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Alternative Options for NBN Plans in Australia

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It’s a fact – there are so many NBN suppliers on the market. And it’s safe to say, picking one can be quite hard.

Exetel isn’t the most perceived name in Telco, yet it used to be one of Australia’s biggest private internet companies. It’s currently a part of the Super loop family, which has offered the benefit of plans with faster speeds.

Exetel NBN plans

To showcase what Exetel NBN plans can offer you, we will compare them to other typical NBN suppliers and their regular evening rates, alongside their costs. We will be looking into exactly how much your dollar gets you at a base rate, without the extra thrills – and focus specifically on NBN 50 and NBN 100 internet plans.

Exetel is a bit more costly than most other suppliers, but at the same time, it’s perhaps one of the fastest options around. It reports regular evening rates of 50Mbps and 100Mbps for NBN 50 and NBN 100 internet plans separately, which suggests that you are likely to have less traffic at night. 

Most NBN suppliers have evening speeds of 50Mbps nowadays, so you don’t need to worry too much if your connection will be fast enough if you’re going for this type of plan.

If you’re looking at NBN 100 plans, Exetel definitely offers a lot. Most suppliers offer evening speeds of 90Mbps, but not many provide the full 100Mbps.

SpinTel likewise reports common evening rates of 100Mbps for a less expensive month-to-month bill, however essentially Exetel’s superior valuing additionally gets you premium execution.

Commonplace evening speeds are the NBN download speeds you can expect during the most active hours of the day – I.e. Between 7 pm and 11 pm – due to congestion.

It’s important to know however that simply paying for an NBN 100 arrangement doesn’t ensure you’ll get those that NBN speed the whole time. If you do need that high speed during peak hours, you’ll need to search for a supplier that offers a higher commonplace evening speed.

All Exetel NBN internet plans don’t require you to enter into a contract. You can bring your own modem, or receive a free modem from Exetel. Just know that if you do get a modem from Exetel and cancel your plan within the first six months, you will have a $79 fee.

In-House vs Outsourcing IT Services: Which Is Right For Your Business?

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In today’s modern business world, your business needs to rely on computing and information technology (IT) as the key to succeeding in a highly competitive market. You’ll need IT solutions that will allow you to focus your energy on reaching your business goals without stressing technology. Fortunately, you have plenty of options when it comes to IT services.

Depending on your needs or preferences, you can outsource IT services or have an in-house team handle all your IT requirements. If you don’t know which is right for your business, read below and click here for IT services in Toronto

Determine The Level Of Skills You Need

Your decision to outsource and go in-house will depend on the skill level needed for your business activities. If your tasks are simple, you can benefit from having an in-house team. However, if you need complex IT services, you’ll need the expertise and skills of highly experienced professionals from an outsourcing IT service provider.

man working in data center with hardware

Control

If you have an in-house team, you have more control over the quality of work and response times. You can be sure your team is trained in the IT solutions you need while enabling you to keep the costs within the budget. While an in-house IT team might work slower than outsourced service providers, your team may develop more comprehensive solutions without causing you additional expenses.

Once you decide to outsource IT support services, you won’t control your IT functions. While you can work closely with your hired provider to set priorities and goals, you might not be able to monitor what they’re doing and change direction quickly. You may also need to schedule frequent meetings with your provider to help you maintain visibility and keep them accountable.

Availability

Another thing to consider when deciding whether in-house or outsourced IT services for your business is staff availability. Will you need support anytime, during weekends or outside office hours?

If you opt to hire an in-house team, your employees will only be available during your company’s working hours. They might also not be available when they’re sick or on holiday. For this reason, you may need to have another team member trained to provide support immediately.

With outsourcing IT services, availability will never be your concern as you can always request any assistance or support anytime. This way, you’ll get the help you need whenever necessary.

Salary

With an in-house team, you have to pay your staff members a salary and benefits. On the contrary, outsourcing is different as the service provider will handle their employees’ wages. You only need to pay for the services you avail of. Therefore, if you want something cost-effective for your business, your best choice is to outsource your IT services. But, if you have the budget, there’s nothing wrong with investing in creating an in-house team.

man checking on laptop if servers are working fine

Familiarity Needed With The Business

You might want to know how familiar your staff will need to be with your business. Do they have to be fully integrated with your organization? How much do they need to participate in internal company events and meetings?

One of the benefits of outsourcing IT services is that often providers are already familiar with the company they work with, especially if they do regular on-site support. Outsourced professionals may also serve as de facto part-time staff because of how comfortable they are with your company.

Keep Flexibility In Mind

Once you outsource IT services, you can maintain a flexible approach to get it done. Generally, providers can get more creative about solving issues as approaching the task is up to them. With an in-house team, it’s up to your business to provide the policy or solution to do the job.

Scalability

If you need dedicated IT support for your new platform, you must keep scalability in mind. It’s because what happens if you suddenly require less or more of the expertise and service provided? If you have an in-house team, you may need to hire more staff members or waste your resources to lessen the IT support. They may be overwhelmed or underworked, depending on the case.

With outsourcing, scalability will never be your problem, as you can quickly scale the support down or up depending on your needs. However, having an in-house team may not provide you with the same versatility.

Determine Whether You Need Client-Facing Or Internal Staff

Several businesses may require an in-person presence for their projects. You may need client-facing employees to serve as on-site IT support. For this reason, the benefit of hiring an in-house team may outweigh the benefits of outsourcing IT services, aside from assigning your team members to a particular office location.

Outsourcing your IT services will provide you with countless benefits if you don’t need client-facing employees. Since they can work from anywhere, they can work off-site or on-site. They can even be contacted for your required remote IT support services, enabling your company to provide a better customer experience with quality IT solutions.

Know The Other Costs Involved

Maintaining an in-house team has other costs aside from the benefits and salary of your employees. One of these is the costs involved in finding a bigger place to accommodate your in-house team. It would help if you also spent more on supplies and office equipment. Moreover, you have to provide sick leave, holidays, or personal time off for your employees.

If you decide to outsource IT services, your chosen provider will assume such costs. They’ll handle the extra costs for their staff working on your projects, so you don’t need to worry about it.

Final Thoughts

Trying to decide whether to outsource IT service or stick with an in-house IT team for your business is a decision you need to make based on the scope of your tasks and the kind of company you run. Generally, you need to outsource IT services if you want more flexibility and enjoy savings. On the other hand, you may require an in-house IT team to control how the work gets done.

All in all, your decision may depend on the goals you’re trying to achieve. If you want IT services without the hassle that comes with managing and hiring an in-house team, outsourcing is your best bet.

Tips That Will Make Your Virtual Meetings More Effective And Interesting

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The latest studies and research tell us that remote meetings are the worst managed least participatory meetings and those in which the concentration of the attendees is lost faster and faster. In addition, they are ranked among the most inefficient. Does it look familiar to you? And you will think, well, if now we spend the whole day from videoconference to videoconference.

Virtual Meeting

1. Let’s Not Invite Extra People

It is proven that not being invited to a meeting is one of the things that usually annoy us the most. It is normal that it may seem harsh to us, but if we think about it, how many meetings have we been called to and that, when we connect, we automatically think, this is not for me? In how many meetings would we have been grateful to be invited to only part of it? We must change our mentality and think about respecting the time of our colleagues so that they do it with ours. I like to say that we should have each other’s backs.

Since remote meetings Klaxoon can be recorded and, this is best, played back faster, up to twice as fast, let’s keep them in the loop by sending them the recording.

2. Let’s Prepare An Agenda

Why don’t we prepare an agenda with the questions to be answered? It will help us focus the meeting and allow us to know better who needs to be present. Naturally, they should be the people relevant to the questions.

And how best will we know if the purpose of the meeting has been achieved? Well, see if we were able to answer the questions we had asked ourselves.

If the meeting is going to have participants from several countries, let’s take into account the time differences and, if possible, the social customs of those countries, such as holidays, days off, etc.

3. Mute Our Microphone When We Don’t Speak

By silencing ourselves, we avoid annoying noises and contribute to the clarity of the message that is being spoken at that moment.

In many video collaboration platforms, it is already common to use the space bar to open the microphone and, pressing it, send our messages. We can ask the participants to test how to silence themselves, asking them to identify themselves the first times they participate in the meeting, thus helping us to gain confidence with the collaborative tool, and above all, we create presence: we are here. But we must also be aware that silence is not the same as agreeing with what others say. It can be very convenient to use real-time polling or voting features or applications to validate points.

4. Encourage Camera Use

We want attendees to be fully involved, active, and participatory and not multitasking: answering email, surfing the web, etc. Activating the video will greatly improve communication and avoid misunderstandings. Letting ourselves be seen and thanks to non-verbal language, we will greatly increase the probability of holding an effective meeting.

5. Use Collaborative Tools

During meetings, it is important to use the collaborative and technological tools that we have. This encourages greater participation and stimulates the exchange of ideas. Some of these tools are:

  • Chat: Participants can report any incident or even send files
  • Blackboards: We encourage brainstorming and ideation.
  • Surveys: What better way to keep the attention and validate the points discussed.

6. Good Practices

There is a whole series of good practices that will help us to make the meeting work. Some, like muting the microphone, we have already discussed, but there are many more.

If there is no video, saying our name when starting to speak is convenient, not everyone has to know us before or know our voice; test that everything works and try to connect a few minutes beforehand in case there is an issue to be resolved; be punctual; if several participants are in the same room, try to avoid getting into group conversations; do not capitalize on the meeting, do not repeat the same thing several times, avoid monologues, etc. And, above all, be polite, don’t step on someone else’s word, listen and let them speak.

Advantages of Using a Paystub Generator

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A paystub generator is an online tool that effortlessly creates paystubs for employers. They bring countless benefits to a business. 

Electronic paystubs are becoming increasingly popular as they save a lot of time and hassle for employers. Creating fake pay stubs to receive money is illegal, but it is perfectly legal to use and create pay stubs through an paystub generator.

What is a Paystub

Paystubs are proof of income provided by your employer. You are given these after some time for completing work for your employer. They will also show the wages you pay back in taxes to the government and can come in paper form or electronically. 

Depending on your location, there will be different tax deductions to pay according to your state laws. Deductions may include payments towards loans, charity contributions, or child support payments.

The employer must provide all of these on a paystub:

  • Statement period
  • Regular and overtime hours of work
  • Employer contributions
  • Wage rate and overtime rate
  • Hours took off
  • Earnings paid
  • Tax deductions

When Do You Need A Paystub

Physical proof of a paystub is required in many situations, such as:

Applying for a Loan

Whether applying for a personal loan or an auto loan, banks will require you to prove that you will be able to pay back this money. Provide a paystub to do so. This will prove that you are making an income and can pay back the money they are loaning you.

Filing Taxes

When you file for your tax returns each year, you are required to know how much you made and paid in taxes over the course of that tax year. Find this information by looking at your paystubs. The government uses this information to decide how much money you receive or owe on your tax return.

Renting

Similarly, landlords require paystubs to make sure the person applying to move in can pay for the rent. If you fail to pay your rent, then they are responsible.

Compensation

If you were in an accident that injured you and prevented you from working, a paystub is required to apply for compensation benefits and continue to receive payment while not working. There are laws that an employee who cannot work due to injury is entitled to compensation.

Tax Audit

Hold onto paystubs for at least three years. If the government decides to do an audit, you will need a paystub. Audits can go back three years. After this time, it is acceptable to discard the documents, ensuring that you can file your taxes at the end of the year. When you are ready to discard your paystubs, shred them so that no one can steal your information. 

Proper Use of Paystub Generator

When entering information into a paystub generator, ensure that you include all the correct information, including gross pay. It is the amount of money the employer makes before deductions.

Make sure that each dollar amount is exact, do not round or estimate values. That removes authority from the document and results in it not being processed. 

Stay away from free paystub generators. These can be tempting but aren’t worth the risk. They are prone to invalid inputs and unprofessional-looking paystubs. It is better to pay to have them done.

Benefits Of Paystub Generators

Here are the main advantages of paystub generators and how they can help you.

Paystub Generators Eliminate Errors

Plugging in information manually can easily lead to mistakes if not paying attention. One wrong comma or number can create a false paystub. Manually typing out paystubs also takes time. If you hire someone to do it for you, it will cost you money. 

Paystub generators eliminate these factors and ensure that the paystub is free of error. The generator will determine your state and the tax and law regulations. If a law changes, the generator will acknowledge this. 

Keeping up with regulations and changes yourself is difficult. If an error on a paystub occurs, it can result in a check bouncing, which results in lost money and possibly legal trouble.

Paystub Generators Create Records

Manually creating paystubs and storing them in a file cabinet takes a lot of time. Similarly, searching for a paystub takes time to sort through and find the correct one.

Paystub generators store all of your paystubs online neatly and efficiently, making it easy to access them. They are all stored online and cannot get lost. It is effortless to email them to workers as well.

It is also required to have records of paystubs if the government ever needs to audit your business. Instead of looking through different folders trying to find the paystub from a couple of years back, it is much more efficient to type in the year online to gain access.

Paystub Generators Create Professional Looking Documents

Employees can choose all the information they wish to include in their paystub and it will be formatted nicely with no mistakes. Employers will be impressed with the professional appearance and timely delivery of your documents.

Paystub Generators Save Time

Having a large business with many employees makes writing out paystubs time-consuming. Improving other areas of your business is a better use of time. Paystub generators will quickly generate the paystubs for you, saving you hours. 

Employees don’t have to worry about waiting to receive paystubs in the mail as they are automatically entered online each month. 

Paystub Generators Are Great For Self-Employed Freelancers

If you are running a remote freelance business, there is no way to give your employees a physical paystub. The paystub generator solves this problem. It will send each employee their paystub online. 

Freelance workers often have to rely on their paystubs during tax season, so having a digital paystub will make the process go more smoothly.

Final Thoughts

Paystub generators are great for the environment and the perfect alternative to the physical version. Instead of having hundreds of papers printed, everything is digitally accessible. You can finally remove that large filing cabinet from your office, making it look tidier by switching to the digital filing system. 

For whatever reason, you may need a paystub, be it professional or personal, consider using a paystub generator to ensure a neat and accurate collection of all your information. You can browse for some examples of paystubs to find out which one suits you best.

Do You Need An ERP? 4 Signs You Should Implement One

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When a company is just starting, it would often have to make do with just using the readily available software applications and IT solutions for their data management needs. Most office tasks can be handled by the popular word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database applications. But, as the company grows, they’d soon show some signs that their existing systems and applications are no longer adequate for their requirements.

Larger enterprises often set up an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and applications for their specific needs. An ERP is a powerful database management system and solution. If you think your company is going through signs that it needs an ERP, you might want to click here for Nexinfo’s ERP implementation checklist or one from other reliable sources.

ERP enterprise

Here are some of the indicators, which could mean that your company should consider adopting and installing an ERP system:

Your Data And Numbers Are Often Mixed Up

One of the surest signs that you might have to consider implementing ERP is when your internal teams or departments often have mixed up data and numbers. When your finance, human resources, sales, and marketing departments run different systems and applications, they’re bound to have different versions of the same data set. This will take up a lot of company time and result in inefficiencies and maybe even errors down the line.

Each time your company has a new customer, their account would have to be set up separately in each of the different systems and applications of all your relevant internal teams. Each new customer would have to be given an account on your books, an account in your marketing systems, and another account in your sales monitoring applications. Whenever a sale is made, the finance department won’t know unless the sales team tells them. Also, the marketing department won’t know that a collection has already been made so they can pitch your other products.

This situation will require your teams to devote staff who’ll constantly update their data and numbers separately. They would also have to check and review whether the data encoded is accurate, and this can take up a lot of company time. Fortunately, an ERP system can solve this inefficiency. Any update on your ERP will reflect across all units since their applications are integrated with each other. Aside from that, review of the data set would be easier and more efficient, too, since they only have to check one data set.

You Always Seem To Have Inventory Issues

When a company doesn’t have an ERP, it’ll often experience issues with accuracy in inventory data management. Having too much inventory ties up the cash flow of a company. If you have too much raw materials in stock for a long time, too many work in progress (WIP) items, or even too much finished goods in your warehouse, these are indicators that you’re not able to track inventory efficiently. It means you’re producing too much before your marketing, sales, distribution, and logistics teams are able to sell and move them.

Inefficient inventory management will have effects down the line whether the company has excess or deficient inventory. When there’s too much raw materials or inventory in stock, too much money is tied down and warehouse space taken up. If the raw materials were on credit, the money tied down would also entail interest expenses.

When there’s a lack of raw materials, production would dip. The production units won’t be able to meet the purchase orders of customers. This would affect the targets of the sales teams. Some customers might be forced even to buy from other suppliers. This could cause issues in the production or distribution schedules of the customers or clients. Some of them may opt to change suppliers if these issues of delayed deliveries persist. 

ERP

By employing ERP, the integrated data management framework and applications will allow your different internal teams to work with one data set and streamline the inventory data management and operations. The production department can forecast their need to purchase raw materials and supplies based on the forecast and reports of the marketing and sales teams. Accounting and finance can forecast the budget requirements of the production team based on the sales reports and the production forecast.

Troubles In Meeting Schedules And Deadlines

Companies that don’t have their own ERP often encounter problems and issues in meeting schedules and deadlines. Startups don’t have these issues yet since demand for their products is still not that huge. But, when a company starts to attract more clients and get more orders, that’s when the troubles in meeting schedules and deadlines start. This is another sign and operational indicator that a company is already feeling the need to adopt and install an ERP to replace their systems.

Here are some of the specific practical indicators that a company is experiencing numerous troubles in meeting deadlines and schedules:

  • When there are increasing incidents of customer complaints about delays in the delivery of their orders
  • When there are increasing instances when the production unit reports that it doesn’t have enough raw materials
  • When your internal teams are spending too many meetings trying to coordinate daily business operations

Too Much Time And Effort Spent On Information Management

When a company doesn’t have its own ERP, their internal teams and departments tend to set up and maintain separate information and communication silos. The effect of this is that different departments will develop their own separate and distinct databases and workflow systems. Updates in one department or information silo won’t be automatically and simultaneously reflected in the database of another department.

The effect of this is that all departments would have to devote a considerable amount of their human resources and company hours toward maintaining and updating their data management systems. They would also have to update their databases after receiving their copies of the reports and updates from the other departments. By contrast, if they had an ERP, once a dataset is updated, the changes will be accessible to all and reflected in the copies of every department.

Conclusion

A growing company will often encounter numerous issues, challenges, and difficulties. These issues could be in keeping the inventory at pace with the production capacity and the sales performance or keeping the collections in step with the financial requirements of production and operation. Most of these signs could possibly mean that it’s time for the company to have an ERP system set up.

9 Ways Businesses Can Benefit From Bitcoin

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Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are rapidly integrating into our society today. However, the same can’t be said about businesses. Their slow adoption and reluctance in adopting cryptocurrency stem from the lack of knowledge. To take your business to the next level, discover the benefits of adopting Bitcoin in this article.

With Bitcoin, your business will experience:

Bitcoins Wallet

Increased Brand Recognition

The sheer number of competitors in the market might make it harder for you to stand out as an organization.

However, you can adopt Bitcoin in your operations and stand out. How so? When you make transactions easy for your clients and meet their needs, they’ll spread the word and give your business increased visibility. Other businesses will get interested in offering the same services as you. However, by the time they learn how to invest in Bitcoin, you’d have already made your mark in your industry, giving you a competitive edge against competitors.

Wide Customer Base

As various parties worldwide adopt Bitcoin, embracing it places you in a better position internationally. 

Trading using cryptocurrency allows you to have local clients and global ones. Another business might offer the same services as yours, but they utilize the traditional exchange system. With your firm allowing Bitcoin transactions, clients will often opt for your business due to the versatility of bitcoin. You’ll get to meet their needs despite their geographical location. 

Ease Of Transaction

Bitcoin allows for paperless transactions with your customers, reducing the formalities needed to make or receive a payment, previously witnessed in the fiat exchange system.

Payments are only made through an online platform, an easier alternative than going to the bank to process a payment. Apart from the two transacting parties, there are no middlemen or other parties involved during a transaction, such as your bank or a regulatory body.

Increased Customer Satisfaction

More often than not, customers are always satisfied with services rendered through Bitcoin. This is because minimal approvals are needed, there are no delays in the process, and cryptocurrency offers privacy.

Bitcoin has a way of hiding the identity of its clients, who are only identified through public keys that change after making a transaction. Your customers don’t share their financial information, making it a secure platform for them. This, in turn, increases their satisfaction levels.

Increased Revenues

Businesses have the potential to increase their revenues through Bitcoin. How?

With Bitcoin enabling you to break business barriers internationally, you have a broad market for your services, widening your customer base. Unlock new segments of the market you haven’t reached before. More clients, both local and international, means more sales.

structure

Reduced Costs

Many costs are incurred while using the fiat exchange system. Your clients are charged a fee for any transaction made using their credit cards and during international money transfers. Most banks charge a fee for all their services. All these small costs pile up and end up costing you money. 

However, these small charges are reduced with Bitcoin, if not eliminated. You can store your money in a bitcoin wallet that doesn’t charge maintenance fees. There are also no currency exchange fees associated with bitcoin transactions. This reduces costs to your clients and your business, making it a viable platform to adopt as a business.

No Reversable Transactions

With the regulated exchange platforms, clients can cancel an order made, even after you’ve processed the order. This takes your business through many losses, not forgetting the inconveniencies caused by such a cancellation.

Bitcoin eliminates these losses since once a customer has confirmed a transaction, they can’t reverse the order made. This safeguards your business processes and resources, placing you in a better position.

More Business Control

The regular exchange system gives business owners minimal control over their finances. A lot of bureaucratic red tape is involved in larger transactions and can be a hassle for business owners.

Adopting bitcoin gives you more control, if not absolute control, over your business’ finances. There’ll be no one questioning your transactions, denying you access to your finances, among other inefficiencies.

Safe Data Storage

As previously mentioned, Bitcoin gives your business a wallet, where you store your money online, under a hidden identity. This system also provides a backup to safeguard your finances and prevent the loss of data.

With a bitcoin wallet, you’ll not worry about losing your money through a heist, among other ways.

Conclusion

Bitcoin is a system that you should adopt for your business. This will give you an edge in the market as one of the first businesses to do so. Before incorporating the use of bitcoins into your company, you need to learn how it operates. By doing this, you’re able to utilize its features to the maximum, eliminating any risks arising from errors due to the lack of know-how. 

How IT Support Services Can Enhance Your Financial Management

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Managed IT Service Provider (MSP) can provide solutions to most of the issues and concerns that businesses have with maintaining their financial records and financial management systems. MSP can enhance financial transactions, bookkeeping and recording, invoicing, and generating reports.

If you’re a business operating out of the state of Texas, you’re probably looking for some Information Technology (IT) solutions for your financial management concerns. Hence, you might want to consider expert managed IT services in Houston and other similar firms. Moreover, here are some of how IT support services can enhance your business’s financial management.

team explaining graphical data chart

1. Automate Financial Transactions And Accounting Records

An IT consulting service can enhance your financial management through the automation of your bookkeeping ledgers, journals, and accounting records. There are many aspects of bookkeeping and accounting that can be enhanced through automation. Some of the things that accounting clerks do can be easily done by computers through automation solutions and accounting software applications.

Automation software, for example, may evaluate scanned sales invoices and receipts. Furthermore, the information is stored automatically in the ledgers and journals in the computer files and databases where it belongs. The majority of commercial proprietary accounting software can easily accomplish this. Some of the most fundamental bookkeeping chores that an MSP may automate are listed below.

  • Record bills, delivery receipts, sales invoices, official receipts.
  • Prepare invoices and send them to customers or clients.
  • Document transactions according to their category.
  • Create journal entries both in the general journal and the account journal.
  • Track and save bank deposit slips and bank statements.
  • Take note of payment of bills, utilities, rent, and other operational expenses.
  • File statements of account received from vendors and suppliers.

2. Use CRM For Sales To Enhance Financial Management

Sales is another area where MSP can enhance your financial management. An MSP can install and customize a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for a sales software solution for your company. CRM for sales is a powerful technology tool that can optimize the capabilities of your sales force. With CRM, your sales team can access all the customer data to engage the customer’s needs and requirements and convert the interaction into a sale.

An MSP can integrate your CRM for sales with your financial management systems and software applications. This would allow your sales teams to access information about the purchasing behavior of your existing as well as repeat clients and customers.

For example, MSP IT can integrate the data on a customer’s payments history to the CRM for sales system. This would give your sales teams an insight into the seasons when a specific customer would most likely place an order. It could also show the times when they would have the cash to pay for what they bought. This would enable your sales team to know when to engage for possible repeat sales. It would also enable your accounting teams to know when to send statements of account or follow through on payment requests.

3. Automate Your Sales Invoice Management

 Invoicing is a crucial aspect of business transactions and financial management. Delays in preparing and sending invoices mean that your business would also be delayed in sending them to your customers and clients. Buyers and customers who haven’t received invoices from you would have no reason yet to process their vouchers and checks to pay for what they owe your company.

These delays would exacerbate the operational issues and inefficiencies experienced by your accounting, field messenger, collection, and bank transaction employees. By automating your sales invoice administration, an MSP may help you eliminate these inefficiencies.

They can install and set up existing invoicing software and integrate these with your messaging, transmittal, and communications systems. Your accounting staff can schedule the sending out of invoices once the conditions or requirements are completed. Your collections staff can be copied in the transmittals so they’d know which customers and clients have already been sent their invoices.

4. Give Managers Real-Time Access To Financial Documents

An MSP IT can help your company’s financial management by providing real-time access to financial records of their offices and departments to the company’s senior leadership and managers.

checking graph in team

For instance, the sales teams could have access to the remaining budget allocations of buyers who have contract or sales agreements with your company. This information could enable them to make follow-through sales calls and presentations if the customer or client still has a lot of unused allocation.

The procurement team could have real-time access to the budget used up by the different departments out of their respective annual allocations. This would enable the procurement team to coordinate more efficiently. It would show the requests and expenses of the various departments based on what they’ve used up and spent so far up to that accounting period.

5. Give Mobility Solutions To Your Employees

An MSP IT can also enhance your financial management by providing remote and mobility solutions to your managers, staff, and other employees. There are financial management difficulties and inefficiencies that can be solved and increased if managers and staff can deliver conversations or documents via remote or mobile solutions.

The MSP may, for example, assist collection managers in establishing a strategy with their messenger and collecting personnel that would reduce the number of aging invoices with unpaid payments. The messenger staff would know, for instance, if they’re going to collect a check from a customer whose office or manufacturing plant is also near another customer with an uncollected payment. This would enable the collections staff to try to collect payment.

If the procurement manager has access to current financial information, he or she may handle the acquisition of particular supplies and materials more efficiently. They can also more effectively manage the timing of purchases and procurements with the fluctuation of the market prices of inputs and other raw materials. In short, they can buy when the prices are low. This might be done provided they have a clear understanding of the company’s planned cash flow and forecasted procurement appropriation.

Conclusion

Getting an MSP can address the gaps and inefficiencies in your financial management systems that you thought couldn’t be solved anymore. IT solutions are highly suitable for financial management systems because both deal with information management. Many facets of financial management can benefit from technological advancements.

7 Business Benefits Of A Cost-Effective Inventory Tracking System

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One of the biggest challenges of growing your business is managing your inventory. 

You can easily manage a small inventory with manual bookkeeping or maybe a spreadsheet when starting. However, as your business and order volume grow and you expand into new markets, attempting to manage your inventory operations becomes impossible manually.

Not only can it become a hassle, but it can also be a significant barrier to your business’s growth and success. This is where effective inventory management and tracking system becomes beneficial. 

As its name implies, an inventory management system refers to the technology that governs how you approach your inventory management. Moreover, it allows you to track and manage your products throughout your entire supply chain, from the purchases to the end sales.

This article will further discuss the whys of your business’s reliable inventory management and tracking system.

Inventory

Simplified Inventory Management

Perhaps the most obvious benefit to using an inventory management and tracking solution is that it makes the whole process of handling your inventory a lot easier, more convenient, and more efficient. This causes you to save time and money.

With supply and demand changing every single day and your stock levels fluctuating to accommodate those changes, an inventory management system can help automate your process to keep up with daily demands in your warehouse.

Using an inventory management system, you can eliminate manual and labor-intensive processes like typing inbox numbers or product numbers individually. By automating these processes and tasks, you can free up employee resources and spend their time on more important work in your business.

Higher Productivity

With an organized and systematic inventory management system, you get more things done in less time.

Using software can help manage your inventory that cuts down the time it takes to process, track, and audit your products. With a single and real-time interface, you can check the stock amounts on all your business inventory, follow what is selling, connect to payment apps for purchase orders and invoicing, find vendor information, and so much more.

Improved Inventory Tracking Accuracy

Some inventory management system comes with technological innovations that allow for more streamlined and accurate product tracking. 

For instance, radio frequency identification or RFIDs has become increasingly common in warehouse environments to track and trace inventory. RFIDs can be used to eliminate or reduce the need for hand-scanning. In addition, it prevents data duplication, transcription errors, and ‘missed items’ when used to track large numbers of products simultaneously.

This will result in significant and immediate improvement in your inventory tracking and management.

If you’re interested in increasing the accuracy of inventory tracking in your warehouse, consider an RFID-enabled system. It would be best to work with companies like Lowry Solutions, which offers expertise in RFID inventory tracking software to ensure quality and efficiency in handling inventory tracking demands. You can click here for an RFID inventory management system.

Cost Savings

By streamlining your inventory management and tracking process, you can save money and cost in your daily operations. For one, it can help improve and shorten your supplier’s lead time with better supplier management relationships. Also, in connection with the previous point, better accuracy helps in reducing obsolete and excess stock, not to mention the costs incurred. 

However, automation is perhaps the most significant cost-saving with an inventory management system. Automating your manual processes can prevent poor inventory management, avoiding errors such as overstocks and stock-outs that can cause significant revenue losses.

Prevent Over- Or Under-Stocking

With regards to overstocks and stock-outs, an inventory management system can help you maintain the right balance in your warehouse. 

Too much stock can take up valuable warehouse space and incur unnecessary charges. Meanwhile, too little supply can lead to stock-outs causing potential loss of sales and unhappy customers. 

With inventory management and tracking software, you can track low stock levels and identify your re-order points for each product you have. This can avoid the occurrence of stock-outs or overstocks.

In addition, suppose you’re unsure how to set up or calculate a re-order point. In that case, most inventory management systems use formulas and previous data from your company to calculate them for you automatically. 

Happy And Satisfied Customers

Happy customers mean a happy business. Furthermore, an inventory management system can help boost your name in the eyes of your customer by improving your services. 

As mentioned before, an inventory management and tracking system can help increase inventory accuracy. This ensures that the right product is delivered to the right place. Moreover, by automating tasks, those items are also provided to customers faster. 

Some software even has real-time update features that notify customers about their shipment, including time arrival estimation. This gives your customers the tools to determine when their products are set to arrive, reducing their worries and saving you from answering questions about their product shipment. 

As a result, you can expect a significant increase in customer satisfaction that ultimately benefits your business’s bottom line.

Enhance Inventory Forecasting

A reliable inventory management system can help produce valuable sales necessary in making more data-driven business decisions. 

For instance, if you fully understand the law of supply and demand, you can also anticipate sale trends. This gives the business a competitive edge and can reduce operational costs. 

Most inventory management and tracking systems are equipped with tools such as reporting and inventory metrics that you can use to make strategic decisions.

In addition, with these analytics and data, you can work out your inventory turnover rate while also identifying opportunities for reducing the amount of inventory you’re holding in your warehouse as well as lowering inventory carrying costs. 

Take Away

Running an effective inventory management operation can be a challenging task. Fortunately, there is software out there that can take a lot of the hassle out of the process.

Using a specialized inventory management system and considering the benefits mentioned above can help you get on top of your business’s busy daily operation and allow you to stay competitive in your specific industry.

5 Essential Qualities To Look For In An IT Consulting Service

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There’s no doubt that IT (information technology) is the future. Nowadays, everything revolves around technology, innovation, and information. This is great because the transformative power it possesses is quite immense.

Because of technology, the world has become a much more convenient place to live in for everyone. It’s made creating a digital reality possible. Now, every organization, business, government agency, or individual requires an IT service of some sort. It ranges from virtual assistants to automated technologies, to database management systems, to enterprise resource management systems, to advanced information systems, among many others.

Also, different businesses have different business models. They, too, can be further classified by industry. Industries have unique characteristics that encourage businesses to adopt certain types of technologies.

So, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution in the world of IT, thus, the need for a New York IT consulting service or one from your locality. But, not just any consultant. You need to look for the one that’s best suited for your business’s needs, one you can rely on, and one who can take on any task as professionally and efficiently as possible in order to get your money’s worth.

That being said, here are five of the essential qualities you need to look for in an IT consulting service:

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Professionalism And Experience

This is a very important quality to look for when selecting an IT consultant. You want to deal with a company that has a commendable reputation and character. You don’t want to hire a company whose employees mistreat their customers doing business with you. Perhaps, the best advice would be to not deal with a company you won’t even refer to somebody else.

Therefore, the best place to start when ensuring the professionalism of your prospective company is to do proper research. A company’s track record usually speaks for itself. You can look for online reviews of their past clients. Customer testimonies usually reveal the level of professionalism that the company has.

A company that cares about keeping its reputation intact will invest in training its employees on how to treat customers and do their job the right way. Keep in mind that consultancy is also a business. You, as the client, need to be taken care of properly; otherwise, they risk losing customers to other competitors. So, do your homework to determine the level of professionalism and experience your prospective company has.

The ideal company is the one that has the most experience. Even though the experience isn’t synonymous with giving wonderful service, it’s a good place to start in shortlisting possible consultants you’d want to use for your company.

Advisory Skills

The main responsibility of a consultant is that of giving advice. So, the consultant has to be knowledgeable about what they do. And, in this case, they have to be knowledgeable about IT. They have to be excellent advisors—that’s what you’re paying them to do.

Also, they have to possess good problem-solving skills. They have to combine the facts of a matter, analyze them, and advise about what steps you can take to solve a problem or to improve a system. What you want is someone who’s going to give you pieces of advice that actually work. And. also you want someone who’s able to come up with effective solutions tailored to the specific issues you’re facing.

You also want an advisor who’s going to tell you the truth. A good advisor will keep it real with you, no matter what. It also relates to the first point about professionalism because those companies that have a reputation to maintain will give you exemplary service; they’d want you to come back. Also, they’ll have a lot to lose if their image is tarnished, so to fail is the last thing they’d want to happen.

Technical Skills

You need to have to work with a technically competent team. This is important because you need people who know what they’re doing and have an in-depth understanding of IT. You want people who’ll deliver high-quality consultancy services every single time. Technical competence ensures that your business is safe in their hands.

Communication Skills

A good consultant has to be equipped with superb communication skills. Good interpersonal skills are a prerequisite. A good consultant has to know how to convey a message, even to a crowd of people who are clueless about how a system works.

IT has a lot of jargon that your employees may not understand. So, on top of having a consultant who’s knowledgeable in IT, they also have to be very good at communication. They need to be able to explain how certain functionalities or how certain systems work. This makes it important for a consultant to communicate with team members effectively. They need to understand what you say for them to understand and do the right thing.

Time Management Skills

You’re paying someone else to assist you. So, ideally, you’d want to maximize every hour that you pay them to work. Thus, the IT consultant you should hire has to have great time management skills. They should have an organized schedule to help them accomplish tasks on time because deadlines are very important. This is because the completion of one process can affect the completion of the entire project. So, when looking for a consultant, observe their time management skills.

Mind you, clients always observe how well consultants manage deadlines. It is a consultant’s job to meet the deadlines as agreed or as suggested. Your time is valuable and you can’t afford to waste it on a consultant who doesn’t value your time.

Conclusion

So, when you’re looking for an IT consultancy service, you need to consider your business’s needs first. Also, consider looking for consulting professionals in the field that your business operates—this is the ideal thing to do, but it doesn’t have to be the standard. Some IT consulting services are very flexible and adaptable, especially those that are virtual or can go virtual. So, in addition to the aforementioned, be diligent in research to identify the right company for you.

3 Benefits of Using Video on Social Media

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Worried about the low engagement on your social media pages? Then, it’s time to explore the magic of videos. As per the survey results by Animoto, 93% of businesses successfully acquired a new customer after posting a video on social media. In the post-pandemic world, videos are a raging trend. In this scenario, let’s delve deep into the 3 key benefits of using videos on social media. We will also explain how you can come up with a fantastic video using a video editor tool.

3 Top Benefits of Using Video on Social Media

How does Social Media help Brands connect with consumers

1. Video influences customers to purchase – Are you aware that attention spans are getting shorter?. Unlike earlier times, consumers just don’t have the patience to read piles of textual data. That’s where a short, attention-grabbing video comes into the picture. It’s pretty simple. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster by the brain when compared to text. ( Sources: Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco)

There’s one more strong reason for you to come up with a video. Post the outbreak of Covid-19, most of the purchases have shifted online. As lockdowns are becoming quite common, consumers are increasingly using social media. The data released by Meta shows that in Italy, the number of Facebook and Instagram views doubled just in a week when the Covid-19 outbreak happened. However, the problem is that there are millions of videos out there on social media. Unless you come up with a fantastic video, yours will get lost in the ocean. 

The challenge is to come up with a video that conveys your marketing concept in a very short span of time. Thus, create a video that stands out from the rest of your competitors. Try to develop one that is informative. It should be engaging as well. Make sure that your video is short and throws light into your products and services. A video that is too long is not going to attract views. Do you feel that creating a video is a cumbersome task? Not anymore. With a video maker application, it’s pretty simple. Now, just choose one from a wide range of pre-made templates. In no time, perform your edits using the video editor. Also, include an audio clip in the background of your video. Last but not least, add your brand logo and colors to make the video more appealing. Let your prospective customers find it irresistible to make a purchase.

2. Video aids in building a strong connection with your audience – The purpose of creating a video is just not selling. Surprised? Yeah, more than selling, it’s all about building an emotional connection with your audience. Just take the case of a customer who views an engaging video on your social media platform. He may feel quite impressed by your brand video. In turn, he shares the video on his social media accounts. Naturally, the people in his connection list will also watch your brand promo.

In short, a video that goes viral can do wonders for your brand. It can help catapult the views from hundreds to millions in just a couple of hours. An appealing video helps boost customer loyalty toward your brand. In addition to buying your products, customers will also recommend your products and services to their friends and relatives.

When a friend or relative recommends a brand, there’s more credibility attached to it. It’s quite natural to feel that he/she is just one among them. No wonder, the survey results conducted by Nielsen revealed that 92% of the consumers across the world opined that they place more importance on earned media such as word-of-mouth or recommendations by friends and family members over all other types of advertising. Thus, the key lies in building an emotional connection with your audience.

3. Video is cost-effective – Now you have a fair idea about the benefits of creating a video with a video maker and video editor application. The next question that naturally comes to your mind is the cost. To start with, it’s a wrong notion that creating a video for your social media platforms will cost you a bomb. It is very much possible to shoot a video within a small budget that fits your pocket. Hire a professional who has expertise in video creation. He/ she can bring in several techniques to make your video more engaging.

The next step is to plan your shoot strategically. Just by shooting on a single day, you can create numerous short videos. There are various utilities for short videos on social media platforms. The different forms of video marketing include vlogs, tutorial videos, video interviews, presentation videos, product demos, video reviews, testimonials, etc. Videos can also be used on your website’s landing pages, email marketing campaigns, and paid ads.

As it involves investing money, you would be quite concerned about the Return on Investment (ROI). No worries. The survey results conducted by Animoto show that 88% of marketers are satisfied with the ROI fetched by their video marketing efforts. Now it’s your turn to make big bucks from video marketing. However, always remember that the video should be created in such a manner that it meets your marketing objectives. Last but not the least, your target customers are the ones who decide the fate of your product. Hence, give prime importance to their interests and preferences while creating your video. It will no doubt help you in reaping handsome returns.

Conclusion

Video is the future. Gone are those days when consumers used to invest time in reading lengthy blogs and other textual information. Nowadays, the trend is to communicate the product concept through a short attention-grabbing video that is informative and well-made. It not only helps in selling your product but also enhances the brand image and facilitates better product recall. The 3 top benefits of videos discussed above vouch for the fact that it’s worthwhile to invest your hard-earned money in video marketing.