different place. And don't forget Generation Alpha.

How Valuable is Technology Training for Your Employees?

I think we could all agree that, in theory, specific job related technology training should increase productivity and result in better business performance.

Yet, so many business who are ready to invest in new hardware, are willing to consider upgrades and better software seem reluctant to spend on employee training. I wonder why.

One reason is that business owners/managers are frustrated because many employees just don't feel they can learn, this translates into thinking that they just don't want to learn. It is unfortunate. But there are things you can do about this.

Another reason is that the training is over the head of those seeking to learn. The material is filled with jargon, starts at too high a level, or is just badly presented. Again this can be corrected.