Many of the clients that I have worked with over the years have been in the distribution industry.  One of the oddities that I have noticed is that a fair number of these clients had no formal process for completing physical counts of their inventory.  I can only speculate why that is the case.  While a physical count is a non value added task, it is still necessary.

Murphy’s law is generally thought of as “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”.  Some would add the phrase ”at the worst possible time” to the end.  I have two laws that I have created and/or live by.

Kaufman Rule #1:  The person who is most at risk will or should act first. 

Let me provide an example.  Let’s say a  person visits a doctor on Monday and has some tests completed.  The patient is told the nurse will call Thursday to provide the test results.  This rule would say that the patient should take the initiative and call Thursday several times until they receive the results.  The patient should not wait since they have the most to lose. 

I use this rule/philosophy throughout my day, but especially at work.  My clients depend on me.  If I do not provide timely, excellent service then I place my business relationship with them at risk.  Conversely, if a business partner does not contact you or provide excellent service, then you are at most risk.  That big, complex problem will take longer to solve and your company will suffer because of it.

Kaufman Rule #2:  You get what you pay for

On average, the benefits that you receive from a particular product or service will match the investment that you made.  There are exceptions.  However, the exceptions do not change the rule.  Your second cousin’s neighbor’s son may provide cheap IT support, but rarely will it be quality.  Your server may not be setup optimally and thus your system could be at risk  of: slower performance, inadequate security, incomplete backup of critical data, etc.

Two areas that receive the least amount of attention are training and documentation.  Improper training typically has an immediate effect, that of not fully utilizing or utilizing incorrectly the new accounting system.  Lack of documentation though is like an iceburg, most of the effect is hidden and waiting to be discovered.

I taught a free Microsoft FRx class on March 4th, 2010.  The virtual class lasted two hours using GotoMeeting.  We had a good group of people attend who were using primarily Sage MAS 90/MAS 200 or Microsoft Dynamics GP.

The class focused on the basics of FRx.  We developed a balance sheet and income statement.  We also learned how to use the Tree functionality.

The response from the attendees was overwhelmingly positive, so  I am planning on having another training class next month.  I am debating on the length of the next class.  One option would be to shortened the class to 1 hour and focus on creating just an income statement.  The second option would be to lengthen the class by 30 minutes to allow time for a break and to give attendees opportunity to begin creating their own reports.

Sage is releasing the newest version of their top rated ERP system, MAS 90 and MAS 200. There are alot of enhancements in this version which I think will benefit the end-user and justify upgrading. I am currently reviewing the new features and will blog on it in a future post. Here are a few to note.

Systems administrators and consultants will appreciate the parallel migration ability, Custom Office enhancements. Also, Inventory, Purchase Order, and Bill of Materials have been upgraded to the new framework. The new framework will provide dual grid data entry and optional programming capability (through Business Object Interface). As far as the end-user, customer numbers can now be up to 20 digits and inventory items can be up to 30 digits, the inventory physical counts process has been enhanced, inventory transactions can be entered in batches, and according to Sage more than 30 other features.