Entrepreneurs from around the Sydney area came to Interactive Accoutning's 4th Entrepreneur Meetup last Thursday nigh to support, share knowledge, network and hopefully take away some useful connections and learning with them at the end of the night. Thanks to all who attended and presented.
As normal the night started with a few welcome drinks before we got down to business and started the lightning presentations.
Entrepreneur Meetup 4 was theme was ‘Taking your business online’. We had five speakers including myself and we were limited to speaking for 5 minutes on our fields of expertise (it was timed!)....I found this particularly difficult as it is very off putting when the 5 minute alarm sounds and you still have two or three slides left! Note to self...stay on point and time yourself beforehand....practice makes perfect. Watch videos of the presentations here
At Interactive Accounting, we are always looking at ways to refine our systems and to improve our procedures. Recently, we have been testing out how HipChat can increase and team collaboration with Zendesk, our existing customer support platform.
What is HipChat?
HipChat is a hosted private chat service for company or team. The admin can invite colleagues to a chat room to share ideas and even files. It has no ads, obscure screen names or failed file transfers unlike some other chat room services. All information is shared in real-time only amongst the members in the chatroom.
HipChat really came to our attention as it has recently been acquired by Atlassian, the software gurus. This will add to the growth and performance of the platform as Atlassian will no doubt develop it further using their pool of talented developers and resources.
HipChat will also be able to integrate across various third party software which will enhance the “chatroom” and make it a very useful business tool.
Privacy, Safety & Security
So how safe is the information you post? In any business environment, one major concern is the privacy, safety and security of data posted to the internet. This is key with HipChat as all chat messages are transferred with 256-bit SSL encryption, which is the same encryption technology used by the online banks and retailers.
Multi-platform
HipChat can be run on any platform existing nowadays. From mobile phone to personal computer and even the tablets, HipChat can be run seamlessly. You even don’t need to own a smartphone to use HipChat!!
HipChat messages can be sent and received by SMS messages, which means that no matter you are using an old school Nokia/Samsung/Motorola or if you are not on a mobile internet plan, you will not miss any messages posted by your colleagues via SMS.
Zendesk integration & application
Apart fom the new UI and different terminlogy used, the Zendesk integration with HipChat is straightforward and is described in detail in Zendesk’s help page.
After the integration, a notification is posted to HipChat whenever there is an update to the support ticket. Thus providing a platform for internal communication. It can also be used to enhance internal team collaboration. For example, a support ticket is logged and a notification is sent. If the ticket is a simple issue and can be solved immediately, a short message can be entered in HipChat indicating that the someone will be solving the ticket.
If the ticket is a complicated one and requires some discussion before replying, the support team will be able to discuss in HipChat and the conversation will be logged. The real art of HipChat here is to able to provide a central location to store the conversation logs.
So, if you are looking for a simple yet powerful chatroom tool for team collaboration then HipChat is definitely worth a look.
With the move towards online engagements for the service industry, there has been a recent influx of new applications to cater to this demand and help provide additional means to streamline the sales and on-boarding processes for service businesses.
The online applications allow you to engage with your existing clients and current prospects to iron out the nature, scope and size of an engagement. Once the client is satisfied with the engagement, they can then confirm service and it be accepted and agreed upon online confirming the scope of the engagement and “sealing the deal”.
Although the setup processes for these tools is not a simple as "turn it on and go”, the ability to customise the engagements is essential and thus it can't be the same for everyone.
Here's a couple of the quoting tools available at the moment that are now connected with Xero:
Quoteroller is designed to provide beautiful quotes for your clients and prospects with easy to use platform, drag and drop interface making specialising individual quotes and building templates easy.
Quotient focuses on using the dashboard as the “heartbeat of your business” for it’s quoting application. Allowing a central place for all activity on the quotes issued by your business.
Notable features:
One click customer acceptance
One step quote creation
Central place to organise and search quotes
Status of the quote and it’s # of views
And the following, SocketApp, is not currently available as a Xero add on but fingers crossed, we hope it will be soon.
SocketApp provides a similar feature set to the others mentioned above, but, it has a few additional features listed below, which, is why we use it in house at Interactive Accounting:
The ability to embed quotes on your website (HTML + iframe)
Direct linkages to our chosen merchant facility, which allows the order to be completed and paid in multiple currencies
Linkage to mail chimp enabling you to add new prospects to an appropriate list.
The product is only in it's infancy and has been added to the Rackspace's startup program and acquired 100s of clients within a year of launch.
We're working with the team at Deversus Inc to bring this into the Xero Add On Partner network ASAP.
Positive effect (using Socketapp)
We love metrics (we are bean counters), so we'd thought we'd share the effects of our new methods of automated quoting for our clients and prospects and the leads that we are generating via our new focus towards online enablement. This snapshot was taken from Socketapp on the 28th of January, we expect that there will be a few more proposals out before January 31st, giving us a constant trend upwards even over the Christmas period.
We are committed to our goal of being the place to go for your end to end online accounting needs and connecting your back end business flows to streamlines your business and investment. We even have events that help you suss out the potential opportunities for your business. See #xerocoffee and #startupbeers below to find out more.
Sticking with our theme of "focus"
We are focused on bringing our clients an Interactive Accounting service in name and nature and continually improving how we communicate as this is usually the source of many problems in the provision of accounting services. You will notice that we are actively creating more campaigns, more points of contact and working on ensuring that you have acess to the knowledge and service you need when you need it.
How do you get started with online quoting?
All of the products offer free trials and have different use case scenarios.
I already have quotes in word, why do I need this?
At Interactive Accounting we are all about streamlining your back end processes and connecting your systems so that you can focus on building your business and re-purpose any repetitive administration team members to deliver value for your business (perhaps in customer support or even sales as they have intrinsic knowledge on your business) Don't undervalue these staff members!
Having a copy and paste Word system is not scalable and it’s timely, you should really be focusing on reducing time to engagement and impressing your new customers.
Need a helping hand?
If you need advice surrounding which tools are best suited for your business and how they all connect with one another, we are able to assist you in connecting your systems and streamlining your online client engagement, sales and packaging.
Contact us about providing a professional systems assessment for your business and engage both our accounting, developers and design team to get your sales channel growing today and generate new business whilst you sleep.
So you've heard people talk about it but what exactly is VOIP? Here's a brief summary of what VOIP is, the pros, the cons and what you need to get started.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is basically voice communication over the internet and is now widely used in todays consumer market and business sectors to reduce telephony expense...no more expensive phone bills!
VOIP for home use
Back in the days when the internet was not so popular, which is hard to believe I know, we were all paying extortionately high international call fees to keep in touch with our friends and/or family members. Now, thanks to the rise of internet and VOIP, international communication is no longer an expensive task at all.
What do you need to make a VOIP call at home?
The setup of a home VOIP is fairly straight forward and can be done within minutes. Most VOIP routers bought from the VOIP provider would have been pre-configured which makes everything to be plug-n-play. A typical VOIP configuration for the home user requires the following items which can be easily obtained from any computer store:
A VOIP provider (click here for a comparison list of Australian VOIP providers)
An internet conection
A VOIP enabled router (some standard internet routers have these built in but others don't, you will need to check)
A traditional telephone
VOIP for business use
In the business environment, the telephone system is usually be more complicated. Generally speaking, a receptionist will be the first point of contact of all telephone calls. After the call has been answered, the call are is put on hold while the receptionist intercoms the desired colleague. The call is then put through to the corresponding person.
The above scenario would easily be achievable with a PBX (Private Branch Exchange). A PBX is a switch which can be transferred calls back and forth. There is both office based PBX hardware and cloud based PBX systems on the market. While they all can get the work done, the office based PBX hardware usually costs thousands of dollars up front but the cloud based PBX usually un on a monthly subscription basis.
What's good about VOIP?
Its cheap! Since VOIP is all based on the internet, the cost for using VOIP is comparatively lower than the telephone companies. The difference is even more significant in long-distance communication.
A conference call can be done anywhere with anyone. It is not limited geographically, or to the number of people participating in the conversation.
It enhances efficiency.
What's bad about VOIP?
VOIP relies on a stable internet so the quality of the internet connection can greatly affect the quality of VOIP. In the case of a blackout or your internet connection drops out then VOIP is not usable at all.
This also means that it may not be as reliable or clear as traditional telephone.
What we think
Whilst VOIP can bring a lot of convenience and savings in cost, it is always limited to your internet connectivity. Also, you should never solely depend on VOIP as your only telephone system. Always have a back up plan such as a mobile phone just in case you need it in an emergency.
It was Valentine’s Day yesterday (in case you wondered why you were in trouble today) although love was not the main reason why over 200 accountants and bookkeepers gathered at Four Points Sheraton, Sydney....The Xero Roadshow had come to town.
After receiving our name badges other Xero goodies and a coffee we headed into the main room to take our seats and quietly unwrap and devour the chocolate heart that the Xero team had lovingly placed on every table....apologies to the woman who arrived late next to me who didn't get one.
Wayne Schmidt, Xero National Sales Manager and owner of the shiniest shoes I have ever seen, kicked off the day in his usual charismatic and infectious style with an introduction on Xero and what lay in store for the day ahead.
After a brief break Joel Hanna, National Training Specialist and Xero Jedi Knight, ran through some of the processes involved in converting customers from MYOB into Xero amongst other Jedi like tips and tricks...the force is strong with this one.
Lunch came and I caught up with the guys from Fathom, one of the events sponsors. Usually, the mention of analysis and reporting tools doesn’t really get blood pumping, however, one look at this new add on for Xero and I realise this is something completely different. At last someone has come along and actually ‘designed’ a reporting and analysis tool that is easy to understand for the even most financially illiterate and also looks totally awesome...good work guys.
In the afternoon there were more helpful tips from Xero Jedi Knight, Joel Hanna, on the general use and configuration of Xero...the force is strong with this one.
After another chocolate heart and more coffee, Chris Ridd, Managing Director of Xero Aus, touched on some of the new Xero features to come this year including:
Ability to import and export budgets
Integrated payroll
Xero personal bank feeds
Report packs (closed and full release)
Android app
Purchase Orders
Tax code updates
It’s going to be an exciting year for Xero and users of Xero!
Stuart Mcleod, General Payroll Manager and Founder of Paycyle, then took us through the introduction of Payroll to Xero. A huge win for Xero, as this is one of the features that was felt as missing in the Xero offering. Stuart explained that as well as getting it’s own button on Xero it will also include the following features:
Xero style reports
Super and tax liability in money going out
Leave liability included in balance sheet
PAYG liability hooked to BAS reporting
Time sheets for employees
Expenses syncing as reimbursements
This is great news for users of Xero, congrats to Stuart and the team. We look forward to it’s implementation in April!
Wayne then wrapped up the day with a summary of how we are now living through a new evolution of computing, coming from the first industrial computers, then to PC’s and now The Cloud. He’s right, computing has come along way and when he harked back to past computing practices and software such as Wordperfect and Lotus123, I’m glad it has.
Don’t be left behind, if you haven’t already moved your business to the cloud, then maybe 2012 is the year to do so. Exciting times are ahead!
