Managing the Production of Food

Some of Axsapt's customers are well known Australian manufacturers of mass produced food products such as Cakes, Pickles and Chocolates.

What are the special needs of these sorts of industries?

• The most important from a health point of view is traceability of all products produced from a single production run or batch. If a product recall becomes necessary, it's important to identify all customers who have purchased the faulty product. This extends right down to the components used in the recipe as well.
• Raising purchase orders to suppliers to ensure that raw material components arrive just before needed so they are in peak condition. Perishability and Local availability are the key factors that determine the lead time of delivery.
• Shelf life/Use-by Dates needs to be recorded on both raw materials and the finished product. This will help the warehouse pick the oldest products first to minimise the likelihood of stocking expired products.
• Keeping stock levels at optimum levels by predicting factory production based on seasonal sales forecasts, actual orders received, current stock in the warehouse and the practical production capacity of the machinery and labour force.

Selecting a good Manufacturing System can be quite onerous as you must map the production process including all the stages of manufacture. You need to consider stock locations, outsourced manufacture, phantom bills (such as bread dough) which exists only as a temporary component in the process, resource capacity, wastage, the production of by-products etc.

More information: Axsapt

Profitably Managing your Services

If you're in the business of selling services (with or without materials) over an extended period of time, you'll be faced with the following challenges:

• estimating the job accurately based on expected costs and margins
• keeping track of your staff and sub-contractors and managing cost blow-outs
• ordering materials for direct delivery to a project
• progressive billing based on the percentage or stage of completion (work in progress)
• managing warranty retentions, including automatically invoicing retentions when they are due
• calculating the profit or loss on a job

A good Job Costing system will be seamlessly integrated into your Payroll System so that staff time booked on projects are also used to process the payroll payments. Inventory should also be linked so that estimates can be quickly prepared, accurate purchase orders raised where there is insufficient stock on hand for the job or where materials are always dropped shipped to the site.

Many businesses would benefit from a powerful Job Costing system, including Construction Companies, Airconditioning manufacturers and many Service companies (such as Software Developers).

More information: Axsapt

Cebit Sydney Surprises

Cebit this week wasn't as impressive as last year's pre-recession event. Gone were the giants of small business accounting: MYOB and Quickbooks. Other notable "no shows" were Microsoft, SAP and Sage whose stands last year probably cost as much as a small house.

Surprisingly I discovered some gems including an Australian web based fully featured Accounting and Payroll solution priced from less than $45 per month for an unlimited number of users. My first impression is this system is more capable than the hyped up Xero from New Zealand.

Another stand out was a powerful web based work flow engine from the USA for only $50 per month per user. I've seen clumsy and less capable systems for 30 times that!

Also from the USA was a powerful low cost document management system with no compromise top-level security access and a portable storage model with seamless integration into any accounting system. This is the first such system I've come across that will make document management a reality for small to medium businesses.

Over the next few weeks we'll investigate these products in detail so we can see if the "show hype" holds up and they really are of benefit to Axsapt's customers.

Explosive Accounting

With such interesting concepts as Future Income Tax Benefits, Amortisation, Consolidations, Minority Interests, Internal Rate of Return, Provisions, Contingencies, Depreciation, Revaluations, Debits, Credits, and dare I say: Double Entries, there's plenty to keep young Chartered Accountants thoroughly engaged.

And just when you thought there was no where else to go, along comes accounting for BOMs for the Australian Defence Force and other Axsapt customers.

A BOM is a Bill of Manufacturing or in the case of the Defence Department, Recipes for meals served at their Officers Mess, Sergents Mess and OR's (Other Ranks) Mess. With thousands of personnel eating in Messes every day, Axsapt's accounting systems ensure that the right number of ingredients are ordered for delivery to the kitchens.

Apart from Food, BOMs can also be used by other Manufacturers from Electronics to Shoes and Clothing. The benefits to manufacturers of using these sorts of systems is that stock holdings for components/raw materials are kept to a minimum, there is less wastage and more intelligent pricing decisions can be made because costs of finished goods are more accurate.

For more information: Axsapt

AWAs - Automation, Workflow and Alerts

One way to significantly reduce costs for SME businesses is by:

• Automating tedious processes, such as weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly recurring sales and purchase invoices and general ledger accounting entries. Another example is automating complex payroll processing with penalties for overtime, early shift starts, meal breaks, and various allowances.
• Implementing Workflow which controls the process of completing data entry screens and documents. Workflow ensures that tasks get done in the right order and within a set time.
• Management can improve their productivity by adopting Exception Reporting or better still by being Alerted when things go wrong, such as running out of stock, a blow out of your debtors or even if an important order is not processed within their expectations.

A good referral for Axsapt for AWA is any organisation that is at risk of losing significant money if tasks are not completed correctly or within time or where there are complex and often tedious manual processes.

For more information: Axsapt

Thrive not Survive

Australia has joined the rest of the world in slipping into a deep recession. No longer can we feel complacent in riding on the back of China and India's strong demand for Australia's resources as both of these economies are now experiencing severely decreased economic growth.

The natural tendency with economic unrest is to slash costs wherever possible and this is now evident with significant increases in both local and overseas unemployment.

To assist our customers in planning to keep their businesses on track for success, Axsapt have consulted with International Business Coaches: Shirlaws, to host a practical workshop.

The content for the Thrive not Survive presentation will include:

• How to keep on track towards achieving your business growth vision through an economic down turn
• What are your growth strategies and when do you apply them?
• Exploring how to improve the efficiency of your resources to support growth
• How to understand and manage your business through its entire business life cycle; and why this is important.
• How to sustain growth in your business and discover the differences between growth in profit, margin and capacity.

The investment for this seminar is only $55 including GST which covers venue hire, drinks and canapes. I urge all Axsapt clients to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity to improve your knowledge during these difficult times.

Click here to find out more and to register for this event

For Corporate links (general information): Axsapt and Shirlaws

Dash for Cash

Everyone in business knows that cash is king in a recession.

You'll first notice not a drop in sales but a decrease in your bank balance or increase in your overdraft. To survive you should focus on one or more of the following:

• Improve your debt collection process, ensuring it is systemised and consistently applied
• Reduce the amount of your resources consumed in servicing slow payers
• Allocate scarce inventories and services to your best customers
• Clear surplus inventories
• Extend trading arrangements with your suppliers
• Trim your expenses

The difficulty with this process is easily identifying and substantiating the potential problem areas that could be tackled. Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting, including Dashboards provide you with real time information that compare current results in the form of Key Performance Indicators. KPIs are simple metrics (such as Stock Turnover, Days to Collect Invoices, Liquidity) that you can compare against a benchmark (e.g. your own past results or an industry standard).

You should consider BI Tools that have both a financial and sales KPIs to help you identify missed opportunites to grow your business. Why? Because to Thrive in a tough market you need to grow your market share at the expense of your competitors. The best way to do that is to surround yourself with smart people and systems so you make powerful informed decisions to take your business beyond the pack.

For further information: Axsapt

Accounting for Hard Work

Accounting is hard work... ask any Accounting Undergraduate.

It takes a long time to fully grasp the principles of accounting to the extent that debits and credits make sense and transactions are correctly recorded in groupings (Revenue, Expenses, Assets, Liabilities, Equity) to produce meaningful reports to guide Business Managers.

There are many areas of accounting that rely on the judgement of the practitioner, such as revaluation and depreciation and amortisation of assets. Other examples are calculations of provisions for bad and doubtful debts and the estimation of contingent liabilities.

In my many years of business consulting, I'm surprised by how many mistakes are made in operating accounting systems and the lack of understanding of basic accounting principles. Only this month I was asked to explain why a client's accounting system produced an incorrect Business Activity Statement (BAS).

When faced with this sort of problem, I usually go back to first principles and perform a manual reworking of the computerised report to compare against. The first thing I did at this client was scan a listing of Sales for the month for unusual entries.

Near the top of the list was an $800,000 transfer from the customer's bank for the funding of a piece of equipment. This amount should've been treated as a loan but was incorrectly coded as income! A very costly error as profit and tax payable would've been overstated had the error not been detected.

The Axsapt help desk seems to be overwhelmed at times by operators confused by Bank Reconciliations. In many cases, errors made are "corrected" with entries that make the problem worse. In some cases, we recommend our customers prepare a manual bank reconciliation for comparison purposes, but very few people these days remember or have ever known how to do this?

When faced with these sorts of problems, operators should acknowledge their limitations and post unusual transactions to a Suspense account rather than often guessing incorrectly. In this way, the Company Accountant can review and advise appropriate postings rather than spending even more time and money fixing errors.

More training is also a great investment. Classroom courses will help new staff come up to speed much quicker and will help experienced users make better use of their systems. "One-on-one" training sessions are also recommended to help operators really nail complex aspects of their operations.

For more information: Axsapt

Modular Accounting Systems vs ERP Systems

Growing companies that find they are straight-jacketed by their current accounting systems, typically are faced with the difficult decision of upgrading. They can choose to implement either an all encompassing system or bolting on smaller applications to add capabilities to what they already have.

The first approach, typically an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, deals with every aspect of business: from controlling marketing campaigns and sales reps, order collection, product warehousing and distribution, payroll and HR, workflow, reporting, financials and more. ERP systems are excellent but be prepared for long and costly implementation projects.

The second method: adding functionality to a core accounting system, is usually much less stressful and costly to implement. The pitfalls may include: duplication of data (such as customer records) which may be overcome with newer systems designed with seamless links. In many cases, the modular approach ends up a better solution as the individual modules are purpose built with more capabilities than ERP systems.

Which approach is best? Firstly you must list and prioritise your requirements and note which are not adequately achieved by your current solution. The modular approach is only ever a viable option if you are relatively happy with your core accounting system and there are a range of available bolt on applications (to satisfy the missing needs) that link seamlessly with it.

In evaluating both options include all costs including additional hardware and system software costs, data conversion, configuration, testing, training and on-going support and maintenance costs.

The selection process is complex and often risky especially in recessionary times like today. You may choose to seek the advice of a Business Consultant with deep knowledge of a number of popular Modular and ERP Business Accounting Systems.

For more information, please contact: Axsapt

Servicing Equipment and Warranty Tracking

Many of Axsapt's customers are in the business of installing equipment such as air conditioners and then providing a warranty service and preventative maintenance services to ensure the equipment is operating efficiently.

You can use standard Job Costing systems to account for the initial implementation of the equipment, but typically you will need a purpose designed Service Management solution that knows about your Technicians and their skills, their availability (in terms of territory and idle time). A good Service Management system also knows about the Models of equipment you sell and service and allows you to maintain a Knowledge Base of common faults and solutions.

Other aspects to consider include automating the recurring billings, recording of equipment usage (for example, photocopiers and some coffee machines have meters that need to be polled to determine service charges).

Hand held devices are very popular with service organisations as they allow new jobs to be sent immediately and invoices to be generated on the spot. Another benefit is stock levels are more accurate as van stock allocated to the job is recorded at the time the job is done.

Another area to be aware of is that Service Management systems should be fully integrated into the base accounting system of the customer, otherwise you end up with a reconciliation nightmare where Customers, Suppliers and Inventory just don't match up over time.

For more information, please contact: Axsapt

The future for Payroll Officers is Bleak

Did you know that you can forge a career out of only handling payroll in medium to large companies?

This is because with WorkChoices dead and buried, our Awards still include Penalties, Overtime, Bonuses, and Allowances based on mileage and engine capacity and Rates calculated on the time of day worked, the State you work in etc. Even terminating a single employee can take a competent payroll operator up to 1 hour to prepare.

These complexities require careful data entry to ensure that employee entitlements are correct. Mistakes can mean crippling fines and disgruntled staff. This is why until recently, medium to large organisations require competent staff that are trained in looking up and interpreting the specific rules of each Industry Award.

Now the good news... Axsapt’s clients typically take less than 30 minutes each week to process their payroll. Complex terminations take only 5 minutes and even McDonald’s Stores with around 500 employees on over 30 awards and hundreds of rates and penalties each week, take only up to of 2 hours per week. Oh and the Payroll Officer for a McDonald’s store is usually the Licensee’s wife!

Not all payroll systems are capable of achieving this type of intelligent processing. Most payroll systems require the operator to still understand Awards and interpret the time worked into rates and penalties. At Axsapt, we have selected a number of powerful solutions that once setup correctly, the operator need only import or type in starting and ending times for each employee and the pay slip is correctly interpreted and prepared.

More information: Axsapt

How do you know if you’re outgrown your accounting system?

Some of the telltale signs are:

• With more people using your system, it seems to be sluggish or in some cases won’t even let 2 people do the same tasks at the same time.
• The types of reports you need as your business grows are not available or you lack confidence in the reliability of the figures.
• You are relying on reports prepared from Excel which are manually input from more than one source.
• Payroll takes more than 30 minutes each week.
• Customers and prospects are recorded and updated in more than 1 location, e.g. Accounting System, MS Outlook and a CRM system.
• You are nervous about fraud as sales invoices have mysteriously disappeared from your system.
  

Consulting

What sets Axsapt apart from many of our competitors is we often act as Independent Consultants, walking through a client’s business, identifying weaknesses and recommending improvements that can be implemented.

In many cases, it's not financially prudent to replace an existing Accounting, CRM or Payroll System when real value can be extracted by implementing powerful reporting systems.

Where the problem is duplication of information (customers and contacts are typically entered in custom subscription systems, CRM and Outlook). A good option may be to implement manual procedures and possibly developing inexpensive middleware that will automatically synchronise data across disparate systems.

As consultants we are mindful of avoiding or at least minimising the significant implementation and training costs accompanying new systems.

SFA - Sales Force Automation

If you have 1 or more sales persons in your organization, then you will need to keep stats to play the sales game and win. Remember: “Sales is a Contact Sport and the more contact you make the more success you will have”.

A good Sales Force Automation system, which is usually part of a Customer Relationship Marketing system (CRM), not only keeps stats on your reps but helps you plan structured and targeted marketing campaigns. It will help you send personalized letters, faxes, SMSs and emails to prospects and customers that have identified a specific need or have a type of behavior that are worth recording for future communications.

CRM and SFA help you systemize your business so you and your staff communicate with your customers and prospects in a consistent, professional manner. Recording every contact with your customers and prospects ensures that problems are addressed and any revenue opportunities are followed up.

As part of our consulting assignments, we recommend, implement and support an excellent Australian CRM called Legrand CRM which works seamlessly with MYOB, Quickbooks, Accpac, Attache, Sybiz and other accounting systems at an inexpensive investment of around a dollar a day.

More information: Axsapt

Hands-on Sybiz Alliance

Effective from the 1st February, 2006, Hands-on Systems and Axsapt entered into a strategic alliance to provide consulting and training services to the majority of the Hands-on Systems Sybiz Customers. Hands-on Systems has had considerable success in the last 5 years with Microsoft Navision and Microsoft CRM and has decided to focus its attention on these products.

The purpose of forming this alliance is to ensure the Hands-on Systems' Sybiz clients, can obtain ongoing support from a company that has all the necessary Sybiz skills as well as adequate staff resources to provide responsive support services.

In brief, Axsapt is dedicated to dealings with organisations in the SMB (Small to Medium Business) market. In addition to having a number of Sybiz certified support staff, Axsapt is a Sybiz Certified Training Centre and provides training, consultation services, application development and support services. For more information please visit http://www.axsapt.com.au/

Welcome

At Axsapt Pty Ltd, we aim to empower businesses in realising their goals and taking advantage of opportunities as they arise.

How do we do this?

Our point of difference is helping organisations improve the performance of their accounting and business systems, taking them beyond what they can expect from entry level accounting systems.