Don't get bogged down trying to make small business software work for you

When you start out in business, accounting software is the least of your worries.  There are plenty of great small business packages out there and your accountant will probably recommend you stick with the most popular to make importing files and sharing of information easier.

Now this is great advice when you are a small business, but what happens when you grow and find you need multiple currencies, multi-company reporting, extensive inventory control, flexible reporting, effective multi-user, bill of materials etc.?  This is the time to find a package that will work for YOUR business.

Perth Crest Software is often approached by frustrated business owners trying to make a small business package work for them.  We consult with them, assist them in their review and give the most objective advice possible.  It is a big step changing accounting software but if you make the right choice it will bring huge long and short term benefits to your business.

Please contact Perth Crest today for advice on business software.

May Newsletter

Welcome to our first newsletter.  As the past few months have been exciting times for Perth Crest, we thought it would be a good time to share these with you, our valued client.  For each of you, we most likely provide one specific line of software support, but there are many aspects that we may be able to help you with.  Over the last year, we have worked to expand our scope in an effort to provide businesses like yours, total software solution packages.

New Website

Earlier in 2011, Perth Crest launched a new website with an online shop.  If you haven’t visited www.perthcrest.com.au lately, please give it a look and let us know what you think.  We appreciate your feedback.

Facebook

In addition to the fully revamped website, we have also joined the ranks of Social Media.  We have started a Facebook page to provide you with helpful information and to encourage greater client interaction.   We would love to hear from you, so please feel free to post comments or ask questions. 

Meet the Team

Andrew  – Director

Andrew launched Perth Crest in 2006, utilising his 20 plus years experience in the IT industry including an extensive background in accounting and asset  management software.  He has an excellent knowledge of Crystal reporting and up until recently had been conducting the majority client support personally.

Andrew@perthcrest.com.au

Beth – WageEasy Consultant

Beth is our WageEasy expert, she has an extensive knowledge of the package and does all new installs and support.  In addition to WageEasy, Beth assists with Pastel Partner support.

beth@perthcrest.com.au

Julie  – Accounts and Administration

Julie assists with all administrative aspects of Perth Crest

Julie@perthcrest.com.au

Sue  – Sales and Software Consultant

Sue uses her strong accounts background and working knowledge of Sage to conduct new software  installs and Sage support.  She also assists with marketing and promotion.

sue@perthcrest.com.au

Software Range

Here is a brief introduction to the Perth Crest software range, please visit our site or contact us for further information:

Payroll – Wage Easy

Simplify your payroll and human resources with Wage Easy. Wage Easy Payroll is a software solution specially designed for Australian employment conditions. It’s intuitive, easy-to-use and fully integrated.

Accounting – Sage Pastel Accounting

Sage Pastel Accounting Software packages are used over 200,000 companies in 52 countries across the globe. For complete accounting software packages and business management software packages that are flexible and feature-rich, look no further.

E-Commerce – AspDotNet storefront

Using Aspdotnetstorefront and syncronisation module Evolvesync we can deliver a professional on-line shopping site linked to your Sage Pastel Evolution accounting system with product and customer login details uploaded and all on-line sales downloaded eliminating duplication of transactions

Business Modelling and Process Control – TKO

With TKO (Turn-Key-Operation) Business Modeller software the challenge of policy and procedure manuals is made easy. TKO will enable you to create, edit, publish and review your business policy and procedures manuals easily and efficiently. 

Remote business access – Evolve Anywhere

Evolve Anywhere provides cost effective and seamless remote access to core Business Applications and Desktops. Securely access your office desktop anywhere over the internet, even from an Apple iPad

Project Management – Easy Projects

The easiest all-in-one project management software. Easy Projects .NET is a web-based project management tool, making team collaboration hassle free and straightforward.

Backup Solutions – Evolve Remote Backup

Evolve Remote Backup - is a centralized backup service which allows system administrators to manage individual users and their account configurations, as well as monitor the entire system’s performance easily. 

Web design and hosting – Evolve

Evolve Hosting & Web Design provides the highest quality graphic design services aimed at delivering an impressive visual and professional presentation of your business website.

Fleet Management – Tranman

Tranman is a market leading software package specifically designed for fleet and asset management.  It enables the user to track, manage and report on all aspects of their fleet.  Our dedicated Tranman site is currently under development, we look forward to bringing it to you soon.

We look forward to providing you with the right software solutions to help your business achieve its goals.

Kind Regards

Andrew Valentine

Payroll packages should do more than just "payroll".

Payroll packages tend to be designed just to process pays and keep accounting/ taxation records.  Business owners and Human Resource manager's know that there is a lot more to looking after staff than just processing their pay.
My quest for an alternative payroll / HR package began when I started getting requests from organisations that were satisfied with their current accounting packages but needed payroll.  When I started enquiring, I found that many businesses had purchased small business accounting packages which included payroll, but were only using it for pay processing.  In addition to this, businesses were still running separate records to manage their human resource and occupational health and safety requirements.


After in depth research I finally found Wage Easy by Micropay.  It is not a well known package, but the more I learned about it, the more I realised what a comprehensive a piece of software it really is.  It has all the features of a payroll package but includes the little things that can make an employee feel special.  For example, it has user defined fields where you can record information such as employee's spouses and children's names and birthday and anniversaries.


Apart from standard payroll features, Wage Easy can record and report the following:

• User Defined Data
• Career Aspirations
• Disciplinary Actions
• Licenses
• Performance Reviews
• Qualifications and Skills
• Training
• Company Issued Cards
• Grievances
• Medical Information
• OS&S Incidents
• Company Issued Property
• Company Vehicle
• Leave data

As payroll packages go, Wage Easy really is one of the best.  If you need any assistance in choosing payroll or accounting software, please feel free to contact me personally.  I am happy to help.

Kind Regards

Andrew Valentine

                  

 www.perthcrest.com.au

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How to choose the right accounting software

This is a challenge for all sized businesses.  It is such a big decision with on-going consequences if you get it wrong.  I have worked with many businesses over the years, almost starting all over again because they find the package is just not right for them.

What do you need it for initially?

Write down the reasons for having an Accounting package.  It could be that you are you simply tracking your income and expenses, do you need full inventory control, budgeting, payroll, customer relationship management, taxation return preparations?  Determining why you need it will help guide you to the type of package will be the most suitable for your business.

What will you need it for in the future?

This is where you need to start thinking ahead.  Will you need multi-user, perhaps you want to add inventory and payroll later.  I suppose the big question to ask yourself is where do you see your business in 3 years and 5 years.  Having to start again, retrain and re-enter all your data is expensive and time consuming.

How much support will you need?

If you are well versed in accounting procedures and IT savvy, you may need little assistance.  If not you may need on the job training and ongoing support (a person at the end of the line to answer your questions).  Most software providers offer support contracts and pay as you use assistance.  Make sure that this is readily available in whatever format you need, be it over the phone, internet or site visits.

Only pay for what you need.

Just like buying airline ticket, some software packages come with many features that you are will pay for but will never use.  Consider a package that you can add a module when you feel the need for it,  this keeps the costs down but minimises the risk of having to purchase and adapt to completely new software in the future.

Seek advice

Ask others in similar businesses to yours.  Find out what package they use and why, are they happy with it, support issues, has it grown with their business etc.  People are often the best providers of information.  Search the internet, including business forums for a broad range of information.  Ask your Accountant as they work with many businesses with differing needs.

There are many packages available, if you need any assistance please feel free to contact me personally.  I am happy to help.

Kind Regards

Andrew Valentine

                                           

 www.perthcrest.com.au

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What would happen if your computer was stolen, lost or damaged?

While your computer can easily be replaced, the lost data may be critical to the future of your business.  If you have a back-up, you may be able to retrieve the information from there, but more often than not the data is incomplete or the backup storage device is lost along with the computer.   

After helping a colleague who's business was on the brink of collapse due to this very problem, I began researching for better backup options.  Sure, we all know that it can be kept on an external hard drive in a remote location, but how often do you remember to back it up and how safe is the drive from possible corruption?  All my research pointed to a remote back-up solution, but there were so many available and I was worried about security.

In the end, I came back to Evolve Remote Backup.  I had used other Evolve software packages, so to me it was already a name I could trust.   My findings were:

• It was the easiest package to manage and use.  
• It allows you to keep copies of individual emails and attachments (most email types).  
• It has a rapid upload speed with up to 500GB of data uploaded overnight.  
• The data is encrypted and password protected, but you can access it from anywhere in the world.

Evolve Remote Backup is a reliable, secure, off site backup solution, giving you total peace of mind.....

If you have any questions regarding Remote Backup, please feel free to contact me personally.

Kind Regards

Andrew Valentine

                                           

 www,perthcrest.com.au

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What will happen when you want to step back from your business, have an extended break, take a back seat or retire?

Will the business go on without you?

The answer to this problem facing many business owners is documenting your system  - making sure that everyone knows what they are doing, how they do it and who to liaise with.  By documenting your business, you will ensure that everything happens as it should, regardless of who is there on the day.

While documenting your system is one of the key ways to future proof your business, you will also reap immediate benefits.  Imagine when a new employee starts, you can show them their job description, company policies, who to go to for what they need, who is responsible for each area etc.  Then as they are trained in the role, you have procedures on hand for them to work with, laying out how each task is done

There are various ways of documenting your system, you can pay “experts” to come in and write it for you.  In my experience they don’t really understand your business and you just end up with a generic, mostly irrelevant set of documents.  An external person never goes down well with the staff either.  Another option is to compile it all in-house with regular software such as Word and Excel, but you don’t know where to start, it tends become disjointed, you have different files all over the place, no-one knowing which it the current issue etc.

Without a doubt, the most effective way to document your system is through purpose built software.  This way you can still do it all in-house, giving your staff  a sense of ownership, you can update it whenever necessary and best of all you have a basic platform to start on.  

I have found the best software for this purpose is TKO (Turn Key Operation).  With TKO, you can write a policy and procedure manual, identify roles, write job descriptions, define key performance indicators, record performance appraisals and create a complete business manual.  All this information is kept in one location for easy reference, it can be viewed, printed or published as required.

TKO will ultimately enhance your lifestyle as a business owner.  You can now take that little trip you've been promising yourself, happy in the knowledge that things will be ticking over smoothly without you.....

Please visit the Perth Crest Software Solutions website for more information or contact us for a free trial login.

 www,perthcrest.com.au

sales@perthcrest.com.au

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Do want a better way to manage your projects?

Easy Projects is the answer....

Easy Projects is a web based software package for managing and tracking all kinds of projects.  It allows users to communicate each facet of a project, ensuring everyone is “on the same page”

Easy projects not only maintains all project information and communication in one convenient place, it allows for you clients and/or suppliers to be involved at pre-determined levels.  The inclusion of external parties will raise your professional image and minimise confusion.

Features and benefits:

·         Efficiently manage your projects in one software package

·         Improve team collaboration

·         Track and record times

·         Custom reports

·         Task and Resource Management

Easy Projects is intuitive and easy to use, however training and support is on hand from the expert team at Perth Crest Software Solutions. 

Please visit the Perth Crest Software Solutions website for more information or contact us for a free trial login.

 www,perthcrest.com.au

sales@perthcrest.com.au