Axis Global Partners Named 2010 Technology Pacesetter

Axis Global Partners is recognized as a leading mid-market technology consulting firm for leadership, innovation, and adaptability

Chicago, IL – November 30, 2010 – Axis Global Partners, a leading full service software provider, is pleased to announce that they have been named a “Technology Pacesetter” for 2010 by the editors of Accounting Today. This is the third year that Axis Global Partners has been included on this prestigious list of firms from across North America.

Accounting Today magazine awards the Technology Pacesetter award annually to 100 organizations that market financial midmarket applications. Seth Fineberg, Technology Editor for Accounting Today said, “Accounting Today’s Pacesetters list represents top-flight resellers in the accounting and ERP software marketplace. Members of the list are firms that carry accounting software as a central part of their product line and that have demonstrated excellence in their field. Our editors’ choices are based on factors such as industry awards received, growth, innovation, customer service, participation in building the profession and a firm’s general reputation in the marketplace.”

“In a year of many economic challenges we are very proud to be named a Technology Pacesetter,” said Manny Buigas, Principal of Axis Global Partners. “This honor is a testament to our continued focus on providing unsurpassed service and cost-effective solutions that deliver a true return on investment for our clients all year long.”

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AXIS in the News

Axis Named to Accounting Today’s Pacesetters List
AXIS Global Partners is pleased to announce that we have been named a “Technology Pacesetter” for 2010 by the editors of Accounting Today. This is the third year that Axis Global Partners has been included on this prestigious list of firms from across North America.

Accounting Today magazine awards the Technology Pacesetter award annually to 100 organizations that market financial midmarket applications. Seth Fineberg, Technology Editor for Accounting Today said, “Accounting Today’s Pacesetters list represents top-flight resellers in the accounting and ERP software marketplace. Members of the list are firms that carry accounting software as a central part of their product line and that have demonstrated excellence in their field. Our editors’ choices are based on factors such as industry awards received, growth, innovation, customer service, participation in building the profession and a firm’s general reputation in the marketplace.”

“In a year of many economic challenges we are very proud to be named a Technology Pacesetter,” said Manny Buigas, Principal of Axis Global Partners. “This honor is a testament to our continued focus on providing unsurpassed service and cost-effective solutions that deliver a true return on investment for our clients all year long.”

Axis Breathes New Life in to Organ Recovery Systems’ Software and Processes
Organ Recovery Systems supports over 100 transplant programs worldwide with their ground-breaking LifePort Kidney Transporter. As their company grew, Organ Recovery Systems realized the need for an updated software program capable of managing the intricate details.  “We needed upgrades and someone to help us expand the functionality of our inventory system. We knew we weren’t getting the most out of it and wanted to be able to better track our costs in a more automated manner,” stated Kerrie Trebonsky, Corporate Controller at Organ Recovery Systems.

Organ Recovery Systems turned to Axis Global Partners for help, and Tony Chiodo, Partner at Axis Global Partners recounts, “When Organ Recovery Systems called us it was apparent they wanted to more fully utilize their system to accommodate their growth. We sat down with key members of management to assess their business needs and processing requirements in order to utilize their time and our time in creating a more efficient system capable of meeting the financial processing demands created by their growth. Axis Global Partners realized that Organ Recovery Systems needed more than an update; they needed new capabilities to effectively support their departments.”

In addition to incorporating financial statements and consolidations into the Sage Accpac ERP software, Axis Global Partners designed budgeting, pricing, and data entry options in order to better equip Organ Recovery Systems to effectively handle their growth. Kerrie Trebonsky affirms Axis’ work and states, “We found it incredibly helpful that the Axis team had an accounting background, understood reporting requirements and how inventory should work.” Lisa Kieres, CFO for Organ Recovery Systems, praises, “Axis Global Partners are accounting software rock stars! They are easy to work with, professional, responsive and helpful – always willing to work with us when we have a question or problem.”

To read the full story visit http://www.axisgp.com/successes.php.

Axis Referral Rewards
Is there someone you could refer whom you feel could benefit like Organ Recovery Systems did from our services?  We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to provide them with the same service and value that you receive from us.

When you refer someone to us who becomes an Axis Global Partners’ client, we give you or your company (depending on your company policy) $1,000.00, or donate the same amount to the charity of your choice.  Consider this our way of saying thank you and as a demonstration of how much we appreciate you and your business.

Learn more – at http://axisgp.com/referral_rewards.php

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Helping Salespeople Succeed by Understanding the “NUMBERS”

Have you ever spent weeks building a relationship with a key prospect only to have the order declined for credit problems?  Has your new client called because they received an invoice that was incorrectly billed?  Have your commission payments been delayed because of unpaid customer balances?

These are some of the complaints we receive from sales personnel when the Sales and Finance Departments are not connected.  At Axis, we assist our clients by offering solutions that lead to faster deliveries, more accurate billings and improved customer service.  It lets salespeople focus on what they do best – SELL.  As a result, revenues increase and Finance and Sales department folks are collaborating to achieve the same end goal.

Having real time access to customer credit, sales history, invoice information and customer balances by integrating your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications with your ERP (Accounting software) improves information flow and allows the Finance and Sales departments to proactively solve customer issues quickly and successfully. For example, sales personnel can be alerted when their assigned customers have outstanding balances that exceed their credit limit or if their account becomes delinquent.  Knowing about potential payment issues before a client visit can help get issues resolved before additional orders are processed and subsequently delayed when they reach the Finance department.

With respect to customer retention, how important would it be for you to be alerted when a current customer has not bought from you in the last 6 months?  We all know that new customer acquisition is more expensive than retaining current customers. By having access to meaningful sales forecasts, the Finance department can ascertain that resources are in place to handle increased volumes.  This in turn helps salespeople maximize on their opportunities and lead to a win-win for the salesperson and the company.

Obtaining this collaboration between departments that are commonly at odds is the greatest business benefit of having access to information that is current and relevant to both.  By working together, company goals are achieved, customers are satisfied and revenues increase.

If interested in how Axis can assist your salespeople succeed, contact us at info@axisgp.com.

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Stop the Stress and Save Time: Automate Your Budgets Today

Budgeting is essential to progressive organizations that want to lead their competition and control the financial direction of their organization. Having real forecast numbers to illustrate the effect of business decisions and current competitive conditions is invaluable. However, most companies entrust this essential task to a time consuming, static process that delivers numbers that are discounted by those involved before they are even returned.

Participants in the process become frustrated due to the large amount of time required to assemble the plan, the complexity of tracking the numerous spreadsheets being distributed and assembled, and the overall span of time the process involves.

This inefficiency and frustration can be directly attributed to the use of spreadsheets for a task that demands a much more intuitive tool. Typically budgets are created within individual spreadsheets with no ability to automate the relationship from one sheet to another. Input is gathered through the distribution of individual sheets, with manual intervention (or ‘rekeying’) required to combine or ‘roll up’ the numbers on a summary basis. This manual entry of data is both time consuming and provides additional opportunities for mistakes to be introduced. In addition, the beginning of a new budget cycle then further requires the manual updating of each sheet to reflect the new numbers and time spans, in essence requiring each budget period to almost start from scratch with little efficiency gained from one year to the next.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Budgeting can be automated with advanced software tools that can reduce the time involved, and increase the viability of the numbers provided. A good tool designed for this type of application should work with your accounting application along with any other software products you may have. Software designed specifically for budgeting should provide significant ability to do rolling forecasts and to automatically draw in data from your various business applications. It would allow you to create plan ‘sheets’ (similar to spreadsheets) that can be arranged in a process plan flow to automate the passing of data and information from one sheet to another. This in essence would allow numbers entered in one sheet (such as salaries) to be automatically summarized and passed up to a high lever sheet as a component of it. It should also allow budget numbers to be dispersed among lower level sheets so that decisions made at the top can quickly and easily be reflected in line level planning.

In addition, budget planning software would allow numbers to be entered manually or drawn in automatically from your accounting software or other data sources through the use of simple or complex calculations. Plans could also be rolled forward with automatic updating of calculations to simplify and streamline the budgeting process from year to year. Other advantages of budget planning software should include:

  • Support for “what-if” analysis
  • Control over access to sensitive data
  • Integration of budget with enterprise data sources
  • Ability to allocate budgets from bottom-up, top-down or a combination of both
  • Web based access to your budget
  • Advanced reporting capabilities

Budgeting is essential to moving a business forward in a planned profitable manner. It can be arduous and time consuming is done incorrectly. As always, when you use the right tool for the right job, the time savings, quality and efficiency gains can be significant. Users of budgeting and forecasting solutions have reported time savings of days, weeks or even months. In addition, they have experienced more confidence in their budget process and more accurate results.

If you’d like to take control of your budget process, contact us today – we’d love to help.

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IRS Delays Cost Reporting on Healthcare Reform

The IRS on announced that it has delayed the filing requirement for companies to report the cost of supplying healthcare coverage to their employees.  Employers were originally required next year to include on workers’ W2 forms what it cost to supply them healthcare coverage. That requirement is now optional in 2011, to give employers more time to adjust their payroll systems.

“Although reporting the cost of coverage will be optional with respect to 2011, the IRS continues to stress that the amounts reportable are not taxable,” states an IRS release. “Included in the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in March, the new reporting requirement is intended to be informational only, and to provide employees with greater transparency into overall health care costs.”

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Warehousing: Maximizing Distributor Profitability – Part 3

The warehouse is where most distributors make it or lose it. Sales is responsible for the top line, but if the warehouse (including inventory management) does not meet the six critical measures of success, all of the sales in the world will not help because you will lose customers quickly. In the last two issues we covered Metrics and Management, and the Cost of Mistakes which can be read on our blog.  This month we’ll cover the Benefits of a Streamlined Process to Minimize Errors.

BENEFITS OF A STREAMLINED PROCESS TO MINIMIZE ERRORS
There is another side to the coin. That is the value of a quality process that brings customers back and keeps them. A well run warehouse that minimizes errors can be a competitive advan­tage. It is something that can be sold. Documented error rates that are lower than the competition, guaranteed service levels based on qualitative data, and the ability to deliver superior service all win customers. Using the Customer Lifetime Value calculation, keeping a customer one extra year on average can add many thousands of dollars to the bottom line. Reduce the number of lost customers in conjunction with increas­ing their lifetime value and the results are impressive.

It is even better when you consider the total saved costs of not having to pay for extra shipping, extra handling, extra paper­work, extra customer service calls, and extra soothing of irate customers. Then calculate the lower cost of customer acquisition based on your reputation for top notch service and the wins keep coming in.  Fixing warehouse errors has so many positives; it is hard to understand why so few distributors do not focus on this easily managed area. Especially in the current economic situation, here is a way to reduce your costs and those of your customers. It is truly a win-win situation.

RETURN MATERIAL TRACKING
In the supply chain, there are multiple reasons that product must be (or is) returned to a supplier from a customer. It can be from an end user to the distributor or from the distributor to the manufacturer. In all cases, it can prove to be a nightmare of forms, lost information, and manual processes that create exces­sive paperwork, lost productivity, and reduced profits.

Some of the major reasons for returns are:

  • A wrong product was shipped (and the value was less than the customer was going to be charged)
  • The incorrect quantity was shipped (not enough to fill their customer order so they do not want the inventory or there was too much and the item does not turn enough to be worth the extra handling even if the excess inventory was not billed)
  • The product is damaged during shipping due to inad­equate or inappropriate packaging
  • Poor product quality that does not pass predefined inspection requirements
  • The product arrived late and the customer used an alternative supplier
  • The customer decides to no longer carry product (obso­lete inventory)
  • The customer wants to recover cash by returning non moving products

No matter what the reason, a complete process is necessary to initiate the process, track the material, handle it properly, issue credit memos, and finally, recover costs. In a perfect world, the process would be relatively simple.  When a customer initiates the return, it requires efficient handling by customer service personnel. They first must be able to verify that the inventory was actually purchased from their organization and then relate the purchase to a specific Purchase Order, shipment, and invoice.

Next, a shipping label with an easy to read bar code (linear or 2D) is generated which exactly identifies the material being returned and is sent to the customer by email (as an attachment) or FAX. The label provides a link to all of the electronically stored information that the CSR (Customer Service Representative) already researched and captured.  When the product arrives at the supplier’s receiving dock, it is positively identified by the bar code and instructions for its disposition are available to the receiving clerk. It may be held for testing, it may be inspected and returned to stock, or it may be cross docked to return to the manufacturer.

All of the internal paperwork is completed by the computer and the proper credit memos issued, less any restocking charges. Restocking charges can be determined by the product category cross referenced to the specific customer. If there was shipping damage, the system should assist the CSR in completing all necessary insurance claim forms and track them to payment. Any material that is to be returned to the next level supplier (importer, master distributor, or manufacturer) will be properly identified with a custom shipping label that meets the supplier’s specifications. The label will be applied to the package and it is then ready to be forwarded on without additional human intervention.

The system will track the physical return of the merchandise based on the bill of lading. Once it has left the shipping dock, the application should follow up to make sure appropriate credit memos are issued and applied. The electronic paper trail will be available at any point to track the current status of any individual return or all returns to a specific supplier.

The electronic system will eliminate the “spreadsheet in the drawer” that has been traditionally used to track and follow up as best as possible on returns. Through CSR access to information, both customers and vendors will have the ability to access and in­quire against the database to verify the status of any given return.

REAPING ADDITIONAL BENEFITS THROUGH REPORT CARDS
Once again, it is obvious that accuracy and real time infor­mation can improve the operational efficiency of any process. Reduced costs in processing, increased accuracy in reporting, and an overall improvement in trust between trading partners will have many benefits

Returns are just one of many supplier metrics which can assist a distributor in managing their warehouse. By using actual results, it is possible to create a “Vendor Report Card” that provides a picture of what is the true cost of doing business with an individual company. While this will be covered in more detail in a later White Paper on Business Intelligence, it is worth a short overview here.

 

The Vendor Report Card would include calculations for all aspects of the vendor experience. Among the many items to be measured and reported are:

  • Shipping accuracy (recent, running averages, and annual accumulation) for:
    • Product accuracy
    • Quantity accuracy
    • Timing accuracy (this also helps to determine lead times for ordering)
    • Quality measures
    • Compliance labeling accuracy
  • Damaged goods received (did not pass inspection or are returned by our customer)
  • Billing accuracy
  • Shipping costs
  • Reliability of drop shipments
  • Value of add on services
    • Training
    • Spiffs
    • Marketing material
    • Marketing support
    • Co-op monies
    • Ship and Debit concessions
    • Support at shows or other venues

These and other metrics should be automatically collected and included in the vendor report. Then, when the time comes to negotiate with a vendor for future pricing, there is an objective measure of their performance and an accurate picture of the cost that has been incurred due to their errors. Having an accurate picture of the existing relationship will put any buyer in the strongest position to negotiate the best deal possible.

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