Dear Clients,
Whew! It’s always a relief to get January behind us—and end the lack-of-sleep headaches! Budgets should be defined for the new year, W-2s and 1099s are done, and now we can turn our attention to what the accounting department does best—analyzing and planning.
For seasonal businesses, analyzing and planning can be particularly tough. The classic example is selling snow shovels, which is apt as I’m writing this with inches of the white stuff on the ground. But you might be surprised how many businesses are seasonal to at least some degree. Did you know mattress sales are seasonal, peaking in August?
Seasonal businesses have some unique challenges—including ramping up short-term employees and dynamic inventory levels—for which we can fortunately bring solutions to bear.
Short-term employees often have minimal product knowledge and abbreviated training in the business systems, so improvements in accelerating Sales Order Entry will certainly help. For interactively entered sales orders, such as in a call center, having pricing completely defined in the system is the first step to improvement. For products with optional components, such as a bicycle with multiple seats or wheels available, a Sales Order Configurator module can be a life-saver for short-term employees as it provides only compatible options (“You can’t get the racing seat with off-road tires.”). Also valuable is having substitute items defined in your system (“We’re out of that product, may I suggest this very similar item?”) and Upsell items configured (“Would you like to purchase the optional vehicle charger for that new cell phone?”).
Dynamic inventory levels are a challenge, because for the best case of an overstocked item you sit on it until the next season—when snow shovels are once again selling. But in the worst case, it’s an item with changing styles, or the item may be perishable—you can’t sell those overstocked poinsettias next year. There’s not a simple plug-in to address this challenge, but we’ve done extensive seasonal inventory analysis work, using popular business intelligence tools to include weighting of projections based on prior specific months’ sales—such as, “snow shovel sales this coming January are expected to most closely correlate to snow shovels sold last January.”
So, if you’re wrestling seasonal business challenges or, since I’m sure you’ve recognized these process improvements apply even to non-seasonal operations, you would just like a better handle on your interactive sales order entry and inventory stocking projections—then you know we’re always standing by in the cornfields to help you out!
Regards,
Kevin E. Stroud
kestrou@nexlan.com
NexLAN, LLC
https://nexlan.com
Plan Ahead for the June AccountMate Online Training
Registration is closed for the first 2022 AccountMate SQL/Express online Core Product Training class running February and March. Now is good timing to block off dates in your June and early July calendar for the next class before you fill up your calendar with other things.
Registration will open in April; let us know if you’d like to be at the front of the line.
➤ June 2 – July 7, 2022
➤ October 6 – November 10, 2022
We highly recommend this terrific class taught by AccountMate Corp., and quite a few NexLAN clients have attended! It’s great for users who are new to AccountMate, of course. It’s also valuable for longtime users who want to learn more about what the software can do, or want to extend their skills and gain confidence in using more modules. Everyone learns a lot that’s directly useful in their jobs.
The sessions are spaced out over 6 weeks, with 2 sessions per week for your convenience. It’s a hands-on class, not a prerecorded webinar. You’ll be working in AccountMate in the class. There’s time to ask questions as you go—including questions about how a feature or setting should be applied in your company’s particular situation.
Just like AccountMate itself, the class is flexible. You can attend the whole class or just the session(s) you need. It’s $2500 for all sessions (40 hours) or $300 per session, for each attendee.
You can attend FREE if you’re on an active Lifecycle Maintenance Plan. The number of free seats per year is governed by your number of registered users and modules—see details here on the Course Overview page or contact us with questions specific to your company. The person attending each session can be different, and the free sessions can be attended anytime in 2022. For example you could attend GL, AR, and AP in one session, and BR, PO, and SO the next time the class is offered.
With all this flexibility and plenty of advance notice, 2022 is your year to expand your AccountMate skills!
Details:
Email support@nexlan.com with questions or to get registered.
AccountMate Tech Note: Amending W-2 Information After the W-2 Has Been Updated or Confirmed
There may be times when you have already updated or confirmed the W-2 information for an employee only to find that additional wages or adjustments still need to be recorded for the current tax year.
Article #1062: Amending W-2 Information After the W-2 Has Been Updated or Confirmed provides you with the guidelines necessary to handle these payroll transactions so that they will be accurately reflected on the current tax year W-2 forms.
AccountMate Tech Note: Understanding the Recalculate SUTA Feature
State unemployment tax laws change from time to time. These changes may necessitate an update of the SUTA rates used for calculating the SUTA liabilities. If your company has issued payroll checks for which payroll taxes are based upon outdated SUTA tax rates, it is important to recalculate the SUTA liabilities.
AccountMate’s Recalculate FUTA/SUTA Amount function allows you to recalculate the SUTA liabilities for payroll checks for which AccountMate used an outdated rate and/or wage base. Article #1106: Understanding the Recalculate SUTA Feature explains how the feature works.
AccountMate Technical Tips
Versions: AM12 for SQL and Express
AM11 for SQL and Express
AM10 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM9 for SQL, Express, and LAN
Module: AP
Q: I have a vendor that is not set up for electronic payment but is set up for auto-draft payments. How do you record auto-draft payments in AccountMate?
A: Auto-draft payments can be recorded in AccountMate using the Post Handwritten Check ► Non-Check Transaction option. We recommend marking the Hold Print Check checkbox in the Vendor Maintenance ► Settings tab for vendors set for auto-draft payments. This will prevent you from erroneously printing a “live” check for the invoice.
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Versions: AM12 for SQL and Express
AM11 for SQL and Express
AM10 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM9 for SQL, Express, and LAN
Modules: AR, CI, IC, PC, SO
Q: When I create a sales order or an AR invoice for an item, the default unit price is not the unit price entered in the Inventory Maintenance ► Information ► Unit Price field. Why?
A: AccountMate has various pricing features that allow you to set up several prices that can be used as the default unit price for each inventory item. Article #1094: Pricing Hierarchy in Sales Order and Accounts Receivable Modules discusses these various pricing features and the order of priority the system will use to determine the inventory item default unit price.
Note: Pricing Control and Customer Inventory Manager modules are not available in AccountMate for LAN.
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Versions: AM12 for SQL and Express
AM11 for SQL and Express
AM10 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM9 for SQL, Express, and LAN
Module: AR
TIP: The AR Aging Report already includes the open credits generated from sales returns even without marking the Include Open Credits checkbox. The Include Open Credits checkbox is for open credits generated from payments. They appear in the report assigned with invoice # OPN CR.
The Open Credit Report has the option to include open credits generated from Sales Returns Only, from Payments Only, or both.
The difference between the AR Aging Report with the Include Open Credits checkbox marked, versus the AR Aging Report with the Include Open Credits checkbox not marked, will match with the total Open Cr Amt in the Open Credit Report ► Payments Only option.
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Versions: AM12 for SQL and Express
AM11 for SQL and Express
AM10 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM9 for SQL, Express, and LAN
Module: MI
TIP: You can select the bin from which component quantities will be taken when you post work-in-process or post finished jobs. To do this, select the By WO # or By Job # option in the Post Work-in-Process/Post Finished Job function. You can then change the bin in the Post Work-in-Process/Post Finished Job ► Line Items tab.
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