This is a tale about another of our clients. They had a 'legacy' accounting software, meaning a software written many, many years ago (>20 years) using the technology at that era.
What happens is that this client is not able to continue with entering the new year's transactions without having to 'close' and 'finalise' the previous year's entries.
Now how many companies have the resources to be able to 'close' and finalise the last year's accounts within days after the year-end. It is usual for companies to take some time (even with a computerised accounting software) to finalise the accounts because they have to consider, amongs others:
1. inventory valuations
2. bills not received yet (accounting matching principle)
3. tax
4. uncollectible debts
To cut the story short, in May 2006, this client was still keying in their 2005 accounts into the old accounting software. Their auditors completed the audit for 2004 accounts in August 2005, and so the staff could only start entering their 2005 accounts from September 2005. They took almost 9 months to enter 12 months accounts.
Fast forward to new MYOB system which we installed in May 2006. They started keying in the 2006 transactions right away, and as of this instant, they are on top of things. They are now able to key in the 2007 transactions while waiting for the audit of 2006 accounts to be finalised.
That is one big benefit they got out of the system. There is no need to close the accounts before starting a new financial year.
Another big benefit is that all reports can be exported to Microsoft Excel, and they don't waste time rekeying data. More importantly, data is not lost in the process of transcribing the data from the system to Excel.
MYOB systems requires you to purge your accounts every 2 years though.
blog managed by MYOB Malaysia Professional Partner
Feb 7, 2007
MYOB replaces my typewriter very well.
Last month, I was approached by a business owner who has been in business for many years (> 5 years) and is still using a typewriter to write their invoice. the accounts have not been updated the last 6 years.
I asked him what made him seek us out.
His answer is scary. "I don't know how many of my customers have gone to my competitors because of lack of follow up by my team. They cannot get the information easily from my method of recording. They need information like when was the last sale made, and whom to follow up to remind them about renewing their maintenance plan, but they got to go through many files to get that information. its a waste of their time, and then they give up on me."
His staff uses a typewriter to write out the quotation, delivery order and invoice onto a pre-printed forms (doing same things 3 times over). He then enters the invoice details into an exercise-book, and updates the book when customers pay. I'm sure he may have missed some payments this way with some crafty customers.
Since we installed the MYOB business software, his staff is using the system to print the quotation onto the same pre-printed form. When the customer confirms the order, the staff calls-back the quotation, make changes as necessary, and click 'convert' button to convert the quotation to a delivery order and prints it out. This way, the staff is only dong the same things ONCE only. Best of all, the system also tracks the receivables, and also the amounts outstandings. No additional work involved here. It was normal for them to take a few days to prepare one customer's statement. Now they just select the customer, click and print it out.
His staff now has the time to follow up on the 'lost cases'. He has deployed his teenage son to update the sales data for the last 5 years (yes, that's how long he has been doing business the manual way)
The thing to note is, by them doing the normal routine- issue sales invoice, enter supplier bills, update customer payments, and issue payment vouchers, their accounts get updated without them knowing it. To the staff, what they are doing in MYOB is nothing different from what they are doing manually - just a change of medium - from a typewriter/pen to a computer. Yes, I have to teach them "right click, left click on the mouse" but they soon got over the initial teething problem.
Now the staff are getting ambitious. They have picked up basic bookkeeping knowledge from the trainer, and are now aiming to complete the just-concluded year 2006 accounts within 2 months. I don't see why not.
I asked him what made him seek us out.
His answer is scary. "I don't know how many of my customers have gone to my competitors because of lack of follow up by my team. They cannot get the information easily from my method of recording. They need information like when was the last sale made, and whom to follow up to remind them about renewing their maintenance plan, but they got to go through many files to get that information. its a waste of their time, and then they give up on me."
His staff uses a typewriter to write out the quotation, delivery order and invoice onto a pre-printed forms (doing same things 3 times over). He then enters the invoice details into an exercise-book, and updates the book when customers pay. I'm sure he may have missed some payments this way with some crafty customers.
Since we installed the MYOB business software, his staff is using the system to print the quotation onto the same pre-printed form. When the customer confirms the order, the staff calls-back the quotation, make changes as necessary, and click 'convert' button to convert the quotation to a delivery order and prints it out. This way, the staff is only dong the same things ONCE only. Best of all, the system also tracks the receivables, and also the amounts outstandings. No additional work involved here. It was normal for them to take a few days to prepare one customer's statement. Now they just select the customer, click and print it out.
His staff now has the time to follow up on the 'lost cases'. He has deployed his teenage son to update the sales data for the last 5 years (yes, that's how long he has been doing business the manual way)
The thing to note is, by them doing the normal routine- issue sales invoice, enter supplier bills, update customer payments, and issue payment vouchers, their accounts get updated without them knowing it. To the staff, what they are doing in MYOB is nothing different from what they are doing manually - just a change of medium - from a typewriter/pen to a computer. Yes, I have to teach them "right click, left click on the mouse" but they soon got over the initial teething problem.
Now the staff are getting ambitious. They have picked up basic bookkeeping knowledge from the trainer, and are now aiming to complete the just-concluded year 2006 accounts within 2 months. I don't see why not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)