WhichAddon Magazine - Issue 3 (QBO vs. Xero)

WWW.WHICHADDON.COM ISSUE 3, JULY 2018

Introducing:

The QBO vs Xero Project

MEET JERI IN PERSON AT XEROCON 2018

5-6 September

We’ll be there.

VISIT US AT STAND

TBA

T.O.C.

WELCOME Jeri WAMBEEK – Co-Founder of WhichAddOn

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Welcome to Issue 3 of the WhichAddOn Magazine. I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe it’s already time to celebrate another Happy New Financial Year. Although I am not a practicing tax agent any more, you can see celebrating another EOFY never gets old! Haha.

This month we have some exciting new real life client stories to share with you - the ups, the downs and most importantly, the solutions. Our WhichAddOn team - which is finally growing - works tirelessly everyday solving real world business solutions with cloud software. We have stories this month across a range of industries from one of Australia’s biggest ski and snow gear retailers to a hydraulic hose and fittings service-based business to a spirits distributor, all the way to a Sydney-based online toy company.

There is never a dull moment in the office as we have helping these clients across Australia move from their current system to their new cloud-based systems with either Xero or QuickBooks Online.

Many of you may know that about two years ago, we started a series of blogs called the QBO vs Xero project.

It started and it was never finished as our business grew leaps and bounds after this. However, we know there is

still a huge need in the market for quick tips and easy to find information about how QuickBooks compares to Xero and vice versa. It’s taken us two years of using these solutions day in and day out to share with you the QBO vs Xero Project and we know it takes time to learn it all, let alone share it. That’s why we are doing it for you. Read more about the QBO vs Xero project and how you can be involved in our feature article on page ….

Whilst we were considering how we can give you - our dedicated readers - even more valuable content and save you time, we got the team to put together a series of articles on the latest updates on some of the mostly commonly used apps in the ecosystem. This month, we share with you the latest updates from Deputy, Spotlight Reporting and DEAR Inventory.

Finally, we love getting your feedback on what you love to learn about and how we can help you succeed in your business using cloud solutions and help your clients and customers do the same. Please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at info@whichaddon.com with your questions, comments and feedback for upcoming issues from the WhichAddOn magazine.

Until next time, remember: Life is Better in the Cloud.

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CONTENT03 ISSUE

03 Welcome

06

QBO vs Xero Project

Free Ebook Download at WhichAddOn.com

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Larry Adler Ski & Outdoor Story

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Introducing AroFlo and Why We Choose It

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Client Success - DEAR Inventory, Xero & Shopify

Software Solutions - AroFlo with QBO or Xero

Hydraulink Clyde

Client Success - Story - AroFlo & QuickBooks Online

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Book a Free Scope Call Today

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Need a CRM Tool That Also Manages your Practice?

Software Solutions - Accelo with QBO or Xero

Good news for Spotlight Users

Software Updates

Good To Play

Client Success

DEAR Users: Check out these Mind-Blowing updates

Software Updates

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Introducing SalpoCRM for your Wholesale Business

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New and Exciting Features for Deputy Users

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Jeri Wambeek

Software Solutions

Software Updates

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FEATUREA

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THE QBO vs XERO PROJECT - WHY THE INDUSTRY NEEDS IT (AND YOU DO TOO)

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Here at WhichAddOn, we put a lot of effort into the due diligence of the growing number of solutions in the app marketplace. A good place to start seemed to be accounting systems. All businesses have money coming in and going out, they need to pay tax, and need various parties to collaborate on their financials. For that reason we’ve started our own project to compare online accounting

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systems, and we’ve chosen what we feel to be the two market leaders: QBO and Xero.

to project their customer numbers will catch up to that of Xero. Time will tell.

With its ease-of-use and Xero certainly had the jump on its competitors in the online accounting market, however Intuit have made fast progress recently in building out their feature list and number of paying subscribers.

Intuit has even been bold enough

In any case, increased competition and more choice is a good thing.

Nobody wants a monopoly on something as important as small business accounting. But in a landscape of rapid and agile software development and monthly product releases, how do we best

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advise our small business clients on what is best for them? Our review will help you to inform your SME clients if solution A is better than solution B, or why it might not even really matter. In any case, you - the accountant/bookkeeper/ trusted advisor - will be in the best position to give them an up to date, thorough and independent recommendation that is realistic

and correct for their business. And that’s what we’re all about.

How are we going to do this review?

We’ll be running our own business on both systems for comparison purposes. It’s likely to be lively Ford Vs Holden debate, so be prepared to add your democratic voice to the debate - respectfully, of course!

Ensure you don’t miss a thing and sign up to download the first QBO vs Xero ebook at WhichAddOn. com and you will get it the moment it’s released. Pre-order Part 1 free ebook here” https://whichaddon.com/get-theqbo-vs-xero-the-e-book-part-1today/

Xero's subscriber growth from 2007 to 2017

QBO’s subscriber growth from 2014 to 2017

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CLIENT

SUCCESS

LARRY ADLER SKI & OUTDOOR 6 x SKI SHOPS NATIONALLY IN AUSTRALIA

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A favourite ski and outdoor shop to clients not just in Australia but internationally, Larry Adler Ski & Outdoor also has the privilege of being the official boot fitter for the Australian National Ski Team for the past three decades. In many ways, this hallmark is a reflection not only of Larry’s many years of experience in the industry, but of the company as a whole, and its abilities to provide the finest quality ski and outdoor goods and service to all customers at a competitive price.

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PROBLEM Larry Adler is made up of seven retail outlets nationally and internationally.

Operating for over 30 plus years and over 20 years of those using a system called Intouch. Intouch served the retail ski giant well, but a few fundamental issues plagued the system. The main issues being:

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Stock control - Lack of visibility into stock levels, poor ability to order and receipt stock, stock locations, branch transfers,

2. Reporting - with years of data, reports could take upwards of a day to collate and generate a simple report on stock on hand, sales, purchases, etc.

3. e-Commerce connections

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are integral to retailers these days. With two websites utilizing Magento and Shopify, intouch had very poor options to connect directly to the e-commerce solutions.

4. Outdated architecture doesn’t allow native API connectivity to Xero accounting system.

This means accounts has to manually journal sales, purchases and adjustments.

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SOLUTION The solution was to use a cloud based inventory system. The Adler team chose to use DEAR inventory system, and needed an implementation team to put it in.

The job had its challenges as the prior system provider Intouch, refused to give us full access to their database. This was further compounded by the fact that intouch had very limited reporting capability. This caused the job to dramatically slow down and the project timeline had to be extended to accommodate this.

Finally it was a combination of data manipulation and manual data entry that got a lot of the data into the system. The Adler team

assisted in the manual entry of a large number of SKU’s. However, with anything manual, inevitably mistakes are made, and this also had a knock on effect down the track. But as the snow season drew closer, a decision was made to push on despite us raising these concerns.

The main knock on effect was mistakes in data entry made it very hard to stock take the stores, it also made it incredibly difficult to map to both e-commerce solutions, and caused a myriad of headaches.

We finally went live at the start of June and despite many hurdles, most especially with the issues we had raised earlier in the implementation. We worked

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hard with the accounts team and managers to get the system to work they way they originally envisioned.

FINAL THOUGHTS The key takeaway from this is each client is unique and brings its own complexities, and there is no one size fits all implementation.

The Adlers are a large team, with 50-100 staff, and a lot of moving parts. It isn’t always fun and games, and often frustration creeps in from both sides, but the key is keeping one’s eye on the finish line, as with life there are valleys and mountain tops, and so it is with implementations. 

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SOFTWARE

SOLUTIONS

INTRODUCING AROFLO AND WHY WE CHOOSE IT

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AroFlo is a full-featured cloudbased job management software that provides solutions for trades and construction industries enabling them to automate workflows. The software is accessible from any mobile device to enable you to stay connected to your business.

With its ease-of-use and dependability, you can manage your projects under one platform— right from the query stage to invoicing.

The designing of the platform is

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meant to cater for a number of needs—whether or not you’re operating from the office. You can keep track of your staff and job schedules, create quotes and estimates, generate invoices, order for materials, keep track of inventory, and much more.

AroFlo offers you a range of features to bring you up to speed with the 21st Century business world by ensuring your operations remain as seamless as possible.

Here are some key features of AroFlo job management software:

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JOB MANAGEMENT This feature enables users to view all team members and resources allocated for each job, keep track of periodic maintenance, and plan out future worksheets. You can conveniently track each project from the starting point to the end from anywhere.

ESTIMATES AND QUOTES AroFlo software assists you to generate thorough, accurate and polished quotes and estimates for

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your potential and existing clients.

You are able to have an overview of estimated and actual cost of jobs so as to watch out for any variations. This can help you create more accurate quotes for similar projects in future.

In addition, there are several templates for quotes and estimates that can be edited to prevent you from creating repetitive data from scratch every time you create a similar document. What’s more—if you’re lucky enough to instantly strike a deal after issuing a quote

while in the field, you can easily generate an invoice there and then.

And in case a job schedule changes, you can automatically update and send the changes to the associated crew members.

SCHEDULING PROJECTS When it comes to scheduling your jobs, this feature does all the heavy lifting for you. You can assign field staff to projects they’re most suited to handle—ensuring each job is allocated to the best fit. Of course, the allocation will depend on the availability of team members—simply drag and drop schedules in the AroFlo Calendar.

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FIELD MOBILITY Being cloud-based, AroFlo runs on mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, among others to grant you convenience.

Teammates can have access to all sorts of information regarding a job while in the field.

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So, if you have multiple teams working on different projects in separate locations, you won’t have to physically move around to track and record progress –this can be done from the respective sites by the staff in charge of those particular projects.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT Your large projects can now be managed from the one screen.

With various project management tools incorporated into the software, you can flawlessly keep tabs on members’ productivity, job progress, time management, and so much more to be able to professionally undertake your projects.

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SAFETY MANAGEMENT AroFlo enables its users to comply with and manage Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) standards across the organization.

The app has inbuilt risk assessment, job safety analysis (JSA), and compliance checklists. In case of an impending risk, staff members are notified via real-time alerts.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT Inventory is a core part of your business and with AroFlo; you are able to maintain proper inventory records of materials, assets, and parts for all your projects.

ACCOUNTING INTEGRATION AroFlo has partnered with a number of accounting applications such as QuickBooks and Xero to enhance smooth transfer of data between the two platforms. This ensures your financial data is available to you whenever you need it.

LIVE TRACKING The software also offers you the ability to track your business operations—and have a real-time view of core activities such as teams’ client response, idle time, and so on. You can rest easy with the GPS trackers’ eagle eye.

INFORMATION ACCESS RESTRICTION AroFlo gives you total control over what your clients, team, and contractors have access to in the system. If you prefer privacy in some areas (and you will), the application might be a great choice for you.

REPORTING The software offers a range of customized reports to give you a clear overview of the business performance—for decision-making

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purposes. You get a full menu of reports that have numerical and graphical representations to give you a better angle for conducting your analysis.

WHY WE CHOOSE AROFLO Now if you haven’t had much to do with job management software, such as AroFlo before, I am sure you would get excited to read about what is possible. But there was one final feature, which blew us out of the water when we found AroFlo. Previously, before we found AroFlo, we would implement simPRO for our clients. Remember our clients almost always have strong inventory management requirements, as well as job management needs. simPRO is a great product and suits many businesses, however, AroFlo jumped ahead of the game in our experience once we became aware of their Supplier Invoice Email Imports.

Check out the video below and you will see why we love AroFlo for our clients with these needs. 

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CLIENT

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HYDRAULINK CLYDE

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Hydraulink has over 400 service points throughout New Zealand, Australia and the Asia Pacific region. Operating from distribution centres with counter service and supported by mobile service units, Hydraulink is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you are involved in mining, agriculture, transport, forestry, the marine industry or any industry that needs fast, effective and reliable hose and hydraulic services.

and maintenance department.

Quick books and Service M8 allow for an integration where Service M8 utilises quickbooks inventory module.

The limiting factor however is that Quickbooks can only cater for 40,000 product SKUs. Hydraulink has many spare/service parts, with over 50,000 SKU’s. So they needed a system that could handle added workflow and possibly also their job management.

PROBLEM Hydraulink used a combination of Quickbooks and Service M8 to organise over the counter sales and jobs on the road for their service

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SOLUTION The solution was Aroflo. Aroflow not only could handle 50,000 plus

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FINAL THOUGHTS SKU’s, but they are a service/job management software specialist.

Which gives Hydraulink insight into all their service vehicles/assets as well. Further to this they are able to service over the counter retail sales at the same time.

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At this stage in the project that is all Hydraulink wants out of the software.

However, Aroflo has many other features that we believe will enrich the service that Hydraulink provides.

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We have a further article that goes into much more detail about how powerful this software truly is.

Its applications are numerous and will benefit any organisation that performs job management and still requires detail inventory, ie plumbers, electricians, etc. ď ł

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SOFTWARE

SOLUTIONS

Check out this naked truth Accelo Review

NEED A CRM TOOL THAT ALSO MANAGES YOUR PRACTICE?

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At Whichaddon we love Accelo so much we use it to manage all aspects of our business. Prior to Accelo we went through a number of different systems. I won’t mention names, but most did not last more than a month. When we started using Accelo, it was love at first sight.

For you to professionally run your practice, you’re not only required to organize your CRM connections but also deal fairly with other client tasks. It is paramount to effectively handle client requests, track time for completion of tasks, review incurred expenses, fraternize with your team members, as well as consistently provide quality ongoing services.

There are tons of tools for handling each of these tasks—but mostly, on separate platforms. Integration of these business processes is quite essential to your business. Otherwise, you may be hindered from being efficient and combative enough in the wake of fierce competition in tech advancements.

Accelo is one such app that is created to solve that problem—letting you do what you love. The software provides your business with a single, easy-to-use platform to help you manage your client work.

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Being ideal for a team of 5 or more, Accelo was built for agencies keen on managing their clientele professionally under one platform.

The cloud-born app enables you to stay connected to your business wherever you are. Accelo CRM integrates a number of useful tools that make business processes, clients, and teams to have a synergistic effect on your business.

ACCELO MODULES, JOBS AND PROJECTS Accelo has inbuilt job tracking and project management tools meant to handle the flexibility needed by professionals in the service industry. You can conveniently organize your budgets, projects, times and tasks, all under one platform.

SALES AND MARKETING With this software, users can be able to perform sales and marketing activities, track opportunities, and issue quotes and estimates for projects to potential and existing clients.

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CRM AND CLIENTELE

TASKS, SCHEDULING AND TIMESHEETS

Accelo comes with a client database that can easily be accessed by all permitted users—authorized users can view client activities such as sales, correspondences, invoices, and much more.

The app has almost everything your staff may need to execute their tasks and monitor project deadlines using the integrated task tracker, project scheduling and timesheets available in the software.

INVOICING AND PAYMENTS

CLIENT PORTAL

You can create invoices for services, contracts, and timesheets with a click of a button in Accelo—then conveniently get paid by your clients for billed services.

With Accelo, you can provide your clients with realtime access to their job information—they can be able to monitor progress, view account information, and seek help, or better still, place additional orders.

CONTRACTS AND RETAINERS

CONCLUSION

If you have service retainers or contracts with your clients, you can absolutely get rid of your billing and reporting struggles. Accelo’s Contracts and Retainers automatically link your contracts to the respective jobs and timesheets.

If you’re an Accountant, Bookkeeper, IT Professional, or any other service-based business keen on treating your clients to a new customer relations experience, then Accelo might be a great place to start. With its ability to combine project planning, tracking, and collaborations, your clients wouldn’t be in better hands.

EMAIL, NOTES, AND COLLABORATIONS Accelo is wired with a memory storage capability—you can retrieve emails, meeting notes, documents, and more against a given sale or project. This makes it possible for you to trace information such as a past order specifications—whenever you have repeat business.

As part of the continued effort to professionalize business processes, Whichaddon is committed to walking with your every step of this journey.

We are committed to catering for your training, implementation, and support needs during your partnership with Accelo.

For a more customized assistance, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today! 

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SOFTWARE

UPDATES

Good news for Spotlight Users So, what’s new?

With Spotlight, you can always be sure of reporting like the professional that you are. Having been developed by a team of qualified accountants, one wouldn’t expect anything less.

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LOAN RECORDING WHEN FORECASTING

Correct loan recording when forecasting could be a daunting exercise that’s more often than not, prone to errors. With Spotlight forecasting, however, you can now

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use the Loan Amortization Rule to properly record a new or existing loan—both the principal and interest amounts.

The recording process is utterly straightforward.

Open the Balance Sheet tab

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then the current or non-current liabilities section in your forecast or scenario.

Hit the Add Rule button—key in a name for the rule. It may be the name of the loan or one you’ll easily recognize it with.

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Choose Loan Amortization under the Rule Type drop-down menu.

The next section will lead you to the following process:  Apply Rule to—choose the correct account you wish to record the loan to.  Journal to Account—the bank account to which payments are taken and the loan repayments.  Interest Account—this accounts records interest expense arising from the loan.

Click on the ‘Next’ button and key in the following:  Loan amount—this is the amount of the loan.  Start Date—it reflects the date the loan was acquired

 Interest rate—the rate of interest of the loan.  Loan period—the loan repayment duration.

If you click ‘Next’, you will view the loan details, the monthly payments and interest on the Amortization Schedule Screen.

 Repayment frequency—this records the repayment timings.

The schedule can be downloaded in PDF or Excel if need be.

You can then view the loan summary if you click ‘Next’. You can also show the loan summary on your report by checking the ‘Include in Assumptions Page of Report’ box.

If there are additional payments other than the standard ones, click on the ‘Additional Payments’ icon and record the payment.

But then, what If it’s an existing loan and not a new one?

In this case, the loan must have been recorded earlier on either in your accounting system or the Fixed Asset rule.

Simply proceed by selecting the loan already recorded in the accounts check box.

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Click ‘Next’ and if you don’t need to add any notes thereafter, click ‘Save Rule’.

The loan will now appear correctly in your Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cashflow forecasts.

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QUICKBOOKS INTEGRATION QuickBooks desktop and Spotlight have taken the power of integration to a whole new level.

You can now seamlessly import data from your QuickBooks

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desktop into Spotlight. The data can then be used create powerful reports, forecasts, and dashboards.

The data can also be layered with info from Excel, Google Docs, and analytics to give you a better view

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of the organization.

Spotlight reporting is designed to deliver deeper insights and clarity to enable users to make more informed decisions.

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DYNAMIC RULES Dynamic Rule enables you to set up essential rules that will keep numbers in your business up.

You can create rules that will link the profit and loss account to other values in the database. This will adequately adjust other relevant figures in your financial records.

If, for instance, the cost of a product is 30% of the revenue generated, add a dynamic rule and key in the formula to execute the

rule. The formula can be (Product Revenue x 0.30) click ‘Next’ then ‘Save’ to have it set up. The product cost will be updated as the revenue changes.

Dynamic rules contribute immensely to having a more realistic forecast.

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WhichAddOn is committed to supporting your advisory journey because your success matters to us.

If you experience any technical difficulties that require our intervention, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today. Till then, happy forecasting! 

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CLIENT

SUCCESS

GOOD TO PLAY 26

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Good to Play have a passion for providing children with a wonderful opportunity to learn, grow and develop through play.

With a firm belief that playing with toys is beneficial to a child’s social, cognitive, physical, and emotional well-being, Good to Play have sourced beautifully crafted educational toys to facilitate these important developmental qualities.

The broad selection of educational toys have been chosen for their quality and uniqueness.The range consists of educational toys made from sustainable sources, ecofriendly products, hand finished toys and award winning toys.

Good to Play have sourced age appropriate educational toys for children from global brands such as Djeco, Janod, Ragtales, Automoblox, Haba, Plan Toys, Green Toys, Gotz and many more. Good to Play is proudly Australian Owned and Operated.

needed a system that was very thorough from picking and packing to final dispatch.

It was decided that shopify could not cope with this and another system was required.

SOLUTION The solution was Cin7, one of the most powerful cloud inventory systems in the market. Cin7s strength is in its connectivity to different applications. The shopify connection was no problem for Cin7.

The order, picking and dispatch is one of the strong points for Cin7 and this was achieved quite effortlessly. They also wanted specific locations and bins to assist them in packing quicker, this was also implemented for them.

FINAL THOUGHTS

PROBLEM Good to play (GTP) started out solely as an e-commerce store utilising Shopify. However they outgrew shopify’s inventory and dispatch functionality, and required a solution that was more dedicated.

They also moved from utilising a 3PL (Third party logistics provider), to bringing the warehouse and dispatch inhouse. This meant they

In my opinion, Cin7 is the best connected cloud inventory management system currently in the market. When I say “connected”, I mean Cin7 can connect to shopify, magento, ebay and Amazon (plus many more), and not skip a beat.

Most other solutions currently tend to have a heart attack and seem to work so hard to achieve the same results that Cin7 does with such ease. 

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SOFTWARE

UPDATES

DEAR USERS: CHECK OUT THESE MIND-BLOWING UPDATES DEAR has done it again with another round of useful updates for users around the world. Whether you were looking for updates to the POS module, updates to the core inventory module or enhancements to the Xero module, it’s all here.

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When the recent updates by DEAR reached us, we couldn’t help but sift through and conduct the update ourselves to verify its impact. Glad to report they weren’t a disappointment.  Here are the updates.

#1. NOTIFICATIONS CENTRE You will now be able to get a clearer view of all notifications from assorted areas such as inapp sales and e-commerce for a real-time awareness of any critical issues in your business. Note you may need to upgrade to get the notifications feature.

#2. API VERSION 2 In addition to the list of available endpoints, the following have also been included:

There’s an option for B2B portal customers to order and for you to invoice from the same portal.

You can also send a notification with a download link of the invoice to a customer when the order is shipped. The same can be done to suppliers with an order download link.

And just to sum it all up, you get a notification when the customer opens and downloads the invoice.

#4. POS Here, there’s an additional report called “Payment Summary Report”. Further, the Vanity and Tyro payment service integration has also been fulfilled and available for use.

#5. INVENTORY • Product Family • All reference book endpoints • Assembly • Disassembly

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now be printed from all sales modules. Also, from now on, a notification will be sent whenever a gift card is sold.

#3. B2B PORTAL

Depending on the regions and countries that you ship to, you can now estimate shipping rates in DEAR Inventory and B2B Portal.

The shipping regions can be set-up in the reference book.

It is now possible to attach to your B2B portal your custom domain.

Gift cards added under the document templates section can

• Sales order discount for more than Y or Y%

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Here are the new notifications:

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• Discounts issued on product price tiers—even for 0 discounts.

• Created sales order notification • Recurring invoice issued notification • Change of shipping number notification • Sold gift card notification A new target email recipient choice was also added—you can now email suppliers, sales reps, among other stakeholders.

table has been improved to contain Date Sent, Date Received and In Transit Account. On the other hand, the Purchase/Sale mail merge now contains Total Orders discount, Total Quote discount, and Total Invoice discount.

The POS and B2B now support gift cards.

A sales rep section has also been included in the Export to Ship Station. In the receiving note, you are now also able to view batch or serial numbers comma separated.

There’s also an undo option for sales manual journal as well as an improved onboarding experience and design.

Notable, is the new coupons feature for your customers and can be created in the Product Deals Module.

#6. GIFT CARDS SUPPORT, SHIPPING ZONE, SHIPPIT INTEGRATION & MORE

Special shipping zones have been introduced in the shipping zone to cater for marginalized shipping destinations.

Also, you can now set the minimum orders amounts in the B2B portal.

Setting shipping rates in DEAR is now easier after the integration with Shippit and Shipstation both in the B2B and app.

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“In Transit” scenarios will now be supported by the Stock Transfer function to improve its purpose.

The Stock Transfer function now contains new fields ‘Stock Sent Date’, ‘In Transit Account’, and ‘Stock Received Date’.

Also, the Stock Transfer mail merge

#7. XERO ENHANCEMENTS, TASKS MODULE, ZAPIER INTEGRATION & MORE Dear Notifications Module and Tasks Module now work

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together to allow you to set up a workflow process of assembly and disassembly of suppliers, purchases, sales, credit notes, and customers.

Workflows can now include rules such as Accounting and Marketing Departments to help complete certain transactions. Notifications here include ‘Task has been created; Task has been assigned, and so on.

The process of importing data from Xero or QuickBooks is now improved. If, for example, an account code changes in Xero, DEAR will automatically update it in the related transactions.

There are now improved explanations for unique cases such as errors. The explanations are elaborate to help you rectify or comprehend an issue.

You also have an option to attach an invoice and export to Xero.

Zapier integration is now available but requires you to purchase both the notification module and DEAR API.

The Unit Cost field is also available on the product availability screen but will require you to enable it from the gear drop-down.

There’s a Sync Short Description area between DEAR and Woocommerce under the catalogue listing/catalogue download.

You can now easily search for existing customers when using the ‘Ship to Different Company’ feature.

The DEAR POS tax evaluation has been enhanced to adequately cater for each customer’s tax rules.

#8. ADVANCED PURCHASE MODULE, XERO ENHANCEMENTS, DEAR B2B PORTAL ENHANCEMENT & MUCH MORE In each purchase order, the new advanced purchase module now permits multiple stocks invoices receiving as well as credit notes.

It also allows for multiple invoice generation, stock receipts, and credit notes in each purchase order.

The purchase screen now shows two view types—General and Accounting views for better presentation and filter options.

Users of Shippit, Shipstation, and Starshipit will now be able to create shipping labels in DEAR when at the sales shipping stage.

Each sales order header will now contain a carrier/shipping service field.

Products can now be shown in terms of quantities within a category of a bulk order screen.

Also, you can choose to or not display shipping prices on the checkout page.

In addition, a green “In Stock” and a red “Out of Stock” display when you are in and out of stock respectively. If, on the other hand, stock has been ordered, an amber display for “Coming Soon” will appear.

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Enhanced notifications include: You can schedule a report to be sent to relevant staff automatically at specified periods such as weekly or monthly. A sales rep can also receive a notification for a sale he/ she is in charge of.

When it comes to Xero integrations, you will now be able to automatically schedule synchronization to Xero and results will be received by specific individuals in the company.

Sales and purchases can also be exported to Xero.

In addition, the improved POS price label can now be printed using a mobile device via Google Cloud Print.

Other improvements include the ability to list service type products to e-commerce integrations and additional filter labels “Outstanding Credits Only” under the customer credits.

#9. PURCHASE MODULE ENHANCEMENTS, XERO WIZARD, GDPR COMPLIANCE & MORE This final category of updates from the DEAR team includes: • An addition of New Service-Only Purchase to the purchasing module • Partial stock-take with an option for product filtering • The purchasing module has been modified to include New standalone purchase credit note • The DEAR API got an upgrade to advanced purchase • DEAR POS now has an improved on account and layby sales and payments • In a simple purchase, the Clone/ Keep PO option has now been restored • Now appearing under the Purchase List is the Combined Purchases status field • You can now switch a DEAR company from one Xero to the

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other using the Xero Connection Wizard • There’s a reminder feature under the Notifications Module • A customer’s sensitive information is now secured with the Pseudonymise action on a customer page. This is in line with the recent GDPR. Despite all these events not being fully logged currently, a substantial amount of updates have already been implemented. The events will continue to be tracked and filled in the coming days.

We certainly hope you found the updates useful.

In case you found all these to be a bit overwhelming, don’t panic. You can always shoot us a query and we’ll be more than pleased to offer assistance. 

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: M R C O P L A S

SOFTWARE

SOLUTIONS

NG I C DU O R INT

FOR YOUR WHOLESALE BUSINESS

A

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A good number of entrepreneurs understand how easily poor customer relationship management structures can ruin a viable businesses. Having a functioning CRM tool is a priceless investment in the 21st century. And this has over time necessitated the need to develop customized products for this important business process— welcome to Salpo CRM.

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Salpo is meant to sit at the heart of your business—forming personalized interactions with your clients. The app ensures information is shared efficiently and internal collaborations are achieved.

The solution is cloud-based and is designed to provide flexibility— ensuring customer workflows and data capturing adequately caters for

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your business needs.

With a build-in GDPR feature, the app ensures information belonging to its users is treated with the privacy it deserves—in accordance with the 2018 GDPR requirements.

The system can either be used as a standard sales and service tool, or can be tailored to meet the specific requirements of your business.

CUSTOM CONNECTIONS Salpo database has the ability

to flexibly handle a one-to-many connection, products, contacts, and opportunities; plus any other modules to easily interact with each other. The app is able to execute these intricate connections flawlessly.

CONTACT MANAGEMENT With Salpo’s on-page editing capability, you can quickly add, view, and update client contact information. It’s also possible to filter contacts using multiple fields to come up with an export list to

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Emma, Mailchimp, among other tools.

Interestingly, Salpo also allows you to map company structures in your company database to be able to establish any cross-company contact links.

EMAIL SYNC This CRM is configured to copy sent and received mails including files and attachments; and conveniently saves them against respective contacts. Phone calls with notes,

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meeting details, and so on can also be stored to maintain all your valuable data under one platform.

CUSTOM MODULES The customized Salpo modules can capture anything you want it to—this could be projects, travel packages, events, and more. If, for instance, you’re in the business of wholesaling motorbikes, you can simply create a module named “Motorbikes” and document all the related information such as price, colour, and so on.

The app also allows for the creation of new fields by renaming any standard fields. If, for example, you don’t prefer using the word ‘feature’, you can easily replace it with another word using the built-in Custom Naming Option.

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OPPORTUNITY MANAGEMENT

CONCLUSION

With this feature, the sales team can spend more time chasing great business opportunities that boost business revenues. The app allows you to connect pre-loaded products to possible leads. You can include notes and schedule-actionable emails against certain products.

Salpo provides your business with a powerful and flexible platform that allows for boundless customization, mind-blowing modules, as well as beneficial third party integrations. If you need a solution that looks, feels, and functions like your business needs it to, then look no further.

GDPR COMPLIANCE The Salpo team understands too well the essence of privacy protection. For this reason, they customized the app to help users to comply with the set regulations. The solution contains a Compliance Assistance Tool that ensures all sections of the GDPR are adhered to including providing a selfserve customer portal to keep you less worried about compliance issues.

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Finally, if these features excite you as much as they do us, then you should consider incorporating Salpo in your business operations. We can offer you Salpo user training, product implementation, and long-term support so you can start managing your clientele professionally, efficiently, and conveniently. 

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SOFTWARE

UPDATES

New And Exciting

Features for Deputy Users Ready to unwrap the goodies? Let’s get started!

If you’re a fan of Deputy, then good for you—because things just got more exciting. Recently, they afforded you a few extra features on employee profiles and auto-scheduling of shifts.

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UPDATE #1 EMPLOYEE PROFILES

Known for keeping it simple and fun, Deputy decided to walk the talk with a recent update of employee profiles model.

With the older version of Deputy, it was a bit tedious sifting through employee information in the tiny and squeezed window on the right hand corner.

Looks familiar? Well, not anymore.

Finding profile information in the older version would take a toll on anyone looking to quickly access certain data.

Since the May 2018 update, users are now able to view and manage key information relating to employees.

This can be done through the new centred employee profile window.

If you thought the previous version had a modest set up when it came to viewing employee details, then you’re going to find the new model even more effortless.

Welcome to the new Deputy Employee Profile Model‌

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The new profile design is quite flexible and allows users to browse through employee personal details such as contacts, leave and unavailability, timesheets, newsfeed, and journal updates.

And what’s more? You don’t have to worry about losing functionality of the application since the same information has just been served in a simpler and thrilling way.

Notable is the fact that the update currently relates to only how supervisors and managers view profiles of employees. That is to say, if an employee or a manager was to view their own information, they will still be able to spot the existing gliding panel on the right hand.

If you click on it, the application analyses a number of things in your database to come up with the ultimate schedule.

Some of the items it analyses include your business demands in terms of sales revenue, number of people required to meet that target, and much more. Based on the evaluated information, it will build a shift structure for you; as well as place the best-suited employees in those shifts.

Also, with the recent introduction of the new GDPR requirements, you can now protect the privacy of employees by erasing their information at their request or upon leaving the organization.

You’ll appreciate that initially, it would take you a decent amount of time to process this.

Moving forward, under the ‘Auto’ button lays two options. The first one is labelled ‘Auto Build Shift Structure’ and the second one being ‘Auto Fill Empty Shifts’.

UPDATE #2 AUTO-SCHEDULING

Select the ‘Auto Build Shift Structure’ option and an ‘Auto Build’ window will immediately pop up. The window contains a few fields that need to be filled up.

I feel like I should personally appreciate the Deputy team on behalf of its users on this one. Apparently, it took over two years to piece up this upgrade—so yea, thumbs up would be in order!

Now, here’s what’s in it for you with this upgrade.

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When next you log into Deputy, hit the ‘Schedule’ button and among the appearing menus is the ‘Auto’ icon.

The first one is your preferred shift lengths. Your shifts could range from 4 hours to 8 hours or so depending on your policies.

The next window would be for the shift structure.

This can be based on the number of staff required—if

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previously specified or, you could simply choose a historical time sheet from the drop-down menu. You can then select the ‘Minimum Coverage Option’ if you prefer having a minimum of 1 staff at any given time.

Lastly, is the ‘Starting Hour Block’ which lets you choose when the shifts start. It could be in an hour or two depending on your preference.

After filling all that up, click on the ‘Build Shift’ icon and voila—your shifts’ up and running.

In case you have a couple of other shifts to fill, you can then hit the second option under ‘Auto’ which is marked ‘Auto Fill the Empty Shifts’.

The first option will let you choose whether you wish to keep your costs low or not—of course you do; I mean who doesn’t, right? So just hit that up.

You can then proceed to select the distribution of hours to staff—you could distribute in equal hours or not. This can be done using the ‘Equal Hour’ button.

Under the ‘Learn from me’ icon, you can click on ‘Learn My Preferences from Past Schedule’ if you’ve previous created any.

The next icon is marked ‘How Long Do You Want to Wait’. This button grants you several choices all dependent on the quality of results you require. It could be, a minute or less for a good result, or a few minutes for a better result and so on.

Based on your choices, you’re now set to hit the ‘Auto Fill Shift’ button to have all the remaining shifts scheduled for you. Well, there you have! Exciting, right?

FINAL WORD These updates could immensely contribute towards your business success and implementing them the right way is paramount. And in the wake of cut-throat competition, surely, you could leverage on some tech advancements.

All in all, we hope you found the update useful for your business and as usual, feel free to get in touch with us in case you require one-on-one range of assistance regarding Deputy. 

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