Intuitive Manufacturing Systems Shows Maturity in Adolescent Age Part One: Company Overview

Quite opposite from playing an April Fool's trick, on April 1, Intuitive Manufacturing Systems (www.intuitivemfg.com), a privately held company offering enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small and mid-size manufacturers, announced its ten-year anniversary. Namely, in 1994, the founders of the other ERP vendor PRO:MAN sold all interest in the company and started a new one: Intuitive. Since then, Intuitive has been offering enterprise software for small and midsize discrete manufacturers around the world with the flagship product, Intuitive ERP, which was designed from the ground up with 100 percent pure Microsoft technology and with well-established manufacturing practices in mind. The relative young age of the company has provided an organization and a development environment free from the burdens of supporting unwieldy sets of legacy systems and technologies; nonetheless, the company is founded on a solid foundation with many of its staff having thirty years or so of experience in manufacturing systems.

Intuitive's first product, MRP9000 (renamed into Intuitive ERP in June 2000), was built around the concept that the software should support standard business practices and that the underlying technology should be flexible and affordable. Hence, standard manufacturing and accounting practices such as those prescribed by American Production & Inventory Control Society (APICS) and Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP) were the building blocks of the product. The product has since matured into a broad ERP software system designed to manage most aspects of a small and mid-size manufacturing organization. Today, Intuitive has over 900 customers worldwide, in industries ranging from aerospace to bicycle parts, from circuit boards to boat docks. The Intuitive ERP product is also installed in over twenty countries, is available in sixteen languages, is fully multicurrency-enabled, and is supported by a network of direct offices and business partners worldwide.

Yet, Intuitive continues to pragmatically expand its operations and to unveil significant enhancements to its latest product release. Intutive's founder and co-chairman, J. Patrick Carey, had worked in the industry in various sales, service and consulting capacities for over fifteen years before he founded PRO:MAN in 1981, which was a provider of a PICK/UNIX-based manufacturing software system for small and mid-sized manufacturers. In 1994, Carey sold off his interest in the company, but, with his retained knowledge of manufacturing, he established Intuitive Manufacturing Systems.

According to the vendor's CEO Sara Gillam, back in 1994 the management had to decide between the status quo of a maturing UNIX system and putting a Microsoft Windows wrapper/faade around that aging technology, or making the bold step of completely reengineering the product in the Windows environment. The apparent choice was aimed at being on the leading edge of technology in 1994, but also now, ten years later, Intuitive is continuing this vision by deploying the new generation of software technology—Microsoft .NET. The vendor was indeed a member of the official Microsoft .NET Early Adopter Program which began stealthily in the early 2000s. While lately, many competitors are claiming to use so-called "fast start" programs to aid in leveraging .NET technology, Intuitive claims to have been there at the very beginning, at which time it did not see any of these ".NET evangelists" that are present nowadays.

This is Part One of a four-part note.

Parts Two and Three will discuss the market impact.

Part Four will cover challenges and make user recommendations.

Relationship with Microsoft

With headquarters in Kirkland, Washington (US), Intuitive is located only a ten minute drive from Microsoft's main campus, and it continues to enjoy a close relationship that has allowed it to not only discern Microsoft's future moves, but to gain invaluable aid from Microsoft in leveraging its latest technology. For that reason, Intuitive feels very confident that it will be significantly ahead of any other ERP vendor in releasing a pure .NET-based solution.

To that end, after eighteen months of research and development, mid-2001 Intuitive completed a prototype of its Microsoft .NET architectural framework that takes full advantage of .NET, extensible markup language (XML), and the new features of Microsoft SQL Server, and released a plan to convert the entire Intuitive ERP product—meaning every business logic feature, every line of code—to pure .NET technology. With the release of Intuitive ERP 6.0 in December 2002, the second phase of this plan was complete, as it was likely the first ERP product to release several areas of functionality built on a 100 percent Microsoft .NET managed code architecture. Then, in early 2004, Intuitive announced the beta release of Intuitive ERP 7.0, the only enterprise software solution with a pure Microsoft .NET "managed code" (i.e., a new type of software that leverages a new .NET set of tools and prefabricated components) framework and over 50 percent of standard product functionality released in .NET, which has been generally available since March 2004.

This substantial product redesign should allow Intuitive ERP to take advantage of the many new features of the .NET platform, satisfy the industry's e-business requirements, and better position the product to adapt to even more advanced technology in the future. Intuitive is glad to be saying goodbye to the old problems of Component Object Model-based (COM) software that the development world has often referred to as "Dynamic Link Library (DLL) Hell" in the past, owing to objects' sharing, and unfortunate consequent inexplicable conflicts amongst these objects.

Conversely, IT departments will be able to appreciate .NET software by the .NET feature known as "side-by-side", which allows multiple versions of the same application to reside and run on the same computer at the same time. Namely, with .NET, one does not have to uninstall or upgrade an old version of a software product, since the new version can be installed right beside the old one, and the user can run them both until she or he decides to remove the old version. Also, much .NET software can be installed simply by copying files to hard drives, while .NET avoids the Windows Registry and its many inherent problems.

Key Enhancements in Intuitive ERP 7.0

Furthermore, the .NET framework should provide the vendor the ability to develop software with less code in less time (Intuitive claims 40 percent smaller software footprint and 65 percent fewer code lines, based on its own analysis of the released version 6.0.2 versus released version 7.0), which means the system becomes faster, more robust, has fewer bugs, easier to modify, while the vendor can provide innovative new features at a faster pace (multifold, according to Intuitive's product managers) than the competition. To that end, key enhancements found in Intuitive ERP 7.0 include, among others:

* An entire .NET managed code-based sales cycle, from customer relationship management (CRM) to quoting through order entry, picking, shipping, invoicing, accounts receivable, return materials authorization (RMA), and service and repair, which entails a new slick user interface (UI), faster processing speed, and other above-mentioned benefits of .NET managed code. One of the related enhancements is the ability for every user to set the order entry screen according to the preferences, by simply clicking and dragging fields on and off the order entry panel. In addition, users may set up templates for different types of orders, and select a different template with one click, whereby the same click and drag customization facility is being adopted across the entire Intuitive ERP system (of course, in the functional areas that are .NET-enabled).

* A .NET managed code-based "Planner's Workbench", material requirements planning (MRP) engine, available to promise (ATP)/capable to promise (CTP) engine, and sales forecasting modules. A Planner's Workbench provides a planner many of tools to optimize the shop floor in one place and at once, such as

1) graphical display of an item's inventory, including safety stock and surplus, and all activity for that item with drill-down capabilities into those activities;

2) search for inventory problems based on preset parameters (such as., inventory surpluses over certain number of days, critical shortages, etc.), again with drill-down capabilities into actions to resolve those problems; and

3) search for order problems in a similar manner like above (i.e., preset parameters like late raw material deliveries, pending late orders, etc.). Further, the .NET MRP engine obviates the traditional difference between "regenerative" (full-blown) MRP and "net change" MRP, given MRP runs now often take seconds and occasionally minutes, rather than customary several hours.

* Support of rich media files across the .NET-based system, as the user can link an unlimited number of types of media, such as computer-aided design (CAD) files, drawings, video clips, images, quality control (QC) documents and so on to any field in the system (i.e., a specific field in the form for detailed instructions, a specific ID like part number, customer number, or vendor number, an order number, and a combination of these).


SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/intuitive-manufacturing-systems-shows-maturity-in-adolescent-age-part-one-company-overview-17352/

Your Reference Guide to SMB Accounting Software Features

So, you're looking for an accounting system.

This reference guide provides insight into the accounting features and functions currently available on today's market for small to medium businesses (SMBs). It will help you determine which features your organization needs—or doesn't need.

You can also download an extended guide in Excel format at TEC's Accounting Software Request for Proposal (RFP) Template page.

But first, here's a brief overview:

What Are Accounting Systems?

Accounting systems manage procedures for accurately entering, tracking, and maintaining information related to an organization's financial operations. These accounting applications typically support general ledger, accounts payable and accounts receivable, payroll, job and project costing, and multinational accounting.

Many SMBs require that other functions (such as inventory control, manufacturing management, and financial reporting) also integrate with their accounting system.

About This Guide

Although a full accounting system RFP can contain upwards of 4,000 features and functions, we'll focus on the "big picture" features for now, for (obvious!) considerations of space.

You'll notice that we've grouped accounting features by broad category. These categories correspond to a high-level functional breakdown of software features. In this reference guide, we provide a brief explanation of how each category impacts your accounting processes.

If you'd like more information about a full listing of accounting software features and functions, please visit TEC's RFP Templates page.

Reference Guide to SMB Accounting Software Features

1. General Ledger

Chart of Accounts
The chart of accounts is, for all practical purposes, the business management system. If revenues and costs are not captured and segregated into the best suited categories, the financial statements you produce will be useless.

Transaction Processing
This category describes features that address typical journal entry processes, including general transaction processing, workflow period closing, batch layout configuration, and job cost adjustments.

Month- and Year-end Closing
While you can bill revenue and collect cost information, if this information is not published in the form of financial statements in a timely manner, the statements themselves are essentially useless.

Control Reports
All business management systems must have some form of controls to make sure information is input correctly. Software features covered in this category are designed to accomplish this task.

Financial Statements
Financial statements drive the company. However, for smaller companies this may not be true to the same extent, since the owner or manager should have a "feel" for operations rather than relying on printed reports. Larger companies cannot do this, simply because they are too big.

2. Accounts Payable

Vendor Master File
Master files are the starting point in any application. For accounts payable, the vendor master file must be set up first, as that drives the rest of the accounts payable functions.

Purchasing Controls
While anyone can issue a purchase order, the process should be controlled. This category covers the purchasing process as well as control systems you can use.

Data Input
Once a purchase order has been sent and goods received, the obligation for that purchase needs to be recognized. This category reviews the various steps required to actually get information into accounts payable.

Payables Analysis
Once an invoice has been input, it needs to be approved and scheduled for payment. This category covers those steps.

Check Writing
Once an invoice has been processed and approved, it needs to be paid. This category addresses various check-writing features, including bank account assignment and check formats.

Control Reports
While you may choose to assume that information has been input correctly, that is not always the case. The features in this category address reports that give users the ability to check information to make sure it has been input correctly.

Financial Reports
Once data has been input into accounts payable, users will probably need to review slices of that data to determine if costs are in line, where costs are being incurred, and how those costs compare against other benchmarks.


SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/your-reference-guide-to-smb-accounting-software-features-19938/

Payroll Best Practices - Part I - Benefits of Automated Payroll Systems

For many businesses, particularly those who could benefit from small savings here and there, a payroll management system is of great value. Proper payroll management significantly benefits a business' success by playing a key role in financial balance, regulations and cost/risk mitigation. The problem is that many businesses are unaware of these advantages.

The most typical out come from risk inflation is an increase in spend. A recurring theme many researchers have found is that companies are overpaying and underpaying employees. Overpays are often undocumented and can result in loss of sums beneficial to business advancements. Underpaying is as harmful. Since employees are not getting paid enough, many legal risks can arise at a painful cost to the employer. In addition, manual payroll systems require a large amount of workers and time to complete required documentation.

Businesses must be willing to adjust to fluctuating staff and economic challenges. Effective payroll systems connect information throughout the entire company. Automating your payroll systems is the easiest way to cater to these needs. Computerized systems typically simplify information, quickly organize reports, automatically archive data, calculate deductions, easily track clock-in/outs and minimize manual efforts.

Simplified and quickly organized data is advantageous in many ways. With basic documentation, only key points are recorded and irrelevant ones. Automated systems integrate your payroll figures into an easy to read platform to ensure everything is accounted for, thus minimizing risks of invalid or missed numbers. Many automated systems back up your companies data and organize it into files. This is ideal if ever faced with insurance risks or employment issues as the records are easily attainable.

Tax and insurance deductions are important, especially to the employee. In order to please both the company and the worker, calculations must be exact. Computer operated solutions allow for quick calculations. Additionally, automated systems can mechanically track employee clock-ins and clock-outs preventing insurance and employee-related issues.

HR Software - Is Your HR and Payroll System Really 'Integrated?

If the time has come for your organisation to search for an HR and Payroll solution, and you are looking for a system that is fully integrated, make sure you fully understand what this really means. The word 'integrated' is very often confused with what should be termed as a 'single database' or a 'unitary database.'

The HR and Payroll software market is becoming more and more complex. It is therefore imperative for any organisation looking for a new HR and Payroll system to find out if what they are being offered is what they really want. For example if information must be immediately available throughout the whole product, subject to security constraints, an HR and Payroll software system with a single database is required. Be aware that sometimes 'integrated' is not always 'integrated!'

Some companies offer an 'integrated package' but this does not mean necessarily that it has a single database. What it usually means is that you then have to press a button to transfer the data to another system, it is not done automatically. The only way it will be done in real time is if you have a single database.

True integration involves the HR and Payroll department sharing a common database source, ensuring that there is a free flow of data between both sides of the system. The integrated system will give management greater control and much greater flexibility within their departments.

Real time data transfer means that it does not matter who enters the information and that it will be possible to view the data entered anywhere in the system. For example HR may enter a new member of staff, this can then be immediately picked up by the payroll department, and will be seen in real time. Only a true single database integrated system will be able to do this.

If you are in doubt that your chosen HR and Payroll system is operating off a single database, it is advisable to ask. If the supplier has a truly integrated solution with a single database then they should be able to demonstrate this to you. Make sure 'integrated' is what you are really going to get. It will pay off spending extra time checking that your new system is exactly what you need and that you are getting the best solution for your organisation.

Small Business Payroll - The Pros and Cons of an in-House Payroll Systems

In-House Payroll System Hardware Options

This week begins the first of a three part series on in-house payroll systems. During this series, the hardware components that comprise this type of system, pros and cons of this type of system, and software options will be examined.

An in-house computerized payroll system is located on company property, and equipment may be owned or leased from a vendor. Businesses have more control over this type of system, and can tailor the security system design to meet individual needs. System operation is performed onsite by company employees including programmers, systems analysts, data entry personnel operators, system administrators, etc., providing more control to the business.

Hardware options are determined by the size of a company, requirements, budget constraints, and the need for dedicated computer systems in certain departments.

Hardware Options:

• Mainframe Computers - largest and most powerful computers, used for the entire company. Each department links to the mainframe, sharing the resources (storage and processing) with other departments. In large companies, a separate mainframe may be dedicated to payroll processing, benefits and human resources functions
• Minicomputers - smaller and less costly option than mainframe computers. This can be a good option for small to medium sized businesses. Again, departments share the available resources.
• Microcomputers or personal computers (PCs) - flexible options from many vendors.

Microcomputer Networks Networks connect computers and applications. PCs are able to communicate with each other in a network, and employees can access applications from their computers. PCs share software programs, and have access to printers, modems, etc.

• Local Area Networks (LANs) - In a LAN, computers are physically connected to each other, data is transmitted at high speed short distances, and managed by a main computer or minicomputer.
• Wide Area Network (WANs) - In a WAN, data is transmitted over long distances using telephone lines and Internet.

Client/Server Technology Application programs are distributed by running on a personal computer. The data is on a server (mainframe, minicomputer or PC). Payroll, benefits and human resource applications are installed on PCs in the payroll and human resources departments.

Client/server applications may be comprised of a combination of these components: hardware, graphical user interface, file management system, network operating system, and communications protocol.

Data Processing Payroll and human resources data can be processed using two different methods, real-time processing and batch processing. Real-time processing allows the user to have immediate access to the data as updates are made. During batch processing, data is collected, coded in groups for processing, and returned when updates are complete. The user usually does not have access to the data while updates are made.

Outsourcing the Hosting of Your Payroll System - The Right Choice?

Whether you look at short-term economic trends or long term demographics, the payroll profession has rarely faced such a challenging environment.

Tightening economic conditions are putting pressure on organisations to maximise productivity. That's why businesses are now looking at creative ways to become more efficient and at the same time save money.

Outsourcing is an immotive subject, with arguments for and against. However outsourcing is becoming more and more accepted in most industries, whether it is the HR function, marketing and design or IT.

Due to increased demand and ever changing legislation, the outsourcing of Payroll and HR functions are ever-increasing. Paying your staff correctly and on time is vital to ensuring they remain productive and motivated. You can't afford to get it wrong!

Web-delivered software is becoming more and more popular and a clear choice if your organisation wants to outsource but keep control in-house. By using intuitive software, payroll departments can work with greater effectiveness and provide a better service to employees, both with minimal change to existing operating procedures.

Payroll software can bring significant time and cost efficiencies, allowing your business to focus its resources elsewhere. By using a fully integrated HR and Payroll software solution, the organisation can produce statistics and meaningful reports that can be used to improve the business.

Just recently, a new phenomenon known as a Hosted Bureau Service has entered the payroll industry. This solution gives companies the best of both worlds and is ideal for high-volume payroll processing. The Hosted Bureau Service enables companies to have full access to a payroll system without the costs of purchasing it. The supplier hosts the payroll system on a server and processes the payroll on behalf of the client. The client retains all the benefits of an in-house system, enabling them to still analyse data from their own office.

The Hosted Bureau Service is growing in popularity allowing Payroll departments to run reports and obtain real time data but with the added benefit of minimal set up and up front costs. Eradicating IT costs and internal IT support are good news for Managers who can inherit systems that they are not always familiar with.

Further savings can be made by outsourcing the processing of the payroll data to the supplier. Professional, qualified personnel, who are up-to-date with all the latest legislation, and who look after a number of clients, are able to offer this service at a reduced rate to the end user as well as providing fast turnaround times. Most payroll outsourcing organisations offer a personal working relationship with their clients, assigning a project manager who will provide guidance and reassurance every step of the way.

Other benefits from using such a service include disaster recovery and the knowledge that you will always have someone there attending to your payroll. This can provide peace of mind that this important business function is always covered even when in-house staff are absent due to sickness or annual leave.

Time Clocks And Your Payroll System

Time and attendance software is perhaps one of the least understood of the payroll family products. Sometimes known as award interpretation software it is the "glue" between your electronic time clock and your payroll and accounting software.

In a completely manual system, staff fill out time sheets. Payroll staff calculate payroll hours based on their knowledge of the award rules and they then key those payroll hours for each employee into a payroll system and job done.

In an automated system, employees clock in and out using a electronic time clock, that data is electronically usually via your network into award interpretation software which has been pre-configured with the award rules, the system automatically calculates the payroll hours and this can then be transferred into your payroll software and, again, job done but much more accurately and much faster

The misunderstanding in the general business community regarding this process is that electronic time clocks will be able to do the collection, interpretation and export to payroll steps which is exceptionally unlikely.

It is most likely that electronic time clock or bundy clock you own or purchase is unlikely to be able to perform any complex calculations. Some are reasonably clever and they may cope with simple rounding and overtime calculations but that's about their limit.

This is not surprising as the process of translating an employee's In and out clockings into the hours worked can get quite complex. It gets more complex when an electronic time clock is involved...take a look at these two examples and you will see why:

Example 1; The Time Sheet: Joe fills in a time sheet for the week. His shift starts at 7.30 am and finishes at 4:00pm. He gets 30 minutes for lunch. On Monday he worked back for 3 hours and wrote 7:00pm on the time sheet. Pretty simple calculations here. 8 hours normal time and 3 hours overtime.

Example 2: The Electronic Bundy Clock: Fred clocks in on the electronic bundy clock when he gets to work at 7:15 am. He clocks out at 7:07pm. The reports on the time clock calculate that he has been at work for 11 hours and 52 minutes. This is clearly not correct so there needs to be some manual intervention to "round" the in and out times to the start and the end of the shift. Lunch has to be deducted and the split of overtime categories must be taken into consideration.

This is a relatively simple example. A few electronic bundy clocks can cope with this however it gets quite a lot more complex. For example, these are some of the manual calculations done by payroll staff that will challenge the very best time clock.

Multiple rounding scenarios - Rounding to the shift start time when an employee clocks late or early while not rounding for timed lunch breaks and rounding to the nearest 15 minutes on clock out

Daily Balancing - Taking time from an overtime category and placing it into the normal time category if the normal hours are short of the nominal shift hours.

Payroll Balancing - As above but on a payroll period.

Automatic breaks - Auto deduct lunch breaks or not deduct taken breaks under a length

Leave entry - Become important when you want to export to payroll and save data entry time

Flextime Accrual - Bank time, flextime, rostered days off are all examples of the need to accrue special leave for time worked.

Again, these are common requirements when calculating payroll and they are, ostensibly, outside the capability of electronic bundy clocks.

The ultimate problem for most time clocks is they simply cannot interface with a payroll system and if they do,the information they send is likely to be an inaccurate calculation of payroll hours unless your awards or pay rules are very very simple.

Award interpretation software (time and attendance software)will almost certainly be required if you want to automated the accurate calculation of employee payroll hours and import that into your payroll system. If you are a small enterprise with less than 30 employees the required investment may not justify the time saving. However, if you have more than 30 employees the return on investment becomes more appealing.