Newsletter

Magnificent Member Awards

We asked members of The Sleeter Group Consultants Network to nominate recipients for the Magnificent Member Awards. There are five categories for these awards including Prolific Poster, Top Techie, Best Business Coach, Solution Sharer, and VAR Top Seller awards. We announced the winners at our annual conference. The winner in each category is  

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

Each newsletter we’ll bring you an interview with one of these award winners. This month, we interviewed Mary Brettman, winner of the Sleeter Group MISys VAR Top Seller Award.

The Sleeter Group: How would you describe your practice?
Mary Brettman: My practice is a technology driven accounting consultancy practice. MISys is just one of the solutions I offer. It just happens to be the best solution for the manufacturing niche. As I get leads, MISys is clearly the best system for manufacturing. It sells itself.

TSG: How has being a member of the Sleeter Group Consultants Network and the VAR program affected your practice?
MB: It opened up my mind to a lot of different technologies and the ability to speak to lots of people. Being a small practice, it is often difficult to see the forest for the trees. You put your professional reputation on the line every time you recommend something and you have to recommend something that works.

TSG: What VAR offerings are you selling, and what are your goals with the program?
MB: I’m a little different. I wait for the need to come. Because I have been so successful with MISys, I haven’t had the need to branch out. I almost had a BillQuick deal earlier in the year in which case I would have looked for other BillQuick opportunities, but it didn’t materialize. I had 4 or 5 MISys deals this year which has kept me relatively busy. I suspect in the new year I will branch out to BillQuick.

TSG: What would you like to share with our readers about the VAR program?
MB: I think it is a really good way to get started in technology. [Being a member of] the Sleeter Group is a very good way to feel like you are not alone out there trying to make decisions.

TSG: Anything else you would like to share with our readers?
MB: Typically, I enjoy going to the Sleeter Group conference and meeting these vendors face to face. I think it’s good to know these vendors so when you deal with them on a deal, you have that personal relationship. The best place to do that is at the Sleeter Group Conference. Also the Conference is a good place to get additional information and specialized knowledge that helps you in your practice throughout the year.

Turning Over a Remarkable New Leaf

David Horwitz, Sleeter Group Consultant Network (SGCN) Community Manager

Happy holidays!  We at The Sleeter Group hope that you, your families, and friends experience a wonderful season of giving and joy.

We hope that you have some time to take a moment to reflect on your accomplishments in 2008.  For many of us, this has been a remarkable year—because of, or in spite of, the economic downturn.  Think about what you did this year differently than in the past, and how those differences may have impacted your practice. 

• Did you fire any of your clients because they were giving you too much stress?
• Did you take on additional associates to help with your heavy workload?
• Did you add more services to take your practice online?
• Did you tap into resources from The Sleeter Group to improve your offerings?

Any of these activities can be remarkable because of the direct impact they may have had on your business.  As the calendar turns over a new leaf, it’s a great time to be thinking about how you can change things up again – or at all, if you have not done so in 2008.  Change can be healthy!

At our recent Accounting Software Consultant’s Conference, we recognized certain members of the Sleeter Group Consultants Network who were nominated by their peers for Magnificent Member Awards.  You will see profiles of these Magnificent Members in this and upcoming issues of The Desktop Accountant.  See what these leaders in our field have done to set themselves apart.

We have some great plans in the coming year to enhance our services, based on feedback we’ve received from our membership, conference attendees, and other customers.  Keep your eyes and ears open to learn more as we cross over into 2009!  And please contact us anytime if we can be of assistance to you!

We wish you a prosperous new year.

Sleeter Group VAR Program Update

Fishbowl Inventory was named Number 101st on Deloitte’s 2008 Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing companies in North America. Fishbowl was the 2nd highest ranking Utah company.  Sleeter Group Consultants Network members are having great success delivering QuickBooks-integrated inventory solutions for their clients.  Becoming a Fishbowl Inventory reseller is easy, because it’s free with every SGCN membership.

For SGCN members who resell BillQuick software:  Now through December 31, 2008, all sales orders for BillQuick products and services will carry a 5% bonus commission over and above what you now receive.  That’s any software – new BillQuick software, more software licenses, or adding add-on modules – and any service – training, consulting or custom reports.  The commission bonus applies to new customers and existing customers. Got a client you think should be using BillQuick? Then submit their contact information ASAP. Help them lower their taxes for 2008 and save time and money with BillQuick in 2009.

Manufacturing Information Systems (MISys, Inc.) has just released a new module for its MISys® Small Business Manufacturing software product called Labor Tracking. The MISys SBM Labor Tracking module is intended to capture actual time spent by production workers and to log the actual time against MISys SBM jobs and manufacturing orders. When the economy is tough, manufacturers need to be able to get the most out of their people and facilities in order to remain profitable. MISys Small Business Manufacturing solutions are available for SGCN members to resell for no additional program fee. Consultants can earn more for their businesses while helping their manufacturing clients reduce costs and improve productivity.

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: I have a client on Premier 2008 complaining that all of a sudden last month, it was taking over 10 minutes to reconcile after she hit the Reconcile Now button. Seems like a long time to me also. Her file size is 136 MB. Any ideas on appropriate action?

Matt Clark responded: While that is not a small file size, I would still expect the file to run reasonable well at that speed. What would you say is your estimation of the condition of the computers and the network the file is running on (New, Old, or In Between). Also, is the file on a network with a server, or is it set up on a peer to peer network as a work group. If there isn’t a server and the file lives on a different machine than the one you’re performing the reconciliation on, that may be the cause of the bottleneck. Of course, neither of those reasons explain why it has slowed dramatically in the last month (unless the home computer has an issue). Do you know of any new software that may have been added to the machine recently?

Brandon Morris suggested: First thing I would check is DB File Fragments. It should be between 0 and 9, not much more than 9 if any. Hope this helps.

Marilyn Sudbeck added: I started getting slow response times on many programs on my computer. I did a series of steps that helped.

• First I went into the control panel and then Internet options to delete cookies and temporary Internet files. I usually
  do this at least twice a week.
• Then I ran AdAware. I usually do that at least once a week.
• Then I defragmented the hard drive.
• Then I removed Google Desktop from my computer. I think removing Google Desktop did the most good. I must have installed this as part of a QB installation a couple of years ago.
• Finally, I did a cold boot to my computer (shut it down completely, waited about a minute and then turned it back on).

This whole series of steps helped a lot.

Diane Krause weighed in: Could it be that the reconciliation process is getting hung up with the PDF converter issue? Try going into the Printers and Faxes and deleting the QuickBooks PDF Converter. Then go back and run the reconcile process again with a test date. The QB PDF converter will re-create itself during the reconcile process. This has happened many times with our files recently. Hope this helps.

Caren Schwartz wrote: Any change in the anti-virus software recently? Try temporarily turning it off and see if that makes a difference.

The Sleeter Group's Consultants Network

The Sleeter Group Consultants Network is the nation’s premier accounting software consultant’s network. With over 600 members located throughout the US and Canada, 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 consultants 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. Members of the network receive a substantial discount on our resource products as well as our annual Accounting Software Consulting Conference.