Measure Initiative, Inc (formerly Peterson Business Services)

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

We're in the paper!

I do a lot of things with the accounting community all over the globe, but having this lovely article featured in the local newspaper has to be one of the most exciting things to happen yet! It has been tons of fun to get calls and emails from my clients and family congratulating me on the article.

The questions for this weekly column are pretty standard, so we had to get a little creative to fit some things in about myself that I thought were important...

It took a long time for me to be comfortable sharing that I am a high school and college dropout. I like to get that out to let everyone see that you can't let past decisions hold you back in life. Everything that has happened to you, and everything that you have happened to, has made you in to the awesome person you are today.

My passion for my work stems from watching my single dad work his @$$ off to support me and my sisters. Being a single parent now myself, it is way easier to appreciate how crazy that life is. We all have our own struggles in life, it's easy to think everyone else has it all together.

I am very thankful to the local paper for reaching out to me and taking some time to learn a little bit about me and my business, hopefully the information I shared can help inspire business owners all over SW Washington!

Read the article here!

Friday, July 10, 2015

The Artful Engagement - Close More Business with Practice Ignition

If you've been taking advantage of live education over the last 12 months, you have probably seen the adorable astronauts passing out Tam Tam's in the expo halls of many accounting conferences across the globe...

But what do they do?

If you are not familiar with or already using Practice Ignition (PI), let me give you the scoop:

PI is an amazing app that creates and manages proposals/engagements letters and their approvals on a web based platform. Using this app streamlines the time it takes to prep an engagement letter, send it to a client, make potential revisions, get it approved and get paid.

We started using PI about 6 months ago. Prior to using PI we had word templates that we would have to comb and revise, making sure that the client company names were changed everywhere and that dates and services were accurate. We would cut out irrelevant portions depending on the project and add more stuff in where needed. Once an engagement letter was accepted we would collect project deposits and relay the information to team member assigned to the project. IT SUCKED. On top of all that, we had to store the signed engagement letter in client files either in a drawer (yes, those do still exist) or in their folder on the drive.

Since moving over to PI, we simply enter the client, choose our template, assign services and hit SEND. I am able to assign the managing team member so that once the engagement is approved, they can invoice for the deposit through QBO (or we can send an invoice for deposit simultaneously with the engagement, OR we can insert our own custom deposit hyperlinks!).

The potential client received a beautiful, professional engagement proposal that allows them to provide an electronic signature. They love this because it cuts out the step of them printing, signing, and returning. It's so fast! We can even insert hyperlinks to our client portal so that they can begin uploading the documents required from them in the client contributions sections.

Deets on the US Platform:

Full disclosure - payment processing within PI is not yet available in the US - but they are expecting to have it rolled out in about 90 days. Use my method of inserting payment hyperlinks or sending an invoice with the proposal
PI can push invoices over to Xero or QuickBooks Online upon engagement acceptance
Pricing plans are based on the number of engagements and can fluctuate each month as your proposals scale up and down
The trial period does not require you to enter your credit card info! SWEET.
The have an AWESOME website plug in that allows your clients to get real time quotes and submit an engagement request!
If you're using Xero Practice Manager, a whole new world features opens up to you!
Available in US, UK, Austraila, Canada and New Zealand. Word on the street is that also have clients in South Africa (where I also hear Sage is about to roll out some cool stuff....)

Want it? Of course you do. Sign up to get started for free, and if you are ready to sign on before August 9th you can enter the discount code MAKEACCOUNTINGFUN for an additional 10% discount on an annual plan, which is already discounted at 20% below the monthly plan! It doesn't get much better than that ;-)

Monday, June 8, 2015

App Consultants and Field Service Management - A New Approach with ServiceM8

The new realm of 'app consultants' can vary drastically depending on the firm. Some niche firms are specializing in multiple apps for one vertical, whereas others may be focusing on workflow or a specific need within many niches (keep your eye out for blog on this specific topic coming soon). Today I want to discuss how a specific Field Service Management (FSM) app is taking a different (and my favorite) approach to working with accounting professionals - ServiceM8.

I heard of this app a couple of months ago when I had the pleasure of constructing an FSM webinar for Apps.com and Intuit Academy. The course covered a description of FSM, who needs FSM and compared 3 FSM apps (Jobber, ServiceM8 and Intuit Field Service Management). (Watch a recorded version of the webinar here if you are interested, but wait until you finish reading this!)

So what is so special about this app? Why am I in love with it?

The recorded course will tell you about the features and the best use case, so I am not going to spend much time laying that out here. What I really want to focus on is their pricing structure, because it is an insane opportunity for app consultants.

End-user pricing for the platform is FIFTY CENTS per job (from quote to payment - basically 50 cents per job number), with your first 20 jobs free EVERY MONTH. The job count restarts each month as well, which is where 2 way scale comes in for growing companies. ServiceM8 has REAL TIME text notifications for field techs to provide clients with ETA’s. Text messages are EIGHT CENTS per transaction. There are NO USER FEES.

Let’s look at this in a real scenario. I have a small plumbing contractor with three techs who did 30 jobs last month. Their bill was $5.

Their bill was $5.

THEIR BILL WAS FIVE DOLLARS!!!

Enjoy that thought for a moment… now join me as I change the subject:

ServiceM8 also has partner platform (duh, Kaydee. EVERY app has a partner platform now days). I’m not going in to all the revenue share and referral crap because my firm doesn’t participate in those programs with our app partners. The most awesomely unique part of this program is that ServiceM8 only provides email support to their end users, but they provide email AND PHONE support to their Partners. They REFER end user sign ups TO PARTNERS. This is something we all love right?

WE LOVE APPS THAT ARE OUR RESOURCE, NOT OUR COMPETITION.

Some of you are going straight to website to join and see the $99 annual program fee as both a marketing and education expense – you are my people. A portion of you just shut your brains off because you feel like apps exist to be your free resource and can't imagine having to pay them to support (which, in turn, you will bill your client for the time anyway and make it back 10 fold...)

A question I have been asking myself is ‘why do I give a sh*t if other people join? The less partners there are, the more referrals I can get!’

Let me answer that for you… I do what I do because I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS. I love this product because it allows the ‘man and a van’ clients to have a top tier solution for next to nothing that can they fully scale with their business. The only way that we can keep these end-user prices low is if we enable them as partners, and why not do that now when they are starting a name in the US? They charge us a minimal fee to be our direct resource, we reap the benefits of charging our clients for implementation/training/support, and our clients grow exponentially because of the cost savings compared to other solutions.

Not only is the growth of our clients businesses supported by this app, but the ability to grow your FSM client base will get a HUGE jumpstart. Let’s look at this from a social standpoint… If you ask your carpet cleaner if he knows an HVAC, plumber, electrician, handyman, etc., they will probably have a handful of friends that are tradespeople. You only need to know ONE tradesperson, they will do the rest of the marketing for you by word of mouth (we already have 2 more implementations slated from our first being so happy). BOOM.

BUT WHY DO YOU CARE KAYDEE?

That’s what you’re thinking right? Some of you may already know my story about being raised with my sisters by a single dad who is a contractor. I am ridiculously passionate about being able to provide outstanding services to small business and give them the upper hand. If he had this app back in the day, our lives would have been very different! I’ll save the life story for conference dinners with The Sleeter Group, but you probably get the point.

Many of you know me from QuickBooks Online certification training, the Intuit Virtual Conferences, Intuit Academy Webinars, or other training events. It is obvious that I love to teach, but the reason I love to teach is to enable our community of professionals to provide the best service to their clients.

Here at PBS we are designing a standard package for ServiceM8 integration/ implementation/ training for our clients, as well as the back-end workflow process for QuickBooks Online and Xero integration. I have so much faith in this apps ability to be a game changer for small FSM’s that I am willing to share this for free with any US Partners who join the partner program by the end of July, just request to be put on the list when signing up with ServiceM8*. Take the next step in enabling your community's FSM's to jump-start their businesses! You won't regret it.

If you have any questions/comments/etc please feel free to comment back to this post or reach out on other media.

*Implementation docs available July 1st 2015.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

How to Add Comments to QBO Reports via Management Reports

So today I was teaching the QuickBooks Online Cert Prep Series: Module 3, Reporting... We took a moment at the end to go over the awesome new 'management reports feature', and accidentally discovered an awesome way to make commented reports and send them out!

1. Create management report packet in QBO

2. Export report packet to Word

3. Add comments with the 'review' and 'add comments' features in word

4. Send to whoever as a PDF from Word.

5. Revel in your awesomeness!

I was holding out on the info so that I could write a blog post, which is really hard to find time to do this time of year.... but my AWESOME friend and colleague Mr.Woody Adams made a sweet little video clip to demonstrate!!!

Check it out:

Saturday, November 8, 2014

QB Connect HACKATHON!!!

I am SO EXCITED to finally be getting this blog post together! The QuickBooks Connect Hackathon was the highlight of the event for me. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of the ideas that the developers came up with, and it was great to be able to offer some extended feedback to those who I was able to meet up with later in the event. I was sooo tired afterwards, but when I got back to my room to lay down I was suddenly wide awake trying to process all of the information that I has just taken in! I literally had dreams about apps that night.... which is when I realized I may have an accounting technology addiction (that may be why I had to take a break before diving back in to write this!).

I have notes from the Hackathon and wanted to share my thoughts about some of the contestants. I have more to say about some than others, but everything had potential in its own right. Let's also remember that each team only had 3 minutes to present and up to 2 minutes for judges questions, so there could be much more detail about these apps that I know nothing about.

Credibles
This app is for pre-paid tabs with gift marketing. I LOVED IT. It enables shop owners to offer rewards to frequent customers as well as letting customers pre-pay for their tabs from their phones. SUPER COOL. My only concerns were the security of someone else not being able to use your tab, along with how that information is going to sync into the accounting platform. You would have to have the tabs sync in as a liability (like a gift card) and have the sales deplete from that. For this to be super successful I would recommend adding it on to a POS that syncs up with QB by posting a daily sales summary via sales receipt.

Pay Deal
Rewards/loyalty program app with a cool beacon thingy for customers to check in via Bluetooth on their phones. Allows for customer activity monitoring and discount/rewards offers to be sent out via mobile device. Unique part was the beacon and monitoring.

Linqto ProAdvice
This one was an emergency button from your phone that hooks you up with a ProAdvisor. I had many thoughts and ideas about this... My first thought was any PA who can answer a Facetime call at will was probably not busy for a reason... and my second thought was this would be so badass if it were specific to me and all of my clients could download it! In my opinion, this whole concept would be way more successful if it were targeted toward contacting a single ProAdvisor, then we as PA's could have our clients download the apps and they would connect to us from the button. It could even have availability settings for call/text/email. Run with that and let me know how it goes!

MonthEnd Apps
This was an awesome tool to consolidate QBO company data for reporting. Awesome for creating personal financial statements or consolidated reports for clients who own multiple companies. They said it would pull from different international versions of QBO as well, it would be cool if it synced up DT and imported data too.

Tree Ledger
Hole, Ee. Crap. This thing was cray cray! I had data overload. It looked like a REALLY awesome way to pull and manipulate data. I was disappointed that we only had 3 minutes for this one, I probably could have looked at it for an hour. The 'judge' in me was asking what does this do that I cannot already do in Excel? It was much better looking than Excel, but realistically I wasn't sure if it was just taking the spreadsheet and making it prettier and easier to manipulate.

OpStarts / Big2Small
Looked like a comparable solution to Finagraph, Essential CFO, etc. My notes say 'projections and forecasting'... The biggest problem I see with SMB's is lack of cash flow forecasting and projections. OpStarts should take the best of LivePlan and Finagraph to make an awesome white label solution that we as accountants can roll out to all of our clients.

Hubdoc
I really enjoyed the time that I was able to spend chatting with the Hubdoc guys on Wednesday! If you are a developer who has a hard time figuring out your target demographic, these guys know how to ask the right questions and take in answers. I loved their solution - it is a super clean interface and I foresee them being a potential Bill.com competitor. Their new feature was 1-Click Bill Pay which I believe allowed you to upload/pay bills in Hubdoc and have that info sync back in to QBO. Hubdoc with bill pay looks like a great solution for small team clients that so not require an approval process for A/P. LOVED IT!

TransferMate
I had the pleasure of already knowing about these guys prior to the Hackathon. The bottom line is that if you make international payments via wire, you should be using TransferMate. There is no better solution for wires, just do it.

Debbie/Voice/AllConnect for QuickBooks
There were a handful of 'Siri for QBO' apps at the Hackathon. They were all fairly equal in my eyes, only one (Voice) had pulled in the 'filters' field to make it more valuable and malleable once you do a voice search. I liked 'Debbie', but I think it would be cooler if you marketed to accountants to push the product and white labeled it with their name... Actually you could hook up with Linqto ProAdvice and make a nice custom app for PA's to use with their clients!

Social Insight / Insights Central / Autofy
The surplus of apps that were trying to make a KPI out of social media posts in relation to sales was a turn off. They were all great in theory, but the fact that there were so many took away from the 'originality' of the whole idea. I'm not sure how these comparisons even really ring true, unless you have a link from the post to the purchasing site that can directly link a sale to a social media post. This is not really a key indicator for brick and mortar as you cannot really correlate the date of the post to the date of the transaction (unless of course you are offering a discount code that can be cross references with the post). Good idea- needs some work to be valuable from an accounting perspective.

NoBrainer Rev Rec
Looked AWESOME. We all know that recognizing deferred/unearned revenue SUCKS. This app supposedly fixes that! I would love to learn more than the 3 minute special about this one and share it with the world.

Easy Assets
Basically a fixed asset manager for QBO. Looked great, my notes say that it should pull in asset postings from QBO so that you can map them in Easy Assets (this would prevent the client from making a manual posting and not enter the asset details in the asset manager). You're welcome for the free advice ;-)

Clariti by SalesPad
This was basically a process outlining app that (from my understanding) would enable you to structure workflows with notifications, rules, etc. Basically you setup the workflow so that when 'x' happens the system notifies 'whoever' then 'z' happens after that... It would be awesome if you could structure these workflows between different apps, but that would probably take a lot of work and collaboration with way too many people ;-). I'm excited to see where this one goes.

TractionBooks
This one was basically a client stalker app so that you can get leads based off of your existing customer list. My understanding is that is syncs your customer list, finds them online, then combs through their networks to report back with more potential clients. Could be great for the right company - only QBO integration is pulling the customer list, so no room for accounting errors.

Saasphault
I had the pleasure of meeting with this developer the next day to share my insights. This is a great app with many potential applications, so my advice to him was to widen the branding or have multiple branding options to apply his measurement calculation tool to more industries (like flooring, paint, etc). I suggested that he take a hint from Jobber and their industry specific advertising on their website (which really all goes to the same product).

Workpop
This app is crazy for automated hiring. It is pretty awesome, though it could 'robustified' by integrating/adding on with some competency screening and aptitude testing systems. This would broaden the application and make it usable for many more industries than just the restaurant industry that it was aiming at.

VISCO ITA
Landed cost calculator. My thought was that a company who needs to calculate landed freight probably has inventory that is too complex for the current QBO. It does look like an awesome app to use with Enterprise or other inventory management solutions.

Labels for QBO
I am just going to start this one by saying that the gal that presented this seemed like a pretty awesome person! Great attitude and presentation, and great concept. That being said, my first thought was holy crap you have to carry that stuff around with you to print and scan??? No thanks. My advice here would be to stick with your awesome label printer, but have some sort of integrated IPad POS scanner so that all you need to do is hook the label printer up to the Ipad (preferably via bluetooth). I feel like there is more to this app then I was able to hear about in 3 minutes, hopefully I can see more of it in the future!

Perkville
This was a great little app with one big problem, but luckily I was able to meet with the developer and offer them my suggestion after the hackathon. It was basically a loyalty app that allowed for rewards, digital punch-cards, points, etc. The app would allow you to assign a reward points value to specific goods you were selling, which was awesome, but the tracking was by CLASS. I told them to throw that out the window right away and map by item. That was really the only thing they needed as far as I was concerned :-). The team was nice too!

Dataraunt
App for posting info from your POS into QBO. Great in theory for those who are still using POS's that do not offer a sync. I have one piece of advice for Dataraunt and every other POS that does a daily summary posing in QBO: USE A FLIPPIN' SALES RECEIPT. No one wants 365 journal entries a year in their file along with adjustments and other necessary journal entries. Use a zero sales receipt, number it with a date code, let people map their own items/accounts. That is all.

Payments Cloud/SalesForce Invoicing & Payments for QBO/Babblework
To me, all of these Sales Force apps looked the same. I'm sure they were all unique, but to me it didn't seem like anything really unique or way different from other things on the market. Payments Cloud was a winner (yay!)

Service Titan
Another winner! YAY! I love Service Titan and I think that it is a very robust and powerful solution for service management. This app was in the 'Existing Application' bracket, for which the perimeter was to make a significant change in the app. The significant change here was that the QBO integration was built (which is awesome). Personally, I did not see significant value in the QBO integration as Service Titan is focused more on franchises, most of which depend on hosted QB Desktop files that the franchise can tap in to. There are many comparable solutions for service management that have a much lower price point for independents that have the freedom to move to QBO. HOWEVER: This could potentially be an influencer, allowing franchises to be master admins for QBO companies in their franchises and eliminating the need to cloud host the desktop files... Lets see where this goes!

SafetyNet by Jobber
Yes, you may recall this is the app that received a standing ovation from me (and I'm sure many more would have stood if the room had been full of accountants...). Many people were looking at me crazy with this one, wondering why my favorite app would be something so simple. The simplicity of this app is the beauty of it. One of the biggest hurdles that I encounter in persuading clients and peers to move to QuickBooks Online is the inability to make a period copy or backup of their data. This app meets a need not being fulfilled, has no competition on the market, and is a simple solution to a huge problem. YAY!

Method: Donations
The winner of the grand prize! I love you guys and I am VERY pleased that you have developed a solution that opens QBO up to the Non-Profit sector. This app allows you to track donors and donations and syncs the info back to QuickBooks Online. I am very confident that this app is going to be the best NP solution on the market, mostly because they are consulting with Gregg Bossen of QuickBooks Made Easy who is the non-profit king and won't let them screw it up! Method is truly a blessing in the QuickBooks ecosystem and I cannot wait for this app to go live on Apps.com. This app did everything it needed to do: solved a big problem with no existing solution, works well with QBO, and different/better than existing apps.

For contestants that I did not mention specifically, it is just because I have no valuable commentary or I feel that it was covered in the commentary already written out above. If you want specific feedback, feel free to contact me directly. If you have a link to your app that I was unable to find and include in this article, please post it in the comments! Thank you all for participating and for being so open to my opinions!

See you at #Solutions14 in Vegas!

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Skyline by Uni-Data - Why We 'Cloud Hopped'

We use a variety of cloud hosting solutions for our clients, but I had a hard time selecting one that was a great fit for our office as an accounting firm. We loved our old hoster (at first), but it turned in to the one transaction that I would glare at on my bank statement each month.

The decision to make the change was a fluke - my business debit card was replaced and I was changing the card number with my vendors as the notices of cancellation were coming in. When I received the email from the old hoster, I took it as a forced opportunity to find someone else.

I had a variety of problems that needed a better solution...

User Experience
You may already know that I am absolutely in love with all things Citrix... Skyline by UniData uses the XenApp platform, which is user friendly and fast. The platform shows you all of your versions of QuickBooks and allows you to view your Q Drive with your files, all from one central location. LOVELY!

Multiple Versions of QuickBooks Software
Skyline allows me to have all six versions of QuickBooks that I need to host - 3 years each of Premier Accountant and Enterprise Accountant. All of the icons that I need are available at my fingertips as soon as I log in. YAY!

Accountants Copy
This is the biggest obstacle that I encountered with my previous hoster, which was a total deal killer and cut in to the value and purpose of hosting my QuickBooks files. If a client sent me an Accountants Copy Transfer file, I would have to convert the file locally then upload it to the platform. This defeated the value of the cloud, as I had to be on a computer with the software that I was trying to avoid hosting locally. Skyline by Uni-Data is program driven instead of file driven, so I can just save the transfer file to the Q Drive and convert it in the cloud. SWEET!

Customer Service
I will be the first to tell you that I am semi-demanding with my vendors... If you make a product and advertise its purpose, I get irritated when it doesn't live up to it's name. I have heard this time and again about my industry - that accounting folk don't like to be 'sold' - but when you do sell us you better follow through! I'm sure many of you calculate out the cost of an obstacle once its complete, figuring out how much time and money you just lost while solving a preventable issue. The nice thing about the support at Skyline was that when I did have a problem and was too busy to do a remote session, they figured it out on their end and just kept emailing me to have me do my side. A rep stayed until 8:30 pm to make sure that my problem was fixed! AWESOME SAUCE.

Price
Ho. Lee. Cow. I was sold with the user interface features of Skyline, but when the price came in so much lower than the 'other guys', I was absolutely amazed. You want to give me a better product, with better service, for a better price? SOLD!

And to top it all off, my dear friend and lovely peer Joanie Mann of Cooper Mann Consulting Group is now working with Uni-Data, which gets them another gold start sticker in my book. Go check them out, you'll be glad you did!

See you at QuickBooks Connect in San Jose!

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Preparing Taxes vs. Preparing Businesses for Success

Do you pride yourself in being old school? We all know that there are many clients who are still old school, so the aging firm shouldn't have a problem, right?

WRONG!

Sorry to say, but the progressive firms will soon be taking over the old school clients one by one. We work with many awesome CPA's and great tax firms. Despite their awesomeness, many resounding issues not only prevent the client from reaching their maximum potential, but even prevent us from providing outstanding service as a non-tax firm.

Are You the Expert?

Your client should not have more resources in your industry than you do. If your client comes to you looking for an answer, you better have it or know the person that does. We are lucky to have strong relationships with many other firms in our area so that we are able to call on each other when we get stuck. It is hard to keep up to date with all of the evolving technology in the world today - different versions, different years, different industries. All of us know the saying "be a specialist - not a generalist", but the truth about a tax firm is that you need to "be a generalist - know a specialist".

Is Your Clients Best Interest in Mind?

We are all in it to make money, and the easier we can do that the better. I have seen recommendations given to clients that are in the best interest of the CPA, but have a drastic negative affect on the businesses ability to reach their maximum potential. One example of this is advising clients to use whatever system works best with your tax software instead of helping them select the right system for their business. I had a call a few weeks ago from a potential client looking for QuickBooks setup at the recommendation of their CPA. After consulting with the client, they really needed an ERP system. A good accountant can construct a tax return from well kept records - but great accountants lead businesses to success by utilizing the tools that make the most sense for that particular industry.

Are you Progressive or Stagnant?

Maybe you are not so motivated to learn new things or build new relationships because you are nearing the end of your career. This is where you need to decide if you are going to leave a legacy or just 'fall off'. I have heard some people talk about succession planning and selling their contracts so that they can retire. The real question is, would someone want your practice? If they did, would your name be carried out gracefully or would your successor prove that you were behind in the times?

Can You Get on Board?

Of course you can! There are all kinds of things you can do to expand your list of referral partners and specialists. You can look online, locally and nationally for industry specific groups where a variety of folks may gather - like NAN (National Advisor Network), BKN (Bookkeepers Network), Sleeter Consultants Network, and Meetup groups. There's always the classic old school way of looking up your peers online and reaching out with a phone call or email (we recommend checking out the Intuit Find-a-ProAdvisor page). We also recommend that you look at attending at least one industry conference per year, whether it's a local training or a national conference like the upcoming QuickBooks Connect. This gives you an opportunity to mind-share with peers, connect with specialists, and meet product vendors.

Then What?

Keep in touch with your core group. Ask questions and find out what kind of businesses they can best serve and enjoy serving. Tell people what you enjoy and what you are best at. Don't be afraid to send an existing, new, or potential client to one of your specialist resources to get the assistance they require. Once you start building these reciprocal relationships you will find new enjoyment in your client base. You are more likely to be the hero by referring to the right person who can be quick and effective rather than trying to tackle something out of your realm of expertise and potentially being unsuccessful. If you are a tax firm, do taxes. If you are a tech firm, do tech. Your success is measured only by the success of your clients.

Good luck!

Do you have more ideas on this subject?

Feel free to share in the comments below or reach out on Twitter.