Tired of playing the lottery with your technology projects?  If so, then we can show you what it’s like to work with a Firm of The Future…forget about the lottery and work with certainty.

Highlights for Abra HR:

• Support for Active Directory logons.  By linking your Abra login id to your Windows login id, you can eliminate the need for a separate login and password to get into Abra.
• Ability to access Sage Abra Support through a chat link located within Abra.
• Employee Find is faster and includes searches for both first and last names.
• Increased security with SSN/SIN masking for all reports (standard and those created through Secure Query).

Highlights for Payroll:

• Greater flexibility for creating custom payment forms.
• Ability to choose whether or not a check should display in Employee Self Service.

Highlights for Employee Self Service (ESS):

• Sage Employee Analytics has the ability to create custom graphical dashboards (when used in conjunction with Sage Crystal Dashboard Design).  Combine workforce cost and performance data into a high level overview and quickly drill down for more detailed analysis.  These dashboards can be viewed from most web browsers (Safari, IE, Chrome and Firefox).
• The ESS user interface has been overhauled to provide easier navigation and the ability to customize the look and feel of your ESS system.
• The new Time Off Calendar provides managers with a monthly view of employee’s’ pending, approved and rejected time off.
• Employees and managers can access ESS on their mobile devices including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows CE, Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile.
• SSN masking for dependents and beneficiaries in Open Enrollment.
• The new Provider Enrollment Details report allows you to send open enrollment information to the benefit provider prior to sending the enrollment updates to Abra.

For more details about all of the enhancements in version 9.1, please click on the What’s New in Sage Abra v9.1 document.

Highlights of the roadmap include:

• Release of Version 4.5!  The roadmap includes an overview of new features in this new version.
• New features in Product Update 6 for Version 4.4
• An overview of Sage Connected Services (like Federal and State e-Filing, Sage Sales Tax and Credit Card Processing)
• Sage ERP MAS 90 Online
• An update on Sage MAS Intelligence, Sage’s new financial reporting tool
• Information on Sage CRM
• A preview of Sage MAS 90 and 200 Version 5.0

SMI is Sage’s recommended replacement for FRx (which has been discontinued by Microsoft).  SMI is Excel-based and can be used to generate financial statements and is capable of generating reports for other MAS 90 and MAS 200 modules such as Accounts Receivable, Inventory Management and Sales Order.  In addition, reports can be created using multiple databases (even non-Sage databases).  For example, a report which combines data from MAS 90 and Abra HRMS.

For a more in-depth look at what you need to learn to get started with SMI, check out the list of Customer Resources that Sage has made available.

I am presenting a session at the conference for other Sage partners who have attended Ed Kless’ Sage Consulting Academy (SCA).  Ed conducts the SCA several times a year to assist partners with becoming better consultants and project managers.  It is a fantastic program that, to my knowledge, has no equal in the world of software publishers.

While every attendee I have talked with feels that they received valuable knowledge from SCA that has made them better consultants, the one comment that Ed and I hear on a regular basis is “we really want to implement these new ideas at our firm but we can’t quite figure out how to do it.”  With that thought in mind, my goal for this session is to provide several real world examples of how we have implemented SCA processes into our business.  Specifically, my focus will be on how to use the project management tools from SCA.

I’m bringing examples of the following tools from several of our projects:

• Business process diagrams
• Issues List
• Project Charter
• Project Manager Selection
• Project Scope

And examples of additional tools that we have developed including:

• Vision Statement
• Pricing Proposal
• Knowledge Transfer Agreement (KTA)

Since this session in an interactive one, I’m encouraging dialog from the group about how you have used knowledge from SCA in your organization.  How has SCA helped you move from a firm of the past to a Firm of The Future?  Please feel free to bring sample project management documents (it doesn’t matter if they are for small projects or large ones) to share with the group.  If you would like, you can e-mail copies of them to me at jshaver@ariestech.com so we can present them to the group.

I’m also open to talk through any aspect of SCA that may be of interest.  Please share those ideas via the comments on this article.

I’m looking forward to seeing all of you on Tuesday, July 12th at 10am!

Highlights of the roadmap include:

• New features in Product Update 5
• Announcing Product Update 6 availability in July 2011
• Overview of automated sales tax processing by Avalara
• Overview of credit card processing by Sage Payment Solutions
• Overview of Sage ERP MAS Intelligence (FRx’s replacement) including information about an FRx Conversion Utility
• New features in Version 4.5, including payroll, sales order and accounts receivable
• Overview of SageCRM
• Announcing MAS 90 Cloud Deployment (only framework modules available)
• New features coming in Version 5, including auto update

• 3.7x, 4.0, 4.05 and 4.1:  September 30, 2011
• 4.2:  September 30, 2012
• 4.3:  September 30, 2013
• 4.4:  September 30, 2014

If you have any questions about the roadmap, please be sure to give Aries a call!

This past January at the international VeraSage conference, I was talking with Ron Baker about how we can more effectively get the message out that the only way for a business to know that a software consultant knows what they are doing is by having that consultant provide them with a fixed price for every project.

Ron provided a wonderful insight.  The most effective way to demonstrate the absurdity of a particular idea (in this case, the billable hour) is to ridicule it.

Greg Kyte, who is a VeraSage Fellow, CPA and professional stand-up comedian, and I started working on a video lampooning the practice of billing time.

The result is Bob’s Barbecue.  It is the first in a series of videos which will depict all of the many ways that the billable hour is harmful and risky for your company.

Additions include:

• Multiple Company Aged Invoice Report:  Print your A/P Aged Invoice Report in a multi-company format and combine vendor information.  You’ll get a complete picture of your vendors across all MAS companies, helping you identify opportunities for improving the bottom line, negotiating better volume discounts or consolidating orders to save on shipping.
• Accounts Payable Check Sorting Options.  Print checks alphabetically by vendor name, not just by vendor number.
• Expense Distribution Tables.  Streamline the entry of invoices in A/P when you need to regularly allocate across multiple departments.
• Security in Item Inquiry.  Four new permission settings are available to further restrict users.  These permissions apply to Item Inquiry and are Allow Access to All Item Inquiry Tabs Including Main and Quantity, Allow Access to Costing, Receipts and Vendor Information, Display Standard Cost Information and Display Vendor Information.
• Inactive Items.  An inventory item can be designated as ‘inactive’ in Inventory Management so it can no longer be purchased or sold.  If an item is marked inactive, you can process returns using RMA or a Sales Order Credit Memo, or maintain history for warranty purposes.
• Company-Specific Background Colors.  Assign an easily identifiable background color for each company in MAS.  This helps ensure entries are made into the correct company.
• 2011 941 Form Update.

Contact Aries Technology Group at (865) 291-0005 x721 for further information about this Product Update or to arrange a time to install the update.  Thank you!

1. The year has been updated to 2011 on the entire form.
2. A new entry field was added for Tax Due on Unreported Tips.
3. There are no changes to the Schedule B for 2011.

Please contact Aries at (865) 291-0005 x721 if you have any questions.

For her thought-leadership, she’s named one of the Ten Most Powerful Women In Accounting in Accounting Today & WebCPA (Oct, 2009) and is one of the Top 100 Most Influential People In Accounting by Accounting Today (Sep, 2010).

Our relationship with Michelle is through the VeraSage Institute, where she is a senior fellow.  As a friend and colleague, Michelle continues to help us improve our business by increasing our social media, pricing and marketing skills.  This past January, she did a fantastic job of facilitating the annual VeraSage conference in Napa, CA.  I learned more in the 2 1/2 days of that conference than I have in every other business conference I’ve attended, combined.

Michelle recently published her first book, Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms.  Even though her book is geared towards professional firms, her wealth of knowledge about social media and marketing can be applied to pretty much any type of business.  I highly recommend it.

Michelle’s book and her blog article below got me thinking about our strategy with Facebook.  We have been having conversations about whether to expand our Facebook presence or scale it back or completely change our approach.  Facebook definitely changes the entire dynamic of the relationships and boundaries between our personal and business lives.  Often very “unnatural” conversations (not necessarily a bad “unnatural” but one that could never have happened without Facebook) occur that are unexpected.  For example, you post a political article which elicits comments from business colleagues, customers, your cousin and a childhood friend you last saw in third grade.  All of a sudden those completely unrelated friends are having a conversation.

My intent is not to frighten anyone away from social media and Facebook but to make the point that everyone in business should really put some mental effort into developing a well thought out strategy for social media.  As Michelle points out below, staying away from Facebook, ignoring it or trying too hard to keep personal and business separate could very well leave you in the cold as you continue to grow and develop your business in the future.

I’m witnessing an increase in the number of people creating “extra” accounts on Facebook to help them manage (separate) business and private personas.

This might seem like a good way to manage privacy such as protecting kiddos or allowing you to let your hair down among close friends and family while maintaining your professional decorum among business associates or even strangers who want to know you, even if you don’t know them.

Others do it not so much for privacy concerns, but to avoid sending business-y messages and links to family and “old” friends who aren’t into your business. That’s thoughtful for sure, but there are other ways to manage this.

Having multiple Facebook accounts is a bad idea for several reasons, one of which is that it violates Facebook’s Terms of Use (see 4.2)

In the FAQs, they more thoroughly explain,

If I already have a user profile, can I create a business account?

Maintaining multiple accounts, regardless of the purpose, is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If you already have a personal account, then we cannot allow you to create business accounts for any reason.

Facebook instead wants you to create a “Page” for your business presence rather than a separate personal profile. So, even if you have a company page (like mine) they would prefer that I set up a “Michelle Golden” business person page.

This is what Facebook “likes”!

They describe in the FAQ that you can manage all your Pages (and ads) that you create from your personal account. And if you don’t want people clicking into your personal life, they won’t. Facebook explains:

Please keep in mind that the fans of any of the Pages you administer will not have visibility or access to your personal account or profile. Any actions that you take as a Page administrator on your Page will show the Page’s name as the [poster] and not your personal name. To create a Page, simply click on the “Create a Page” link under the Sign Up section of www.facebook.com.

This is actually really cool because people can “like” and share your business page and posts so your content can go a lot further than just among your circle of approved “friends.” Also, with a “Page” you can see (aggregated) statistics that tell you if you are engaging well with others, or are having your post stream hidden by others! (gasp)

But let’s talk about the other reasons you might not want to divide your “friends” between two accounts in the first place.

1) MISSING OUT.

When you divide your feed, and “depersonalize” your interaction to the business peeps, you miss out on the whole purpose of using social media for business development! (more below)

2) MANAGING CONTENT RELEVANCE.

By creating “friend lists,” you can designate content you DO want to go to certain people or DON’T want to go to certain people. In other words, if you don’t want to burden “family” or “jr high friends” with your business posts, create a group for them and when you write the business post, simply set the post to exclude viewing by that group.

3) MANAGING PRIVACY.

Take advantage of Facebook’s incredibly rich privacy settings. Avoid sharing your vacation photos (or any other content or links) with your business peeps by placing photos in a special album just for lists of “family” and “close friends.”

REMEMBER, ENGAGING IS WHAT MAKES FACEBOOK VALUABLE AS A BUSINESS TOOL

Facebook is not for broadcasting! (No social media are for broadcasting.) It’s for interacting.

Bottom line is that the much of the point and purpose of using social media in business is for people to become closer. As in friends. As in learning what they have in common and stuff.

I have some Facebook friends who only “do Facebook” for business and it shows. There is no personal engagement. No relationship building. No point (at least for me). It’s dry. It’s boring. It’s a broadcast. No thanks.

REAL RESULTS

Yet there are other Facebook business people that I hardly knew or totally didn’t know before friending on Facebook. Yet we got closer through Facebook. And these people actually constitute the largest percent of people that have hired me or referred business to me as a result of getting to know one another via ANY FORM of social media. More than LinkedIn and more than Twitter.

From personal experience (I haven’t conducted a formal survey, but maybe I should) I attribute this to the fact that I am fairly personal (aka “myself”) on Facebook. And they seem to be, as well. I share and they share. And we get to know each other. We mutually participate and banter. I congratulate them on their marathons, “like” their family photos and song posts, commiserate when they have a rough go, wish them well when they are ill. And I mean it. And they do the same. And it results in building our relationships.

HOW TO GET YOURSELF HIDDEN

People who only feed their Tweets, blog posts, and Foursquare without otherwise engaging others are completely missing out on the benefits of the relationship development aspect of Facebook. Typical user behavior is to “hide” the posts of these people.

There are also some people who, when others comment or congratulate, ignore the messages. Typical user behavior is to stop commenting on these people’s posts. No one likes to be ignored. Sometimes hiding the posts of these people or even unfriending them is a next step.

Again, Facebook is not for broadcasting. It’s not one way. Even brands that merely broadcast, and fail to engage, get “hidden” from user feeds.

WHAT NEXT?

So, instead of creating a separate business presence, first try the friend lists feature to control privacy and/or content distribution.

If that doesn’t suit your needs, create a “Page” for yourself as a professional (even if your company has its own page…you can cross link the pages). But if you go the Page route, be sure that you still engage, and still show some of your personality there. If you want relationships to develop, that is