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Bankers in Denial
Denial is a ubiquitous psychological defense mechanism. It involves the repression of bad news, unpleasant information, and anxiety-inducing experiences. Judging by the German press, the country is in a state of denial regarding the waning...
Doing Business Online — Private B2B Exchanges
Business processes are the building blocks of an enterprise. If one of these processes fails to live up to its expectation, business starts to flounder. How to minimize the risks, get a better monitoring of the processes and, at the same time,...
Ten Business Reasons Why Asking for Help Works
When you are in charge of a team, or a business, it is easy to fall into the trap of being invincible. Asking for help is something that's easy to do - yet, to the uninitiated, it feels like a weakening position. But there are a number of reasons...
The Diamond Cutter
Geshe Michael Roach is a Princeton graduate and a Buddhist monk. After graduation, he spent seven years studying the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism. At the suggestion of his teacher, he joined a fledgling diamond business in New York to test his...
Working Capital: Financial options for small companies
Large companies have always had a number of options when it compes to financing their operations. This paper discusses - and evaluates - the financing options that are available to small business owners.
Disclaimer
This paper is...
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How To Choose The Right Small Business Billing Software
If you own or manage a small business, you know how much time
can be spent chasing down paper invoices, purchase orders and
sales reports. It can be a real nightmare! That is where billing
software comes in. It allows you to record all your customers,
sales, invoices, inventory, suppliers (and more) in a PC-based
system that is easy to use.
Deciding that you need to invest in good quality billing
software is not hard. The tricky part can be choosing the right
software package for your requirements. There are dozens of
systems on the market claiming to be the holy grail of all your
business problems, but choosing the wrong one can cost you
valuable time and money.
Here's a simple checklist of 11 things to look for when
purchasing billing software for your small business:
1) Customer records This is the core element of any
billing system. What sort of information do you need to record
about your customers? There's the obvious things like address,
phone, fax, mobile, email and web address. But what about
marketing-related information like "how did the customer find
out about your business?", and "standard discounts" for key
clients.
2) Multiple contacts & Communication history If many of
your clients are businesses with multiple contacts, can you
record individual contact details for each person? Word of mouth
is the most powerful form of advertising, and statistics show
that one of the most important factors in customer satisfaction
is good customer service. Have you thought about keeping a log
of all communication with your customers? It can be extremely
helpful for improving internal communication within your
business, and results in a more personalised service for your
clients.
3) Multiple shipments Obviously your billing software
will need to create sales orders - that's a gimme. But do you
need to record employee-related information, like who the
"salesperson" was? What about flexible dispatch options, like
multiple shipments per sales order?
4) Search facility There's no point recording all this
really useful information if there's no easy way to get to it.
Check that the search facility is flexible and easy to use. What
criteria can you search by? Here are a couple useful fields you
may want to use: customer phone number, customer address, order
date, dispatch date and dispatch consignment number.
5) Tax & regional support Are you able to change the tax
rates on an order line basis? What about currency formatting? If
you and your clients are in Europe, then there's no point using
billing software that can only handle US dollars.
6) Reporting Producing accurate reports in seconds is
something you no longer have to dream about. In fact it is a
necessity in today's competitive market.
Ensure your billing
software can calculate information on sales based on date,
salesperson and customer type. If you operate a B2B business,
another key performance indicator may be dispatch totals, based
on date, and employee. But one important thing to remember about
software... you can only get out what you put in. So if you are
looking for a specific report, make sure that information is
being recorded by your billing software package.
7) Backup I've seen first-hand how devastating a hardware
failure can be. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of data
can be destroyed in seconds... if you do not have a backup
procedure in place. Ensure you select a billing software package
that has a built-in backup utility or works with your current
backup system.
8) Online help & support If you're a new computer user,
then you'll definitely need a software package that has a
comprehensive online and easy-to-use help system. Also check out
what direct technical support is available through the vendor.
Some software companies charge very high fees for personal
support, so ensure you include this in your budget.
9) Budget How much are you going to spend? That really
depends on the complexity of the software package you are
looking for. Smaller software packages can be found under
US$100, and larger more complex packages can cost well over
US$3000. Take a look at the number of customers you have, the
number of sales orders you process, and choose a solution that
fits your business.
10) Customisations If you purchase an off-the-shelf
billing software package, you may require minor customisations
to suit your unique business processes and industry. Some
software vendors offer customisations at quite reasonable
prices. But ensure you include this cost in your budget.
11) Other features What else do you want from you billing
software? If you deal with fixed price products, you may need a
comprehensive inventory management system allowing you to
purchase stock, manage inventory levels and supplier relations.
Some quality software packages also include a useful follow-up
diary, allowing you to keep track of tasks and assign them to
other staff members.
When choosing a billing software package for your business, make
sure you check that it offers everything your business needs.
And then the only thing you'll have to worry about is what to do
with all your newly found spare time!
About the author:
Josh Bender is an experienced database developer and qualified
software engineer. He helps small-to-medium businesses
streamline processes and improve efficiency using reliable and
proven software solutions. Take a free test drive of
'InstantSalesTracker', easy-to-use billing software:
http://www.InstantSalesTracker.com
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| www.smallbusinessbc.ca |
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