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Success for your business hinges on being responsive and flexible. When orders come piling in, you need to ensure each customer has an excellent experience. And when there's a lull, you need to balance things with reduced expenses.

Temporary employees might be the perfect way to handle the rollercoaster of demand for your products and services. And to help you make sure your experience with temp labor is successful, CorpNet has offered some useful tips and strategies.

How can you tell when using temp workers will be helpful?

The short answer is "Whenever your labor-demand temporarily exceeds supply."

For different companies, this might look different. Increasing orders during the holidays might be seen by a light manufacturing company who specializes in consumer products. Or a company who uses drop-shipping across many state lines may need extra support during tax season. If an employee needs maternity or medical leave, any business owner might need to fill a position for weeks or months. The best-case scenario for hiring temp workers might be when you're experiencing rapid growth and you need to get more people into the warehouse--now.

Whatever the context, there are some good reasons for exploring temporary labor to help your company through.

Why should a small business explore the option for using temp workers?

The appeal of temporary work situations is increasing to the point that some observers now use the phrase, "freelance economy." The benefits for the entrepreneur include:

• temp labor is a cost effective resource
• payments to a temp agency are often less headache than to a full-time hire
• easy severance if demand slows down
• simple employee switching if the first worker doesn't work out
• a great evaluation period, so you know exactly who you're hiring if that short-term need becomes long-term

What details should you watch when hiring temp workers?

Agencies that supply temporary labor needs today offer help for a wide range of roles, including both entry-level and skilled experts in industrial, administrative, professional, managerial, engineering, IT, and healthcare. Whatever your hiring need, the following 4 check-points are vital:

As you coordinate with the agency, be sure to give them a clear picture of your needs and expectations. More information at the beginning helps prevent frustrating experiences later on.

When you settle in to sign things with the agency, be sure you understand all the terms, fees, and stipulations. If you can't have it reviewed by a lawyer, a careful reading can help you avoid any surprises.

If you're interested in hiring a temp worker who shows great potential, bring that option up at the beginning. Some agencies have fees for this kind of conversion, while some workers have a preference to stay temp.

It goes without saying, but treat your temp workers as good as you would treat a new full-time employee. Each type of worker is an investment in your company, so it's in your best interest to arrange the necessary space, tool, training, and culture to help them perform well. And to be candid, no employer wants the reputation of being a bad career move.

Another important aspect is the time it takes to get an employee up to speed on your software. Investing in a unified business suite like aACE 5 can reduce training difficulties and accelerate temp workers towards productivity. Learn more about our comprehensive, quote-to-cash that users describe as a pleasure to work with.

Are Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing beyond the interest of your small business? Definitely not, since your competitors are looking for every advantage they can get. Instead of giving your hard-won customers to other companies, leverage what larger enterprises and skilled researchers have learned about operational excellence. The Houston Chronicle's column for small business can help you get a head-start.

Your Workflows

Much of the efforts for operational excellence center on becoming more aware of your business functions. Until you clearly see how things are working, it's difficult to spot how they could work better. This makes it important to identify the workflows in your business. Map out the people, tools, and processes, plus the resources, communications, and procedures needed to deliver your product to a customer. This can be as simple as a diagram on paper or as complex as a major software package. Whatever method you use, the benefit of identifying the most valuable aspects of your operations will support intelligent decisions for improvement.

Customer Insights

The other primary source of information about improving your company comes from your clients. When you get this kind of data, make sure that everyone on the team sees it, understands it, and can look for ways to do better. Whether it comes from online surveys or personal interviews, each team member needs to be aware of how the whole team is perceived by the customer.

Track Progress

Identify the key measures that show your current degree of financial, customer satisfaction, internal process, and employment excellence. Use these scorecards and baselines to identify how each process improvement initiative affects the company. At first you'll be learning what it is you need to learn, but once you have this organizational awareness, you'll be able to carefully hone your business processes.

Share Knowledge

The burden of improving the business doesn't have to be a heavy load on just you or a few key people. Invest in ways to keep everyone on the team concentrated on the high-value efforts that will make the biggest difference in productivity. Great ideas can come from any corner of your facilities, but only if people know what to look for and if they feel comfortable voicing their ideas.

These suggestions can't be implemented overnight of course. But with steady effort, the value of operational excellence will become obvious. One way to jump-start the process is with software that maximizes visibility of key data. The aACE 5 business suite connects ERP, CRM, and accounting data, with reports in place to highlight vital aspects of your operations. Don't wait to get more information about aACE 5--and about your company.

Tax season follows the holidays, as sure as bells jingle and confetti flutters. The celebrations are delightful and just a little stressful, however doing taxes is just stressful.

To help small business owners minimize the pain of tax-time, Sam Brotman from CPAPracticeAdvisor.com has shared some good advice. These 4 tips are relevant to companies ranging from light manufacturing to digital entrepreneurs and more.

1. Prepare Year-Round

The best way to prevent an excruciating April is to spread the effort across the other 11 months. A key element here is keeping good records. Not only does this help ensure that everything is in order when the IRS deadline arrives, but it also makes it easier to take advantage of deductions. For example, one of the most common deductions is vehicle maintenance costs, which are simple to document when you have the receipts for the oil changes collected in one place. While receipts are an obvious item to gather, have you also been keeping a log of the vehicle use and travel destinations? Investopedia recommends these records, among others, for your tax preparations. When you're prepared with all the information, you can feel confident in telling the IRS what's what.

2. Stay Current on Legislation

While the IRS is the heavy hitter in April, state taxation can also be a challenge, especially since there are some crazy state tax laws on the books--we're looking at you, NYC. Are bagels really exempt from sales tax... unless someone else slices them open for you? Each year there are small changes to the tax rules in various states. But if you keep up on these kinds of adjustments, the curve-ball won't surprise you.

3. Leverage Tools and Expertise

Tip #2 brings up an important question though: Who has time to monitor all the legislatures that might impact your sales tax records? And this question is only growing in importance as e-commerce and online sales continue to be many consumers preferred shopping approach. There comes a point where a business owner has to admit that tracking receipts and tax laws isn't the best use of time. Fortunately, there are some excellent tools and reliable partners available. Taking advantage of these resources will enable you to focus your energies on strategies with the biggest ROI for your SME.

4. Beware the Most Common Pitfalls

While the previous guidelines will go a long way to help you keep your sanity during tax season, the final tips that Brotman writes about are foundational. The first warning is to not assume your tax professional will take on full responsibility for all aspects of your filing. Even the most expert help is only as good as the information you provide. Likewise, at the end of that tax form, it's going to be your name in the blank. Stay in touch with the tax preparation process so you can address challenges before they become crises. Brotman's second warning is basically to not let the IRS scare you away from benefits. If you have the documentation ready, then you should feel confident in claiming every available write-off.

To be candid, we all know that the tax season is still going to be a little stressful. There isn't a silver bullet that will solve all problems and make April as much fun as the other holidays. But armed with these guidelines, you'll be in a much better position to manage the stress and maybe even find something to celebrate--like the month of May.

• Data-entry errors?
• Limited user access?
• Yesterday's info (or last week's)?
• Minimal analysis and forecasting?

• Easily track large quantities of items
• Reduce data-entry errors and confusion
• Open the information to multiple team members
• Provide real-time data about your warehouse
• Eliminate guess-work
• Generate clarity on what you need and when you need it

Your business thrives based on the quality of work that your team produces. So a national holiday is a fitting way to honor the people who move the work forward each day.

Another way to tell your team they’re important is by providing high-quality tools, including software that helps them succeed. We’ve all felt the frustration of working with technology that complicates more than facilitates. aACEsoft, whether on Mac or PC, streamlines each phase of your team’s labor.

• aACE Accounting helps your managers track a sale from the lead to the balance sheet, while controllers can easily hop from a single entry in the GL to anywhere in the transaction chain.
• aACE Customer Relationship Management (CRM) gives a 360º view of your business relationships and full insight into your contacts with vendors, partners, and more.
• aACE Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrates sales, operations, and accounting, helping to increase visibility, automate workflows, eliminate double-entry, and reduce errors.
• Inventory is integrated seamlessly throughout the entire aACE Software solution, helping your team plan more productively and accurately, preventing costly mistakes and reducing excessive inventory.
• aACE order management provides your order writers with tools to reduce transaction times, ensure compliance, improve oversight, all to increase customer satisfaction.
• aACE production management modules replace redundant systems and spreadsheets. It helps your team coordinate job tracking, time entry, inventory application, and purchasing.
• aACE shipping and receiving tools help your department properly schedule shipments, accurately invoice customers, prevent the shipment of unpaid goods, and reconcile courier statements.

aACE Software is a value-rich alternative to systems such as Xtuple and Accountek. Learn more about the possibilities today.

DID YOU KNOW? The Best-in-Class leading organizations look for ERP solutions that are easy to use and employee friendly. Even the most functional of ERP solutions is a waste of money if employees can’t use it. A user-friendly ERP solution will lead to a higher employee usage rate and the solution’s benefits will more quickly and profoundly manifest themselves throughout an organization.
Download the full report here

Selecting the right business management solution is one of the most important business decisions you can make. Making the right decision can propel your company forward while the wrong decision may potentially be catastrophic. This article will delineate key steps in the ERP selection process.

1. Define what you need.

Notice I used the word “need” and not the word “want.” I need a car that gets me from point A to point B; I want a car with a nice sound system. Choosing an ERP solution is about needs, not wants. Wants are only important at the very end of the process if you have uncovered several potential products that meet your needs.

The easiest way to define your needs is to create ERP narratives. A narrative reads like a story: “When a client calls we do this, then we do that, then we do this if A is true or we do this if B is true.” This approach is easier and infinitely more valuable than merely creating a list of features. The value of a narrative lies in its ability to convey the underlying process and provide context to the necessary features – something a checklist does not do. Furthermore, the solution that best suits your workflow may not be the solution with the most features so a feature-focused purchasing decision will very likely yield the wrong result. Tell a story; dump the feature checklist.

2. Estimate the cost of not changing your current business management systems.

When estimating the potential value of an ERP implementation, people tend to focus on efficiency (e.g. If we can reduce each transaction’s time by 5 minutes, we will save $X). Although this is important, efficiency is only one potential source of cost savings. Also consider the cost of mistakes that can be eliminated. Human errors may cost your company far more than daily inefficiencies. Additionally, consider the higher value activities that will replace the lower value activities. Having a receivables clerk follow-up on past due invoices rather than doing data entry can make a big difference in cash flow, for example, and may entirely eliminate the need for a new hire in the future.

Identify your chief bottlenecks by comparing your current narrative with your ideal narrative. Estimate the annual cost of each bottleneck by reconciling the difference if it no longer existed. Also estimate, if possible, the value-added of the activities that will take the place of the time currently being wasted. If you are not simultaneously astonished and appalled by your calculation results, congratulations – you do not need a new ERP solution. It is far more likely, however, that you now have a stronger case for better business management software than you initially thought.

3. Become familiar with the ERP market.

Read from unbiased sources about the ERP industry and don’t worry about any particular product; that will occur later in your ERP search. Focus.com is my favorite website for this type of information. For every success story there are at least two horror stories. What you should take home from this exercise is that companies that don’t do their due diligence pay a hefty price.

Topics to research:

• benefits of ERP software
• why some projects succeed and others fail
• technical considerations (e.g. onsite vs. hosted)
• vendor costs: training, data migration, customization, and ongoing support
• other costs: hardware requirements, software licensing models, and hidden costs Develop non-product specific questions on of these topics to ask vendors as you evaluate each option.

4. Search for the right ERP solution.

ERP matchmaking services such as FindAccountingSoftware.com and Capterra.com will ask you questions concerning your needs, budget, timeline, and match you with the number of vendors of your choosing. Although these services are neither comprehensive nor unbiased and tend to be feature focused rather than process focused, they provide an excellent starting point for your ERP software search. With each demo, you will find yourself gravitating to different products for different reasons. Identify why this is the case and you will have discovered important priorities – which will help you narrow your search further. Remember that matchmaking services only provide a starting point in the search process, so after a few demos be sure to expand your search to include word of mouth, web searches, and software directories specific to your IT requirements or industry.

When you find an ERP solution that interests you, make sure it meets the requirements of your specific narratives. Ask the vendor to provide a demo that conforms to your ideal narrative. If the vendor cannot demonstrate the same workflow, ask the vendor to demonstrate how the software would accomplish the same end goals and/or describe any customization that would be required to meet your goals. Do not assume that your way is the best way or the only way – keep an open mind – but do not ignore your narratives either. Companies that ignore or modify their workflows will often belatedly discover – usually at a high cost in both time and money – that their chosen ERP solution is unable to deliver the anticipated benefits because one workaround has been replaced with another workaround. You are not working for your ERP software;

Your ERP software needs to work for you.

Choosing your ERP software and vendor takes a lot of time and hard work, but making the right decision can reap extraordinary rewards and benefits for your company in both the immediate and distant future. The four step process I discussed above will help provide a path towards your successful ERP solution and its benefits.

Written by:
Michael Bethuy
Business Solutions Architect and ERP Specialist