Have you been stuck in a bad situation that only by a miracle of a small loophole you managed to get out of? Loopholes are wonderful if they work in your favor, otherwise they can be a real pain. When you’re stuck, a loophole most often is a blessing in disguise. Yet the term loophole wasn’t originally a quick legal out from a contract but a type of contractual fortification.

In Medieval times, castles were built for the main purpose of keeping those inside safe. Architecture of the time incorporated different ways to protect the castle. One of those architectural additions was narrow windows that widened inwards with vertical slits on the outside. Archers defending the castle had wonderful amounts of elbow room to maneuver while those shooting at the castle only had small slits to shoot at. These archer windows were called loopholes from the old word loop which means “a narrow window”.

Loopholes went out of style around the time gun powder was invented, but so did castles really. One didn’t need to hide behind the thick walls of a castle if it was going to be blown up anyway by gun powder. Now, loopholes signify a narrow way out and today we associate the word with a clever or tricky way out of a situation, especially when pertaining to legal issues that may otherwise make one a little loopy… frazzled.

With software, you may wish sometimes that there was an easy way to handle a hard situation. Maybe an application that looks complex, but really is simple. Take for instance, you have a difficult client who has ordered multiple items from you, but wants each of those items delivered on a different date. With Microsoft Dynamics NAV you can define an “Agent Service”.

With Microsoft Dynamics NAV Agent Service feature you can define how and when to ship your products.  This feature includes calendar scheduling and shipping time. The purchase screen doesn’t have these options but the agent service screen does.

By simply finding and utilizing the right loophole in your Microsoft Dynamics software you can increase your productivity even more than it already has. You’d be amazed at how much more business you can gain from your business software.

Knock, knock…

What? Oh hey Dwayne, how’s it going in accounting?

I’ll let you know in a sec. If you have a moment to play along. Knock, knock…

You’re serious? A knock, knock joke? I hate knock, knock jokes. I don’t have the time for this. Don’t you have work to do? You’re not going to leave are you? Okay, why not… whose there?  

Dwayne.

Dwayne? Seriously, Dwayne?  What’s the deal?  Fine, fine, fine… make this quick I have a meeting in less than five.  Oh, we’re continuing this. Fine, Dwayne who?

Dwayne the workload, my cubical is so flooded in papers I’m drowning!

Do many of your employees feel the same way? Conducting business can be stressful for the owner, but have you thought about your loyal employees. They attempt daily to stay ahead of their workload but on the occasion even the best can find themselves swimming in the rapids of business paperwork. As they start to make headway once again they find themselves swept away.

Simply put, drowning your employees isn’t an option. You need a way to keep your employees above water and treading easily through your paperwork. The more paperwork they can get through, the more money your business can make. So what can you use as an adequate life raft? Microsoft Dynamics CRM of course. The best life preserver for drowning employee.

With Technology Management Concepts and Microsoft Dynamics CRM software, each employee can set up their own personalized work station according to the needs of their position and their own personal needs.  Have complete control over what links appear in the workplace view, how many records appear in lists, how numbers and dates display for easier accessibility. Assign specific roles for your employees to keep them on task.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM also gives you the ability to specify important performance and allows you to easily check your business’ health. This gives you the ability to track and measure results against your organization’s goals. Easily specify goals for a campaign or combine smaller goals to keep your business and your employees on track and stress free.

Another way to stay stress free is to let TMC help you choose the right Microsoft Dynamics package for you. Don’t let Dwayne or any of your employees drown in an ocean of paperwork. Give them a Microsoft Dynamic’s life boat and see them safely to solid ground.

Sometime in 1395 a child was born in the city of Mainz. When Johannes Gutenberg was born he probably wasn’t much to look at. Somehow an idea formed in his impressionable youth that would later revolutionize the way society looks at the world. Who would have thought that simple rattle with his initials carved on the crown would be the start a new media era?

What thoughts must have run though his young mind when the same rattle landed promptly across his father’s forehead imprinting his backward initials? Maybe “cool”, or something  equivalent to that time period. It would take years before he’d come to realize the significance to his discovery.

It seems a likely story but no one will ever know if a rattle was Gutenberg’s muse. It might have been the Chinese who influenced him to make the printing press? They had movable type since 1041 when ol’ Bi Sheng went crazy over those clay plates. Then Wang Zhen had to jump on the bandwagon and started using wood letters instead. So possibly it was Wang?  Who knows for sure? What’s for certain is Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press changed how society viewed religion, education, science, journalism, entertainment and so much more.

The invention of the printing press ushered in an area of being “in the know”. The rich were no longer the only ones privy to reading books.  No one had to be in the dark about subjects that interested them or had to rely on stained glass pictures to learn their favorite stories. In time, printing became in huge demand. Everyone wanted books regardless if they could read or not. Printing presses swept over Europe, producing mass quantities of books. But printing took a lot of time and dedication to make books look just right.

Can you imagine your accounting department having to wait around for one computer? Or having your sales team go overseas to sell your inventory, only to question if you’d ever see your  products again? Insanity, right?  Thank goodness we live in a world with technology that can make your business life easy.

The old-timer of SaaS, Netsuite is the of the best  Ecommerce, accounting and customer relationship management software solution tools on the market. SaaS software allows you to access your information on your laptop, desktop, pad or phone day or night, just as long as you’re connected to the web. This makes it easier than having to wait three years for that important shipment.

Keep up with Gutenberg’s tradition and stay up to date with your business practices. Give Netsuite a test drive today by contacting our sales representatives at 310-559-3982 or by visiting our Contact Us page to get more information and a quote for your business

TMC was honored to help support a local Los Angeles High School recently, Mira Costa High of Manhattan Beach, California and the drama department for their recent play of “Fiddler on the Roof”. It was an amazing show and TMC salutes the amazing young adults at Mira Costa for putting on such a wonderful show.

Technology Management Concepts firmly believes in supporting local charities, schools, and societies that help people and bring enjoyment to the Southern Californian community. Stay tuned for TMC’s next outing and come join them in supporting amazing organizations like Mira Costa High School Drama Department.

Thank you everyone for help donating to the Make A Wish Foundation’s event Walk for Wishes LA 2012! You went above and beyond for helping us surpass our goal of $500 and currently sit at $1,580!!!

There is one day left to help donate to a great cause or to sign up and join our team at the walk! You can do so by following this link. Hope to see you there!

Event Info:

WHERE: 20th Century Fox 10201 Pico Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90035

WHEN: Saturday, April 28, 2012

Registration: 7:30am

Walk begins: 9:00am

Carnival begins: 10:00am

I’m sure you’ve probably heard the term: a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. The phrase defined means that it’s better to have a lesser certain advantage than the possibility of a greater one that may come to nothing. Yet if you’re not careful even the certain choice may leave you with nothing but a hand full of feathers.

Birds are associated with more than a handful of superstitions throughout the world. Feathers are also rumored to contain a certain amount of magical influence and potential. Osiris, an ancient Egyptian god, wore a cloak of feathers as a protective armor against evil. To pass by a black feather in the British Isles was thought to bring bad luck, but to stick the feather upright in the soil was to bring good luck. Wren feathers were a must on any sailing. Sailors would bring wren feathers with them to protect them from shipwrecks.

Feather beds were a subject of several taboos and superstitions. To turn a feather mattress on Sunday would guarantee that anyone sleeping in the bed would have horrible nightmares for a week and possibly death to someone in the household. The type of feathers used to feather the bed were an issue as well. To use dove or pigeon feathers would cause the sleeper in the bed to die a painful death instead of slipping away peacefully in slumber.

When it comes to business, you need a sound business plan, good employees, and a lot of  good luck.  Microsoft Dynamics NAV is just the good luck you need to make your business a success. Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows business’ to trade internationally and has multi-currency capabilities. This allows your ledger to differentiate different between currencies and decide how amounts are rounded and posted for an unlimited number of currencies. This allows you to manage customer and vendor accounts in the right currency all of the time.

           Multiple birds flying away from the nest? Your mobile workers need direct access to your business resource planning information. Microsoft Dynamics NAV gives them over the Internet access using a rich Role Tailored interface. It’s the best way to keep them up-to-date and flying straight.

Need to get your ducks in a row? With flexible options, you can choose the business solution that works best for you. Keep your business from flying off course. Migrate to Microsoft Dynamics NAV today and see all the great ways you can improve your business software. Click here to contact TMC and request a free quote.

After staying up all night last night trying desperately to read the faded typeface of the stack of waxy receipts and do my best to determine whether a number was in fact a “3” instead of an “8”, it became more and more apparent why businesses switch to e-filing in many countries and the increased need for a clean audit trail to keep the tax IRS at bay.

Even within our strained economic times, businesses are ensuring that they keep their tax functions well resourced. Seems like the right place to allocate money, no? On the face of it, principles of value added taxation in all countries are broadly the same—charge tax on your sales, recover taxes paid on your purchases and account for the difference. We all speak the same language, we hope we don’t owe money and we’d love a return.

But the interpretation and implementation of the rules can vary considerably. Add to this the fact that companies use different administrative practices, multiple systems and even outsource tax services, all factors that can have a significant impact on the compliance cost.

A recent Thomson Reuters survey (November 2011) found a 51% increase in the resources global companies allocate to manage indirect tax compliance as compared to five years ago. As governments increasingly seek to raise revenue through indirect taxes, it’s not surprising that companies have been increasing resources in their tax management function to ensure that the calculations are correct and that they are able to successfully withstand any government tax audit.

What have financial software vendors done to ensure that updates to their systems are timely and accurate so that their customers, particularly those that operate in a global environment, remain compliant? The answer is very little. That’s where Netsuite OneWorld and the cloud make a huge difference.

The NetSuite Platform Solutions team developed a tool for tax rate changes, such that changes to our customers’ websites, unfulfilled sales orders, item prices and customer records can be automated overnight with very little manual effort involved.

Finally, taxes do not have to be taxing.

To find out more about how NetSuite’s applications can help your company streamline your taxes among many other abilities, visit our NetSuite page or email Brett Hensley at bhensley@tmc-la.com

Have you ever wondered if there were paper airplanes before the Wright brothers? Logical thinking, one would believe that paper airplanes would be discovered during or around the time of our first manned flight. Oddly though, the invention of papers airplane dates back centuries before Orville and Wilbur Wright took their legendary first flight in 1903. Although simplistic in design, Ancient China was credited with creating the first paper gliders.

Around 500 BCE, China’s paper industry was in full production. With so much paper resources, origami and paper-folding became a vastly popular pastime for the masses. Since the invention of paper, people have been determined to create the perfect paper glider.

The Wright brothers enjoyed creating paper airplanes as well. They were known to use paper  airplane models to aid in their creation of the first flying machine. Now pin-pointing exactly who created the first paper glider would be impossible nor how soon after the idea of “air mail” came into being. We do know how useful paper airplanes are when you’re dealing with a frustrating document in the office. With a few quick folds you have the perfect glider to send your troublesome document right into the trash…that is if you have good aim.

NetSuite is the next best solution offering professional services that makes managing client and employees as well as projects simple and easy. NetSuite OpenAir software is the world’s #1 cloud professional services automation (PSA) solution, providing project-based businesses with powerful project management, resource management, project accounting and timesheet & expenses management capabilities. NetSuite OpenAir gives you options that allow you to streamline your company’s operations.  No longer will it take wasted hours to get updates on project status or track expense reports. OpenAir’s cutting-edge project management software keeps you “in the know” about your projects and whether they are on time and within budget.

NetSuite OpenAir can help you determine if a project is over-budget, man hours used, work performance, how to better allocate your resources and what needs improvement. Imagine if Orville and Wilbur Wright had NetSuite while working in their machine shop. They might have had more time to invent the airplane than have to worry about their other projects and their trash can might not have been filled with so many frustrating paper airplanes. Use NetSuite OpenAir and stop being up in the air about your business.

To find out more about NetSuite’s ERP product and it’s OpenAir solution, visit http://abouttmc.com or call Brett Hensley at 310-559-3982 ext. 789 to set up a free consultation for your company.

Big cities hold a lot of excitement. Everywhere you turn there’s always something happening whether it’s fairs, gala openings or sensational nightlife. Big cities are never without their persistent buzz of the anticipation.

Another source of excitement in big cities is turning down a one-way street the wrong way. In big cities it’s not that hard to do. One-way streets run rampant in cities much like street performers on Friday nights. Unfortunately at times you can’t tell which way you are going until it’s too late. Then what? Do you back up and risk running over a pigeon, a shopping cart or Heaven forbid a pedestrian? Do you continue and hope that no one will drive the right direction? And if you reach the next street, will you be able to correct your error or will you reach a dead-end?

Big city excitement may not be all flash, fun, and bright lights.  Much like your computer, it might look great from afar but once you’ve experienced it first-hand it’s a different story. One-way signs are as much in abundance on your computer as they are in big cities. You might not know which way to go, or worse choose the wrong direction and end up at a dead-end. NetSuite can help serve as a GPS for you business E-commerce computing needs.

NetSuite offers an innovated way to  streamline  your accounting and office operations,  improving productivity overall. NetSuite’s leading-edge technology uses a delivery method that provides access to software and its functions remotely as a Web-based service. This web-based Software as a Service is more commonly called The Cloud.  By using SaaS Cloud technology, companies are able to use their business software and information wherever there is Internet, day or night.  SaaS hosting prices are based on a monthly fee and the cost is typically less than paying for licensed applications.

An added benefit  is that the software is remotely hosted. Businesses don’t need to invest in additional software or hardware. Software as a Service removes the headaches of dealing with installation, set-up and sometimes costly daily maintenance that can result in down-time and lack of productivity.

Avoid the hassle of one-way streets and dead-ends. Use NetSuite and make all the right turns with your business software.

Technology Management Concepts (TMC) is very pleased to announce that we have successfully renewed our Microsoft GOLD Competency in Enterprise Reporting Platform.  The Microsoft GOLD Competency in ERP is designed by Microsoft to recognize the very best of their Dynamics partners, and TMC has now earned this prestigious honor for consecutive years.

GOLD Competency demonstrates the best-in-class expertise within Microsoft’s marketplace. Earning a gold competency is evidence of TMC’s deep, consistent commitment to a specific, in-demand, business solution area, along with the distinction of being among only 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have attained this outstanding degree of proficiency.

The Enterprise Resource Planning GOLD competency provides TMC with a unique opportunity to develop a trusted advisor relationship with our customers’ key decision makers. By providing solutions that address critical business priorities, TMC can build the foundation for longer-term, deeper customer relationships.

Earning a GOLD Competency in Enterprise Reporting Platform is a team effort, requiring virtually every one of TMC’s Management team, Consultants and Developers, and the Sales Team to have demonstrated the highest level of success and achievement within the Microsoft realm.  TMC has met or exceeded every requirement for this prestigious accomplishment.