Newsletter

A Note from our Community Manager

Greetings to all of our friends out there who are busy doing accounting and consulting work in spite of the beautiful, and in some places quite hot already, spring weather!  Here at The Sleeter Group, we use the bright sunshine as motivation to get our creative juices flowing.  And now that the network television shows are moving into summer reruns, this might be the perfect opportunity to bring you some new entertainment.  Therefore, parts of my column this month are in poetry.  See if you can identify the various types of poetry as you continue to read.  Answers are at the end. And if my high school English teachers are reading, I sure hope I got these right!

The conference is coming.
We can’t wait for it.
Top three reasons to attend.

1. This year’s focus is the "Next Generation Accounting Practice."  Centering conference content on this timely topic, we will talk about broadening the scope of work that you can handle for your clients to take your accounting practice to the next level. This includes your having the ability to offer third-party solutions to clients, taking your practice online and moving towards working in a virtual environment, and becoming certified in various solutions.
2. Our conference is the only event presented by an independent expert community focused on small business accounting software and consulting. All other shows are produced by vendors, magazines, or state CPA societies. The vendor shows provide great information about a particular vendor’s products and adjunct solutions, but the audience only gets one vendor’s point of view because no competing products are highlighted. The society shows provide a wide variety of information, but none are focused on small business consulting issues, tools, software, best practices, etc. Our audience is growing and very targeted in what they do. They are experts in accounting, software, and business processes. They focus on consulting, implementation, and training.
3. This conference presents the whole gamut of solutions available to the small business consultant, and our presenters are the top experts in the country. Virtually every major player in the small business technology area is represented, including Intuit and Sage, as well as dozens of members of Intuit’s Developer Network and other independent software and service vendors. The conference is a great opportunity for attendees to discover new technologies, network with colleagues, and plan for the coming year.

So if you attend in November,
We’re sure that you will remember,
Just how great it is
To improve on your biz,
And be successful from new year through December.

Registration is now open!  Please visit www.sleeterconference.com.

On another matter, we recently announced a fifth new VAR partnership, Intuit Payment Solutions.  Sleeter Group Consultant Network members who register for this program earn 20% of credit and debit card processing profit, ongoing for the life of the merchant accounts they sign up.  As with our other VAR partnerships, this is an easy way to earn extra revenue on top of the services you already provide your existing clients, and also gives you another arrow in your quiver when seeking out new clients.

So take part in our VAR programs today.
You’ll earn more dough in more than just one way.
Just find some clients who can benefit.
And they will thank you for this greatest hit.

Intuit Payment Solutions adds to our existing VAR relationships with Fishbowl, MISys, BillQuick, and Results CRM.  Please visit www.sleeter.com/partners/solution for more information.

Happy selling and happy consulting!

David Horwitz

Poetry answers:  Haiku, limerick, iambic pentameter

2009 Conference Exhibitor Information - Method Integration

Consultants Reference Guide On Sale

Our popular QuickBooks Consultant’s Reference Guide 2009 is available to our Desktop Accountant Newsletter readers for 20% off through the end of May. Enter code news555 to receive the discount.

The QuickBooks Consultant’s Reference Guide has been called a must-have resource for all QuickBooks consultants. We’ve added new chapters and updates throughout the book in our 2009 edition:

• Comprehensive Coverage of the New Features in QuickBooks 2009
• Extensive Material on QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions
• New Chapter Covering QuickBooks Third Party Add-ons
• Expanded and Updated Content to Properly Set Up QuickBooks in a Networked, Multi-User Environment
• Tricks and Workarounds for Difficult Client Situations
• Much More

The Consultant’s Reference Guide is available as a downloadable PDF for $79.95 ($63.96 with discount) and a printed book for $89.95 ($71.96 with discount). Members of the Sleeter Group Consultants Network receive a free copy as part of their membership.

Purchase your downloadable version today (or order the printed book or downloadable PDF) here.

Chuck's Reporting Corner - FREE Webinar

Chuck Vigeant recently gave a FREE Webinar. Introduction to Business Analysis ES gave an overview of the new Business Analysis tool for QuickBooks, how it works, and what data it contains, plus a look at the pre-built offerings and custom report builder; and the benefits for accounting professionals and their clients. Presented by Chuck Vigeant, data architect, business rules analyst, and Business Objects specialist for the current BA offering. The recorded webinar is now available on the Sleeter Group Website. Click the link to this webinar at the bottom of the page.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Trade-Up Event

Accounting Pros can save their clients up to $1,500 with an upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 9.0

If accounting professionals have small business clients who are outgrowing QuickBooks Pro or Premier multi-user edition in 2008, Intuit is providing a program to help them save money and be more profitable by upgrading to Enterprise Solutions at a reduced price. QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions offers features  more user and data capacity, advanced user permissions, real-time access for remote workers, and much more.  Plus, Enterprise Solutions includes free tech support, online back-up, and product upgrades for a full 12 months. Any business that purchased a QuickBooks Pro or Premier multi-user edition in 2008 is eligible for this offer.

Through this special offer, QuickBooks Pro/Premier 2008 clients can trade up to Enterprise Solutions at a significant discount.  The full value of their current QuickBooks multi-user software will be applied to their purchase, with savings of up to $1,500. Details of the offer are included at www.qbes.com/tradeupfaq.  

Limited Offer. This offer ends May 31, 2009.

Magnificent Member Awards - Bonnie Nagayama

We asked members of The Sleeter Group Consultants Network (SGCN) to nominate recipients for the Magnificent Member Awards. There are five categories for these awards. We announced the winners at our 2008 conference. The winners in each category were:

• Sleeter Group BillQuick VAR Top Seller Award – Bonnie Nagayama of Moraga, California
• Best Business Coach Award – Michael Crosa of Ocala, Florida
• Solution Sharer Award – Michelle Long of Lee’s Summit, Missouri
• Sleeter Group Fishbowl Inventory VAR Top Seller Award – Scott Taylor of Spring, Texas
• Sleeter Group MISys SBM VAR Top Seller Award – Mary Brettman of Tustin, California
• Prolific Poster Award – Jeanne Tarazevits of Costa Mesa, California
• Top Techie Award – Mario Nowogrodzki of Pembroke Pines, Florida

In each of the next few newsletters we’ll bring you an interview with one of these award winners. This month, we interviewed Bonnie Nagayama, winner of the Sleeter Group BillQuick VAR Top Seller Award .

How would you describe your practice?
What we do is strictly QuickBooks and related add-on services.

How has being a member of SGCN and the VAR program affected your practice?
I think that the Sleeter Group has great training and resources for getting needed information. There is a collaborative effort among members where people are willing to help each other rather than seeing each other as competitors. We all understand that there is plenty of work out there for all of us.

What VAR offerings are you selling, and what are your goals with the program?
We’re involved with four VAR programs: Legrand CRM, MISys, BQE and Fishbowl. We resell each of these products but have different ways of doing training and support with each. We are most active with Legrand CRM and Fishbowl because we have someone on staff to handle the set up, training, etc for those opportunities. With BQE, we have been leveraging off BQEs resources by having their staff do remote training with clients. For MISys, we found a consultant with extensive MISys experience that we partner with for all MISys training.

What would you like to share with our readers about the VAR program?
All of the Sleeter Groups Solution Partners have made it as easy and as painless as possible make us as consultants look good. By serving as a support role, the software developer creates an environment where we can be the primary contact for the client and can control how much are involved. But they are also there so we don’t have to do more than we want to do.

Do you have any tips?
Let the third party add-on product sales people do the demos, but sit in them so you can hear what the client is asking. You learn about the product, the client, specific client needs, and suggested developer solutions. For us, we do an initial 15 minute assessment call to make sure we are heading in the right direction, then we don’t charge to sit in on the demos since learning about the client is part of the sales process. Anything past that is consulting since the investigation, testing, database set up, etc is all transferable to the final implementation or is cheap insurance to make sure the client does not make a decision to purchase software that does not meet their needs.

MISys Training, Release info, and Tweets

Users of MISys Small Business Manufacturing should have seen an update message last week when they logged in. The program update for MISys SBM version 3.0.0.5 fixed some obscure yet niggling problems. So please take advantage of all the hard work of MISys’s Support and Development groups and install the update today. A complete list of the changes and bug fixes in version 3.0.0.5 is posted in the Public Notices area of the MISys SBM Online Community. 

Also, we want to remind you that excellent training on MISys Small Business Manufacturing is available online at MISys University. Special discounted rates are available to members of the Sleeter Groups Consultants Network.

MISys is now on Twitter! By following misysinc you’ll receive at least one pithy "tweet" each day.

Tricks of the Trade

Every day, members of The Sleeter Group Consultants Network tackle the day-to-day problems of their clients in the real world. The following is an example problem and solution that surfaced this month on our Sleeter Group Consultants Network E-Mail Group.

Question: Do your nonprofit clients find add-on donor software necessary? Or are they able to manage okay with either Premier or Enterprise nonprofit?

Christine Manor answered : For my smaller organizations, Pro is usually enough. Many will use a separate, non-interfacing, donor database to provide a detail report for the day’s receipts that is then entered in QB in aggregate – $X for type one donations, $Y dollars for type two donations, etc. An advantage of not having donor names in QB is that people who shouldn’t have access to the donor records won’t be able to see them and can still work in QB (same reason I like to use outsourced payroll). For those who don’t want/can’t handle a separate database, QB can provide a minimum of information for each donor, especially if they use custom fields. QB can also be made to print the Sales Receipt as a thank you letter, eliminating the need for a separate process for the acknowledgements.

Chris Steele added: Think of "donor" or "fundraising" software as CRM for nonprofits. It has features specifically designed for mining the database for statistics on giving trends, funding interests, volunteer management, event tracking, solicitations tracking, etc. QB does not have these features in any version.

Reply: Thank you, both. Christine, I have your great book.

Editor’s note: Christine Manor is the author of QuickBooks for Not-for-Profit Organizations – 2008, available at www.sleeterstore.com.

The Sleeter Group Consultants Network

The Sleeter Group Consultants Network is the nation’s premier accounting software consultants’ network. With over 600 members located throughout the US, Canada, and abroad, our members serve over 150,000 small businesses. We provide expert QuickBooks consulting, add-on integration services, business process workflow consulting, outsourced bookkeeping services, and financial statement preparation.

In addition to client consulting, many of our members provide consulting services to software developers who seek advice on the best practices for integrating their applications with QuickBooks and other accounting software products. To locate one of our certified consultants, visit our Find a Consultant page. To learn more about becoming a consultant, visit our Become a Consultant page or call our office at 888-484-5484 (+1-925-416-6300 outside the U.S.). Members of the network receive a substantial discount on our resource products as well as our Annual Conference.  Membership also includes a copy of our Consultant’s Reference Guide.