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The 7 Irresistible Qualities of Cloud ERP
Learn why ERP tools are an critical component for many businesses.
Why a Business Continuity Plan is Essential
Learn why your company needs a business continuity plan.
Ransomware 101
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How CFOs Can Utilize Modern Technology to Their Advantage
/in Blog, Cloud, ERP Software /by Chris HigginsToday’s CFOs are improving ERP systems, implementing cyber security, and automating basic tasks that are crucial for modern businesses. Financial leaders have access to all the information within a company and are in the privileged position to recommend the best ways to carry out tasks around the most modern of technologies.
Business is changing and CFOs are charged with making critical decisions — in turn, they’re welcoming modern technology to help their organizations adapt as quickly as possible. There’s a push to accomplish more on modest budgets, and putting transformative initiatives into action under pressing timelines weighs on finance leaders. The best of the crop are boosting efficiency through digital technologies.
Business changes means that roles must shift accordingly. CFOs now must focus on growing business, and according to a 2017 survey conducted by PwC, a top concern for CFOs is Growth Strategy in a four-year forecast. With the growth of cloud computing and financial management software that features built-in data analytics, process automation, and artificial intelligence, there are new tools to help drive the change necessary to affect top-line and bottom-line growth.
Data-driven Insights
Delivering data-driven insights can help inform decision-making, manage risks, and plan for the future. A lot of data can bring challenges; many companies struggle to understand the information and don’t yet realize how to use it effectively. Quite often the issue lies in being able to trust the data.
Challenges surrounding data have much to do with the actual collection. Teams are spending the bulk of their time collecting the data, which is spread across disparate systems and reconciling it. They then face the next hurdle: formatting it into a layout that others within the company can consume. Understandably, this process takes time and deliverables often are brought to the table too late to make a real difference.
Modern tools are able to save valuable time, leaving financial teams to focus on bigger pressing issues. When a company is utilizing cloud-based systems, finance is connected to operations and other business units — this increases the collaboration and the ability to incorporate new data sources. With this technology, work processes evolve with more emphasis on analytics and analysis.
Innovative Business Software
CFOs are turning to new software options to help the organizations they work for to operate more efficiently and effectively. There are solutions that can handle just about any business need, including those that are unique to an operation. Financial leaders are employing:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software:
Excel-spreadsheets and outdated legacy ERP software are passé, as better, more up-to-date technology is now available for company financials, operational metrics, and even customer data. Cloud-based ERP software is now often deployed early with online accounting, financial management tools — all of which can be expanded to include other focuses of the business. The software can be expanded to include manufacturing, ecommerce, and customer management tools; these applications can greatly improve customer relations through data-driven insights. Cloud-based apps easily integrate to connect and benefit the organization as a whole. Data points are collected, stored, and made accessible to users in real-time from one easy-to-read dashboard.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software:
A Modern CRM can store customer information to aid sales and marketing teams, as well as track opportunities and interactions. Working with the ERP system and other business systems, a CRM can connect the dots. As CFOs are able to gain visibility into customer profiles and the sales process, they’re able to provide better management into relationships, satisfying customer needs for effectivity. Pain points are available at a glance, which can help the finance leader to develop solutions and fixes that can benefit the business model of the company.
Business Intelligence (BI) solutions:
Workflows can be managed with dashboards that offer a one-stop-shop for reporting and data visualizations — these can be life-changing for decision-makers and the overall C-Suite. Data collected in the ERP, CRM, and various business systems connect in a clear visual, allowing users across the company to dig deeply for insightful information. Decisions shouldn’t be guesswork; with modern technology at hand, CFOs are able to make integral decisions and find answers to critical questions in no time, from anywhere and at any time.
Acumatica’s Cloud-based ERP
Even though it’s a challenging time to be a CFO, it’s also an exciting time — optimism is high with new advances in technology. A skilled executive who is willing to adapt the role, push for innovation, and drive growth offers great gains for a business. Finding the right solutions and knowing how to implement them is key!
Acumatica’s Cloud ERP gives financial leaders the tools they need to succeed. CCS Technology Group is a proud partner with experience delivering Acumatica ERP solutions for finance leads. Learn more about Acumatica, read our testimonials, and contact us for a free consultation.
5 Changes to Make When You Switch to Disaster Recovery in the Cloud
/in Blog, Business Continuity /by Chris HigginsDisaster recovery (DR) is one of the most important uses of cloud. For companies that are just making the switch to cloud computing, it’s a good first step. Since you don’t execute your disaster recovery plan every day, DR in the cloud lets you get familiar with the cloud without disrupting routine operations or putting critical production applications at risk.
It’s important to recognize that cloud DR doesn’t mean migrating your existing DR process to the cloud. You’ll want to rethink your strategy and make changes to optimize your new disaster recovery process. Here are some of the changes to make.
1. Change Your Recovery Time Objective
The goal of disaster recovery is to get applications back online as rapidly as possible with minimal data loss. There isn’t one number that applies to all workloads, as less important applications can tolerate longer outages. Whatever your existing recovery time objectives (RTOs) are, you should revisit them if you plan a switch to DR in the cloud. Depending on how you set up your cloud DR, recovery times can be dramatically reduced, particularly if you keep redundant virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud online and ready to go.
2. Change Your Backup Procedures
Recovery in the cloud necessarily requires backing up to the cloud. Your existing backup tools may be able to integrate with your cloud provider, or the cloud provider may offer tools to support backup as a service.
3. Change Your Recovery Procedures
Recovery procedures typically require restoring the latest data from tape to servers. If you’ve set your cloud DR up to be online, your servers will already be up and running with the latest replicated data. If not, your recovery process will need to define how to activate and load data on your cloud VMs. If you use Disaster Recovery as a Service, the recovery process will largely be automated but you’ll need to spend time beforehand to make sure the configurations are complete and capture all startup dependencies.
4. Change Your Disaster Recovery Spending
Disaster recovery expenses in the data center are largely hardware-related, with duplicate servers and storage purchased and set aside for DR purposes; you may also need duplicate software licenses. In the cloud, your DR spending becomes a monthly fee based on the amount of storage and how many virtual machines you use. There may also be a fee for transferring data into the cloud; there will almost certainly be a fee for transferring data out of the cloud, which you’ll need to do to resume your on-site operations after the disaster is resolved.
5. Change Your Disaster Recovery Testing
Many companies fail to test their traditional disaster recovery procedures because testing is time consuming and can be risky for the production environment. With cloud-based disaster recovery, the risks to production are greatly reduced. Tests can be done more easily, often during normal business hours, and so companies can have reassurance that their disaster recovery process will really work when they need it.
Start Changing Your Disaster Recovery Process to Cloud
How do you change from a data center-based DR process to DR in the cloud? As with every cloud project, start with planning. You’ll need to work through a variety of issues, including how data will get from premises to the cloud. Because of the criticality of disaster recovery, it’s helpful to work with a partner with experience in both cloud technology and disaster recovery. CCS Technology Group’s business continuity services will help you respond to any type of disaster. Contact us to learn more.
Additional Disaster Recovery Resources
Backups Are Not A Disaster Recovery Solution
7 Common Mistakes That Place Your Data in Danger
Why a business continuity plan is essential
What’s New in Acumatica 2019 R1
/in Blog, ERP Software /by Chris HigginsAcumatica was built as a true cloud solution from the ground up. It is designed to meet the needs of its customers — making it easier for end users to do their jobs. But those at Acumatica know there’s no room for complacency and continual improvements are needed to stay in tune with growing needs and technological developments.
The latest update includes compliance necessities, interface improvements, or better integrations. Customer requests drive Acumatica’s twice-yearly improvements. The most recent: R1 2019 features big changes to make the product better.
The 2019 R1 Release launched after acclaim for its Beta version — read the press release to learn more!
New Features
With continued focus on its award-winning platform, usability, and customer satisfaction for the broad midmarket, Acumatica — the world’s fastest-growing ERP company — launched the first of its two annual updates.
The system’s applications continue to expand in functionality, work seamlessly together across modules, and increase overall ease of performance, as a result of Acumatica’s xRP platform. Customer experiences are at the forefront of Acumatica’s strategy, as in every release the company improves the underlying system to evolve usability and improve efficiency.
Let’s look at what enhancements were made to leading focuses:
Financial Management
The core financial management application saw some of the largest enhancements, including a thorough list of improvements:
Predefined List of Currencies: A predefined list of all currencies (included in the ISO 4217 standard) is now provided within the system.
Different Start Periods for Companies in the Same Tenant: Companies that work in Financial Management, with multiple legal entities are now able to have different fiscal year-end dates. Organizations are able to accelerate implementation, while simplifying maintenance for businesses that share vendors/stock items/employees. They will also be able to run consolidation operational reports, and facilitate the preparation of consolidated financial statements.
Order Management and Inventory
System-wide inventory tracking can help manage distribution processes without losing track of costs. Acumatica’s newest release improves inventory tracking software; here are the latest features:
Automated Warehouse Operations (WMS): WMS provides users with the power to complete warehouse operations with inventory items, such as picking, packaging, PO receiving, putting away, transferring, and physical counting by using barcode scanners. Mobile devices are also able to be utilized.
Ship-to info
The Sales Order invoice includes multiple shipments or orders with different addresses.
Project Accounting
Acumatica’s R1 release makes it easier for businesses to maximize project profitability and visibility, including those who are focused on project accounting.
Multi-Currency Project Accounting: It’s now possible to enter project transactions in different currency. Both project managers and accountants have the ability to calculate project profitability in both the project currency and the base currency, and to present customer costs in the customer’s currency.
Project Budget Forecast by Period: Users forecast original and revised budget amounts and quantities for existing project budget lines — the financial periods are noted on the master calendar. With project budgeting by period, users can forecast original and revised budget amounts and quantities. Each project can have multiple budget revisions.
Company-Specific Financial Periods in Project Accounting: This functionality provides the opportunity for companies to use project accounting within the same tenant with different fiscal year-end dates.
Field Service Management
A wide variety of features are necessary to support customers in the Field Service companies. Here are some techniques that can work:
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