Bellwether - A Blytheco Magazine | Fine Tuning Your Business

BELLWETHERVolume 4 | Issue 3 | Third Quarter 2013
Dashboards, Metrics and Reporting You Should HaveDashboards, Metrics and Reporting You Should Have

Bellwether Magazine | Third Quarter 20132
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3bell•weth•er -noun: one who takes initiative or leadership
6
sections
Letter from the Editor 5
Leadership 6
Technology 8
Sales & Marketing 12
Cover Story 14
Corporate Finance 16
Industry News 18
Human Resources 30
12
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that
automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the
efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient
operation will magnify the inefficiency.” – Bill Gates
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that
automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the
efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient
operation will magnify the inefficiency.” – Bill Gates
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LETTERFROMTHEEDITOR
BELLWETHER
A Blytheco Magazine
Volume 4
Third Quarter, 2013
www.blytheco.com
www.bellwethermagazine.com
STAFF
EDITOR
Apryl Hanson
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Greg Went
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Alicia Anderson
Liz Anderson
Tess Boros
Apryl Hanson
Tricia Hartigan
Amy Higgins
Ginger Kittinger
Brian Nunes
ADVERTISING SALES
Ginger Kittinger
SUBSCRIPTIONS
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of Bellwether Magazine.

If you have been in business for any length
of time you have inevitably been involved
in a strategy that failed. Strategies can be
defined as a carefully devised plan of action
put in motion to achieve a desired state
or goal. We hear about strategy failures
so much more than we hear of successfully
executed ones. When we do have a big
strategic win it is often celebrated by
documented business cases instead
of spending time understanding
why other strategies have fallen
short of their expectations.
If we closely examine why
strategy fails we may learn
how to improve our rate of
successful execution and
change our business outcomes.
It has been said that when a company fails to hit its measureable targets
the next move is to usually change the organizational chart. This is a
costly reaction for businesses to take as when you are realigning people;
the change alone can take over twelve months to settle. The realignment
creates disruption which can take away from additional strategies being
able to be performed.
Instead imagine if the strategy itself wasn’t the issue. What if instead of
the strategy being the culprit for what wasn’t working, we focused on the
communication and measurements that went along with the strategy.
When we work with organizations in a change management process we interview
executives, managers and front line workers to get their view of what is happening
in their organization. We do this because we have found too many times that what
the executive team has rolled out as a strategy may be interpreted in an entirely
different way through managers to front line teams that are working on these
problems and issues every day.
by Apryl Hanson
Strategy
Execution

We often recommend improvements to processes
and procedures that allow people to capture data
throughout the change in strategy so that executives
have a pulse on what is working and can make
adjustments immediately with areas that aren’t
working.
This way, strategy becomes a work in process. Here
are tips to help you create solid strategy shifts in your
organization:
• Be crisp, clear and defined – All of the members
of your executive team need to be able to speak
about the strategy in the same way.
• Get the Executive Team involved and
accountable – Your executive team needs to
be held accountable for the entire strategy, not
just their individual department. Get everyone’s
thoughts before rolling out the strategy, taking
success measurements, and executing. Once
decided, define everyone’s roles in the process
and measurement periods. Executive meetings
should be spent discussing what’s working vs. not
working and developing strategies to improve in
implementation.
• Define your measurements and timeframes
-You have to have clearly defined result expectations
that you are looking for with timeframes. Before
rolling out the strategy create clear timeframes for
those measurements (i.e. what will it look like in 30,
60, 90, 120 days) so that you can determine when
you are off or on track and make adjustments.
• Create strategies for organizational change
in addition to behavioral change – Change
doesn’t just happen because of alignment of
new teams and roles. You should have identified
strategies to focus on the behavioral changes your
team members are going to need to make in order
for your strategy to be fruitful.
• Align Technology – If you don’t take a look at the
changes that will be needed in your technology to
support the strategy change, you could be missing
a big step. Often technology is an afterthought
in change management. How will information be
recorded to know if the new strategy is working?
Make sure that you have identified the needs you
have.
• Work with a partner – Bring in a partner that
you trust to look at elements of the change process.
This will give you an outsider’s perspective. The
right partner will ask questions to help you fill in
the blanks in the strategy. We work with many
companies going through significant change to
help them identify communication break-downs and
technology alignment challenges. Find a partner
that is willing to truly sit at the table with you and
one who is focused on your success.
If you are interested in help regarding aligning
your business strategy with technology
check out our bly:Optimize services at
www.blytheco.com/optimize.
LEADERSHIP
How the conversation
becomes an important lever
in change management

by Alicia Anderson
An overview of the major types of reporting
solutions across various categories follows.
General Reporting
These reporting tools can access data from a wide variety
of sources and help users create outputs that are highly
customizable.
• Crystal Reports - SAP Crystal Reports features tools
such as ready-to-use data drivers, flexible charting
capabilities, and pre-built templates to view, design,
and deliver consolidated reports from virtually any
data source.
• Microsoft SQL Reporting Services – Microsoft’s
Reporting Services are widely used due to the ubiquity
of SQL Server in businesses. One significant benefit is
their ability to generate reports in a variety of office-
friendly formats, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PDF,
CSV, and others.
• Microsoft Excel – Basic spreadsheets are powerful
and flexible tools for non-technical users building
reports for analysis.
Business Activity Monitoring
Monitoring and workflow applications with built-in reporting
components provide an additional layer of functionality with
their ability to poll data to create “exception” reporting and
define activities against data characteristics.
• Knowledgesync integrates with many mid-market
front-office and back-office applications to identify
defined parameters in the business, monitor data
integrity, and automatically alert users when exceptions
occur. Reports can be automatically generated and
deployed across the organization.
• TaskCentre is an event-driven process management
system that integrates with ERP and CRM to provide
alerts, document automation, and automation of
repetitive tasks according to defined business rules.
Arecent survey (OK, we asked our consulting team) indicated that ERP
users are using a wide variety of tools to get the information they need
from their systems. The diversity of solutions brings home the fact that one
size does not fit all when it comes to analytics – the solution that fits your
business best will depend on the existing technology infrastructure you have,
as well as the needs and experience-level of your users and any compliance
issues in your business.
The Top Business
Reporting Tools Our
Customers are Using
The Top Business
Reporting Tools Our
Customers are Using

LEADERSHIPTECHNOLOGY
Financial Reporting and Budgeting
Financial reports provide the transactional data needed
to analyze company performance and cash flow.
• F9 is a basic, Excel-based tool for linking General
Ledger data to Excel.
• BizNet is an Excel-based analytics and reporting
platform that integrates to a wide variety of mid-market
ERP solutions, giving users the ability to “drag and
drop” to create reports in real-time against multiple
modules and databases.
• RenovoFYI is a web-based solution allowing ERP users
to create presentation-quality financial statements
with built-in auditing and drill-down capabilities.
• Adaptive Planning is a cloud-based Corporate
Performance Management (CPM) tool that works with
many ERP systems with a spreadsheet-like interface
and guided analysis to help users understand
information.
• Budget Maestro is a budgeting application to
support the consolidation of information across
management teams as well as business modeling and
forecasting. It integrates to mid-market ERP systems
like Sage and Microsoft Dynamics.
• Sage Active Planner is a budgeting and planning
solution specifically created for Sage ERP
systems, automatically integrating with the
general ledger to create consolidated
budgets with a spreadsheet-like
look and feel.
Application-Specific Business Intelligence
• DataSelf Business Intelligence leverages Microsoft
SQL Server, Tableau and Excel to provide intuitive,
industry-standard tools for deploying KPIs and reports.
Packaged with pre-built templates, users can also
build complex reports from scratch quickly. It features
mappings to many leading ERP systems and pre-
defined solutions to many vertical industries.
• Sage Intelligence offered for Sage 100, Sage 300,
and Sage 500 ERP customers, offers easy to use
graphical financial reporting capabilities with an Excel-
based interface. Users can consolidate data from
multiple companies, divisions, and databases with
pre-formatted reports or create their own reports.
• CRM Built-in dashboards within CRM solutions such as
SugarCRM, SalesLogix, and SageCRM provide visual,
configurable analytics to measure sales performance,
often available across mobile devices.
If you are still struggling, despite all the options, to
get the data you need from your system to make fast,
effective decisions, you are not alone. Blytheco’s experts
leverage all of these tools and more to create, customize
and deploy analytics with our clients to keep them on top
of business performance trends. For more info email us
at solutions@blytheco.com for an analysis of your
reporting needs and advice about how you can
get better information using the system you
currently have.

Dashboards – How to keep
on top of it all!
SALES&MARKETING
The Sage Intelligence Dashboard is a one-page summary
of key business information. The report features “Top N” (N
can be defined by you as the # you’d like to see) reporting
on Customers, Items and Expenses, and contains both text
and graphics to help with daily and long-term planning. In
addition, comparative Profit and Loss figures are displayed
for both the current month- and year-to-date figures. You
can copy and modify this according to your unique business
needs. It is a module of your Sage accounting/ERP system,
making it seamless to access secure, real-time data when you
need it. www.blytheco.com/erp/mas-intelligence.asp
If you want remote real-time access to your Sage 100 ERP
system – check out Blytheco’s bly:Mobile app! This is a
direct connection to your ERP system, which allows you to
monitor all of the key financial modules you need access to
and your sales team can check available inventory and create
orders in the field! www.blytheco.com/blymobile
Sage Inventory Advisor is the newest from Sage – a true
SaaS inventory diagnostic, forecasting and management
tool. This product integrates with Sage 100, Sage 500 and
Sage ERP X3 systems to give a quick view, accessible from a
web browser or mobile device, of where you stand on product
inventory levels, projections, trends, and supply chain.
Sage ERP X3 has a customizable dashboard that gives you
access to what you want to see with drilldown into detail if
you need it, such as Open orders, Sales by Customer, Sales
Team stats and even local news and weather if you’d like.
www.blytheco.com/ERP-X3
Sage Payment Services lets you manage electronic
payments and it integrates with your Sage software. And
with Sage Exchange, you have a Virtual Dashboard you can
customize to keep track of all of the transactions in and out
of your business. From credit/debit cards, checks, ACH, Gift
Cards and more – you can do it all.
So whatever need you have, wherever you are – with Blytheco
and Sage you can keep your finger on the pulse of your
company.
You are on the go, attending meetings, taking calls – how do you quickly and easily check in to
see how your company is doing? I asked our Sales Engineers, Charles Rogers and Philip Laing,
to tell me about the first-rate dashboards and remote access tools for your Sage products.
by Ginger Kittinger

Sage ERP Document Management
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ERP Document Management is tightly integrated with your Sage ERP solution
to increase control, document visibility, productivity and customer service. With
the versatility of Sage ERP Document Management, you can make any process or
department into a paperless one.
Sage ERP Document Management by Altec is the key to automating and acceler-
ating your business processes.
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How could such a promising situation for workers
degrade into such a devastating situation for
Volkswagen?
Union leaders had made a critical mistake. They had
not involved workers in the agreement negotiations,
or explained the basis for changes in a few work
rules that went along with the sizable pay increase.
Workers felt betrayed and left in the dark.
Contrast that scenario with the approach of
Gerhard Schulmeyer, the CEO of Siemens-
Nixdorf Informationssysteme (SNI), the largest
European supplier of information technology.
Siemens’ acquisition of the troubled Nixdorf
group necessitated major cuts to headcount
and resources to save the united company.
Schulmeyer traveled the country to conduct
meetings with more than 11,000 people, sharing
a bleakly honest picture of the company’s
situation and asking for ideas about how to
remedy it. As many as 9,000 company “change
agents” submitted ideas to leadership, who
chose winning ideas on their merits in
a decision-making process that
everyone clearly understood.
Within one year, the company
was profitable again and
employee satisfaction almost
doubled, despite the
challenges they had faced.
The Process Paradigm: Managing
Change by Focusing on the Process,
not the Outcomes
In 1992, car manufacturer Volkswagen signed a new labor agreement including a
generous 20% raise with the union representing workers for its new Puebla, Mexico
facility. Workers subsequently conducted a walkout that cost the company $10 million
per day, and the government was forced to intervene to end violence that ensued
after police dogs attacked protestors.
by Alicia Anderson

COVERSTORY
How had Siemens achieved such dramatic and
positive progress in such a short time while dealing
with radical and difficult changes?
The answer to both questions lies in the concept
of Fair Process. The managerial concept of Fair
Process posits that positive business performance
is achieved by building a foundation of trust and
openness throughout the company. It’s a focus on
creating a foundation of good process while making
change instead of the outcomes, and it addresses
our basic human need to be heard, understood, and
respected.
But why is Fair Process more critical now than ever?
Creating and sharing knowledge are not negotiable
in today’s knowledge economy. Innovation and
ideas are the foundation of today’s technology-
driven business environment and ideas can only be
voluntarily shared, not compelled or incentivized
with traditional rewards.
Do not mistake Fair Process with managing by
consensus or business as a democracy. Everyone
does not need to agree on the changes – but the
changes must be transparent and fair. Evidence
shows that people will accept an outcome that is
not favorable to them IF the outcome is based
on objective, fair principles.
So how does a business manage even the toughest
changes and improve performance using Fair
Process?
• When making a change, explain the why. Be transparent
in letting your team know why the change is happening,
even if it means sharing negative information. A culture
of sharing leads to ownership of the problem across
groups and shared responsibility for and commitment to
resolution.
• Watch the signals. If leaders’ behavior is inconsistent or if
rumors start circulating, anxiety builds and performance is
compromised. Be proactive and clear in communicating
what’s happening.
• Engage and solicit ideas from all players. Build the
collective wisdom by generating diverse ideas from as
many team members as possible.
• Define expectations clearly. Minimize politics and
favoritism by defining the rules early in the process, based
on performance standards and penalties for failure.
For more information about Fair Process, we
recommend the Harvard Business Review’s “Fair
Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy” by
W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, available at
www.hbr.org.

Being familiar with the numbers
Prior to day one there should be general understanding of the numbers. If you
are the employer you should supply financial statements for the companies past
five years, and if you are the new CFO coming on board, this is a request you
should make in advance of your first day. It is important for you to know the
current budgets, forecasts and the business planning methods going forward.
You want to hit the ground running, so reviewing this type of information on
your first day won’t allow you to think strategically ahead of time about the
areas you can impact. Reviewing in advance, you can be creative instead of
reactive to impact the financial health of the business as soon as possible.
Financial System Strength
Are the financial systems in place the right ones for the business? You should
know prior to your first day what systems the company is using, and how
the company has used them today. Having a clear picture of what your
financial data looks like, how you will access it, and how clean the data is
will significantly impact where your focus will be in the first 90 days. What
do the internal controls look like? As the fiduciary for the organization,
you need confidence that assets are secure, compliance requirements
are being met, data is accurate and the systems are in place to ensure
that continues. In addition to the financial systems used, does the
company partner with outside companies to support their technology
needs? You may want to reach out to better understand what you are
walking into.
Understanding your first team
We have a big saying within our Blytheco executive team “Your
executive team should be your first team, your peers, the people
that work together to keep the business running and advance the
livelihood of the business.” You should know who the players are on
your first team before your first day. But within your first 90 days you
should spend time with each player understanding their challenges as
well as areas they feel are opportunities for growth. This will help you
become of better service to supply the information necessary to help
them thrive. On an ongoing basis, regular meetings with these team
members to review their areas of the business, and check in, will be
helpful to keeping finance top of mind.
Understanding your work team
Who will be the players on your work teams and what
are their skills? Before being officially on board you will
want to review resumes on your current team. Once on
board you will need to develop a way to assess their skill
sets and areas where training and development could
by Apryl Hanson
Whether you are a new CFO starting in a new role
or you are hiring a new CFO this article highlights
areas to create a successful transition.
First 90 days of a CFO

CORPORATEFINANCE
improve their asset to you and the company. One on ones on a
regular basis not only to understand work load, but skills should
be where you spend time in the first 90 days. A start, stop and
continue questioning technique will help you find improvement.
• What do you think we should continue doing? (What are we
doing right?)
• What do you think we should stop doing? (What are we doing
that isn’t providing value?)
• What do you think we should be doing? (What are we ignoring
that will benefit us?)
Thesequestionswillhelpyouidentifyareasofoverarchingconcern
and potential themes that you can gut check with your executive
team.Rightawayyouwillbeabletofindareasreadyfordevelopment.
Solidify external relationships
Because you will be representing the financial aptitude of the
organization, you will need to have a plan to create relationships
with external partners of the company. Bankers, lawyers, auditors
and investors are just a start. You may also have strategic
partners, vendors and customers that it will be important for you
to meet. Your executive team can help you create a key list of
contacts to be introduced to. Some may be more important than
others and may require face to face meetings opposed to verbal
or e-mail introductions.
Map out the business
What are the inputs, processes and outputs of the company?
Why do people do business with your company? You need to
be able to take to heart why people would buy the products and
services from your company and the details of the transactions
and customer experience. Understanding the business at a
deeper level will help you support your teams with ideas of
improvement.
The first ninety days of any job can be hectic and
overwhelming, but understanding how to structure this
time carefully can help the new CFO get a firm foothold
on his or her new role, and drive success in his or her
department and in the business as a whole.

EDI is literally everywhere, supporting the supply chain
behind the scenes. When a consumer picks up a product
in a “big box” retail store, chances are almost 100% that
it got there via EDI. Nearly all communication between
manufacturers and major retailers—including sending
and receiving purchase orders, invoices, advance ship
notices (ASNs) and functional acknowledgements—now
takes place using EDI.
Sooner or later, any company that wants to become a
trusted supplier to a major retailer will be faced with
a decision involving EDI. As a growing business, you
need to consider an EDI solution that can support your
efforts to improve customer service, business agility and
profitability; not just cost you money with minimal value-
add.
EDI relies on standard protocols, but all EDI solutions
are not the same. What’s the key to deriving long-term,
strategic value from EDI? It’s choosing a complete, end-
to-end EDI solution from a trusted provider; one that
includes everything you need to successfully deploy EDI
and integrate smoothly with your Sage ERP system.
Integration between ERP and EDI reduces the need to
print or rekey transactions when moving data between
the two systems. A top-tier EDI solution will also offer
built-in validation and process control features that help
ensure all the data your customer requires has been
entered correctly. You’ll be automatically notified of
invalid entries for unit pricing, purchase order numbers
and acknowledgements before you send a transaction.
This not only keeps your customers happy, but also
helps maintain the integrity of the valuable data in your
Sage ERP system.
These capabilities make order processing faster
and more efficient, while optimizing accuracy. As a
result, you’re able to meet all of your customers’ EDI
requirements and add new EDI trading partners easily,
while at the same time, streamline your overall order
fulfillment process. An integrated EDI solution can
improve your insight into supply chain data, so you
can answer questions and make decisions faster—
accelerating your orders-to-cash cycle.
If, you implement EDI without ERP integration simply
to comply with customer mandates, you introduce
duplication of effort into your order processing. For
instance, after you receive a purchase order from a
trading partner via EDI, you will then need to manually
enter that data into your Sage ERP system.
By HighJump Software
If your business is part of today’s retail and manufacturing supply chain, you need
every edge you can get. Companies like yours are focused on improving efficiency
and flexibility in the face of fluctuating consumer demand and competitive pressure
surrounding cost and service. This is why electronic data interchange (EDI) continues to
grow in importance within this sector.
by Tricia Hartigan
INDUSTRYNEWS

The need to perform these time-consuming manual
tasks to keep the ERP and EDI systems in sync can
slow order processing to a crawl, introduce errors
and drive up staffing costs. Inaccuracies with EDI
transactions can negatively impact your supplier
score, increase the frequency of chargebacks
and put your company’s growth at risk. Some
suppliers are unable to work with new customers
because their standalone EDI solution makes order
processing so cumbersome.
To succeed in today’s business climate, you need
an integrated IT system that delivers rapid time-to-
value,functionsasaproductivitytoolandempowers
your business to grow not just today, but well into
the future. Industry-leading EDI providers like
HighJump TrueCommerce EDI Solutions—the only
EDI solution endorsed and exclusively distributed
by Sage—offers integrated EDI for your Sage ERP
software. This solution adds value and supports
your business daily, from deployment onward
through every transaction with your customers.
Enhancing the Efficiency of Your
Supply Chain Processes with EDI
HighJump TrueCommerce Introduces EDI
Integration with Sage ERP X3
HighJump TrueCommerce EDI Solutions —the only EDI solution
endorsed and exclusively distributed by Sage – has introduced an
enhanced integration for Sage ERP X3.
TrueCommerce Transaction Manager™ for Sage ERP X3 is
the most robust, complete, and easy-to-use EDI integration
available for Sage ERP X3. Backed by best-in-class EDI service
and support, this integration offers the scalability, automation and
configurability that Sage ERP X3 users demand—while enabling
you to derive even more value from your ERP investment.
If highly efficient order fulfillment is key to your business goals,
you need seamless, reliable integration between your ERP and
EDI systems. HighJump TrueCommerce has long been the EDI
provider of choice for Sage customers of all sizes. This new Sage
ERP X3 integration enables businesses to keep pace with growing
EDI transaction volumes and maintain the high levels of customer
service, communication and on-time, error-free delivery that are
vital to success in today’s business environment.
TrueCommerce Transaction Manager for Sage ERP X3 supports
a comprehensive range of integrated documents including
purchase order, purchase order acknowledgement, invoice,
advance ship notice (ASN) and credit memo transactions.
Built-in item translation, price verification, ship to validation and
other capabilities eliminate manual data entry while ensuring
optimum efficiency and order accuracy. All transactions processed
between Sage ERP X3 and TrueCommerce EDI are logged
within the EDI solution, making it simple to resolve disputes and
eliminate exceptions, duplicate transactions and chargebacks.
To further enhance order fulfillment productivity and efficiency,
TrueCommerce Scheduler allows users to automatically perform
import/export functions for integrated transactions at scheduled
times. TrueCommerce EDI also offers web-based add-ons to
simplify labeling, streamline shipping, manage packing lists and
more.
For more information about TrueCommerce EDI Transaction
Manager for Sage ERP X3, visit www.blytheco.com/truecommerce
or contact Blytheco at (800) 425-9843 x2500.

While most companies would like to adopt a best practice expense process, it can be
hard to know what’s most important and where to even begin.
Here are eight simple tips to help make submitting, approving and reimbursing expenses
more efficient, more appropriate and less frustrating.
Start with a firm, fair expenses policy
All too often, an expense policy1 is an
afterthought that may not be properly aligned with the
business. It does the job, but it may not be clear, fair or
appropriate.
Having a fair, clear and unambiguous policy is the start
of any best-practice expenses policy. Companies also
have an obligation to themselves, and to the IRS, should
they enquire, that the expenses being reimbursed are
genuine, and that the organization is not reimbursing
individuals for inappropriate or
personal expenses.
Make sure to review and update
your policy regularly – then,
publicize it internally and explain
it clearly. This is crucial because as
research by Concur discovered, and
a recent Amadeus poll confirmed2,
approximately half of employees
say they don’t even
understand their
policy!
Keep the processes
simple
When it comes to expenses, the old
acronym – KISS (Keep It Straight
and Simple) – applies. Keep your
process straight and simple, and
people are more likely to comply. If your systems are
bogged down with layers of administrative complexity
such as triplicate forms and pre-approval, it’ll have a
demoralizing effect on the your employees and tie up
precious man-hours.
Worst of all, having too much complexity can easily
lead to serious mistakes. By making the process too
complicated, companies also run the risk that people
may exaggerate their expenses to compensate for the
pain of claiming them in the first place.
A process that is both robust and quick
helps ensure that the right person approves
the expenses appropriately, and that it
adheres to the corporate governance.
Collecttherightamountof(relevant)information
When it comes to the details, the secret lies in the
balance. Don’t ask for a novel,
but don’t simply accept the
price and date for each expense
item either. Capturing relevant
expense information will help
ensure there are no delays in
employee reimbursement and
help avoid potential problems
with compliance later on.
Companies ask for receipts not
because they don’t trust their
employees, but because the
IRS requires receipts as proof.
Remember that some expenses
can require different information
for tax purposes. For
client entertainment
expenses, for example,
it is a requirement
for tax purposes to capture the
company name and the name of all attendees.
Submit and approve expenses on time
Best practice means having a clear, published timeframe
for submitting expenses. It’s important to do the right
thing by your employees and pay them as quickly as
you can, in line with your published payment timetable.
8 Tips for a Best-Practice Expense Process
by Amy Higgins
TipTip
TipTip
“KISS – keep it
straight and
simple. Too
much complexity
could demoralize
employees and
tie up precious
man-hours.
TipTip
TipTip

However, it works both ways – it’s also important to ensure
that claimants are submitting their expenses within a
subscribed time frame. When filing delays happen, not
only does it hurt employees’ pockets, but it can cause
cash-flow challenges for the business and associated
accounting nightmares.
Check expenses and make managers
accountable
While we advocate swift approval of
expenses, it’s also crucial that managers have the courage
to push back on inappropriate or non-compliant expense
submissions.
As we said earlier, approximately half of employees
say they don’t understand their policy – and this goes
for managers too. By engaging with the management
team and explaining the rationale behind the policy, it is
possible to get their buy-in.
Make it easy to submit and approve
expenses away from the office
In these days of mobile and global workforces,
trying to catch up with someone to approve your expense
report is getting harder and harder. If people have to wait
and constantly chase their manager, it can lead to delays
and frustration.
Allow managers to check and approve expense reports
while out of the office. It helps if you can use a tool that
allows approvers to say ‘yes, this is okay to pay’ while
they’re out and about; so they can approve reports
anytime, anywhere. The beauty of having access on a
mobile device is that it’s faster to submit and approve
expenses on the go.
Audit your processes and receipts
Auditing your processes
How good is your end-to-end expense management
process? When was the last time you conducted an audit?
Some see expense auditing as an unwelcome intrusion.
On the contrary, regular auditing can actually make your
expense procedures work better by ironing out the
glitches in your operational procedures and helping to
maintain a fair system.
Auditing your receipts
Are you checking that your employees are actually
spending what they say they are, and that the receipts
match and are valid?
In our experience, we’ve seen everything from brown
paper bags being used as evidence for buying juice for
a sick colleague, to a photograph of a gas pump being
used to justify a mileage claim. These are not valid
receipts.
You need to have some guidelines within your processing
functions around random audits. You might also choose
to audit items that are particularly tax sensitive or items
over a certain value.
Pay people on time
Have you ever waited for someone to pay
the money they owe you? It’s not fun. Once
employees have gone through the process, complied
with policy, filled out the right expense forms and
attached receipts, it’s only fair to pay them on time.
Plus if people know they’re going to be waiting for their
money, they may think twice about making those valuable
trips that build your business.
It’s important to pay employees’ expenses in line with the
published payment schedule. Ideally, payments should
go straight into the employee’s bank account, or directly
to settle their corporate card bill, on a timely and reliable
basis. If people are paid when they expect it, they can
budget appropriately. Prompt payment can also improve
morale and productivity.
Conclusion
Theadoptionandconsistentapplicationofabest-practice
expense process is proven to save time and money while
improving your employees’ experience. Moreover, having
a best-practice solution that is available online and on
mobile devices leverages the investment that companies
have already made in existing technology. Lastly, a best-
practice expenses process provides access to data for
analysis and review that can continue to inform the policy
and highlight opportunities for further cost savings.
In conclusion, using a best practice process enables
the effective handling of expenditure in a way that is
consistent with your policy, your company’s needs and
your employees’ needs. To learn more about Concur, go
to www.blytheco.com/concur
INDUSTRYNEWS
TipTip
TipTip
TipTip
TipTip

We Make
EDI Painless
We Make
EDI Painless
888.205.1531 | www.highjump.com/truecommerce

INDUSTRYNEWS
by Liz Anderson
The Sales Tax Landscape
Is Changing. Be Ready.
Optimize your sales tax processes with automation.
Since 2007, an increasing number of states have
passed Amazon laws requiring remote sellers (NOT
just online retailers) to collect sales tax for the first
time.
You may be asking yourself, “Do Amazon laws apply to
me?” or “Do I have to worry about click-through and affiliate
nexus?” The truth is, if you do business in multiple states,
chances are the changes will affect your business in one way or
another. Prepare yourself by studying up on the laws:
Amazon Laws
Since the early ‘90s, states haven’t required out-of-state retailers to collect
and remit sales taxes unless they had nexus in that state. In recent years,
many states enacted Amazon laws to require more multi-state online retailers
to collect sales tax for the first time. Amazon laws vary from state to state and
typically contain one or more of the following elements: Affiliate & Related Entity
Nexus, Click-Through Nexus, and/or Consumer Use Notification.
Let’s take a closer look at each:
Affiliate & Related Entity Nexus
Affiliate nexus describes a type of relationship between an out-of-state seller and
its in-state affiliate that triggers a nexus obligation. An affiliate is usually considered
an entity within a state with activities directly benefitting an out-of-state seller. Many
state laws designate what kinds of affiliate relationships trigger sales tax collection
obligations on remote sellers, so tracking each state is a good idea.
Example: In California, an out-of-state retailers must collect sales tax if they are
related in any way to any entity located in the state. This includes entities that
conduct business on the out-of-state seller’s behalf, as well as entities that use a
similar patent or the same trademark.
Close is NOT good enough when it comes to sales tax compliance.
With soaring state deficits and a growing number of online sales
subject to sales tax, the compliance landscape is changing rapidly. In
an effort to capture more revenue, states are hiring more auditors
and passing new laws to redefine nexus (physical presence
in a tax authority that would require a company to collect
and remit tax). The current federal legislation to require
remote sellers (such as online retailers) to collect
sales tax has broad bipartisan support and has
already passed the Senate. And that’s just the
tip of the iceberg.

Click-Through Nexus
This is specifically aimed at multi-state retailers that use
web advertising—when that in-state web advertisement
clicks through to a remote ecommerce portal in order to
complete a sale. Thus, if a buyer clicks through an ad
on a local site to a remote ecommerce site, click-through
nexus is triggered.
Example: New York was the first state to establish click-
through nexus. Under the New York legislation, web
advertisements that promote in-state sales trigger nexus.
Consumer Use Notification
Some Amazon laws also include a consumer use tax
notification component, which requires vendors to notify
consumers of their use tax obligations on their purchases
where they were not charged sales tax and/or to report
in-state sales to revenue authorities. Consumer use tax is
a tax paid by the consumer on tangible items, for which
they were not required to pay sales tax by out-of-state
retailers.
Example: For the second year in a row, Amazon has sent
a friendly email reminder to its customers in Tennessee,
reminding them to pay use tax on their purchases.
Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013
The Marketplace Fairness bill currently before Congress
would expand state authority beyond click-through, affiliate,
or general Amazon laws. If it becomes law, the Marketplace
Fairness Act of 2013 would allow states that adhere to sales
tax simplification rules to require multi-state online retailers
to collect sales tax if they exceed a certain remote sales
dollar threshold (currently proposed at $1,000,000 in gross
annual receipts). On May 6, 2013 the Senate passed the
Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 by a vote of 69 to 27…If
this bill becomes law, states would gain authority to make
remote sellers collect sales tax, some within 180 days of the
bill’s passage.
One thing is clear…businesses can no longer assume that
just because they do not have a physical presence in a state,
they are free from sales tax obligations. Thus, it is more
important than ever to proactively plan and stay ahead
of the curve. By optimizing sales tax processes with an
automated solution, such as AvaTax by Avalara, businesses
can stop worrying about what additional changes may be
heading their way!
Prepared Businesses Use AvaTax. End-to-End sales tax
compliance.
AvaTax by Avalara is a suite of products that replaces
manual look-up tables, the need to stay on top of rules and
regulations, substantially cuts down time to file and close
the month, and gives you a system for exemption (reseller)
certificate management. We do it all. And when it comes
to understanding and staying in compliance with taxability
rules, Avalara walks you through the changing landscape
of sales tax.
The AvaTax suite includes:
AvaTax Calc which provides address validation and delivers
real-time sales tax calculations based on up-to-date
sales and use tax rules including: sourcing rules, product
taxability and jurisdiction assignment.
AvaTax Certs is a complete exemption certificate
management service. From wizard-driven online collection
to associating the correct certificate with transactions,
AvaTax Certs ensures you maintain compliance and reduce
your audit risk.
AvaTax Returns reduces the time your company spends on
sales tax return processing. AvaTax Returns automatically
processes e-file, hard-copy and Streamlined Sales Tax
returns for businesses of all sizes.
But don’t just take our word for it.
Over 10,000 businesses have outsourced and automated
their sales tax management to AvaTax. With all of the
changes going on at a state and federal level, it may
soon be the end of Nexus as we know it. Be prepared.
Read more by downloading a free white paper:
www.avalara.com/BellwetherEndOfNexus

The perfect warehouse is not created overnight. It requires a lot
of planning, hard work, and dedication. If your goal is to build the
perfect warehouse, you will need to begin by optimizing your current
warehouse processes. When properly carried out and with the
help of the right tools, warehouse optimization
can increase your company’s overall profitability,
efficiency, and order accuracy.
Here at Scanco, we believe that the
most successful companies are the most
knowledgeable companies. For true
warehouse optimization to work, you need
to have the proper tools in place and need
to be able to locate your items and orders in
an instant. Warehouse management systems,
barcoding software, and barcode scanners
can help you achieve your own version of
perfection and help you attain higher levels of
warehouse optimization.
Keep the following characteristics in mind as
you prepare to transform your warehouse to the
warehouse of your dreams.
An Optimized Warehouse
is a Technology-Driven
Warehouse
Over the past few years, we have seen technology
grow and evolve to fit every business need. Items
in the warehouse can now be tracked using barcode
scanners and scanning software. Processes can be made
by Tess Boros
INDUSTRYNEWS
Take a moment to picture your own version of the
perfectwarehouse.Doimagesofperfectlystocked
shelves come to your mind? Are you picturing items
being tracked through every stage of the warehouse
processes? Are you imagining a system of order
rather than your current system of chaos?
Scanco Helps You Achieve Your
Dreams of Warehouse Optimization

more efficient with warehouse management systems (WMS),
and mobile computers have enabled warehouse workers to
view item and order information wherever they are in the
warehouse.
The most successful warehouses today can contribute their
success to one thing: an optimized warehouse. An optimized
warehouse is one in which its processes are made more
efficient through the use of the proper technology. Warehouse
automation tools, such as barcoding software, WMS systems,
and mobile computers, can have a profound impact on picking
accuracy, order turn-around times, labor costs, productivity,
and profitability.
The barcode label, for instance, is the backbone of most
warehouse management systems today and can hold quite a
bit of information about any product in the warehouse. When
used properly, barcode labels can track the progression of
inventory throughout your warehouse from the moment it hits
your dock. If you receive a product without a barcode label,
you can print one for the product and choose the information
you wish to be imbedded in the barcode label.
Once the barcode label has been scanned in the receiving
process, the product can be put away, moved, and picked
using the barcode on the item. This guarantees that your
inventory never gets lost or misplaced. Barcode labels allow
you to view the products currently stored in your warehouse
and see where in the warehouse they are located. Your
warehouse management system will track the movement of
your inventory through the warehouse and deliver real-time
information back to your ERP system, giving you the visibility
you need to make the right decisions for your company.
An Optimized Warehouse is an
Organized Warehouse
You can have all the tools and related technology you want,
but if your warehouse is not organized, it will never be fully
optimized. Take the time to study the current layout of your
warehouse and pinpoint any areas of concern. From picking
methods that are not appropriate for your industry to bin
locations that increase workload, there are many ways in which
warehouse efficiency can be decreased by a warehouse’s
current processes.
If you suspect that your processes are not at the level at
which they should be, you should consider reorganizing your
warehouse. This could include revisiting bin locations, re-
evaluating your current picking methods, and implementing
cycle counts to replace the once-a-year inventory count. With
an organized warehouse, your workers will be able to focus
on improving warehouse processes and, as a result, achieve
warehouse optimization.
An Optimized Warehouse is an
Automated Warehouse
If your warehouse is currently operating by manual processes,
you will never achieve full warehouse optimization. Manual
processes lead to wasted time, duplicated efforts, and
unnecessary costs. If you suspect that your current processes
are causing you to lose valuable time and money, it may be
time to re-evaluate your processes and procedures.
When you are operating with automated processes and
procedures, your warehouse is operating at maximum
efficiency. Sit down and determine the changes that need
to take place to achieve an optimized warehouse. Could
your warehouse benefit from using an automated picking
solution? Are you wasting time in the reporting process? Do
your workers spend too much time searching for and locating
items? An automated warehouse can solve these problems
and lead you to full optimization.
An Optimized Warehouse uses
Scanco’s Automation
Scancobelievesinmakingyourdreamoftheperfectwarehouse
come true, which is why we have created the Automation
Series for Sage 100 ERP and Warehouse Automation for Sage
500 ERP.
Offering Sage 100 ERP and Sage 500 ERP users an affordable
and easy-to-use barcoding solution, Scanco’s Automation
works with users to automate warehouse transfers, physical
counts, shipping and receiving. With Scanco’s Automation you
have access to real-time reporting, giving you the ability to
view what users are in process of picking, picked, and fulfilled
orders. When an important customer calls about their order
status, the answer will be at the click of a mouse.
Help your company achieve full warehouse optimization
today with Scanco’s line of Warehouse Automation solutions.
With its robust reporting capabilities and barcode tracking
system, you will not be disappointed. To learn more about
how Scanco can help you optimize your warehouse go to:
www.blytheco.com/sage100/scanco.asp.

INDUSTRYNEWS
Existing Customers – Protect and Serve.
Customers not only want access 24 hours
a day, they expect it. If one business
does not meet their expectations there
is always another business that will meet
that customer’s needs. Offering account
access via the ecommerce site with
history, customer-specific pricing, quantity
discounts, tax schedules, product/SKU
aliases, product information, inventory
levels, shipment tracking and payment
details gives customers the ability to
manage many aspects of their account
whenever they want without relying on a
representative to access their information.
Attract Similar Customers. Existing
customers exhibit predictable online
behaviors and personas that can be
leveraged to create content specific
to those personas. Using that content
to create web pages, which cast a net for new traffic in search
engines, will attract similar customers. Product pages, fed by
product information directly from the ERP, provide additional
data for the search engines to access.
Reduce Costs, Improve Efficiency. Ecommerce with ERP
integration provides a personal web portal experience creating
a more efficient and timely transaction for the customer that
requires less direct contact. The majority of interactions between
customers and employees have to do with checking prices
or inventory, researching products, placing orders, tracking
shipments, requesting receipts or return labels, inquiring about
account history and paying invoices. Ecommerce with ERP
integration grants the customer access to all this information from
any internet-connected device, which reduces customer service
demands significantly. Without the hours
spent interfacing with customers and
entering data into the ERP, employees
have time to focus on new customer
acquisition and other business objectives.
New Markets. In today’s marketplace,
online sales show year-over-year gains
where traditional avenues generally
post losses. If a business is not already
poised for online growth, they are behind
the eight ball. Ecommerce with ERP
integration is vital for expansion because
it keeps data up to date uniformly across
all business software. This shared mass of
data is more flexible than having individual
solutions. It is far easier to adapt one
system than multiple systems. Ecommerce
has risen over the last decade, and today
businesses are adapting their systems to
include mobile platforms. With Website
Pipeline’s complete Ecommerce with ERP integration solution,
adding mobile capability is as simple as installing a new module.
As technology evolves, Website Pipeline continually solves new
challenges and creates modules that can easily be incorporated
into existing sites on their platform.
Ecommerce is a significant investment and it is important to
ensure that this asset can keep up with new technology. Website
Pipeline offers an adaptable solution that communicates with a
business’s enterprise resource planning software.
You can learn more by visiting
www.blytheco.com/websitepipeline
by Ginger Kittinger
Why E-Commerce with ERP
Integration is Important
Ecommerce with ERP integration plugs a business’s ecommerce site directly
into their ERP, allowing customers access to a wide array of information. An
ERP system holds specific information about pricing, payment, shipping and
history for each individual customer. It also tracks inventory, sourcing, financials,
HR, warehousing and manufacturing information, giving a business an enterprise-
level software solution. What’s missing in ERP software is an innate ability to
interface with ecommerce. That’s what Website Pipeline does and here is why
having this piece is so vital.
by Brian Nunes

© 2013 Centage Corporation. Centage and Budget Maestro are registered trademarks of Centage. All other brands and products mentioned
are registered trademarks of their respective holder(s). All rights reserved.
Consolidated Services Group, Inc. (“CSG”) has more than 25 years
experience in the Medical Claims Management industry, and provides
Managed Care, Utilization Review, as well as a proprietary PPO to auto
liability, workers’compensation and group health insurers.
FIndInG the RIGht MIddle GROUnd
When it comes to budgeting tools, CSG Assistant Controller Frances Farella has used a lot
of them, from a low-tech spreadsheet-based system to high-end software like Hyperion.
When the company that she worked for was acquired by CSG, she realized neither was ideal.
When she moved to the combined organization, Farella used Excel to build the budget.
“After the first year of using Excel as our primary budgeting tool, I realized it was going to
be the last. I couldn’t go through another year of Excel. It was painful,”Farella said. CSG uses
many allocations in its budgeting and finance, to reflect the different branches and shared
services of the company.“Excel just couldn’t handle the allocations upon which our budget
is built. Whenever I had to adjust an allocation, it took forever to make a change and flow
things through properly.”
Farella went shopping for a solution in between spreadsheets and big-company applications.
“I wasn’t looking for another 6-figure package. After doing our due diligence, we decided
Budget Maestro was what we needed,”she explained.
AllOCAtIOnS MAde eASy
With two legal entities — the parent CSG and CHN — and multiple divisions under the
corporate umbrella, Finance uses allocations regularly to spread employee time and direct
expenses across more than one company or division.
Unlike with Excel, Farella can now manage these allocations and related changes easily.
For example, one person’s salary could be allocated to five different departments. With
Budget Maestro, Farella simply allocates a specific percentage to each one.“If I want to
change the percentages being charged to each department, or change the departments
in the allocation, I can do it very easily in Budget Maestro and the system automatically
recalculates everything. It’s a simple process.
Faster, easier, Better Budgeting & Reporting
Budgeting and reporting have become a breeze for Farella, who uses Sage 100 as her
General Ledger system. Using the Import feature, Farella easily and quickly imports the
numbers into Budget Maestro so she can run an analysis of actuals to plan.
Now, when she makes changes to the budget, to the organization or to the allocations,
everything flows through thanks to Budget Maestro’s built-in financial logic.
CSG’s department managers are responsible for their own operations and budgets. The
Finance team developed custom reports in Budget Maestro for 20 different departments,
to help managers track actual vs. budget results.“The reports are built on the templates that
come with Budget Maestro, and allows our Finance staff to drill down into their numbers
if needed. It took someone a week to build and prepare those reports in Excel. Now, at the
end of the month, the whole process to import actuals and run reports takes two hours at
most,”said Farella.“Since we’ve recently implemented Link Maestro for Sage 100, it has even
further reduced the time for importing of actuals.”
The improved reporting capability makes the monthly closing of the books easier too.“We’re
able to generate our actual vs. budget results within hours after we close, and drill drown to
analyze significant variance fluctuations.”
“During budgeting season, from September to December, our Finance staff uses Budget
Maestro almost every day. It’s definitely helped us in facilitating the budgeting process.
In short, Budget Maestro has been good for us.”
View Budget Maestro for Sage in action: http://go.centage.com/blythecoquicktour
Excel just couldn’t
handle the allocations
upon which our
budget is built.
- Frances Farella,
Assistant Controller
Built-in Logic Makes Sense
of Budget Allocations
About Centage
Centage™ Corporation is a leading
provider of easy to use budgeting
and forecasting software for small to
medium sized organizations. Since
2001, thousands of managers at
all levels use the Budget Maestro™
family of solutions to streamline their
budgeting, forecasting, financial
consolidation, performance analysis,
and reporting process to improve the
accuracy and efficiency of their overall
business planning process. Centage
Corporation is headquartered in Natick,
MA. Connect with Centage: Web |
Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog.

For the Sage HRMS user, some great products can really
help you stay on top of things. HR Actions, Employee
Self Service and Sage Alerts & Workflow are the top tools
that Susan Jimenez, Blytheco Senior HRMS Consultant,
told me about.
HR Actions
If you want to tame
the paper lion, this
module can help.
HR Actions allows
you to create
paperless forms
using any field
from Sage HRMS,
so your employees
can give relevant
info to the Human Resources team electronically.
Then you can run them through any required approval
processes and once complete, import directly into your
system. It allows you to track a form through every step
– you will always know exactly where it sits.
To make sure you can enforce company
policy, the workflow includes business
rules, so nothing gets by. A real-time
dashboard lets you see the status of every
form and gives you control at every step.
Employee Self Service
This is a great way for your employees to
be able to take care of themselves to a
certain extent. They can access their personal data, like
recent pay stubs, current pay/deductions, benefits and
more. It also gives managers a view of their direct and
in-direct reports, all which saves you time.
It has mobile access which includes custom reports and
data views, which is great for remote employees.
Sage Alerts and Workflow
If you feel you are always playing catch-up, Sage Alerts &
Workflow can help. It provides a way for your company
to automate business processes and ensure you don’t
overlook important business decisions. It allows you to:
• Automate reports to management and supervisors
• Monitor data for any type of activity required, such
as reviews, certifications or anniversaries
• Identify trends or problems across the entire
business
• Automate reminders to keep ahead of the game –
it’s that nudge the tells you when you need to do
something
Sage Alerts and Workflow is your “invisible assistant”
automatically identifying and responding to critical
business conditions.
So don’t fret, you can do it! Do some
research and find the right tools for
your company!
www.blytheco.com/sage-hrms/hr_actions.asp
www.blytheco.com/abra/abra_employee.asp
www.blytheco.com/abra/knowledgesync.asp
More info at:
Whether your company has 50 employees or 5,000 employees, you
have a lot to monitor and track. How do other HR Professionals do it?
The right technology can make the difference…
Keeping Track of All
Things Human
HUMANRESOURCES
by Ginger Kittinger
Solution Spotlight:
Keeping Track of All
Things Human
HUMANRESOURCES

Being Re-worked
Give us 8 days, and we’ll automate your customer ser vice.
www.websitepipeline.com/8days

5564 Hilliard Rome Office Park
Hilliard, OH 43026
800.425.9843
What’s going on in your business;
are you too close to see?
Being too close to your everyday business demands can
distort reality.
Let Blytheco help you gain a new perspective on your business
processes today.
To learn more about how to leverage your current business
system, download our fact filled eBook at the website below.
www.blytheco.com/blyopti
Visit us at booth #696 at Sage Summit in Washington, D.C.
Process Produces Performance

Bellwether - A Blytheco Magazine | Fine Tuning Your Business

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