Business Intelligence Status Report: Recommendations

Vendors are retooling themselves to meeting the demand for accurate business intelligence (BI) solutions. Acquisitions and strategic partnerships appear to be the most popular way for vendors to jockey for the top position in this growing market. The following are the issues that customers should investigate if their enterprise applications vendor follows the strategy of partnering with a boutique vendor like Vanguard or Corporate Radar (see Boutique Vendors Can Bring Big Value?):

If scattered data from enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), spreadsheets, etc., must be included in the total BI solution, does the boutique vendor provide the tools and service skills required?

Do you feel comfortable with the financial viability and geographic coverage of boutique vendors, which are smaller due to their tight market focus?

As both the enterprise and BI products evolve, who is responsible for keeping the two in synch? And who is responsible for integration?

Are you able to provide the internal hardware and software support required? Or will that have to be the vendors' lookout?

Part Seven of the Business Intelligence Status Report series.

On the other hand, customers considering an enterprise application vendor that follows an alliance strategy with a renowned horizontal BI vendor, like Cognos or Business Objects, should consider the following:

BI vendors using strategic alliances tend to offer product suites that are broad and functional, but lack deep industry specific needs. Are your industry-specific needs provided by the solution? You should rigorously question industry specific issues and the responsibilities of the two vendors relative to the inevitable integration and future enhancements.

The horizontal BI vendor may have a large customer base, but may have a limited number of customers in your specific industry. Does this make a difference to you?

As both the enterprise and BI products evolve, who is responsible for keeping the two in synch? And who is responsible for the integration?

A solution based upon a BI product from a horizontal provider may be an overkill in terms of unneeded functions, support requirements, and cost. How will the vendor approach your needs?

The BI product will require internal support. Can you support the hardware and software required for a solution based upon a horizontal BI vendor?

This is Part Seven of a seven-part note.

Part One detailed the history and current status.

Part Two looked at contemporary BI tools.

Part Three described what is available.

Part Four presented the BI/CPM market landscape.

Part Five discussed Geac and point solution vendors.

Part Six compared direct access to a data warehouse for the mid-market.

Recommendations for Enterprise Application Vendors

Vendors without BI capabilities should consider a relationship with the likes of Vanguard, not merely as a technology partner, but rather as a BI solution alliance for certain industries. Vendors focused on the cost-sensitive mid-market should investigate Vanguard's direct access approach as a way to address their customer's cost concerns.

Those enterprise application vendors without a BI strategy or with an agnostic BI platform strategy should focus on the value of BI to their customer set. Their customers' needs are real and therefore BI might provide the vendor with a path to customer value and satisfaction, plus additional revenue. Vendors should be realistic in the investment required to build, maintain, and support BI applications. They should select a strategy that matches their ability and willingness to invest, time to market requirements, and alternative uses of the required resources. The strategy selected should reflect the realities of their existing and future customer base relative to industry needs, support requirements, terms and conditions, etc.

Recommendations for Industry Consolidators

Industry consolidators, such as Infor, should consider teaming with Vanguard to offer a single BI solution across all current and future products. Since Infor will soon own three products (Lilly, Agilisys, and MAPICS) with current Vanguard GPS integrations, it should find discussions with Vanguard of interest.

General Recommendations

On a more general note, as with all enterprise applications areas, the secret to successfully getting the most out of the IT investment lies not only within selecting the right technologies and tools, but also ensuring that proper business processes are in place to generate data that are meaningful, up-to-date, and accurate. One of the biggest mistakes users often make with BI is forgetting the big picture, the strategic goals of what they hope to accomplish by accessing this information, while breaking out of traditional silo-ed metrics. BI is not a panacea, and enterprises must organize and prioritize their business needs across regions, departments (even across non-official "political" boundaries), etc., before they can hope to usefully report on the business information.

The biggest challenge when building a dashboard or scorecard is getting the correct definition of key performance indicators (KPI) and linking them to a corporate strategy. For example, is the company hoping to increase sales by knowing the customer better or by discovering a new business opportunity? Or is it hoping to better control costs to provide a competitive advantage? Moreover, will it use BI to measure performance against which number of goals? These tools should also have an interactive ability to link these KPIs back to operational reality. For example, they should be able to explain why something is happening instead of only indicating it. Companies also need to filter out irrelevant metrics and reconcile conflicting metric definitions and unique metrics. Further, they need to consider groupings needed by some user groups where everyone has to agree on the definitions and on what has to be measured. Getting the right granularity of metrics and deploying it at the right business level is also critical.

The BI and corporate performance management (CPM) evaluations should involve the IT organization, finance, and operations. Furthermore, most firms should create a joint committee or task force to evaluate how automation can improve enterprise-wide performance management. Although CPM starts with strong financial management, it will eventually extend beyond financial planning to almost all areas of corporate activity. Therefore, organizations choosing BI suites should consider both their financial management tools and future integration with key business-area solutions such as product lifecycle management (PLM), CRM, SCM, etc. To increase the odds of success, end users should favor BI products and services firms that are focused on the application of BI in their specific industry or application areas.

The most important point for prospective buyers of CPM technology is to do a very thorough analysis of existing systems, where the corporation's business needs will be in the next few years, and how the systems will be integrated. Buyers should not forget that mapping data from one place to another is the most arduous, expensive, and time-consuming part of the whole process and one of the major reasons for BI project failure. This must be done before talking to any vendor. Be both open-eyed and open-minded, since it is tempting to create specialized data models and tactical data marts to support the quick deployment of a CPM portfolio, but this can lead to long-term inflexibility.

The best start for a CPM initiative towards building the entire corporate information factory (CIF) or something similar is to identify the most painful points and to try solving them by leveraging existing BI and analytics initiatives. As this is done, one must be aware of being inflexible and of automatically settling for an incumbent vendor if its products and plans do not match up well to strategic requirements. Also, one should not fall in the trap of "low-hanging fruit" and easily obtainable short-term return on investment (ROI) benefits at the expense of long-term strategic benefits that are either of a "soft" nature or of lower value in the short-term.

While the needs of employees, customers, and business partners will vary, successful integration tools will need to provide access to such applications as inventory control, ERP, CRM, data stores, packaged applications, legacy systems, and a myriad of other applications. The effort will be grueling, but the returns from an integrated information portal can be significant. As with any such purchase, users choosing point planning or BI products should consider the integration infrastructure and effort needed to combine these products versus the cost and functionality issues of choosing an integrated CPM product suite (if still possible to find). Mission-critical issues like scalability, reliability, manageability, and ease-of-use go without saying. For smaller enterprises that are more inclined to rely on their ERP vendor on extended functionality such as BI and portals, the route to the complete CPM might be more straightforward.

Though the promise of real-time, on-demand BI is enticing, there are some drawbacks, since, despite drops in hardware and memory prices, real-time architectures can still be expensive to build. The price largely comes from the processing power required to mass-produce analysis in close-to-real time. Also, keep in mind that performance degradation on both the network and application sides is a distinct possibility. If the accounting department, payroll department, or production planning department sees a slowdown in their respective GL/month-end, payroll, or material resource planning (MRP) transactions because the system is busy sending unnecessary information to a real-time BI system, something is not right. In some cases within the financial and manufacturing sectors, information has a definite shelf life, where seconds and minutes count. In most cases, however, the optimum solution is a combination of real-time and traditional BI, with each meeting different business needs.

The same would hold for enterprise information integration (EII) versus data warehousing (DW). Both will fail if they are not rooted in true business requirements. Once justified, a corporate-wide data warehouse is a better approach than a number of smaller data marts that would serve only isolated departments. Yet, a large data warehouse will often not be built at once, in which case one should look for an area of the business with a glaring need for a data warehouse and build one to accommodate it. At the same time, one should make sure that it could be gradually expanded in the future to meet the needs of other departments.

About the Authors

Syspro Hatches 'Encore' IMPACT On SME Manufacturers. Part 2: Market Impact

On September 7, the Syspro Group, a privately held Worldwide provider of enterprise software for small to medium enterprises (SMEs), with its US headquarters in Costa Mesa, CA (www.sysprousa.com ), was named a recipient of the START Magazine Vision Technology & Business Award for 2001 in the Manufacturing ($50 million to $200 million) category. In naming Syspro Group as the winner of the START Vision Award, the judges expressed admiration for the company's recent development of the Material Yield System, a software solution that enables manufacturers and distributors to maximize the use of scraps.

This is Part Two of a two-part note on Syspro. Part One detailed recent developments. This part discusses the Market Impact and makes User Recommendations.

Market Impact

Although it has been present in the market since 1978, Syspro has not been a very vocal vendor, however the latest blitz may prove that the company is changing its marketing approach. Syspro has recorded significant growth in its client base since 1997, which has led to the IMPACT product becoming one of the most widely used ERP solution in the small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), with over 6,000 customers. That has promoted Syspro into a serious challenger in the SME discrete manufacturing market, since, with estimated revenues in 2000 at about $50 million, Syspro's revenues grew around 10% while many of its peers have seen corresponding decline.

Syspro has worldwide operations, as its products have been installed in 50 countries, and it continues to offer its products and services through the reseller channel/VARs, which has also expanded during the last year. The flagship IMPACT Encore system, has traditionally covered the full spread of modules, including accounting, order processing, inventory management, finite and infinite scheduling, shop floor control and payroll (the alliance with Best Software for ABRA system), with the indication of high levels of customer satisfaction.

IMPACT's functionality is equitably solid in accounting, manufacturing and distribution areas, which is advantageous compared to competitive products that are either mainly strong in accounting (e.g, Microsoft Great Plains and Navision) or in manufacturing/distribution (e.g., Lilly Software and ROI Systems).

Expanded Solutions

Although Syspro IMPACT Encore is a comprehensive ERP solution for small- to mid-sized enterprises, the company has recently been striving to also be known as a vendor that enables clients to excel through the use of extended-ERP applications. To this end, Syspro has expanded its solutions footprint with applications such as customer relationship management (CRM), warehouse management system (WMS), e-commerce, and advanced planning, scheduling and execution (ASP&E) software (a.k.a. Total Factory Planner). This functionality umbrella should help manufacturers pursue a concept Syspro denotes Strategic (e)Fulfillment, which is envisioned to enable management to make better decisions since it provides visibility and control of all aspects of the supply chain. Moreover, it becomes the means by which these decisions can be executed in the most efficient manner.

Syspro has from its early days had a sole focus on the lower-end of the ERP discrete manufacturing market. The company has long demonstrated a deep understanding of this market dynamics and its pragmatic requirements of inexpensive products, fast and simple implementations, and good service and support. It has also achieved good coverage with its indirect channel, which is an important criterion for long-term success in the SME market segment.

The above native ERP extensions and the product openness promote it as one of the first of the smaller ERP vendors with the ability to embrace customer and supplier activities tied to a core transactional back-office system. Syspro can, therefore, often offer one-stop-shop functionality for many versatile discrete manufacturing environments (from forecasts driven, repetitive make-to-stock (MTS) to custom job shop, including mixed-mode manufacturing) in the low-end of the market. Also positively impacting the sales of its flagship product suite, IMPACT Encore, are its strong multi-site and multi-national product capabilities, which are stronger than those of many more visible competitive products (e.g., Made2Manage, Lilly Software, Fourth Shift, ROI Systems, etc.).

End users of smaller enterprises have also been impressed with its intuitive user interface, which combines on-screen graphics with a functional flow for better visual orientation, and also provides consistently deployed keyboard shortcuts for heavy data entry. It also offers a wealth of administrative features like workflow & event management, querying tools and a built-in report writer.

IMPACT has also been technologically adequate for its target market, as it exhibits n-tier client/server architecture, is fully Windows 2000, Linux and UNIX compatible, and runs under SQL Server 7.0 database, although only starting with the release 5.0. Syspro has long been committed to the Microsoft technology and the product is on par with the latest commercially available technologies, which are well attuned for its target market.

With the support for XML and COM, Syspro offers e-commerce applications tightly integrated to IMPACT back-office, as well as the interconnectivity to third-party products. The above-mentioned e.net solutions architecture should provide a way of directly remotely accessing the functionality within the ERP system, and in such a way that does not compromise its business rules and security. The framework, which delivers the system's functionality as discrete objects of code, supports capabilities such as integrated e-commerce Web storefronts, access to ERP data via wireless devices, and integration with best-of-breed applications.

Syspro's endeavor at some vertical specialization, as seen in its new Material Yield module, is also commendable. The module targets manufacturers that cut sheets, tubes or rods of metal, wood, or plastic, and it takes into account all aspects of the cutting process, including cutting-blade thickness, so that users can better leverage raw materials inventories and maximize yields. Look for Syspro to develop ever-deeper functionality and based on the latest technology such as Microsoft .NET.

Challenges

Nevertheless, Syspro will have to overcome some significant challenges in order to continue to thrive in a highly competitive environment. Its market awareness is limited, and possibly aggravated by the non-cohesive marketing of its product and company brand names (IMPACT Encore and Syspro). Also, although Syspro has a worldwide presence, it has no local market leadership in any individual country owing to the fierce channel competition from more aggressive, better known and wealthier competitors like Microsoft Great Plains, Sage, Navision, Epicor, and Scala to name some.

Further, IMPACT's functionality across the board, although broad and well balanced, has not been recognized as a differentiator in the market as the company does not exhibit much of a vertical focus except for the above-mentioned specialized module. Some modules that are commonly offered by ERP systems, such as requests for quotation (RFQ), shipping, and engineering change control, are only slated for release later this year. Also, the company has been seemingly inactive in pronouncing its strategy for supporting MS .NET architecture framework, whereas some competitors like Made2Manage, Epicor, Navision and Microsoft Great Plains have been busy delivering the first software components based on that architecture.

Syspro also trails these competitors in its ASP/hosting, private trade exchange (PTX) and/or collaborative portal solutions strategy and delivery.

User Recommendations

Syspro's target market, general multi-site and multi-national discrete manufacturing companies and their divisions with up to $150 million-a-year revenue range and up to 100 concurrent users per site, should consider the company's value proposition, but avoid selecting it without looking at what the other vendors have to offer.

We generally recommend including Syspro in the long list of vendors considered for an enterprise application selection by the lower-end of mid-market companies. These companies generally are rapidly growing and agile, but have a limited IT budget/staff, a conservative IT strategy, and less complex discrete manufacturing, CRM and B2B e-commerce collaboration requirements.

The industries that would most likely benefit from using its products are those industries that need to maximize yields, minimize waste and, where possible, return remnants to inventory, the Material Yield System module of IMPACT Encore is designed to address the specific needs of manufacturers and distributors that rely on the cutting of shapes and pieces from standard size materials - sheets, tubes, and rods - as part of the manufacturing process. The industries targeted are plastics, steel, rubber, paper, and lumber. Existing users of earlier product releases that run on C-ISAM database may benefit from querying the company's future two-pronged product strategy, product migration path, service & support, and/or scalability strategy.

Navision Software a/s: Mid-market iNvasion

Navision Software is an international provider of financial and business management software solutions for the small-to-medium enterprises (SME) market. Founded in 1984, with headquarters in Vedbaek, Denmark, the Company is currently one of the fastest-growing enterprise applications vendors, with approximately $92 million in revenue in fiscal 1999 (136% revenue growth compared to 1998). Navision Software went public in 1999 and currently trades on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

Navision Software (originally Personal Computing & Consulting ApS) initially focused on leveraging the PC technology as a platform for financial and business management software solutions for small business. In 1985, it released its first product, a single user accounting system named PCPLUS, that it marketed through a network of dealers in Denmark and Norway.

In 1987, Navision released a new PC based multi-user application suite with financial management capabilities called NAVISION (originally called NAVIGATOR). That product exhibited a number of then new, innovative software technologies for the PC platform. Concepts like client/server, relational database, transaction management, version management, screen designer, and report writer were introduced with its proprietary technology called Sum Indexed Flow Technology (SIFT). This proprietary database technology provides the user with rapid online information in online analytical processing (OLAP) and remains one of Navision Software's key technology components.

In 1990, Navision's new product generation showed an open, object-oriented architecture along with integrated 4GL development tools that allowed customers and dealers to modify the functionality of the product. Furthermore, the object-oriented architecture of the product made it feasible to develop international country- and language-specific versions of the product with different local regulatory functionality for different geographical markets.

In 1993, Navision initiated a major development effort with the purpose of creating a new generation of its products with a highly customizable graphical user interface (GUI). In 1995, it released the first release of the latest generation of products developed specifically for Microsoft Windows 95 and NT called Navision Financials. The next version, Navision Financials 2.60, which was released on March 31, has received the Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional logo.

Vendor Trajectory and Strategy

Navision has been an important contender in the SME ERP market over recent years. Its modern solutions, competitive pricing, and simple no-fuss delivery model has allowed it to fend off competition from big vendors like J.D. Edwards, Oracle, and SAP better than most other mid-market vendors. Soon after its inception and success in the Danish market, Navision branched out into Western Europe in the early 1990s, and began selling in the U.S. and U.K. in 1994.

Navision Software's solutions today are sold exclusively through a worldwide network of over 900 partners called Navision Solution Centers (NSCs) and staffed with certified professionals dedicated to providing customized solutions, training, support and service. The company currently has local representation in 23 countries as well as more than 39,000 installations in 89 countries and derives 20% of its revenue from the international market outside of Europe.

At present, Navision looks set to continue its march into the ERP mid-market (companies with $5 million - $250 million in revenues), focusing on maintaining and enhancing existing functionality of its Navision Financials solution. Over the last two years, Navision has delivered a slew of new functionality so that its solution currently includes all of the normal ERP functions - Financials, Manufacturing, Distribution and so on - and is e-commerce enabled. We expect the company to continue expanding Internet deployment and CRM capabilities. It is very likely that Navision will start pursuing alliances with ASPs to further its penetration into this increasingly popular marketplace.

Navision is committed to the Microsoft platform and has recently collected all of the new badges associated with W2K, such as "Certified for Windows 2000 Server" and "Certified for Windows 2000 Professional". It has recently taken its relationship with Microsoft one step further by signing a global sales and distribution agreement allowing its Solution Centres to sell BackOffice products with Navision systems. This will enable the delivery of complete single source solutions to smaller companies.

We expect Navision to continue providing breadth of horizontal functionality in a price competitive integrated business application delivered through a strong indirect channel. We also expect the number of NSCs to grow worldwide. These centers will add additional value by developing geographical and vertical product extensions, allowing Navision to focus on core product functionality.

ANALYSIS:
Vendor Strengths

Navision Software has established strong branding and penetration within the Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME) segment of the European and recently the U.S. ERP market, with a large customer base and a developed partner channel within the industry.

Concurrently with the componentization of its product suite, Navision has also developed a tightly integrated broad functional solution that matches the SMEs' needs. Navision Financials offers the Web Storefront, HR/Payroll, warehouse management system (WMS), and innate OLAP and data warehouse (DW) functionality, in addition to traditional ERP modules. Furthermore, the Company was one of the first vendors to achieve Euro compliance and has also developed 23 localized, country-specific product versions.

Navision is very competitive in speed of implementation, feasibility of customization, total cost of ownership (TCO), and price/performance ratio. The product architecture has been devised entirely from scratch in-house within the Microsoft context, which provides for flexibility and ongoing agility. End users of less complex smaller enterprises have been impressed with its intuitive user interface, ease of system navigation, and its drag-and-drop forms designer that allows less technically oriented users to perform cosmetic modifications.

Navision has exhibited a very strong long-term track record. The Company is currently one of the fastest-growing and most profitable ERP vendors:

Figure 1



Figure 2



Furthermore, its high market capitalization that is several times higher than its revenues, guards the Company against an unwanted acquisition and provides much needed capital for R&D and/or future acquisitions.

Vendor Challenges

Navision currently does not offer the following functionality: business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, more comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suite, and solutions for service industries. Moreover, the distribution and manufacturing modules are currently available only in 5 country-specific versions. This may result in a number of lost opportunities in the future, since certain customers prefer more complete solutions from a single vendor.

In addition to the above product functionality gap, Navision does not exhibit much of a vertical focus. Its distributors (NSCs) offer vertical solutions on an opportunity-by-opportunity basis only, which we believe is insufficient to satisfy the stringent requirements of a highly competitive market.

The company has low brand awareness and an undeveloped channel outside of the European market, particularly in Latin America and the Pacific Rim, which contribute only 2% of its revenues. While Navision has done a respectable job of establishing its U.S. network, it has been facing a fierce challenge from domestic competitors like Great Plains, Epicor Software, and Solomon Software. Moreover, it is going to be challenged with combining its country-specific variants of applications into a single-code, global product in order to be selected as a global strategic partner of a centrally run global organization.

Navision has long depended on its proprietary development (database and 4GL), which was a drawback for the following reasons: 1) a need for a special skill set (in spite of its user-friendliness) and 2) scalability and integration difficulties for the higher end of the mid-market. While its recently released MS SQL Server version of the product may mitigate the above concerns, it is likely to exhibit problems related to its product immaturity. Furthermore, Navision's two-pronged product database strategy, although creating more options for a customer, inevitably creates some duplication of Navision's R&D and Service & Support resources.

BOTTOM LINE
Vendor Predictions

Navision will achieve over 50% annual growth rate during the next two years (70% probability), based on the still largely untapped SME market and on the potential of mining its large existing customer base. This will enable the company to become one of the Top 3 vendors within the global SME market within the next three years (60% probability).

We believe that, within the next 12 months, the company will significantly enhance, by using its own resources, its customer relationship management (CRM), human resources, field service, B2B e-commerce, and supply chain management capabilities (60% probability).

Within the next 4 years, more than 30% of Navision's revenues will come from outside of the European market (60% probability), with the license revenue contributing more than 60% of its total revenue within the same period of time (70% probability). Within the same time span, more than 40% of its customers will run on the MS SQL Server.

Vendor Recommendations

Navision should promptly resolve any outstanding product interconnectivity issues with other vendors' products in order to attract the high end of the SME market. It should also expedite the availability of the 'thin client' product architecture and the uniform global availability of all product modules.

Navision should further fortify its strong position within the Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME) market segment in the following ways:

Expand business in its existing customer base, by upgrading older versions of software and by offering new extended ERP modules and enterprise applications.

Further expand its global presence, both by opening new offices and developing new affiliate partnerships. Consider acquiring or partnering with affiliates of faltering competitors, e.g., SSA, Epicor, and Baan.

Deliver more focused and pre-configured vertical solutions and consider offering application outsourcing.

Navision must remain committed to new product features and expedite the introduction of additional enhancements (see Vendor Challenges). We also encourage the company to consider undertaking a more aggressive marketing campaign concurrently with these developments, particularly in the markets outside of Europe.

User Recommendations

We generally recommend including Navision in a long list of an enterprise application selection to lower-end of the mid-market companies (with $5M-$250M in revenue) and divisions of larger enterprises, which have limited IT budget and smaller community of users (less than 75), and have significant financial accounting, distribution, and discrete manufacturing requirements, while currently not needing complex CRM and B2B e-commerce functionality.

Global, centrally managed organizations that need a single-code product for all their international business units, companies with more than 80 users, enterprises in service-related industries, and companies looking for a broader functionality and a particular industry focus from a single vendor may benefit from evaluating other products at this stage.

Current and future users interested in running on the MS SQL Server database may want to inquire about Navision's strategy regarding the product's business intelligence and data warehousing capabilities, bearing in mind that those are innate within the proprietary Navision Server database.

Any organization evaluating Navision Software should consider existing functionality only, and, in the case of final selection, should negotiate incorporation of new applications components now at negotiated license fees, in expectation of Navision's future product introductions. Potential clients should also conduct a preliminary research on industry expertise and reference sites of a regional Navision Solution Center (NSC), particularly outside Europe and the United States.

Here's Why You Should Use Payroll Software For Accounting

Do you find calculating employees' salary a very tedious process? If so, continue reading. In this article, I will share with you why you should use payroll software to calculate employees' salary. The reason why many businesses are starting to use payroll software is because it can automate a lot of processes. It makes calculating payroll much easier.

Good payroll software also allows you to calculate taxes and deduction, as well as to file your tax electronically. A payroll system has many other features. So before you purchase any system, make sure that you find out what your company really needs. Now, let me share with you some things to consider:

The first thing that you should consider is the number of employees you have. If you have less than 10 employees, it doesn't make sense to buy a payroll system now. However, if you have a lot of employees and have difficulty finding time to calculate employees' salary, then it is definitely time to get a payroll system. Payroll software is ideal when your company has a lot of employees as it will automate the payroll process and save you a lot of time. Also, it will reduce the margin of error as we are not doing the calculation manually.

Next, you need to consider the features that you want to have. You should get a payroll system which allows you to do basic payroll accounting, such as salary calculation, commission calculation, department differentiation, electronic tax filing, etc. So get a system that can fulfill your needs because more complex system will cost you more money.

If you do not have many employees but have some cash to spend, it is perfectly fine to get a payroll system. Your company is definitely to grow bigger some day, so why don't you buy a system now and familiarize with it first? Also, it makes your job easier and reduces calculation errors. You can be sure that the last thing your employees want to see is an error in their payroll. So invest in a good payroll system to prevent this from happening.

The next time you ask yourself whether you need a payroll software, consider these 3 things: 1) Do you spend too much time to calculate the salary of your employees because of the sheer numbers? 2) What features do you need in a payroll system? 3) Do you have extra cash to invest in a payroll software now? I believe these 3 questions will help you to make a decision on whether you should use a payroll system in your company.

For more information on payroll software, visit the website below now:

Click Here --> Payroll Software at 361dc.

Feel free to publish this article on your website, or send it to your friends, as long as you keep the resource box and the content of the article intact.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cheow_Yu_Yuan

Payroll Processing Systems - Should Your Company Get One?

To be aware of the services of payroll procedure, let's us first take a closer look at the payroll or salary, which often consists of lot of things such as basic pay, overtime, holidays, benefits, deductions, and several other parts. Before reaching the final amount, there are still processes to be done. Since a company has different employees, the payroll process is done in diverse ways depending on who it is for. Doing it once is not simple; imagine doing it on a monthly basis for at least a hundred of employees.

Excellent payroll system service is what experts prefer. There is a strong increase in payroll systems and outsourcing the job is popular these days. The reason behind the transition from in house to outsourcing or letting it be done by someone else is that they are able to manage these services in a professional way as they focus on this issue for many organizations successfully in particular.

The section of the payroll is frequently regarded as the most labor-intensive field. There are many variables and data updated daily. The conventional accounting practices used to require a large number of staff to be allocated to this task alone, and there were still problems and errors that cause friction between different members of the organization.

Dedicated companies that provide payroll services are frequently accredited to provide better services than having in house staff for various reasons. They are more focus on this sector and they can do more than the person that is re-encoding all information as soon as the initial charges for depreciation.

In designing a better structure, payment services are able to meet cut-off date for regulatory reporting fairly easily too. This is often a cause of excellent employee performance. Payroll services are becoming more accurate and neutral to all employees, which makes them feel everyone is treated equal. Yes, the dreaded favoritism still affect areas such as hiring and firing, but an effective payroll service can effectively improve the working environment indirectly.

We perform the same services as traditional payroll management services for roughly half the cost. Unlike other online payroll services and payroll software, our service goes beyond making calculations and simple reporting. Compared to doing payroll yourself, we reduce payroll time from a couple hours per pay period to 5 minutes or less.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marz_Herbert

Payroll Systems: Making Your Life Easier

If you've started a small business and have had to hire some employees to help you run that business, congratulations are in order! Making a success of any business is no easy feat. To help you bear that burden, you should consider enlisting a professional payroll service to help you easily manage your employees' salaries and wages. Taking this burden off your shoulders will give you more time to focus on the important aspects of maintaining and growing your new business.

The first thing you need to do is decide who to hire. There is certainly not a shortage of companies out there vying for your piece of the payroll pie. A lot of things will go in to making that decision, not the least of which will simply be personal preference. But you should look for those companies that specialize in working with a small business the size of your own and have solutions that meet your needs. Obviously, cost will also be a factor. Don't spend more than you have to, as, in the end, this is a luxury for you and your business so it shouldn't cut significantly into your profits.

Remember that a good service can help you with more than simply meeting payroll every week. They can also assist you when it comes to taxes and withholdings, something you may be unprepared to handle yourself. Any time you can remove a source of stress from your business life, that's a good thing. So take advantage of other services the company offers, if they make sense for your business here and now.

Of course, you may be asking yourself why you can't simply just buy a payroll software package and do it yourself. And the answer is: there is no obvious reason. Most software is easy to use and gently takes the user through the important steps. But there isn't any replacement for dealing with a team of real live people, is there? Are you going to have a stern talk with your software if it messes up the employee paychecks one week? Doubtful. Still, it remains a viable and likely cheaper option than outsourcing your mechanism to another company.

Whether you choose to do it yourself or farm it out to another company, taking care of payroll needs to be your top priority at a business owner. The quickest way to get a bad reputation, lose your employees, and wind up in court is to mess with what people are rightfully owed, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Don't let this disaster happen to you.

New Orleans payroll can make sure your business runs smoothly on the accounting side of things. To learn more about getting this sort of help please see: http://www.payrollrx.com.

Implementing a Work Order Distribution System Will Cutback Payroll Costs

Take a look at your budget. What is the number one biggest expense you have to worry about? The answer is labor, right?

This expense is a necessary evil. You run a business to make money. However, in order to make money, you need employees to provide the service to your customer. You can't cut off your employees; but, there are ways to cut back on payroll costs so you are getting the most out of your employees while they are 'on the clock.'

To start, think about the time of day that is the biggest time waster. Chances are it's probably the mornings while your employees are waiting to get their work orders for the day. How much time are they sitting around the office, waiting? 20 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour or more?

Now factor the average rate of pay for each of your employees and multiply it by the amount of time spent each morning they wait around to start work. Now multiply this number by 250 (the average number of days worked over the course of a year.) That's a lot of money to pay out in payroll each year for your employees to drink coffee, talk about sports, etc.

To combat this, devise a plan to get your employees out the door right away in the morning. Make it a point to have your employees work orders ready for them when they get there: either by doing it the night before or by coming in early to decide on their workload for the day.

An even better idea? Invest in automated software that will send work orders directly to your employees at their homes via email. With this software, they won't even have to come into the office at all; they can just print off their appointments from home and drive directly to their first job of the day. You'll also save truck fuel in the process. For a service company operating in a 25 mile radius, this type of software can help save up to 30% in fuel consumption. Less fuel used means more savings on your bottom line.

This software will cost money. However, over time it will save you money because your employees aren't able to waste the time coming into the office. This saved time will allow your employees to get in more work over the week, making the company more revenue in the process.

Payroll is the most controllable expense a small business owner has. By devising a plan, you can cut wasted time considerably. Over time, you will find that you are spending less and less on overtime pay while booking more and more revenue in the process. Your business will grow because you can take on more customers and you'll be on your way to creating the most successful business you ever thought possible.

So, sit down, put on your thinking cap, and start putting a plan together that will save you money. Your bank account will thank you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Steve Teneriello has helped hundreds of field service company owners improve the way in which they manage their business. He helps field service companies of all sizes organize the way they do things through the use of systems and technology. Having owned his own service company at the age of twenty-three, Steve learned early on the importance of setting goals, taking action and getting the results you want to live the life one aspires to as a business owner. It is the very philosophy upon which he founded his coaching practice - The Service Coach. Visit http://www.theservicecoach.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation.