If you’re a business owner I recommend attending conferences. The trick is to pick the eyes out of them. I only go to about three a year as either a speaker or a sponsor. So ruthless choices are required. My picks are Barcamp, Edge of the Web and CeBIT.

Edge of the Web is coming up in November (Perth, Australia), brought to you by the Australian Web Industry Association (AWIA). It is designed for business stakeholders trying to create next generation business practices that utilise the web. The people behind Edge of the Web recognise that technology and the web are an integral part of the business model. So often I see business people who think their business is “what” they do rather than “how” they do it.

Nearly all businesses are hybrid technology businesses these days,
they are part technology company and part product or services. The “how” is all about technology.

I’ll be at the conference talking on SaaS (Software as a Service) as an Ecosystem for businesses to operate in. Having your business in the cloud is becoming an integral part of an effective “how” component in your business. Some smart cookies (and coincidently good friends and customers of Saasu) will be there also such as the Madpilot, Myles Eftos and Millstreams, Adrian and Rosemary Lynch. I also hear that Jordan Brock and his 5 Senses Coffee with be there. 5 Senses was at a recent Barcamp, and the coffee experience just made it ultra-pleasant between sessions.

If you are not sure if this applies to you then consider a sole trader services business as an example who has a large portion of what they do dependent on technology. Getting the books done, preparing marketing material, email, franchising, scheduling, managing inventory, procurement, network marketing etc. It’s all about technology.

If you want to get to Perth then Saasu wants to pitch in and help by subsidising the trip a little through a cheaper Saasu subscription. Just use voucher code AWIA-EDGE when you renew or signup to Saasu NetAccounts. We will add 3 months to your business file renewal date once we confirm you have registered for the conference*.

Edge of the Web is on 6th and 7th of November, Perth WA. AWIA members $395, non-members $450.

ASIDE: If you aren’t already an AWIA member then get on board. Saasu did and never looked back. We are now on their committee and can honestly say it has been a great expereience dealing with some amazing web savvy members and receiving so much businesses through our membership.

If you have multiple business files in your subscription it will be pro-rata calculated. Offer ends 6th November 2008. One voucher at a time sorry. This offer can’t be used in conjunction with any other offer.

Too often we all get caught up with business and forget to make time for the important things. Spontaneously spending time out on the water recently (see nifty professional looking video that anyone can make) was a worthwhile endeavour and prompted some of the big questions in life -

• Why did it take so long for Captain Cook in his ship ‘The Endeavour; so long to find the world’s best harbour in Sydney?
• Why are yachts always ladies?
• Why don’t we do this more often ?
• Why is it so hot?
• How does animoto let you make such great videos in under 10 minutes? Why don’t we use it more often? Why doesn’t every small business use it on their website when it is sooo easy?

In all the excitement last month, we forgot to put a blog posting up for our recent CeBIT award which we received at the end of the show. This was a big deal for us. It is a Platinum award which is the highest level and one of only two Platinum awards they hand out.

We beat about 700 companies to get it so not a bad effort. Read the buzz if you like detail.

Cheers, Peter.

We don’t think of ourselves as a Web 2.0 company but somehow we keep getting tagged as one and I suppose a lot of our thinking tries to be contemporary so we consider it a compliment to be named on a ‘Leading Web 2.0 Companies List‘ issued recently on Read/Write Web by Ross Dawson and Richard McManus along with some other fairly cool companies. It might not be as global as the Platinum Excellence in Innovation Award we also won recently but it makes us just as proud! We would have liked to see a bunch of others on the list too (like Campaign Monitor for example which we use here at Saasu). The comments on that list are closed for now so feel free to make some comments on the other links above or comment here and we will pass them on. Cheers, Peter.

We were pleased to have Saasu featured at a course on entrepreneurship last week held by trendy education group FRANK TEAM, around 40 students were there to hear about how to develop their ideas and of course how Saasu can make the journey easier. We thought we’d help the best ones get off the group by sponsoring the event with prizes. We’ll try and profile the best ideas here too. Cheers, Peter.

We’ll be at CeBit for the next few days. Come down and say hi - we’re in Hall 4

There are many methods for reducing input errors in your online accounting file. Accountants use workflow processes that they know will create more predictable accuracy. Learning about some of these and adopting them in your accounting routine is a good investment in time that will reward you for many years to come. Some of these methods are discussed below, however there are many more:

Basic review of your transaction listings

As you create transactions they will appear in your transaction list for the date period applicable. The process is usually to Add a new transaction to the List, Save and Close the transaction and then check the transaction for correctness. You cannot check all the detail for transaction but the main items such as Date, Amount and Contact can be verified. This is the most basic and quickest, but least thorough, of checks you can do.

Review of your Transactions by Account report

This is a good report for checking you have used correct tax codes and ensuring you have chosen the correct Account for you transactions. You might scan the report to ensure that (for example) all your sales appearing in an Account for Income: light fittings would have the same tax code. You might also check that there aren’t any stray transactions in this Account that shouldn’t be there.

Use the duplicate function for adding transactions

When you use the Duplicate button on any Add/Edit Transaction screen you are creating an exact copy of the transaction you are viewing with a few fields cleared like the Date for example. This helps produce consistency in your transaction adding over time as you will be using the same Account, Tax Codes and Summary as you are duplicating the information not entering it.

Use Transactions Lists to help in adding transactions

A good example of this is when you have regular periodical payments you make for things such as subscriptions, rent, bank fees that are often the same each month except for the transaction date.

1. Load the Transactions for a Contact and click the plus icon next to the transaction to load a duplicate.
2. Then you can include the date for this new transaction and amend any other differences (eg. Summary..”Jul08 rent” to “Aug08 Rent”) and then save the transaction.

Use the Transaction Lists to help in adding transactions

As in the above example you can create a list of transaction for the previous month (or period). Use the same process to create new transactions for the new month (or period).

Additional

Make sure you have paperwork, invoices, and bank statements to back up you data entry. Just assuming these things will happen each month (or period) doesn’t mean they actually do!

Online banking systems provide template technology that allows you to store a list of payments that you make on a regular basis (e.g. payroll or payment to suppliers). Each time you need to make payment you load the template, amend any amounts to be paid and process the payments with a few clicks.

You can use templates to quickly process:

• cost of sales items such as materials, inventory, services
• contractors
• employee pays
• Internet connection fees
• mobile phone, telephone and facsimile charges
• yellow pages directory listing
• insurance premiums
• couriers
• stationary account
• postage account
• etc…

You can set-up templates to have majority of your payments processed in one online banking transaction.

It may be possible to pay all or most of your bills at once, depending on your business size and whether or not your suppliers accept Direct Crediting to their bank account. If you are able to use a feature often called ‘pay others’ or ‘pay third parties’ in your Internet banking system then you should be able to do this. It is very rare these days that a vendor will only accept a cheque or cash, so it is possible that the majority of your payment processing could be achieved in one online template transaction.

There may be other positive flow-on effects.

More predictable cashflow, not having to wait on vendors to bank the cheques you write them are examples pf how using templates can help you in ways other than saving time. Many of the Internet banking systems have a particularly handy feature that allows you to print out your list of payments on one sheet of paper, which is great if you don’t like too much paper about the office.

There are costs too.

Like all technology there is the investment of your time upfront to understand the system, however, that cost should pay be repaid quickly. Template charges may also apply.

Many small business use the Just-In-Time approach to payment processing and invoice issuing. This means writing cheques, using a credit card or paying online when vendors start demanding payment or when a bill reminder comes in. This can work when your cashflow is tight. A method that may appeal to some small businesses or investors (but not all) is a Payment Centric method. In a nutshell you choose a frequency that you plan to make payments (or issue invoices), you then write your cheques or process your Bpays, and book the transactions in your accounting system, all on one day. Let’s call this the ‘accounts day’. Then you don’t touch the accounts until the next assigned ‘accounts day’.

With any business system or procedure it’s a case of what works best for your specific needs. Who are the experts at processing and doing accounts efficiently? Accountants must be on this list. They are not just there for tax advice.

We have a listed a few pro’s and con’s that you might like to consider.

Why does this work?

• Get all your cheques prepared and then signed in one session by the cheque writer or cheque signatory.
• Allows you to use Internet banking templates to process multiple payments on that day.
• It may help to manage you cashflow in a more predictable way. e.g. If you know that the 5th of each month is payment processing day and you have $X dollars to make your payments then cashflow becomes more predictable.
• Doing a task 20 times in one sitting is nearly always more efficient than doing 1 task over 20 sittings.
• When you do everything on one day, filing is a lot easier.
• Your vendors and customers will find your organisation more predictable and professional.
• Your work colleagues and employees will know that its the ‘accounts’ day. You can deal with it on that day rather than interrupting work.
• If you have a bookkeeper or a bookkeeping company to do this work, it will nearly always be cheaper to have them in for one full day, rather than have them in spasmodically over time.
• Your Profit and Loss and Cash Flow reports (and others), may end up cleaner and clearer.

When doesn’t it work?

• When the gaps between ‘accounting days’ are set too far apart your management information may get out of date, your vendors may get impatient and you might hate the idea of spending a whole day just doing ‘accounts’. Select a frequency that suits your business model from a holistic perspective.
• When your customer insists on invoices immediately or very regularly. Note that there are legislated requirements for invoices to be issued within a certain time after services have been provided.
• When vendors insist on getting cash on delivery
• When you forget to pay a vendor then they have to wait until your next ‘accounts day’. This can really upset vendors. Then they might charge you more. Ouch!