Making good use of superior customer relationship management (CRM) to manage and share information is a key competitive advantage for businesses today. At the same time, getting the greatest productivity and revenue benefits from sales force automation, marketing automation, and customer service applications is quickly becoming a top priority for companies of all sizes. CRM products and services make it easy for customers to conduct business with an organization in any way they want regardless of the communication channel they operate through. They also facilitate communication with customers across varying lines of business. In other words, CRM enables an organization to manage its relation with its customers efficiently through the introduction of reliable processes and procedures for interacting with those customers. Thus, in today’s competitive business environment, successful CRM solutions have become indispensable.

Eventually a number of companies have evolved offering CRM products and services. However, Salesforce.com has emerged as a true winner out of them. Salesforce.com made its entry into the current market in the field of internet software and services way back in 1999. Marc Benioff, Parker Harris and David Moellenhoff were the founders of Salesforce.com, which is emerging as a pioneer in the field of CRM products and services during the recent times. Salesforce assists its clients in data contrivance, helps in maintaining candid and accurate customer feedback for umpteen products and services offered by different enterprises in the current competitive market. The incomparable professional services provided by Salesforce.com results in remarkable client gratification. The technical experts at Salesforce.com assist the end-users in customization of the existing CRM solutions and achieving better performance by picking out the right merchandise for future CRM implementation. The Salesforce automation services enable salespeople to be productive by automating manual and repetitive tasks, and provides organized data about their current and prospective customers, as well as permits companies to establish a system and a process for recording, tracking, and sharing information about sales opportunities, sales forecasts, and closed business.

With the advent of on-demand CRM, some very significant changes have been introduced in the realm of CRM. Salesforce.com is the worldwide leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) services. The technology does away with the need to buy the software and hardware separately and then implement it yourself. With on-demand CRM, Salesforce performs the role of the IT experts for its clients. From building the infrastructure, the software, and providing upgrades, Salesforce executes all the operations in a transparent manner.

More companies trust their vital customer and sales data to salesforce.com than any other CRM company in the world because it delivers integrated, completely customizable enterprise applications for companies of all sizes. Also, because Salesforce is easy to learn and use, and it can be up and running in weeks or days — not the months or years required as by traditional client-server CRM software. In fact, more than 399,000 subscribers at 20,500 companies worldwide depend on Salesforce to manage their sales, marketing, customer center, and customer service.

To carry out meticulous management has become a marginal profit of Chinese enterprises gain a competitive advantage of the conditions necessary. No ERP, enterprise management tends to be fine surface, no meticulous management support, ERP can not maximize the play.

“This is our ‘Long March’ of the second step.” Aug. 7, held in Changle, Shandong, China Sunshine Paper Holdings Company Limited ERP an on-line ceremony, the chairman of Changing says, “The first step is what is determined to have sufficient conditions on the ERP.”

However, this is the first step taken, with the sun and the Fabrication of paper more than two years.

Hidden behind high-speed growth Sun Paper is located in Changle County, Weifang City, Shandong Province Economic Development Zone, around it, distributed Chenming, China and Thailand, Bo paper these nationally known companies. Since January 2001 the plant has been the development of Sunshine Paper alarming rate, has built 100,000 tons flour beef Cardboard , 150,000 tons of linerboard light white-face, 20 tons of top grade paper tube base paper production line, especially on Dec. 12, 2007 at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the sun paper to fame, among the well-known to the Enterprises among the ranks. Even under Financial Crisis of 2008, Sun Paper’s annual production and sales remained about 20% growth, respectively, 43 million tons and 1.5 billion, the highest level of corporate history the best. By the end of 2008, Sun Paper 500,000 tons of linerboard surface light white-projects under construction, is expected after 2010, annual output will reach 1.2 million tons, becoming one of the few current production capacity, “one million tons” grade Paper Mill .

For high growth enterprises, Fabrication of more than the joy is worry. Paper level for many years so he knows his career, scale expansion and can not guarantee sustained and healthy development of enterprises, management is the key to success and failure. Lian Li does not manage internal strength of only a paper tiger’s “fat.” Especially the paper industry after years of rapid development, the market shift from the supply of production capacity, industry gradually into the adjustment and transition, success in the enterprise market and determine the “difference” competition strategies, management methods Sunshine Paper upgrading and improvement of management tools, business process optimization and restructuring is imminent. However, no information technology support, which can only exist on paper.

2007 paper went public at the beginning of the sun, in addition to production line with the PCS (AutomationandProcessControlSystem process automation control system), the financial sector some basic computerized application software, basic information can be said blank, business and even still did not establish their own local area network, the group’s business billions of records and transfer of information, almost all by hand. Fabrication of the view that this situation must be changed as soon as possible, consistent style of sound, he himself got a lot of the information technology and ERP careful reading of books, concluded that the sun Paper Group to achieve control of information, must be established to ERP as the core of management information systems. However, the company’s successful implementation of information technology, need financial support, but also need a high level of talent. Fabrication of always felt that time is not ripe.

Not an easy first step Until 2007, by chance met a former University of Changing English, the Zhejiang University EMBA, was a director of foreign manufacturers of information and two hit it off, a good talk. Although the original study has not engaged in the British paper industry, but Fabrication of view, IT Have rich experience and management expertise, but also has many years experience in corporate information technology, low-key and pragmatic man was his former school has been looking for the British man. At the same time, the upcoming business in 2007, will also enhance the financial strength of thin that the time is ripe, he decided to take the first step. December 2007, the original British study came to light paper, became vice president in charge of information technology; At the same time, in the sunshine paper prospectus, also in black and white written on the information on the ERP project is one of corporate fund-raising purposes.

2008 year, the sun Paper set up a project group, the company began to sort out the existing business processes, the project team led by former British-depth study of various business units to do the field investigation, finishing with a time of more than two months to complete the company’s original all business processes, and issue a survey report, after the company executives confirmed the project team to develop a detailed project implementation plan. After the original study to the British also led the project team launched a number of serious study in Paper Mill ERP exchange, and preparing for the beginning project selection. Selection process, the sun has been adhering to the “do not necessarily choose the best, but they must choose the most appropriate” principle, on many domestic and international provider of software, implementation of the company conducted in-depth and detailed, finally selected the world’s leading ERP software?? SAP \ R3 system, and selected process industries in China have rich experience in the implementation Hampshire consulting firm.

However, this time is already the fourth quarter of 2008, a sweeping global financial turmoil made the fiery first half of 2008 paper industry Tu Yu cold, the market situation has suddenly turned from a peak hit bottom, many paper companies almost overnight from summer into winter, inventories increased, reduced orders, financial stress as many enterprises are facing difficulties. In such circumstances, some executives question the company needs to invest 10 million and can not bring the ERP project is short-term gains need to slow a relief. Indeed, the financial crisis, companies for information technology may be in two forms: a corporate income drops because, to ensure cash flow, may reduce the input side of information technology; other enterprises have seen the use of IT technology to enhance management and the importance of reducing costs, you can adjust the opportunity to complete busy in the business did not complete the work, lay the foundation for recovery after the crisis. In this regard, Fabrication of choice is given with practical action, with the sun in October 2008 with the Hampshire Paper Company signed ERP project project, he and the sun paper hanging in the air down the first step in finally determined.

Related “erp Software” Articles

Why does a resort need timeshare specific software?

There are a few, extremely important reasons why resorts should use timeshare software.  Some of these are: 

your business has grown and is too big for manual processes
you want to automate processes and increase staff efficiency
the processes that you want to implement are too complex to be done manually
you need to work in real time from remote locations 

But most importantly, software should save you more than it costs you in time, money and frustration.  

So, when deciding on which software to use to run your resort or indeed when analysing your current software to audit its suitability, you need to consider the following: 

Core Features 

Timeshare Software should cover four core areas or modules: 

Marketing Module 

Your timeshare software should have a marketing module that allows you to: 

build a database of leads and clients
record all of your marketing activities
track responses to marketing activities
determine response rates, cost per lead and cost per sale
Profile clients
track sales 

It should also allow you to mine your database and build complex cascade marketing campaigns that allow you to continue to market by: 

direct mail
email
telephone 

Sales Module 

The sales module should cater for all types of timeshare including:

fixed weeks
floating weeks
points
multi destination clubs
packs and trial membership or entry level products  

It should allow you to: 

build your inventory of products to sell
maintain control over unsold inventory
record new sales as well as changes of ownership when existing owners sell to new owners 

It should interface directly with the other modules so that you can: 

identify the marketing campaign that induced your new client to purchase
have the sale reflect in the appropriate ledger in the accounting module
calculate commission on the sale and credit this commission to the relevant sales agents’ accounts in the appropriate ledger
have the ownership updated so that the new owner is billed for the maintenance fees at the appropriate time
link the new owner to the front office module so that their reservations are made for the periods when they can occupy

Front Office Module 

The front office module should deal with all aspects of: 

reservations
front desk check in and out
housekeeping
room maintenance 

It should allow you to: 

keep track of the reservations of all fixed, floating, multi destination and points owners
provide reservations for packs, trial owners and entry level members
manage rental pool and exchange inventory
check owners in and out at the front desk
interface with housekeeping to keep track of room cleaning and maintenance 

Back Office Module 

The back office module should: 

handle multiple companies and allow you to keep separate accounting records for of each of them
include a fully functional accounting package that integrates with all other modules or allows you to easily export data to control accounts in your stand alone accounting software
cater for multiple currencies
record sales and track sales debtors as well as internally financed debtors
bill owners for their maintenance fees when these are due and track collections 

Reporting 

Everyone wants a different report and while most software vendors provide a set of standard reports, you will probably want something that nobody else wants and that is not in the standard set of reports.  Waiting for the software vendor to provide you with the new report you want can be frustrating and even costly. 

Your software should allow you to create all the reports you need yourself by exporting to you the data that you need.  From there you can use your favourite reporting tool to create your own reports. 

Web Interface 

When the Internet started web pages simply provided words and pictures embedded in the page.  Since then websites have become data driven with most content now being served from a database.  In addition most web sites are also capable of allowing users to transact on them as well. 

The Internet is everywhere and you will be left behind if you are not able to give controlled access to your data to staff and clients alike.  Being able to transact on your web site is almost a must. 

For Staff: 

this will allow them to access your data and to work from home or a hotel room on the other side of the world if necessary
it will also allow your remote resorts and head office to work in real time on the same data 

For Clients: 

clients should be able to access their own personal data that you want them to have access to using their own log in name and password
update the fields that you give them rights to
transact in real time by seeking availability, making reservations, etc

Support 

Support and training are essential when introducing new software.  Sadly, while it would be great to “Keep It Simple” the reality is that most software caters for the diverse and complex needs of many clients and you will need ot be guided and trained to use the new software you have installed. 

Make sure that the software vendor knows and understands how timeshare works and that they can provide you with intelligent support rather than pure technical support. 

General 

All modules of your timeshare software should integrate with all other modules using a normalised database that will allow you to have features such as: 

contact management
marketing automation, management and implementation
sales force automation
office automation
full CRM functionality 

Finally, your new software should understand the way that you do business and not force you into inefficient processes that do not make sense.  Software has to be flexible.

The only software that can provide all these modules, is truly interactive by its very nature, uses the latest cloud technology and has been developed by industry specialists is Merlin Software for Vacation Ownership.

One of the primary factors in the success of any company is the liaison it shares with its customers. CRM or Customer Relationship Management designates all features of interaction a company shares with its customer. This includes everything from sales to service.

CRM is basically a business strategy designed to accrue gains, generate revenue and cater to customer needs and satisfaction. With the e-media picking up pace, the manner in which companies approach their CRM strategies has greatly changed. This has even altered the consumer’s purchasing attitude. So these days CRM too has become a web based effort as most of the customer relationship is handled electronically.

The web based CRM service is more effective. Web-based CRM services mainly covers three areas of service- sales force automation, management of customer relationships and customer services and automated marketing.

A web-based CRM software is a web-based system used for contact management, marketing and sales support, project tracking and other tasks associated with CRM. This software enables teams and departments to share a central and fresh database. The software facilitates its users with an online contact manager and a project-tracking tool, either over the web or within the corporate intranet. With the aid of the CRM software you can view and manage contacts, customer’s record, hot leads, projects and left-out work, from anywhere and with any web-browser. Moreover unlike the intervening and needed to be testified upgrades of an enterprise software, the upgrades to the web based software do not affect the organization’s regular operations in any manner. Due to these features more and more companies are driven towards this web-based software.

Siebel Systems Inc., HydraNet and Push CRM are some eminent names in web-based software service. Lately SAP has also blessed the market with on-demand Customer Relationship Management solution. A web based CRM has many names out of which on-demand CRM is one.

These systems provide agents with the most up-to-date information on all customer service transactions. The software adds to the strategic value and business of the organization by automating sales, marketing and customer service. For instance the SAP product specializes in providing core sales-force automation features for managing customers, contacts and sales pipelines.

The software runs and keeps a complete track of your data after it is downloaded or purchased and then installed on your server or web-host. Usually the CRM software runs on all significant platforms such as Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Novell (6.5) and so forth. Since the software serves many purposes at the same time, it is quite expensive. However an incredible competition in the market has enabled the software seekers to exercise their choice to a certain extent.

In choosing a web-based CRM software it is important that the user should firstly analyze his or her budget or the budget of the organization. Secondly also check your organization’s partner ecosystems. A user-friendly hosted CRM system, an on premise version or the combo of both should follow this and finally try to go for software that can fit any type of user, any size company and in any industry.

ABSTRACT
Today’s utility bill tracking software can deliver excellent results for energy managers who want to gain a comprehensive understanding of utility usage and costs in their facilities. All of the major commercially available utility bill tracking software programs are good at what they do, however, they are distinctly different in functionality and capacity.

Savvy energy managers have discovered – sometimes the hard way – the importance of selecting the appropriate software package to meet their needs. Before reviewing software packages, it is best to understand the needs of your organization and the resources available. Then you can compare each program’s capabilities (such as budgeting and forecasting, temperature correction, rate analysis, report generation, etc.) against your needs.

Making the wrong choice can result in wasted time and hours of frustration, or worse – dissatisfied clients or management.

This paper will help you to identify what tasks you want to accomplish with your utility bill tracking software.

WHY NOT JUST USE SPREADSHEETS?
If you are tracking energy usage and costs for a handful of meters, a spreadsheet may be adequate; however, if you are tracking for a large organization with many facilities, or tracking savings from energy efficiency measures, then commercial energy accounting software may be the best and easiest way to track your utilities.

INTRODUCTION TO UTILITY BILL TRACKING SOFTWARE
All the major utility bill tracking software packages are good at what they do. However, they are all different and have different capabilities. Although you can track your utility bills effectively in any of the software packages, depending upon what your specific needs are, there is likely a program that is more suited to your needs than the others. Choosing the correct software package the first time can save you hours of work, and help you avoid the frustration of discovering too late that it does not produce what you wanted.

NARROWING DOWN THE SCOPE OF OUR ANALYSIS
In order to narrow down the scope of this presentation, we have made two rough classifications, which are detailed below. This paper covers desktop (not web-based) utility bill (not interval data) software programs.

Web vs. Desktop Applications
Using the web to track your energy usage is useful for large organizations. Large companies dispersed around the globe can enter their utility usage, and see reports comparing the usage in Lubbock to the usage in London. Central energy managers can then easily allocate energy costs across the enterprise and locate high usage facilities and concentrate efforts there. However, enterprise web applications are usually relatively expensive and often offer only basic analysis functionality. There are a great number of web applications available, most of which focus on interval (e.g. 15-minute) data.

There are also some internet bill tracking services that are relatively inexpensive. These applications will present your data to you on the web in a number of ways, but at present appear to be limited in analytical capacity and functionality. For example, these web services typically will not weather normalize utility data, which results in faulty year over year comparisons of utility bills.  These web services are not addressed in this paper.

There are only a handful of utility bill software programs in the desktop market. Desktop applications usually offer more sophisticated analysis than their web brethren, and usually at a much-reduced price compared to web software. Many desktop packages offer some interface to the internet, such as downloading bill, interval or weather data, and creating html reports.

Interval Data vs. Utility Bills
Although there is considerable value to be found in analysis of interval data, there do not appear to be enough interval data experts to go around. Some organizations have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for interval data enterprise software, only to have it go unused, often due to lack of trained and available staff that can gain meaningful information from it.

Interval data can be used for several purposes, some of which are listed below:

-    Determining when equipment is turned on and off
-    Discovering and diagnosing equipment and controls problems,
-    Load shedding,
-    Aggregating energy usage across an enterprise into load profiles which can be used when procuring energy supply contracts,
-    Applying rates to the interval data to get a better understanding of the hourly cost of running the facility.

Viewing utility bills in monthly (or billing) increments is a simpler discipline which is more comprehensible to management, more familiar to energy professionals, and more commonly practiced. Plenty of useful information about a facility can be gleaned from utility bills, some of which are listed below:

-    Determining whether the facility is saving energy and utility costs
-    Identifying the most wasteful facilities
-    Identifying controls and equipment problems
-    Budgeting and Forecasting
-    Understanding where utility costs are going
-    Performing rate analysis
-    Verifying that the utilities are billing correctly
-    Identifying changes in facility usage patterns

As the topic of this paper is Utility Bill Tracking, we will not cover interval data analysis here, however it is important to note that some desktop packages can handle both your utility bill and interval data, and can reconcile your utility bills with interval data.

SOFTWARE SELECTION CRITERIA
Perhaps the best method of determining the software program for your specific needs and budget is to clarify what you would want to use the software to accomplish. Below we have listed some of the tasks that utility bill tracking software can help you perform.

There is a comprehensive questionnaire at the end of this paper which will help optimize your software criteria.

-    Are you more interested in utility accounting or energy analysis and saving energy?
-    Do you need to identify the most inefficient facilities?
-    Do you need to measure energy savings from your energy conservation projects or from performance contracts?
-    Do you need to streamline your utility bill payment system?
-    Do you need to create an incentive system to encourage employees to save energy?
-    Do you need to verify that your utility bills are correct?
-    Do you need to allocate costs from master meters to submeters and subsidiary accounts?
-    Do you need to identify anomalous changes in utility usage?
-    Do you need to understand the relationship between production at your factory (or occupancy at your hotel, etc.) and utility usage?
-    Do you need to create budgets and track your utility costs against the budgeted costs?
-    Do you need to evaluate different rate structures on your utility data to find the best rate?

Once you have determined your specific needs and budget, you can identify which software features are necessary accomplish these tasks. This section lists features and selection criteria with which you can sift through the software programs to find the one best suited to your needs.

Capacity: How Large A Project Will You Be Working With?
The software packages currently available represent a wide range of capacity – from a low end of several hundred meters to a high end of nearly unlimited accounts. If you are putting together a utility bill tracking project with thousands of meters, then the smaller software packages may not be applicable. Some of the desktop packages have SQL databases that can handle virtually an unlimited number of accounts. Some energy managers get around the database size limitations of the smaller desktop packages by keeping several databases, each corresponding to a different section of the organization. If you are responsible for hundreds or thousands of meters, you might find that it is not necessary to track all of your meters. Tracking fire protection and street lighting meters may not result in any analytic value at all.

Energy Accounting Method: Year to Year Comparison vs. Temperature Correction
There are different ways to view your utility data. You can compare your usage from year to year to see if you are using more or less energy, or you can correct your energy usage for weather data, or other factors, such as occupancy or production.

If you compare utility usage from year to year, you can quantify the change in usage and costs. However, you cannot tell if the change is due to fluctuations in weather, changes in rate, changes to the facility itself (such as new additions, new equipment, or extra shifts), or due to reduction or increase in energy usage (which is what you are trying to determine). Energy analysts often prefer to normalize their data to weather, so that they remove these factors, and get a truer picture as to whether the facility is using more or less energy than it used to. Without weather normalization, they may not be able to tell if their project is truly saving energy, or instead, if the change in weather from year to year is responsible for changes in utility usage.  This same type of normalization can be done with other factors as well, such as production, occupancy or calendar.  

Be aware as well, not all weather normalization is the same.  Some software packages will have extensive normalization capacity, which allows energy analysts to extract the maximum from their utility bills, whereas other programs offer very little in reporting or analysis along this line, treating normalization as an afterthought.

Ease of Use
Most of the programs are relatively simple for such tasks as data entry and report generation. These simple tasks can usually be performed by clerical workers. However, the more complex tasks are best executed by energy professionals. These more complex tasks (such as weather correction, budgeting and forecasting, creating custom reports, modeling rates, etc.) are associated with concepts (such as demand, ratchets, weather regression, and prorating) that may require some technical knowledge and analytical skills. Untrained staff may be able to run the more complex software routines but may be unable to assess the reasonableness of the approach or results.

Knowing that the more complex tasks may be more difficult to learn, it is probably best to judge general ease of use on the simple tasks, such as laying out your site and account information, entering bill data, and producing reports. The more complex functions, such as modeling rates, weather normalization, or budgeting and forecasting, by their very nature, will be more difficult in all programs.  Some people are intimidated by these features in the more sophisticated programs thinking that they are just too difficult.  Remember, you can grow into these advanced features in time, just as most of us did with MS Excel.  In fact, it is probably a wise long-term decision to purchase software that has some features you don’t yet understand, as then you have reason and tools with which to grow, and increase your skills.

Before buying the software, it would be best to take a “test drive” and see how intuitive the user interface is.

General Orientation:  Energy vs. Accounting
Some software packages are more oriented towards accounting than analysis.  Accounting programs will stress things such as entering all charges in the bill (which sometimes can be more than 6 different line items per bill), interfacing with accounting systems, aggregating data for payment, and creating bills for your tenants.  Analysis programs will stress weather normalization, allow you to identify and cast out anomalous bills from your analysis, provide graphs displaying the relationship between weather (or production, etc.) and usage, and generally are mostly concerned only with usage, demand and total cost, but not all the little charges on the utility bill that make up the total cost.  If your background is accounting, and not energy, then you will likely be more comfortable with an accounting-oriented program, rather than an analysis oriented program.  If your background is energy, you will likely be more comfortable with an energy analysis-oriented program.

Interfacing With Your Accounting System
Some software packages can interface with Accounts Payable for bill payment. Typically utility bills for a utility vender are aggregated and then can be exported for Accounts Payable.   Some packages will create an export in any format you choose to accommodate existing accounting procedures.

Importing and Exporting Data
All software packages offer import and export of data. Usually you will have to properly format your data before importing it. Some packages will allow you to import data from the text format in which you receive it from the utility. This custom import format is usually created by the software provider or a consultant.

Baseline Modifications
Buildings occasionally change their usage patterns. These changes can lessen the usefulness of annual comparisons of usage and costs. For example, if you were trying to track savings on a building for which you had installed energy efficient lighting, and if the building subsequently adds a new computer lab (or a new addition, or a third shift) your building usage may increase. If you were trying to determine whether the building was saving energy from your lighting retrofit, you would no longer be able to separate out the reduction in usage from the lighting from the increase in usage from the new computer lab. Some software packages will allow you to make “modifications” to the baseline to account for the new computer lab (or new addition, third shift, etc.), which then allows you to determine what savings, if any, are attributable to the lighting retrofit.

Rate Analysis
There are four main reasons analysts may want to include rate analysis in their utility bill tracking project:

-    To assure that costs are correctly applied to changes in usage and demand. Since using blended rates can introduce large errors, modeling rates is the most accurate method of assigning costs to usage and demand.
-    To verify that the utility is costing bills correctly.
-    To assign some agreed upon cost to utility usage and demand, such as is sometimes done in performance contracting, or
-    To determine which rates are best suited for your accounts.

To analyze rates, the utility rate must be entered into the program. This can be done by the analyst himself, a consultant, or oftentimes by the software provider. Many utility rates have become very difficult even for energy professionals to decipher. If you are planning on performing rate analysis in your organization, you might want to have a plan for who is going to enter the rate into your software, as this sometimes can become time consuming.

Not all desktop software packages can model utility rates, and of those that can, some may be limited in how detailed a rate can be modeled. If you want to investigate rate issues, then determine if your own rate schedules involve provisions such as demand ratchets, fuel surcharges, time of use periods, load factor tiers,  etc. and then see if the softwares you are looking at can handle these provisions.

Allocating Costs to Submeters
Some analysts use their utility bill accounting software to allocate costs from master meters to submeters or subsidiary accounts. For example, a mall that charges each different tenant for their energy usage could use the software to allocate costs and usages based upon submeter readings (or other criteria such as square feet), and then create bills for the different departments.

Reporting
Once you know what tasks you intend to accomplish with your utility bill tracking system, you should have a fairly clear idea of the type of reports that will be required to fulfill these tasks. However, the quality of reports, and the ease of creating reports varies from program to program. In addition, in most programs the reports are in crystal reports, or some other canned format in which the data and the reports are not easy to modify.  Countless users of one package used to create reports, then export them to Excel, then manipulate the reports to get them just so.

Emissions
Reporting on emissions (CO2, CO, NOx, etc.) being released into the atmosphere is becoming more popular. While most energy managers think it terms of usage and dollars, management may be also interested in reporting CO2 reductions to shareholders or the media.

Software Cost
The utility bill tracking programs currently available are priced from about ,000 to about ,000.

In addition, you might want to consider the cost to set up your database, which is usually extra. If you are busy, then the easiest and perhaps best method of starting your utility tracking database is to have an expert set it up for you. That way you can learn the program little by little as you enter data and make reports, while still having time to do the rest of your job.

Services
Consider your vendor as well.  There are different types of vendors.  What is their overall orientation?  Is your vendor grounded in energy efficiency or energy accounting, or is your vendor primarily involved in just selling software?  The vendors associated with energy efficiency are the ones who will stress analyzing your bills, finding problems, and saving energy.  Some of these vendors will teach you how to analyze your usage, how to spot problems, and what actions to take to correct them.  Those vendors grounded in accounting will focus on integrating with accounting systems, and will have little help or advice when it comes to energy management decisions.

Some software vendors will sell you software, perhaps bundled with some services, and you will never hear from them again.  Some vendors on the other hand will go the extra step to make sure that your utility bill tracking project is a success.

OTHER FACTORS TO CONSIDER
Some factors to take into account when selecting a utility bill tracking package have nothing to do with the software itself, but rather with your own organization or the software provider.

Staff Capability and Availability
How sophisticated is your staff? How much time can they devote to utility bill tracking? Having the best utility bill accounting tool in the world is not helpful if your staff does not have the knowledge or time to get the most out of it. Be realistic about your staff and who will actually be using the software. Software training by itself may not be enough. Understanding how to run the software, but not having a good grounding in energy could lead to underutilization of the package.

In addition, it is very important to consider beforehand who will be doing what functions with the software. For example, clerical workers could input data and produce reports. Analysis and other heavy lifting might best be done by energy professionals. Do not expect your clerical staff to do more than they are capable of, or your bill tracking experience could end in failure.

Support and Ongoing Costs
Be sure to consider the availability and quality of technical support, and the associated costs. You might want to contact technical support with questions before purchasing the software, so as to get an idea of the quality of the support you will be getting. Most of the software packages come with the first year of support for free, and an additional annual fee thereafter.

Software Selection Questionnaire
If you answer these questions before you investigate different software packages, you are more likely to end with the software that is best suited to your organization.   Don’t be swayed by sales people and bells and whistles.  Get the right software for your organization.

General
-    How many meters will you be tracking?
-    What is your budget?

Analysis
-    Do you need to identify the most inefficient facilities?
-    Do you need to measure energy savings from your energy conservation projects or from performance contracts?
-    Do you want to compare year to year bills or use weather normalization?
-    Do you need to identify changes in utility usage patterns and spot outlier bills?
-    Do you need to understand the relationship between production at your factory (or occupancy at your hotel, etc.) and utility usage?
-    Do you want to have the ability to modify your year to year comparisons for changes in usage patterns such as new equipment or building additions?

Accounting
-    Do you need to streamline your utility bill payment system?
-    Do you need to allocate costs from master meters to submeters and subsidiary accounts?
-    Do you need to create budgets and track your utility costs against the budgeted costs?
-    Do you need it to interface with your accounting system?
-    Do you want to enter in every charge associated with your bill?

Data Manipulation
-    How are you going to get data into the system?  Importing monthly data files or hand entering?
-    How fast can you manually enter data into the program?

Rates
-    Do you want to verify that your utility bills are correct?
-    Do you need to evaluate different rate structures on your utility data to find the best rate?
-    Do you want to apply the current rate to before and after comparisons of utility costs?

Reports
-    What type of reports do you want the software to generate?  
-    What are you going to do with reports when you get them?  Print them? Email them?  Modify them on your computer?  Save them?
-    Do you have special reporting needs?  Will the software allow customized reports?
-    Do you want to report on Emissions? (CO2, CO, NOx, etc.)

Staff
-    How sophisticated is your staff?
-    How much time can they devote to utility bill tracking?
-    Do you have trained staff to use software?

Services
-    Are you going to want to create your own bill tracking database, or are you going to have it done?
-    How is technical support?
-    Will the vendor be available to partner with you,

Also, be aware that most likely none of the packages available will have all of the features you want, or all of the features you want at a price your organization is willing to pay. In this case, you are going to have to prioritize the features in the questionnaire, and from there pick the software that handles the most important tasks your organization requires.

CONCLUSION
All of the major desktop utility bill tracking programs can be used to successfully track utility usage and costs. However each of the major desktop utility bill tracking software programs has useful features especially designed to fit certain situations. To ensure that your utility bill tracking project is successful, it may be best to understand exactly what you need to accomplish and who will be doing the work. Once you are clear on your objectives and personnel, you can select the program that best suits your needs and budget.

Related “accounting Software” Articles

The spring 2006 issue of Software Magazine recently profiled engineer-to-order (ETO) enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solutions. The feature article, authored by manufacturing journalist Thomas R. Cutler, quoted Chuck Stewart of Encompix: “ETO companies build unique products designed to customer specifications. Each product requires a unique set of item numbers, bills of material, and routings. Estimates and quotations are required to win business. Products are complex with long lead times, typically months or even years. Unlike standard products, the customer is heavily involved throughout the entire design and manufacturing process. Engineering changes are a way of life. Material is purchased not for inventory but for a specific project. All actual costs are allocated to a project and tracked against the original estimate. Once complete, the product is typically installed at the customer’s site. In most cases, aftermarket services continue throughout the life of the product.”
About Encompix

Encompix (www.encompix.com) a business unit of Made2Manage Systems, has filled the manufacturing software requirements of engineer-to-order companies since 1992. The company name reflects a commitment to developing business application solutions that encompass the complex areas of project-based and job-based manufacturing. Encompix provides ETO manufacturers with a competitive advantage by improving bottom line results.

About Made2Manage Systems Inc.

With more than 2,150 customers worldwide, Made2Manage Systems Inc. has a 20-year track record of delivering enterprise resource planning software and a broad range of services that meet the unique market specifications of more than 30 manufacturing sectors, including industrial and commercial machinery, fabricated metals, rubber and plastics, electronics, analytical and measuring equipment, furniture and fixtures, durable goods, and metals, wire and cable. Made2Manage Systems’ sustained leadership position in the ERP marketplace is built on a commitment to fostering productive, long-lasting customer relationships, developing a quality product line based on unique industry specifications, and providing excellence in customer support and professional services.

Forex software review lands you the challenge of surfing a correct product. What do you watch out for in this? First and firstly, you must earn more as an investor and you must not suffer much! The truth in its making should be rather superior (be sure a 100% anticipation is never possible!!). The forex software review conducted should focus if there is decent back examining carried out. The logic of sound algorithms emphasizes. The functioning of historical data and its relevancy in today’s data of the smart forex scheme should be reflected in the forex software review. Your Forex software review should consider working for all currencies and in multiple programs. Attempting using a demo account is a wonderful approach as it provides the opportunity to understand and search without much of loss.

Money factor is one essential consideration while choosing through forex software review. Setting up fee would only be once but after that there cannot be other fees. It should be user-friendly and easily be implemented. Forex software review should essentially evaluate if the automated forex system caters to the novice and the professional trader. For the novice, it should help him in the understanding through videos and FAQs, for the seasoned trader, help with its analysis should be presented.  Also support through phone and email will improve operating efficiency. The money back guarantee may be enticing, but never leverage on this!

As an investor, the ability to alter the system as per the requisite of the user marks the high quality of forex system. They also help in automatically trading at various time-zones. Once the settings are perfect, the automated forex system takes care without much intervention. “Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown”, said the author George Shinn. Let’s take the risk, pick the wheat from the chaff through cautious Forex software review and make this a profitable investment.

Step 1: Review The Previous Month’s Statement for Automatic Payments

If you have online banking with your current checking account, log in and view last months transactions. If you don’t have online banking set up, get out your paper statement for the last month. Make a list of any payments that are automatically deducted from your checking account (meaning you do not physically write and send a check or initiate the online payment yourself).

Make another list of any items that you regularly initiate an online payment for – these are transactions that don’t occur automatically, but you don’t write checks for them either. You’ll need to update your payment information in the online accounts of these creditors in order to continue making your payments through this method.

Step 2: Direct Deposits and Automatic Savings Transfers

Make another list of all income sources that are directly deposited into your checking account. Typically this would be your payroll direct deposit from your employer; but may also include child support or other direct deposit transactions.

If you have set up an automatic savings plan through your checking account, you will want to write down the details as well, so you remember to cancel the automatic transfer from checking to savings and to set it up again with your new checking account.

Step 3: Open the New Checking Account

Open your new checking account with a small deposit to get it set up if your funds are limited; if you have access to a sizable amount of money you can make a larger deposit and immediately start setting up your automatic bill payments again through this new account.

Order your checks if you use physical checks, and take note of the routing and account numbers for your new account. You will need this information to start transferring your automatic payments, direct deposits and automatic savings transfers.

Step 4: Cancel Automatic Payments and Savings Transfers

From the lists you’ve created, contact each of the creditors who receive their payment automatically through your old checking account. If you don’t have a lot of money in the newly opened account, simply cancel the automatic payment and inform them you will be mailing your next payment manually. If you were able to open your checking account with a good amount of money, you can just switch the payment details from your old checking account to your new checking account without interrupting the automatic payment plan service, and avoid having to mail a check manually.

If you have an automatic savings transfer, you can choose to temporarily stop it while you are setting up the new checking account or again, if you have enough money in the new account already simply switch the details to the new account and resume making your automatic savings transfers through the new account immediately.

Step 5: Change Payroll Direct Deposit

Once you are sure there are no more automatic payments and savings transfers coming out of your old checking account, you can switch the payroll direct deposit (and any other sources of income that gets directly deposited) into your new checking account. Sometimes this takes one to two weeks to make the change, depending on the employer and the payroll department.

Step 6: Set Up Automatic Bill Payments and Savings Transfers

As soon as you see your first payroll direct deposit going into the new checking account, you can refer back to your list and re-set up the automatic bill payments again if you weren’t able to do that at the same time as opening the checking account.

You will also be able to automatically transfer your money into your savings account once you set it up to withdraw from the new checking account.

If you had creditors and expenses that you would log into the website and initiate a payment, now is a good time to log into each of your accounts and update the payment method section of your profile. This will tell the account where to pull the money from – and you’ll be able to specify your new checking account details for making payments here on out.

Step 7: Close the Old Checking Account, Enjoy the New One

After you’ve changed any automatically made transactions through the old checking account, verify that any outstanding checks or payments you’ve initiated have all cleared. As long as all transactions have posted to the account, at this time you should be able to safely close your old checking account and begin using your new checking account exclusively.

1.Always start with jotting down your needs. What is your purpose and what features would suit your needs best must be the key aspects of your search.

2.Ignore product reviews and do not be fascinated by what the press or the media says about a product because there is no point in buying the best in the market without having any need for most of its valuable features.

3.Instead of looking at the top few products, have a good look at the entire range of software available and carefully examine their key features in view of your needs.

4.Make a list of all the software available and then start the process of elimination on the basis of key features of each of them. Remove those that either do not meet your needs well or are a little too expensive as compared to the others.

5.Once you have found a software that meets all of your needs, look for other options in the same price range and see what they offer in addition to the necessary features. If there is a software that offers all that you need and some more for the same price, go for it.

6.There are companies that might offer cheaper products and also some additional features for the same price. However, it is better to go for a product by a reputed company than settling down for something cheap made by an obscure establishment. Cheap products might work at times, but mostly they turn out to be heavy on maintenance and are a source of bother day in and day out. It thus makes sense to purchase an accounting software by a known company even if it is a bit expensive and is not very high on additional features.

7.And lastly, you are going for an accounting software to ease your burden. So, if a software adds to your burden, the whole exercise itself is futile. Therefore, be careful and discerning while choosing an accounting software.

Definitely, you can take the help of a manufacturing accounting software. Manufacturing Accounting Software is developed with a view to achieve the various financial needs related to production. It is full of various functional modules assigned for different tasks. Accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger and much more are the essential modules of an efficient manufacturing software.

No matter what your business is, no matter whether it is big or small, you are bound to face some of the critical business challenges. Some of the basic challenges of a business related to manufacturing like constant optimization of inventories, processing and fulfilling of customer orders in a timely manner have to be tackled in an efficient way while keeping a firm grasp on the financial aspects of the company.

And here the great role of manufacturing accounting software comes into picture and enables you to face the challenges of your business set up. To define manufacturing software, it is an application used in the management and inventory field. Management and control of any organization has never been so easy.

A manufacturing software enables you to handle everything associated with production very easily. Management of manufacturing involves four main steps- estimating, producing, accounting and reviewing. And, with manufacturing software, all these become very easy. A manufacturing software is very helpful in entering different plans electronically and monitoring their process regularly. It also helps in tracking the assets of a company which is a crucial part.

Manufacturing software is great in the sense that it can easily link the product demand with the production ability of a company. It helps in the optimization of resource usage. It is great in forecasting future trends as well. Features such as sales forecasting, contact management, analysis and alike help in the effective management of the organization.

There are several manufacturing accounting software which you will find beneficial to your particular industry. Some of the manufacturing software solutions have developed manufacturing- specific solutions for different product lines. Manufacturing business requires that when the demand hits, it must be able to deliver. This software provides you the required tools to keep production running smoothly and efficiently, including powerful inventory management tools, job costing tools and much more.

One such excellent manufacturing accounting software is developed by Sage software to meet the unique accounting needs of the manufacturers. The name of the software is Peachtree Premium Accounting for Manufacturing. It encompasses key data and tools to assist you in fulfilling important jobs, quickly and easily. Other features of the software are manufacturing guide, pre-built reports, work tickets and quantity price breaks giving accurate inventory control and making you aware of the operational insight into your production and assembly processes. Above all, starting up and learning this software is very easy.

The software supports core accounting features and reporting options. It helps you in keeping track of:

a) Accounts Receivable
b) Time, Billing and Job Costing
c) General Ledger
d) Inventory
e) Accounts Payable
f) Payroll Solutions
g) Fixed Assets

Peachtree Premium Accounting software thus makes it possible for you to conquer the challenges of operating a profitable manufacturing business. It gives you a powerful yet flexible tool, designed specifically to help you meet challenges of your manufacturing operations. This software is known for its sound inventory and assembly management features. All these make this software, the choice of millions of small businesses. I strongly recommend you this software for at least once in your business. And I’m sure that you will be hooked.