Best Practices

As a service and product based company, we provide many solutions to meet our client's needs. For any business, it's easy to go day in and day out doing what you do. It's important to remain conscientious of the level of service you provide and to put yourself in the client's shoes. You can't always stop what you are doing to address another inquiry but you have to determine the level of importance and sense of urgency. Without client's, you wouldn't be in business.

Will recently assisted one of our long time retail clients with a credit card processing issue. With Will's expertise and level of committment as an Intuit Premier Reseller and Advanced ProAdvisor Consultant, he is able to escalate issues to Intuit on our client's behalf and be their liaison.

There is a company that emails surveys to our clients after they've purchased product from us and/or we have provided our professional services to assist them with their business needs. We'd like to share one that we received today because it truly speaks to the level of service that we strive to provide every day.

"I can't say enough about EMS. The sense of urgency, commitment to solutions, everything. The best money I have ever sent is every penny with EMS. If you want it done right the first time (and this is how I met them 10 years back, I had someone NOT do it right the first time) hire EMS. The most competitive rates (always less than I expect) and the most reliable service - by far. As a former business consultant for a large consulting firm, I can say the work ethic of EMS is unparalleled and I ALWAYS have them on speed dial...fortunately because they are so thorough...the times I need them are few and far between and mostly when I am ready to improve and upgrade my technology!" Jamara, owner of Pumpkinheads

 Thought leaders and leading experts in Accounting & Technology.

Will English was invited back to teach at the annual Sleeter Group's Accounting Solutions Conference.   
When our colleage presented Will with the opportunity this year, he stated "Your knowledge of a higher level POS system would be great to add to the panel, let alone your knowledge of the POS landscape." We appreciate the offer for Will to share his expertise with the attendees so they can glean nuggets of valuable information to put into practice at their businesses. 

This year's conference included four, information-packed days, including pre-conference workshops with deep-dive training sessions on several solutions. The Expo Hall with over 90 exhibitors is a one-stop shopping experience that allows you to meet technology vendors face-to-face and get an in-depth look at their solutions. This annual event is attended by hundreds of accountants, bookkeepers, consultants, and IT professionals, as well as some of the best-known and up-and-coming vendors in the market.

The Sleeter Group is dedicated to helping accountants and small businesses work together by using the most innovative and tested tools/systems to generate greater efficiencies and higher profits. They represent an independent view, separate from any particular company or product, and they evaluate solutions based solely on how they meet the demands of small business owners.

With the holiday season around the corner, we would like to share some helpful tips & our holiday calendar.

In preparation for the holidays: 

1. Make sure you have enough store supplies on hand such as receipt paper, pricing labels, hang tags, etc. You don't want to run out & then have to wait for a shipment, hindering your production & possibly sales.*see Note below for ordering.
2. Is your staff properly trained on the software? QuickBooks (QB) has a practice mode that allows users to practice using the software without affecting the actual system & data. No transactions are actually recorded.
   At EMS, we offer onsite & remote training so you can be confident that your staff knows how to manage the various transactions & QB functions correctly. You don't want to lose business due to untrained or improperly trained employees.
3. Gift cards: You can process gift card transactions easily, increase store traffic & sales, encouraging more repeat business. And don't forget that they make a great gift, especially for shoppers who don't know what to give or need to make a quick purchase. Gift cards never go out of style.
4. Decorations & Seasonal Items: Making room for holiday decor means spending a little time planning. You'll need to decide where to relocate things & how to make room for the holiday items, be it store decorations &/or seasonal items. Avoid clutter. Keep the traffic flow comfortable for your shoppers. Make sure all items are clearly priced where the labels & tags are easy to see. Some customers won't ask if they don't see a price but will shop at another store where pricing is visibly marked.
5. Keep the store clean. A clean & inviting environment will attract more customers & enhance the shopping experience, more so than a dirty, cluttered store. The staff should also be clean & tidy, not eating while assisting customers, etc.

OUR OFFICE HOLIDAY CLOSURES:
Thur. Nov. 27th & Fri. Nov. 28th:closed for Thanksgiving
             
Wed. Dec. 24th we will close at 3pmPST for Christmas Eve
Thur. Dec. 25th: closed for Christmas

Wed. Dec. 31st we will close at 3pmPST for New Year's Eve
Thur. Jan.1st: closed for New Year's Day

Customer Service Requests: QuickBooks customers who require technical assistance or have an emergency during our office closures may do one of the following:
CONTACT US: (858) 467-0400 Local | (877) 467-0451 Toll-Free
Use our online Contact Us form | Email:info@englishmanagement.com
*For non-emergencies, leave a message at our office number or send an email & we'll reply the following business day. 

CONTACT INTUIT SUPPORT: Fees may apply:

* Point of Sale: 1-800-4INTUIT (800-446-8848)
* Enterprise Solutions: 866-340-7237
* Merchant Services: 800-558-9558    

NOTE: 
Some of our staff will take vacation during the holiday season. This may cause a small delay in scheduling support & training. We value each of you & will do our best to accommodate.
Please plan accordingly & schedule any system upgrades or major process changesbefore or after our holiday closures, allowing enough time for product to arrive & to schedule support/training as necessary.
Shipping lead times on non-holiday weeks:
Supplies: 2-3 business days. Software: 1-2 business days.Hardware: 2-5 business days.

As an authorized Intuit Premier Reseller, we work with a remarkable team of professionals at Intuit, Inc. I had the pleasure of recently visiting the Intuit customer contact office in Tucson, AZ.

The tour of the offices and facilities, meeting managers and staff, and experiencing first-hand the inner workings of the departments provided me the benefit of face-to-face interactions and witnessing them living out the company values. And since the Intuit support representatives refer customers to Resellers for local assistance, it benefited them to meet a Reseller. We learned from one another and shared some best practices.

We live in such a technologically advanced world that we can easily get lost in emailing and online databases. This can lead to a sense of disunity and forgetting that there is a live person on the other end assisting those customers. No matter what our methods of communication are, we must take time to step back and make those interpersonal connections. It enhances communication, team work and use of resources which leads to better customer service.

Contact Gina Avila, Intuit Channel Sales Manager, to verify you are buying from a trusted source.

In yesterday's post, we provided the first part of an article that explains 4 tips to help retailers help more customers, faster during the holidays. We hope you enjoyed learning the first 2 tips. Today we provide the final 2.

If available in your POS system (and most have this feature), implement Touchscreens.  Why does this make a difference?  Two factors: first, POS clerks learn faster and can process tickets more quickly on a Touchscreen.  The days of a keyboard driven system that requires you to remember Alt+F2 as a command on a POS system should be long gone.  Shorter training times and higher retention of information means more productive time in the store stocking the shelves and focusing on customer service.  A touchscreen should also allow you to set up “buttons” for items in inventory that can’t be barcoded.  Services and items sold in bulk (neither can be barcoded) are two examples of how a “button” can help speed up the customer’s experience.

The last item is, unfortunately, the most often overlooked one and that is employee training.  No matter how long your POS system has been deployed, you will have new clerks working during the holidays.  Make sure they have a “sample” or “play” company set up in your system and they are comfortable with all the common things they are going to be asked to do.

• Make sure they know how (or if) you take a personal check
• How to ask the customer for a different form of payment, if a credit card is declined. 
• How to void a line on a ticket, if  customers changes their minds about something during checkout
• How to sell a gift card
• How to print a gift receipt

These may seem obvious, but new clerks (and sometimes old ones) need to be “refreshed” on all the basics.  Don’t lose a sale because a clerk is asked to do something that they’ve simply forgotten how to do quickly.

Most retailers will make at least 40% of their overall revenue in 60 days.  The holidays will be determine if your bottom line is green or red.  Don’t lose a single dollar of sales because your check out was slow.  Here’s to a happy, healthy and check out fast holiday season.

Author: Lombardi, J., Contessa of CounterPoint, Soft Intelligence, Inc. October 2014.
Contributing Author: English, William S., President of English Management Solutions, Inc. October 2014.

As a retailer, wouldn't you like to help more customers, faster during the holidays? Well, we have 4 tips to help you out. Today's post includes the first 2 and tomorrow's post will include the final 2 tips.

News flash!! Americans are impatient!!!  We don’t want to wait 30 seconds for our computers to boot up or take 5 minutes to get out of our cars to get our Big Macs.  We want everything fast and that includes checking out at our favorite retail establishments.  So how do you make that need for speed work in your favor as you gear up for the busy shopping season?

The #1 recommendation is barcoding your inventory.  Any and everything that can hold a barcode label should have one.  When your customers come to check out, the POS clerk should be able to scan the barcodes, take their payment, package their purchases, and help the next customer.  Barcoding your inventory has an important second win (some would say first):  Barcoding not only speeds check out, but has the added bonus of keeping your inventory accurate.  Barcoding assures you that the right items are being paid for and taken out of inventory.  Barcoding is the #1 business process that will truly impact every portion of your business and your bottom line.

After Barcoding, the next would be to have an integrated credit card system.  Integrated credit card processing means the credit card is swiped directly into your POS register, not swiped in a system outside of your register (called a Zon Machine).  Why is this so important?  To process a credit card on a Zon machine, the clerk first has to ring the ticket up in the POS system.  They then stop, turn (or take a few steps), and swipe the customers card into the Zon.  They have to manually type in the amount (correctly, I hope), and then wait for the machine to return with an authorization code, and then print two receipts.  The clerk then turns (or takes a few steps) and hands the slip to the customer for their signature, finishes the transaction in the POS system, prints off the POS receipts, and staples the credit card receipt to the POS receipts, and hands both to the customer.  What’s the extra time needed for this process?  Between 60 and 90 seconds.  That doesn’t sound all that bad until you understand the overall productivity loss from this procedure.

Let’s say you are doing $1M in sales with an average ticket of $ 62.50 and 75% of all your sales are credit card transactions.  That means you are handling 12,000 credit card transactions each year, which, at a scant 60 sections per credit card slip, represents 200 hours a year!! Doubt the math?  Time a credit card transaction on a Zon machine, and you will find that 60 seconds is conservative.  It is a huge time suck!  And, during the holidays, three people in line means that the last person is waiting 3 extra minutes for just your credit card processing.  If I’m the fourth, I may not wait.  Every retailer knows that during the holidays, many people will walk in, look at the lines, and walk out.  Don’t add minutes to your customers’ shopping experience with a separate credit card machine. 

Author: Lombardi, J., Contessa of CounterPoint, Soft Intelligence, Inc. October 2014.
Contributing Author: English, William S., President of English Management Solutions, Inc. October 2014.

We have the advantage of working with clients nationwide by hosting virtual meetings. This allows us to quickly assist clients, and it’s more cost effective for everyone involved. With screen sharing capabilities, Will is able to efficiently support clients with their software and Bookkeeping needs, and teach them how to use their system. All participants are also connected by audio so they are on the same line and hear everything in real time. So is there a time when an onsite visit to an out-of-town client is advantageous?

We think so. Will is spending a few days visiting one of our out-of-state client’s at their multiple locations as well as at some of their Franchisee’s stores. This particular retailer specializes in gourmet seasonings and specialty cooking herbs and spices. The franchise is continually growing. Will has spent several hours total assisting the owners with the QuickBooks installation and training, providing much needed support, via remote meetings. With all of that time under their belt, Will decided that it would enhance our business relationship with them to visit the stores in person. He wants to show our commitment to their success and to put a face with the name. An on-site visit can also make a huge impact on Will’s understanding of their business. He will get a proper tour, meet the owners and key employees, and immerse himself in their world for a few days. And sometimes things are more clearly understood when explained in person.

It’s truly seeing them succeed that counts.

In our more than 10 years of experience with QuickBooks Point of Sale (POS), one of the most problematic issues is the inability of QuickBooks Point of Sale to synch to a QuickBooks File (QBF) that is not on the local network. What that means practically is that the owner/bookkeeper has to do their accounting work on a machine at the store.

There are several approaches to work through this limitation. Will English has been testing the various configurations and thinks he has determined the best one for the Point of Sale User. In this article, he provides a thorough explanation with step-by-step instructions and screen shots.

Due to the length of this article, we have provided a it as a PDF. Click on Attachment below.

We get to work with numerous retailers and it’s our goal to provide information that will benefit their business. AZ Retail is our premier source for store supplies. They recently wrote a blog geared towards retailers about the importance of having signs and price tags throughout a store. And it is so true that when a customer is shopping, they will be much more satisfied and willing to purchase from your store if the product information and pricing is readily available.

Signs and price tags are a very important part of your business.  They call attention to your promotions, they provide product information and ideas about how to use the product.  But the biggest help they give you is letting your guests know the price of the items they are interested in purchasing.  Having prices on your merchandise keeps customers from having to track down a sales associate to find a price on an item and creates a better shopping experience (in some states, it’s also required by law.) Read full post here.

If you need equipment for your QuickBooks system, give us a call! As a value added Certified Intuit Product Reseller, we are able to pass along savings to you and order the necessary equipment. Tag printers, wireless Barcode Scanners, Inventory Scanners and much more. 

It is with great excitement and honor to share that we were named one of the Top 100 ProAdvisors for 2014. We made the list! Intuitive Accountant has released its list which “recognizes the leading consultants who have embraced the ProAdvisor program and have leveraged it in order to better serve their clients and grow their business.” Intuitive Accountant 

Intuitive 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 from Intuit and the hundreds of Add On products serving the small business.  Read more about them.

The winners will be recognized at the upcoming Scaling New Heights (SNH) conference where the ProAdvisor of the Year will be revealed. SNH is one of the biggest annual gatherings of Intuit ProAdvisor Consultants. Visit the SNH conference website here, and read our blog about this conference and the class that Will English is teaching here.

Intuitive Accountant will also be recognizing the ProAdvisors who stand out in the following categories: QuickBooks Online, Niche, Trainer, Coach, Systems Integrations, Social Media, Business Process Outsourcing, Up and Comer and Friend of Intuit. Stay tuned to see if we are recognized in any of these categories.

As a Solution Provider and Trusted Advisor, our goal is to provide the utmost in customer service, providing solutions for each client that best fits their business needs, and provide knowledgeable advice. The end goal is the right product for the right customer and to empower small business owners with the information they need to be successful.

Thank you to everyone who helped us achieve this ranking!