Maximize Return On Your Software (Ray Parsons Commentary)

With the rapidly changing business software environment today, business people are faced with the following three fundamental questions: 1) How can I maximizing the return on the software that I already have? 2) When is the right time to move onto the next big thing in business software? 3) How can I best evaluate my choices when everything is changing so fast?

Maximize the return on your current software by looking for opportunities to automate paper-driven processes. Ask experts to tweak, customize and optimize your current system. Most importantly, seek out the assistance of experts with a proven track record. Here are some more opportunities for cost savings, productivity gains and customer service improvements that can be achieved with the latest business software.

Automate manual tasks

Most companies perform a considerable number of data manipulation, calculation and formatting tasks that could be done by business software. Automate those tasks.

Consider the case of a real estate management company that used to spend hundreds of hours every month generating the financial statements for each holder of the assets that it manages and consolidating these statements for reporting purposes.

Because this firm was experiencing a high rate of growth in assets managed, it was faced with the prospect of continually increasing its accounting staff. In an effort to reduce administrative expenses, it decided to try to automate much of this work.

The firm selected business software with an allocate function that automatically apportions revenues or expenses to sub accounts, based on a predefined ownership percentage. The firm’s asset management functions are maintained in a Microsoft Access database that had been created prior to implementing the new business software. Each property was set up as a separate company with joint venture partners being assigned sub accounts within the database. Each transaction is entered only once and then automatically allocated to the owners’ sub accounts.

At month’s end, the sub accounts are rolled up automatically using the business software’s consolidate function. A separate program that the programmers created in Microsoft Excel generates financial reports for different ownership structures and properties, also on an automated basis.

Drill down to details

Linking underlying transaction information to business software can save time and improve customer service by allowing your people to obtain detailed information faster than the traditional approach of rummaging through a filing cabinet. A high-tech manufacturer found that it was virtually impossible to track the cost of complex production machinery being developed on-site using traditional manual methods. The volume of paper invoices and other forms generated by the production process was simply too great to handle. This firm purchased business software with an add-on module that allows them to easily store and recall paper documents involved in producing these machines. The firm now scans all component invoices as the subsystems arrive in its plant. The invoices are converted by an optical character recognition system to text documents that appear on the screen. An operator then drags each invoice and drops it onto an appropriate icon.

The business software links each piece of supporting documentation directly to whatever is higher in the accounting hierarchy, which is finally linked to the end product. This approach is faster than the previous method of filing paper documents, and it provides an excellent permanent record of a complex design and manufacturing process. Manufacturing and engineering staff can easily pull off a detailed list of components used to assemble a particular machine. Just as quickly, the engineer can click on a line item and call up the underlying document. Management estimates that this new software has eliminated the need for one full position and greatly increased the company’s ability to track manufacturing activity.

Ray Parsons is senior vice president of business application groups for Solomon Software in Findlay, Ohio.