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You are at working late and you receive an email that looks like it’s from your boss. It seems a little odd that your boss would be asking you to call him right away. And what do we need to get a bunch of gift cards for?

Do you immediately call the number provided in the email? Do you run out to the store and get the gift cards as requested? Or, do you assume it is an imposter trying to get access to your phone number, email account or maybe banking information?

A little bit of paranoia is good.

Everyday we hear about someone that clicked on the bad email, called the bad phone number or sent the money or gift cards to the bad guys.

As for me, I always assume everyone is out to get me. Everyone is pretending to be someone they are not, just to fool me into doing something, well, foolish. This is what I want everyone to think, especially online and especially with email.

Email is the bait and when you click on the fraudulent links, the bad guys get their prize.

91% of cyber attacks start with a phishing email. Bad guys are looking for users to click on the email link or open an email attachment. Then bad things happen. They spoof your email, they spoof your phone number, they get access to your account… or they get your money. Maybe they use your identity to get money from people you know. Gobble Gobble. No matter how you look at it, it’s all bad.

The important thing is to not be the turkey that blindly clicks. Be cautious and a little paranoid. Check the sender email address, and don’t let your phone number get compromised by responding to phishing texts.

To keep your business applications and data safe, call us today to help move your server and business desktops into the cloud. It’s a safer and more secure way to deploy business IT, and gives you better fault tolerance, greater agility, and faster recovery if the bad thing does happen.

click here

Mike, the IT guy

NOOBEH cloud tech

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Autumn is the time of year that transitions summer into winter. Along with the tree leaves changing color, the temperature grows colder, plants stop making food, animals prepare for the long months ahead, daylight starts growing shorter, and Intuit releases a new version of QuickBooks!

The new QuickBooks Desktop 2021 editions have new and improved features to help get paid faster and secure data more effectively, making the software work better than ever. Many of the improvements center on automation and workflow, enabling users to get more done in less time and setting up more activities to be automatic. Other improvements center on data and information access, allowing to get granular with setting user permissions and access to certain types of information, even down to the data record.

As in previous years, Intuit has delivered several enhancements to existing functionality in QuickBooks desktop, especially in the Enterprise edition and where inventory is involved. Here is a brief summary that highlights the main changes or additions introduced with QuickBooks 2021 editions. >>> On purpose, we are leaving the best for last, so make sure to read all the way down! <<<

Improved Bank Feeds Review bank transactions and match them to existing ones in your books or quickly add new transactions using the advanced bank feeds capability. You can automatically categorize or batch-edit bank transactions by payees, accounts and classes. This can dramatically reduce the time and complexity of reconciling entered transactions with the items the bank processes.

Automated Payment Reminders and Statements Send statements automatically to customers, with each statement tailored to the customer’s needs or preferences. Set automatic reminders for customers when their invoices are due and schedule statements for your customers to let them know when they have invoices to pay. Timely communications is more likely to create a good customer experience. It also reduces the time required to communicate individually with customers, making Accounts Receivable management and collection activities much more efficient.

Customized Payment Receipts Want to send certain customers a customized message on their receipts? You can now use custom templates for forms like invoices, sales receipts, estimates, statements, and purchase orders so each form has the right look and information. Then use the new customer groups capability to get the right form for the right customer every time.

PDF preview It is always a good idea to preview a document before you send it via email, but that has not always been a convenient thing to do in QuickBooks. Now QuickBooks lets you automatically preview attachments before emailing to customers. You can even preview multiple attachments at once without having to manually open each one outside of QuickBooks, saving huge time and effort and smoothing out a previously clunky workflow.

Receipt Management Receipt management in QuickBooks desktop is a new feature that makes entering expense receipts easier and faster. You can give users access to upload expense receipts to QuickBooks using the mobile app or directly from the computer. Automate creating categorized receipt expense entries using the QuickBooks Desktop Mobile App.

Alternate vendor reports Key inventory reports can now include alternate vendor information, improving visibility into vendor information on inventory stock status by item, inventory valuation summary and other reports. Linking to alternate vendors via these reports streamlines the process of reordering from alternate vendors.

Landed costs Gain more control and flexibility over how you calculate and share fully-landed inventory costs. QuickBooks Enterprise 21.0 has added flexibility in setting up landed cost accounts as “COGS” (Cost of Goods sold) or “Other current assets”, and can accurately calculate landed cost for old item bills from closed accounting periods. You can also print bills with or without landed cost, allowing you to better control the information you present.

Add prices to barcode labels Wouldn’t it be great if you could print barcode labels with pricing information as well as the item name and description? Now you can! Barcode labels help you accurately identify and manage inventory, providing the information most often needed by employees and customers.

Create Customer Groups Improve customer communication with rule-based customer groups based on fields such as customer type, location, or balance. Creating customer groups allows you to find all customers that match certain criteria. Then you can create automated statements, send payment reminders or create mailing lists for specific groups of customers. In QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, you can even use customer groups to define permissions and access at customer and vendor group level (more on that next!)

Data Level Permission Data level permissions is a new feature in QuickBooks Enterprise 21.0 that gives you better control when restricting access for users and roles. You can create users and roles with access permissions all the way down to the record level for customers and vendors. With data level permissions you can improve security and confidentiality of information by assigning users access only to the specific data, transactions and reports that they are responsible for. Users will only be able view, edit, or delete specific customers, vendors, or data with the permissions you assign to them. Editor’s note: Without a doubt, this is our favorite new feature in QuickBooks Enterprise this year. Full disclosure, our firm was the driving force behind this new feature, as we spent several years working with QuickBooks product managers building it!

QuickBooks desktop software continues to be the cornerstone of small and midsized business accounting. From very small business to the growing enterprise, QuickBooks delivers the functionality that every company needs to manage their inflows and outflows, customers and vendors, and all banking activities. Starting with the early 1999 version to the current 2021 release, Intuit has continued to add capability and enhance features and usability to keep QuickBooks as the most popular finance and operations product on the market.

Mendelson Consulting was the first and is the oldest QuickBooks Enterprise value-added-reseller. We have the experience and to help your business get the most out of your investments in software, systems and training. Contact Mendelson Consulting today to find out how much more you could be doing for your business with QuickBooks!

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The cybersecurity threat landscape has changed dramatically in the last few years. No longer primarily a big-business concern, cybersecurity has become a key focus of businesses small and large. Attacks on SMBs are on the rise, perhaps because they represent a plentiful and often easy target. And the cost of damage and disruption to business just keeps going up.

Cybersecurity is not a problem you can simply throw a bunch of money and tools at to fix. No matter how much great software or fancy systems you implement, the people will always be a big part of the equation.

The root cause of over half the data breaches reported is a result of negligent employees or contractors.

That means that nearly half of all attacks are being executed through phishing or social engineering. The only tool you can apply to this problem is education. Efforts should be focused on security awareness and training workers to be more cautious to the point of almost being paranoid. Better to be safe than sorry in this case.

Training workers to be more careful as they work with emails, documents and websites is part of it, but there is much more to making sure the business is addressing the entire cybersecurity issue. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) offers a wide variety of information and guides that businesses can use to learn more about and implement cybersecurity practices. Among these resources is the Cybersecurity Framework.

According to NIST, “the Framework focuses on using business drivers to guide cybersecurity activities and considering cybersecurity risks as part of the organization’s risk management processes.” It is a highly useful tool in helping the business align and prioritize activities with business requirements, risk tolerances and resources. The standard framework includes elements that are consistent and common across sectors and critical infrastructure, so it can be oriented to any business.

Even if the business is not prepared to delve into the details of a comprehensive cybersecurity policy and guideline, a basic outline and approach cannot be avoided without asking for disaster.

Putting this squarely into the Risk Management category, there is an ongoing process of identifying, assessing, and responding to risk situations or conditions. To manage the risk, businesses need to consider the likelihood that an event will occur and what the potential impact is as a result.

Knowing the acceptable level of risk for reaching the business objective is the risk tolerance. If a business understands its risk tolerance, the company can prioritize cybersecurity activities and make informed decisions about cybersecurity expenditures.

There are five main functions to consider as it relates to cybersecurity risk:

Identification

Protection

Detection

Response

Recovery

How the business addresses each of these in the context of the systems and activities is essentially the business’s cybersecurity posture, a high-level and somewhat strategic view of the organization’s management of cybersecurity risk.

The key to building a solid foundation for  business cybersecurity practice is to establish a platform where all the business applications and data can be identified and access secured.

User desktops, productivity applications, operational software and business data can be hosted on private cloud servers, allowing the business to fully-manage data and application access. The server-based model reduces or eliminates the need to sync data to devices, and remote desktops keep user environments secure, patched and up-to-date.

While our NOOBEH Cloud Solutions team is not writing your cybersecurity policies per se — because we do not determine your business risk tolerance — we can help implement a solution that improves fault tolerance, resilience, and recovery. Contact us today to find out how!

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PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Aug. 19, 2020 – PRLog — MENDELSON CONSULTING is pleased to announce that Mario Nowogrodzki CPA.CITP has been named a 2020 Top 100 ProAdvisor by Insightful Accountant, an independent news and information source written specifically for the small business advisor to keep up with current technology, trends in the industry and continuing their education.

This list recognizes the leading consultants who have embraced the ProAdvisor program and have leveraged it in order to better serve their clients and grow their own business. “We’d like to congratulate everyone who made this year’s list,” said Insightful Accountant Senior Technical Editor, William “Murph” Murphy.

“Mendelson Consulting has always focused on providing the right solutions for our business clients” said Mario Nowogrodzki, CPA/CITP, founder and CEO of Mendelson Consulting. “Our expertise in operations, business process improvement and cloud services, along with finance and accounting software, has positioned us to support a vast client portfolio of businesses from a variety of backgrounds and sizes, from fast-growing startups to well-established enterprises. We are honored to be recognized as a Top QuickBooks ProAdvisor for the seventh year running.”

“This is the seventh year of our ProAdvisor awards,” said Insightful Accountant Publisher and Managing Partner, Gary DeHart. “The ProAdvisors who make this list are the best in the business. Any small business would be well-served working with any one of the winners on this list.”

About Insightful Accountant:

Insightful Accountant is an independent news and information source written specifically for the small business advisor who needs to stay current on the latest news and offerings in accounting technology; including updates from Intuit, Xero, Sage and the hundreds of add-on products serving the small business ecosystem. With news and insight specifically written to help the advisor better serve their clients while building their firm, Insightful Accountant is unlike any other news source serving this space.

About Mario Nowogrodzki and Mendelson Consulting:

Mario Nowogrodzki, CPA.CITP, is founder and principal of Mendelson Consulting (https://www.mendelsonconsulting.com), an accounting technology firm that assists entities with planning, selecting and implementing business management systems. Mendelson Consulting has been recognized as Top Technologist, Top Integrations ProAdvisor by Insightful Accountant, Top 100 ProAdvisor and is a recognized charter member reseller and solution provider for Intuit QuickBooks. Mendelson Consulting is a Microsoft Cloud Services Provider, delivering Microsoft/Office365, Dynamics365, Azure services and other transformative cloud solutions for businesses. Mr. Nowogrodzki is a member of the Florida Institute of CPAs Business Technology Section; a contributing author and speaker for Intuit, Accountex, the Woodard Group and more. Visit https://www.MendelsonConsulting.com to learn more.

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originally published on my blog

If you’re not on a subscription for your Office desktop applications, you may lose access to your email box and other services.

Why? Because Microsoft announced that, effective October 13th, 2020, Office 365 services (like OneDrive, Hosted Exchange and more) will only support client connectivity from subscription clients or perpetual clients with mainstream support.

Basically this means that Office 2013 is about to be no fun any more.

You won’t be able to use Office 2013 Outlook to connect to your Microsoft-hosted Exchange mailbox, and your Word and Excel won’t connect to OneDrive.  If you are with a hosting provider who supplies your Office licenses as part of the service, cross your fingers and hope that it isn’t Office 2013. It will be pretty frustrating if your Outlook suddenly has problems accessing your Microsoft-hosted mailbox.

Like many other products, a lot of the functionality in the desktop software has been turned into web service and the Microsoft Office applications are a great example. With cloud connectivity being the focus, desktop solutions are more frequently leveraging online resources to extend and expand their capabilities. This also means they’re more frequently turning from one-time software purchases to subscription service.

After October, Microsoft’s ongoing investments in the Office 365 cloud services – including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business – will be made based on “post-Office 2013 requirements”.  Now is the time to migrate your Office 2013 to Microsoft 365 Apps (formerly Office 365 ProPlus). We highly recommend this move anyway, so businesses can take advantage of using their Office applications seamlessly on Azure servers as well as their local PC desktops and mobile devices.

Users of Office 2016 and Office 2019 have a little more time before their software no longer supports the cloud services. That end date is currently October 2023. You can find the support lifecycle site for Office mainstream support dates here.

It isn’t that Microsoft plans to actively block older Office clients from connecting to Office 365 services. It’s just that older applications may have performance or reliability issues when they try to connect to the constantly-updated cloud services.  Increased security risks are certain and users may even find that they are no longer compliant with certain requirements. The big thing is that Microsoft support will likely not be able to resolve issues related to unsupported connections.

The days of buying software once and running it forever are just about over.

Developers have recognized that cloud services can expand and enhance their solutions in ways that static local installation can’t. For many businesses, it becomes easier and ultimately more efficient to migrate to subscription service for IT platform and software. NOOBEH provides Azure cloud servers, for example, allowing businesses to always have modern infrastructure that is more fault tolerant and agile than on-premises hardware. Combing these benefits with software that is cloud-connected and always up to date means the business never faces lost productivity or revenues due to outdated systems or lost compatibility with newer solutions.

The post Move to Microsoft 365 Apps Now; Office 2013 Loses Connected Services Support appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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No bandwidth? No problem! 1 bar is all you need.

You’re working from home. Your home Internet connection goes out. No problem! Tether to your phone.

You’re traveling and can’t find a secure wireless network to connect your laptop to. No problem! Tether to your phone.

You’re not at the office, but you need to access business applications and data securely and without copying anything to the computer you’re sitting at. No problem! Tether to your phone.

One of the great things about the Azure cloud environments we provide for clients is the cloud desktop and the connectivity it offers. When businesses use Noobeh to deploy their QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and other applications on the cloud platform, it means they have a “cloud desktop” that users can connect to from anywhere and by using just about any PC or tablet they have available.

It doesn’t take a lot of bandwidth to connect to the cloud desktop, either. When the office loses connectivity or if there isn’t a secure wireless connection available, most cellphones have the capability to share their connection. The phone can be like a wireless router, allowing wireless-capable PCs and tablets to connect to the Internet using the phone carrier network. For many of our clients, turning their cellphone into a hotspot and using that connection to the Internet is more than enough to get them going. Just one bar will often do the trick.

Once the user is connected to their cloud desktop, they can use the browser there and enjoy the bandwidth the cloud server has to offer. Running internet-based applications or downloading large files is no problem when the activity is done on the cloud desktop; you have all the bandwidth you need and the data remains stored safely on the cloud server.

Give us a call today and let us help your business set up the IT environment that allows users to work just as efficiently from home or on the road as they do from the office. Our model is to deploy all your important desktop applications and data on a more flexible and scalable solution crafted just for your business on the Microsoft Azure platform. Everything you need is there where you can get to it any time. Its the best way to keep your workers connected and productive and the business moving forward.

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Entries have all been made, reports are all run, and the story comes to an end. Fade to Black…. Another inevitable ending has arrived: the sunset of QuickBooks 2017.

What is the QuickBooks Sunset Policy?

The QuickBooks sunset policy says that Intuit will discontinue certain services and add-ons for older versions to focus on newer ones. No matter if you are using QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise desktop, if it is three years after release it will go through its sunset. Most recently, at the end of May 2020, the 2017 desktop versions had their sunset.

What services no longer work?

Once a version is end-of-life and out of support (sunset), the base software with no add-ons will still work. However, you will no longer be able to subscribe to live technical support. You will also lose access to:

• Online Banking • Desktop Payroll Services • QuickBooks Online Backup (called “Intuit Data Protect”) • Multi-Currency and Exchange Rate • Merchant Services • And many others

Additionally, the 2017 desktop versions will no longer receive security updates after June 1st.

QuickBooks Enterprise users should pay close attention, because you will continue to have access to support until the expiration of your Full-Service Plan, but then your software will no longer update and may ultimately fail to launch altogether. Updating to the the latest version of QuickBooks Enterprise is the best way to ensure uninterrupted service.

What can I do?

If you do not use any add-ons or services, you can keep using QuickBooks Pro or Premier Desktop 2017, and Enterprise until the end of your service plan. Be warned that support is only ever available for versions within three years – meaning 2018, 2019, and 2020 versions in this case.

If you do use any add-ons or services, and want to continue support of those services, your best bet is to upgrade to the newest version of QuickBooks. Most software and company file upgrades take less than an hour, according to Intuit, but the bigger the file is, the longer it will take to upgrade.

We can help you upgrade your software and update your systems!

The employees of Mendelson Consulting have a combined 100 years of QuickBooks experience, and our Noobeh cloud services team has what your business needs to keep QuickBooks running, accessible from anywhere and performing for your business. Contact us via our email consult@mendelsonconsulting.com or call 954-447-0250, and one of our experienced consultants will help you get your systems up to date so your business does not up in the dark…

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Paycheck Protection Program loans are intended to support businesses with their expenses, with the primary goal to keep Americans employed in pre COVID-19 jobs as well as help with their expenses.

PPP provides cash-flow assistance through 100% federally-guaranteed loans to employers who maintain their payroll during this public health emergency. If employers maintain their payroll, the loans would be forgiven, helping workers remain employed and affected small businesses (and our economy) snap-back faster after the crisis.

Here is a simple way for businesses to track their PPP activity, recording the loan and keeping track of relevant expenses so that reporting is straightforward. Forgiveness of the loan will depend, at least in part, on the accuracy and completeness of the records. Also, be mindful that record-keeping and reporting with regards to loan forgiveness will be between the business and their lending institution, not directly with the SBA.

The first step is to enter the loan deposit as an Other Current Liability, making sure to track the funding date of the note. Once you know how much of the loan will be forgiven, your accountant may want part of the loan moved to Long-Term Liabilities, but that can be done later. If you pay commissions on earnings, for example, then it is extra important to record the loan proceeds as a liability/loan and not as income. Putting the loan proceeds in a liability account records the fact that it is expected to be repaid at some point.

Next, create a custom report in QuickBooks for tracking PPP Expenses. The easiest way is to begin with a Profit & Loss Summary (P&L) and filter the report to show only the specific expenses that meet the forgiveness criteria; mortgage interest, rent and utilities are eligible expenses, as is payroll. For payroll expenses, make sure to include the gross pay and state and local taxes only, and not federal taxes or any fees for processing the payroll. Please check with your accounting professional to ensure you are capturing all the possible expenses. Set a custom date range for the report, from the loan funding date to 24 weeks after that date. Change the report title to “PPP Expenses ($XXX,XXX)” where $XXX,XXX is the loan proceeds amount, and have QuickBooks memorize the report. Note: last week there was an update to the CARES Act that extends the time window to incur forgivable expenses from 8 to 24 weeks after your loan was originated (or the end of the year, whichever occurs first).

Lastly, enter the expense transactions as you normally would, dating them accurately and coding them to the appropriate expense accounts. The PPP Expenses report you memorized will automatically pick up the relevant expenses and include them.

Contact Mendelson Consulting for help creating this and other QuickBooks reports for your business.

We help you use QuickBooks better.

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Accounting professionals have a great opportunity right now to help their business clients through the difficulties presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. With work-from-home mandates and increasingly fluid reporting requirements to support grants, loans and loan forgiveness, business owners need all the support and good advice they can get. And today they will appreciate the help even more.

The global pandemic is changing the landscape of business worldwide. Many small businesses in the US have either closed or are on the brink, looking for ways to keep the doors open and employees paid. Supply chains are strained, distribution has slowed, and workers are being asked to work from home when possible.

These are challenging times, but the guidance and support the accounting professional can provide to business clients can be just what they need to help keep the doors open and workers producing. Remote access, cloud hosted applications and data, and real-time accounting support and management reporting are the weapons you and your clients will use to fight the current challenges.

Help your clients deploy cloud hosting services for their entire business.

Running applications and storing data on an in-house network increases the cost and complexity of supporting a remote or mobile workforce — for you and for your clients.

Tools to support communication and collaboration are critical when a workforce is distributed, operating from a variety of locations and with whatever device is available. Yet business owners, operators and managers may find that collaboration apps and other online tools don’t always provide access to what is required to do all their work.

To address the problem of working on client data, some accountants may install the client software and copy the data to their own in-house networks. This creates a situation where the accountant is (unnecessarily) paying for computing resources to support client applications and data in addition to their own. This increases the cost of internal operations for the accounting firm and can impact overall productivity.

More to the point, this model only supports doing after-the-fact work for the client, which results in the data and reporting being outdated and far less useful to the client’s daily decision-making. This model also does nothing to help the firm with their own possible work-from-home needs.

Accounting professionals wanting to provide services to clients proactively rather than reactively must have real-time access to the same applications and data that the client uses. The old fallback to remote control solutions is one approach, yet it is not really an optimum solution to the problem (slow, inefficient, sometimes expensive).

Remote control, like LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, or PCAnywhere (blast from the past for some!) expose the professional to more of the client computing environment than necessary, introducing risk and the potential for liability if something goes wrong. And those remote control solutions are single-user, reducing productivity because the client cannot use their system while the accountant controls the computer. Such outdated remote control solutions also rely on the availability and function of the on-premises computer. If the on-premise computer is not turned on and accessible, then the remote user will not connect. (There goes that day’s productivity…)

It may be that online or web-based applications are an option, but for many businesses they may not be a viable solution. QuickBooks Online (QBO) is simplified software and is not appropriate or usable for many businesses types. The QBO subscription model is per-company, limiting options and reducing cost-efficiency for businesses that operate out of multiple entities. And with QBO, even the ability to backup and preserve data is very limited without specialized services and tools.

Shared hosting services might be closer to the right answer, yet shared hosting is generally only useful for very small organizations and supports only core QuickBooks functions, so it can be as restrictive as QBO. Shared infrastructure used by the those hosting platforms can also introduce significant risk to every business on the platform because ransomware and malware can easily move through connected file systems and servers across different customers.

Compare shared services to a public pool where it is very easy to transmit from one person to another. In shared platforms an intrusion can end up spreading malware to the entire network, resulting in days or even weeks of outages. Unfortunately, disaster recovery does not always include recovery of all customer data.

The best solution for business is private, managed cloud hosting service delivered on a trusted and proven platform like Microsoft Azure.

Hosting service that takes advantage of the Microsoft Azure cloud platform allows the business to centralize access to all their important applications and data, making it possible to provide complete application functionality for all users no matter where they are located — without the risk of anything being spread across customers.

Using the Azure platforms means that security, fault tolerance, scalability and agility are designed into the solution rather than being extras from the hosting provider. This technology enables the agility to meet changing business needs, scaling systems up or down as necessary. This massively scalable platform allows servers to be right sized now without concern for future resource requirements. That is, no buying ahead based on possible future hardware needs; you grow/reduce hardware as needed whenever needed. There are no arbitrary limitations placed on the applications the business needs to run on the cloud platform, and no fees for running more apps.

Making all the applications and data available to workers, when and where they need them, is the key to promoting higher levels of productivity while delivering the data management needs to support daily decision-making.

Now that you have access, provide this proactive support and help business owners make the right decisions.

Better data and reporting to support operations and finance is more important than ever, especially when having the right information can mean the difference between keeping the doors open and closing for good. Once the accounting professional has this real-time access to client systems, they can work cooperatively to ensure that the right information is available when it is needed. As business owners seek to take advantage of grants and loan programs available due to the pandemic, the financial and other performance data becomes even more essential in terms of developing qualification and eventually forgiveness of the loan.

These are just some of the ways that business owners benefit from a closer relationship with their accounting professionals. Noobeh’s hosting solutions like QuickBooks on Azure help businesses and the accountants working with them get the information and insight they need to make wise operating decisions — especially today.

The post For Accounting Professionals: Private Hosted Solutions and Helping Clients Cope with the New Normal appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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A client contacted me about a strange problem she was having with QuickBooks.

There are two QuickBooks files that she and others use. We will call them company A & company B. Company A works great. She and others use it with no problem. Company B has the problem, but only with her login to QuickBooks.

If she logs into QuickBooks as a coworker, it works fine. When she logs into it with her own username, it gives her this crash of QuickBooks:

But why only her?

This is one of our clients using Noobeh cloud services powered by Azure. When I connected with her desktop/session, I noticed she had about six different windows open inside QuickBooks.

Something flashed in my mind. It was Mario talking about how QuickBooks users often forget to close open windows when they close QuickBooks. I remember Mario explaining that it takes QuickBooks longer to complete the opening of the program because it must reopen all the windows that were left open when the user last closed the QuickBooks company.

“So”, I said, “before you show me this issue, let’s close some of these open windows because I don’t like to see more than three open at the start of QuickBooks”. She let me close them, but then… It kept going…and going.

I would close ten and there still were more. I just kept going closing them. Reports and transaction windows and more reports and lists and more reports. I told her “I can’t stop! It’s like eating popcorn. Once you start you have to keep going.

It was over three hundred windows (not exaggerating) and several times I had to stop to make sure I was doing it right and not stuck in some loop. Yes, QuickBooks has a Close all Windows feature which would have saved me at least 20 minutes of closing windows, but I needed to ascertain how many open windows there actually were.  And it would have taken all the fun out of it…

After all the popcorn eating, her application worked just fine. 

Connect with us today and let us work up a plan to deploy QuickBooks and all your other important desktop applications and data on a more flexible and scalable solution crafted just for your business on the Microsoft Azure platform. You get the best cloud hosting platform available AND our expertise with QuickBooks to go with it. It’s like getting butter on your popcorn… makes it taste better!

Note: The client was a little embarrassed about this whole situation and asked that I don’t tell anyone about this. I told her “don’t you worry, my lips are sealed.” I typed this whole article without opening my lips.

Mike, the IT guy NOOBEH cloud tech

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When budgets get tight and the economic outlook is bleak, business owners and executives tend to turn to information technology as a potential area for cost cutting. The reason for this is that many businesses view IT purely as a cost center, making it a prime target when driving to reduce operating costs.

The current global pandemic has depressed the global economy and businesses are feeling the pressure. A survey by PWC shows that roughly 82% of surveyed CFOs are focused on cost cutting and 67% of them are expecting to defer or cancel planned investments. Facilities and capital expenditures are the top two areas, but 53% of CFOs say IT spending will also be cut (https://www.pwc.com/us/covid-19-survey).

Yet information technology is the foundation for many aspects of business operations, and today’s work-from-home mandates have forced many companies to rethink their IT strategies where remote access and cloud hosting are concerned.

COVID-19 is making businesses reconsider their investments in real estate, office space and on-premises infrastructure, looking instead to the technology that supports remote and mobile workers.

A recent Gartner survey suggests that telecommuting and remote work will become more standard, saying that 74% of CFOs surveyed expect to move previously on-site employees to remote work post-COVID-19 — permanently (https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-04-03-gartner-cfo-surey-reveals-74-percent-of-organizations-to-shift-some-employees-to-remote-work-permanently2).

There have been many studies which show that organizations that took the most advantage of information technology going into a downturn have come out the strongest. Economic downturns actually increase awareness of the role information technology plays in improving business processes and reducing costs, and the global pandemic is highlighting the important role IT plays in supporting communication and enabling work from anywhere.

There have always been questions about the alignment of information technology to the business need, and IT is often perceived as being out of touch with the business. Yet IT is where the business goes for answers when trouble comes, and workers need a way to keep working even when they cannot be in the office.

Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh Cloud Services have the resources businesses need to migrate applications and data from servers and desktops to the cloud.

We help eliminate the capital investments associated with purchasing and maintaining business IT, turning instead to an affordable subscription service that can adjust with changing business needs. Our services create predictability in IT service and cost, providing the remote and mobile access users need while eliminating surprise repair costs and lost productivity due to computer hardware failures.

When you’re looking for IT solutions that work for your business in good times and bad, contact us. We’ll help keep your business and your workers working.

The post Turning to the IT Department When Times are Tough appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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Remote access and “dumb” terminals have been around for many years, allowing users to connect to computing resources located elsewhere… whether in another room or another state.

A cloud hosting environment operates similarly to the timeshare or service bureau systems of the past. You use a terminal – in this case a device or computer connected to the Internet – to operate your applications on the host computer.

The connection used to be over phone or fax lines, with modems making that squealing and squelching noise to let you know the digital handshake was being made. These days, remote access is much quieter, using the Internet as the network rather than making individual phone calls to reach the remote host.

Once your device – the PC, Mac or mobile device you are using – establishes its connection to the cloud server, the computing resources and applications in the cloud environment become available.

Since the cloud server is Windows, you are able to run most Windows-based applications and other network services you would typically find in an on-premise environment. We manage the platform so your users can focus on running the applications that help the business get the work done.

What’s different from the old green-screen terminals of the past is that you can use your modern devices – Windows PCs, Apple computers and iOS or Android mobile devices – and take advantage of the audio, video and other capabilities they support both on and off the cloud platform.

This environment provides you with the best of both worlds – the desktop applications and familiar working environment you need, as well as the flexibility of accessing from any location and using any device.

When your business operates from the hosted cloud server there are no different versions of the software to worry about. All users work on exactly the same system in real-time so there is no more concern about software updates for individual computers, or licensing applications for use in multiple locations.

Files do not need to be moved or converted in order to work with the cloud platform. File are accessed centrally and in real-time so all users are working in the same database at the same time, for example.

No sophisticated technology or training is required to take advantage of our private cloud solutions since your users already know how to use Windows and QuickBooks. It’s a simple transition from operating on the local computers to working on the cloud platform.

Once you migrate your systems to your private cloud environment powered by Noobeh, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

Contact us today, and let us help you get your desktop applications and data into a better place so you can focus on running your business rather than the IT that supports it.

The post Using a Remote Cloud Server is Kind of Like the Green Screen Days, Only Better appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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from COOPERMANN BLOG

COVID-19, as the novel human coronavirus is now known, is spreading around the world and that means that individuals and families – and businesses – should prepare.

Scanning electron microscope image of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (blue) emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. Image credit: NIAID-RML

The Centers for Disease Control has said that it fully expects community transmission in the United States and is asking families to be ready for the possibility of significant disruption to our lives. This should not be a call to incite panic and doomsday scenarios, but it also is not something to be taken lightly.

Businesses need to consider how to help keep their workforce active as symptomatic individuals quarantine themselves and others look to reduce their exposure in public.

Being at risk personally is not the only reason to prepare. The primary reason to prepare is to help lessen the risk for others. Taking preventative steps to limit the spread of the disease is essential. This means doing more of what you should already be doing to help prevent the spread of any communicable disease…

Wash your hands

Cover your mouth when coughing

See a doctor if you are sick

Avoid other people if you are infected or showing symptoms

This means staying home from work if you are even a little bit sick

Take for example what is happening in Japan, a country known for its people spending long hours in the office as a crucial element to success. Authorities there are urging companies to break with that long-standing belief system. They are encouraging businesses to have their employees work from home to help limit the spread of the virus. Yet most businesses are not prepared to handle a remote workforce. https://fortune.com/2020/03/01/coronavirus-japan-government-remote-work/

This is where cloud hosting services can be a big benefit for the business. Migrating on-premise desktop and networked applications to a cloud-hosted platform allows the business to continue using existing software and systems, but to run them from a cloud platform that enables workers to access from anywhere… including from home.

Rather than trying to convert to new web-based applications requiring retraining of employees and conversions of data, businesses find great success in simply moving their in-house systems to an agile, scalable cloud platform that can be accessed via the Internet. Particularly when it comes to enabling remote offices and at-home workers, a cloud hosting approach is the way to rapidly move critical IT infrastructure out of the office, providing a means to support remote workers almost immediately.

Contact Mendelson Consulting’s Noobeh cloud services team to find out how we can help you get your business ready for offsite remote access capability. The benefits are improved efficiency, reduced time to manage IT infrastructure, and the agility to adjust to changing business needs and changing conditions.

The post Working from Home: New Remote Access Capability to Address Coronavirus Concerns appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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Our consulting team uses cloud servers to handle customer projects, and sometimes they need more power than normal. Running a big import, report or analysis can really push the system. If the server resources aren’t quite up to the task, it takes much longer than it should: days instead of hours, hours instead of minutes. And time is money… a truth for every business.

On the Azure platform, however, we have other options. We can upgrade the server resources on-the-fly. It takes just a quick reconfig and reboot and viola! The consulting team has a powerhouse system that can run the biggest imports or analytics and it just flies.

Tasks are completed in seconds or minutes instead of hours or days. Productivity is much higher and the heavy jobs get done faster. When the project is completed, the server gets reset to its original configuration so we only pay for the extra resources when we need and consume them.

Having the agility to change the configuration – adding or reducing resources as required – is among the reasons why we deliver our services on the Microsoft Azure platform. It gives us the ability to right-size the infrastructure based on business needs TODAY.

Over-provisioning is the old way. You used to have to purchase your IT infrastructure now based on what you might need later, but that wastes money. We think it’s better to deploy what you need now and adjust as business needs change, even if they change really often. Azure gives us the ability to meet that need, saving our clients time and money.

Give us a call today and let us work up a plan to migrate your onsite server or hosted implementation to a more agile and adaptable platform and environment. You never know how a little extra power when you need it might help your business.

Mike, the IT guy NOOBEH cloud tech

The post More Power Only When You Need It appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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There is a big trend in software integration these days which involves automation – turning connected systems into free-flowing conduits for data to move intelligently into and out of with ease.  Well, maybe not quite that, but the key is the unattended and intelligent movement of data from one system to another.  People do not have to get involved in order for information to flow from one system to another… it just goes by itself.  Like a robot.

Having software and systems connect to one another is not new at all, and businesses have for many years recognized the value of being able to have information entered in one system available in another.  Entire ERP frameworks have been created based on this concept of entering data only once and using it in many ways.  The trick is when there is more than one system or software product involved.

A simple example might be someone who owns a web store and does their bookkeeping with QuickBooks.  The webstore is running an e-commerce solution or shopping cart system that allows customers to buy things online.  However, the webstore does create sales orders and payment transactions, and may even have to manage an inventory of items as they are sold.

Getting the information from the webstore to QuickBooks and vice versa is often a task business owners take on, either by entering the information manually themselves or hiring and employee to do it.  This manual re-entry of information introduces a large potential for errors in the data entered and is time-consuming and costly.

“It was just awful,.. There were humans everywhere.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-bookkeeper-is-a-robot-1430776272

Rather than having a person re-type the information from one system into another, software-based integration programs may be available to help users map the data and move it from one solution to the other.  Using a software program to transfer the information is much faster and reduces the error rate, increasing the overall value and usefulness of the information.

Automation is not the only requirement that makes this robot-like.  The additional requirement is the intelligence.  If people still have to get directly involved in order for something to happen, then all the happening is still based on human performance. No robots there.

Intelligent integration of information occurs when the systems on both ends are capable of making decisions and acting on them.  For example, a business might use a solution that allows vendors to submit their invoices electronically.  Through a base of rules that match invoices to requests and approvals, the system is able to issue payment and record the transactions automatically and without human intervention, saving hugely on personnel and processing costs.  Robots (the automation solution) would not make up all the rules, but could follow them repetitively and without question once established.

…software can help businesses operate more effectively. “If you think like a human, there are only certain things you can do. When you think like a robot, many things are possible.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-bookkeeper-is-a-robot-1430776272

This is not a new paradigm for businesses – this is doing things a bit smarter than before and leveraging technology to get more done in less time.  The difference is that the pace of change is increasing, giving businesses less time to stand by and consider whether or not this “smart” technology makes sense.

Robots, you say?

Let Mendelson Consulting help you get the most from your business software, showing you how to streamline processes to improve accuracy, speed and productivity. It all leads to doing better and smarter business, increasing service levels and profitability at the same time!

The post Data Entry and Automation: Meet Your Business Robot appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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For many business owners, just hearing the term “expense management” conjures up visions of traveling employees with piles of receipts and vouchers to be organized, accounted and reimbursed for. The images are often fleeting, however – gone out of mind with no lingering thought because many business owners don’t have personnel who travel frequently, and they don’t have to deal with volumes of expense reports from employees. Expense management solutions aren’t anything these business owners are looking for.

Yet, what does happen every day is that equipment, materials, supplies and services are purchased to keep the business operation going. Calls are made to vendors; price quotes are developed, and purchase requests are typed up in Excel spreadsheets and piled on the owner’s desk for approval. The business owner rifles through the various requests and brings in the bookkeeper to help work through the decision of which items to authorize based on current cash availability.

Because the availability of working capital changes frequently with billings being sent out and receipts being deposited daily, the owner and the bookkeeper spend much of their time together figuring out which purchases to make and when. It is a continual and ongoing process, taking a lot of time and attention away from other important business matters.

Too often, thoughts of managing these efforts with more structure addresses only half of the issue – the purchase. Perhaps there are systems for planning for materials requirements and predicting when parts or supplies will be needed, but that is still just one side of the problem. The other side is paying for it. Factoring those purchasing plans into the cash requirements and having a meaningful and effective way to monitor current bank balances and expected receipts as well as purchase requirements is essential.

Resource and materials planning takes purchase planning, and purchase planning takes visibility into receivables, cash flow and cash availability.

Expense and purchase management processes generally involve three main steps: planning, tracking, and reporting.

As the process involves planning, it suggests a proactive rather than a reactive approach to cash management and purchasing activities. By bringing together all the critical data which describes inflows and outflows, the business owner can have the information necessary to not only forecast (plan) cash requirements but to also understand the availability of working capital. Knowing ahead of time that traditionally slow paying contracts aren’t factored into immediately available cash is important and being able to adjust purchase schedules based on availability of funds is essential.

Even when expense management is not be a big part of the business, managing cash flow and purchasing goods and services is, even in the smallest of enterprises. Make sure the business has the tools in place to help bring an additional level of intelligence to purchasing activities, and that those tools deliver the benefits of a structured (but not time consuming) purchasing approvals and proactive cash flow management process.

Mendelson Consulting provides solutions for Expense/Purchase Management and Custom Reporting/Analysis, delivering consulting, training and implementation services to help clients get the greatest benefit from these tools. Our solutions, consulting and support, along with our affordable private cloud services, help businesses around the world improve performance and profitability.

The post Expense Management is Not What You Think appeared first on Mendelson Consulting.

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PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. –PRLog – Jan. 7, 2020 — Mendelson Consulting is proud to announce that it has again been selected as a member of the Bob Scott’s VAR Stars for 2019, a group of 100 organizations honored for their accomplishments in the field of midmarket financial software. This marks the 6th time that Mendelson Consulting ranks among the leaders on the VAR Stars list, highlighting the company’s commitment to providing the highest level of service and quality business solutions.

Members of the VAR Stars are selected based on factors such growth, industry leadership and recognition, as well as innovation. Selection is not based on revenue and those firms chosen represent a wide range of sizes and many different software publishers of accounting software.

“It is always an honor to recognize those who contribute to the development of our business” said Bob Scott, long-standing editor and writer in the mid-market financial software community. Scott’s organization selects their top 100 VAR Stars from the best organizations that market financial software and services.

“Mendelson Consulting has always focused on providing the right solutions for our business clients” said Mario Nowogrodzki, CPA, CITP, the founder and CEO of Mendelson Consulting Inc. “Our expertise in operations support, business process improvement and cloud services, along with our capabilities with finance and accounting software, has positioned us to support a vast client portfolio of businesses from a variety of backgrounds and sizes, from fast-growing enterprises to well-established enterprise. We specialize in solving big problems for small and mid-sized organizations.”

About Mario Nowogrodzki and Mendelson Consulting

Mario Nowogrodzki, CPA.CITP, is founder and principal of Mendelson Consulting (https://ift.tt/2J2ATss), an accounting technology firm that assists entities with planning, selecting and implementing business management systems. Mendelson Consulting has been recognized as Top Technologist by Accountex and the Sleeter Group, Top Integrations ProAdvisor by Insightful Accountant, has multiple-year placement in Top 100 ProAdvisors lists, and is a recognized charter member/premier reseller and solution provider for Intuit QuickBooks. Mendelson Consulting is also a Microsoft Cloud Services Provider, delivering Office365, Dynamics 365, Azure platform services and other transformative cloud solutions for businesses.

Mr. Nowogrodzki is a member of the Florida Institute of CPAs Business Technology Section; a contributing author and speaker for Intuit, Accountex, the Woodard Group and more. Visit https://ift.tt/2J2ATss to learn more.

About Bob Scott Bob Scott has been informing and entertaining the mid-market financial software community via his email newsletters for over 20 years. He has published this information via the ERP Global Insights (formerly Bob Scott’s Insights) newsletter and website since 2009. He has covered this market for more than 27 years through print and electronic publications, first as technology editor of Accounting Today and then as the Editor of Accounting Technology from 1997 through 2009. He has covered the traditional tax and accounting profession during the same time and has continued to address that market as executive editor of the Progressive Accountant since 2009.

About PMG360, Inc. Bob Scott’s Insights and the Progressive Accountant are published by PMG360. PMG360 (www.pmg360.com) is a leading online media company that provides business-to-business (B2B) marketers and media planners unparalleled access to a highly qualified and engaged audience through their portfolio of lead generation programs, industry-specific Web sites, email newsletters, Web seminars, live events, podcasts, content/reviews, custom publishing and direct marketing databases focusing on the nonprofit, healthcare and accounting professionals.

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