A simple way for clients to initiate support tickets, view the status of their requests and a comprehensive audit trail of client interactions regarding each ticket.
•Notifications: Automated notifications so clients and our employees/managers are notified when tasks are completed or work goes beyond estimates.
•Project Management: Track or review the status and details of all active/inactive projects in our portfolio including by defect or enhancement.
•Reporting: Compare unbillable versus billable time, overtime, missing time and much more.
•Task Management: Assign tasks, track progress toward due dates and report by task—available real-time to approved team members and client contacts.
“Thanks again for taking the lead on this project, John,” said Esther. “The four of us will participate in each vendor meeting, but you guys decide on the five vendors we should consider.”
Esther picked up the business card she had laying on her desk. “I only ask that you include the KOQB Group in the final group of five companies to present to us. Here is Marie Arnold’s business card. They were the first company that approached us a year ago with alternatives to our small business accounting program and I declined. I was very impressed with her company at the time. Let’s see what they’ve got.”
“Of course,” said Daryl, taking the card. “We have to do some work to identify all possible vendors and narrow it down to five. We can accomplish that by Friday. Then we can schedule two presentations, back-to-back, during weeks two and three, and one the final week. I suggest Tuesday afternoons so we have time to gather any last minute details before your next non-profit board meeting. Does that work for everyone?”
After nods circled the room, Esther moved to close the meeting. “As you know, our profits have slipped despite increasing revenues. I want a solution, the right solution, fast. I feel like we’re in small business accounting software and spreadsheet hell. I want to get out of it now.”
Chapter 9
Preparation
James looked down at the small stack of folders organized neatly in front of him on the conference table. His controller, Victor, and vice president of operations, Sally, were seated immediately to his left; his vice president of tech services, Travis, was to his right.
When hiring for these positions, James intentionally found behavioral types to balance his tendency towards analysis paralysis. Victor and Sally’s natural strengths were similar to Esther. They helped James keep focused on the “big picture” and make decisions faster rather than get lost in the details. As a highly skeptical analytical, Travis was wired more like James, but he naturally avoided conflict and communicated effectively with others throughout projects.
“The time has come for a change,” began James, “As you know, and I expressed to you in my email meeting invite, our small business accounting program is killing us. As much as it pains me to admit, we need to research and implement new business accounting software to support our growth. I hope you all have come to this meeting prepared to define our greatest current and future needs.
“Rather than start with my thoughts, I want to hear from you,” he continued, opening and closing the dry marker in his hand as he stood in front of the whiteboard. “We have always been smarter as a team than I have been on my own. I need your help. Each of you has complained about our current system. The sooner we get comfortable with our true needs, the faster we can get this situation resolved. So, how about ladies go first? Sally, what is the critical functionality you want from this new system?”
Over the next half-hour, James and his executive team defined a long list of capabilities their mid-sized project-driven firm wanted from its business management software. At the top of the list were:
1.Budget Tracking Assistance: Track all additional purchases made on projects on a real-time basis.
2.Invoice Management: Record invoices as they are submitted.
3.Expense Reporting/Tracking Management: Submit expense reports and automatically categorize them with the correct department.
4.Change Order Management: Track up-to-date data in order to support change-orders before the work is done.
5.Timesheet Management: A reliable process for managing timesheets to capture job costs.
6.Competitive Bid Assistance: A dependable system for analyzing costs and profits to determine job-cost structures that assist in placing competitive bids for government contracts.
7.Regulation Compliance Checks: The software must assist the company in complying with federal accounting regulations, including strict job-costing and timesheet management regulations required by the Federal Acquisition Regulations, supervised by from the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA).
“Good,” said James after Victor came up with the seventh point. “Now, let’s think to the future. What might we need our system to do in one, two or five years from now?”
“We need it to be scalable,” offered Travis. “The company’s grown from your one-man operation to about 75 employees. Once we resolve this issue then our growth should even happen faster. Multiple departments and people will need to have access to the business accounting software simultaneously without experiencing longer wait times between screens. Right now, only a limited number of people can access small business accounting program before it noticeably slows down.”
Victor also chipped in. “We also need a system without spreadsheets, or one that makes certain we are working on the most recent version. We’re getting to the point where we there are literally hundreds of spreadsheets. It’s too many to manage. People keep accessing older documents accidentally and updating the wrong versions.”
James nodded as he wrote this last idea on the whiteboard with the other most critical needs. He then started passing out the folders that were in front of him, keeping one for himself. “Good. Alright, this is the research I have done on alternatives to our small business accounting program during the last few months. You’ll find profiles of five different companies I selected that offer alternatives. These are the solutions we will be considering, unless you come up with alternatives.”
Esther might have been surprised James had already begun researching months ago, but his team took this discovery in stride. They knew James preferred to extensively research projects before making major decisions. The fact he had already done a lot of investigation meant one major hurdle to James making a decision was out of the way. It also clearly communicated they should not waste time on researching their alternatives. James was extremely thorough and not typically open to information he overlooked unless he asked for it, like he had done in this meeting to clarify their needs.
“Obviously, time’s an issue,” said James. His associates continued to flip through their folders. “However, we can’t afford to rush ahead with a decision only to trip up in a year’s time. We must tread carefully and consider all of our options. When we go with a software solution, it needs to stick.”
James went on to check if everyone could meet consistently on Tuesday afternoons to interview potential vendors and discuss their views and impressions afterwards. Once this was confirmed, James asked Travis to schedule the vendor meetings.
“Just as a point of interest,” mentioned James. “While I was conducting my research, I came upon two of the largest companies that offer alternatives to our small
