by Joanie Mann, Noobeh Director of Cloud Delivery
Small business owners generally want to keep a close eye on the cash flow. Without big cash reserves to help balance out the slow months or to finance expansion, it is all about the checkbook and what comes in and goes out. If there’s money in the bank at the end of the month, then it must have been a good month.
The problem is that business performance and profitability might not be as obvious as having money in the bank.
While it seems like the business is moving along just fine, unpaid bills, slow-moving receivables and other factors will ultimately wreak havoc on the business of gone unchecked. Hidden supply chain issues, poor project performance or ineffective business processes… there are several layers to the business operation and profitability can be enhanced or diminished in each.
The point is that knowing more about how the business is performing is an essential part of managing growth and profitability. Without a detailed view into the financial and operational aspects of the enterprise, owners and managers are frequently left to making decisions without the data they need or, even worse, with inaccurate or misleading data.
“It's not what you don't know that kills you, it's what you know for sure that ain't true.” Quote often attributed to Mark Twain…
The solution for the business owner is getting to all the data and being able to easily apply analytical tools to make sense of it all.
For businesses using Intuit QuickBooks desktop solutions, the task of reporting often sounds easier than it really is. QuickBooks desktop accounting solutions store an awful lot of data but don’t make it particularly simple to retrieve or report on intelligently.
Businesses using QuickBooks need tools to help them extract all the valuable data stored in their QuickBooks database so that it can be analyzed in ways not built into the QuickBooks application directly. Further, business owners need to be able to access the analyses and reports to make business decisions when and where it matters most.
To address the need for better and more comprehensive reporting and analysis from QuickBooks data, Clearify® introduced QQube™, the most comprehensive solution available to create, manage and visualize reports and dashboards directly from QuickBooks data.
Able to work with just QB data or combine it with information from other sources, QQube™ helps business owners and managers develop the in-depth reporting they require by offering a real-time data warehouse capability that works with Microsoft Excel, Access, Power BI, Crystal Reports and a wide variety of other reporting tools.
Yet many of today’s analytical and reporting tools, such as Microsoft Excel, Access and Crystal Reports are desktop-based, like QuickBooks, making it a challenge to access the data when and where it is needed. No longer tethered to offices and desktop computers, business professionals need to be able to run full-featured applications and access real-time data from tablets and laptops regardless of location.
Being able to access the data for reporting and analysis is essential, and having the ability to work with those systems at any time and from anywhere adds to the agility of the business.
The key to using QQube™ and QuickBooks to the business’ greatest advantage is running it all on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform with Mendelson Consulting’s new business group Noobeh.
Through Noobeh, organizations can have the benefits of anytime/anywhere access to critical business data and applications while being confident that their systems and infrastructure are provided by the most agile and compatible cloud platform available.
Where most application hosting companies use the term “cloud” very loosely, Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh offer true cloud solutions. Not leasing datacenter or basement space from an ISP or telco, and not working with hardware that is aging and subject to failures, Mendelson Consulting’s Noobeh team leverages the power, security, agility and massive scalability of the same cloud facilities that power Microsoft Office365, Dynamics, Skype and other Microsoft cloud solutions.
This allows businesses to benefit from cloud servers, hosted applications and managed data without the concerns of transient hardware failures, outdated server platforms and internal networks that can’t scale. Since the platforms are pure Microsoft, compatibility and updates are part of the package, eliminating concerns introduced by 3rd party virtualization technology and aging servers.
Running QuickBooks and Qqube™ on Azure also provides far greater business application and data security than installing apps and syncing data to mobile devices.
Businesses that are serious about improving performance and increasing profits recognize that data collection, analysis and reporting are the keys to knowing enough to make a positive difference. Reliance on reporting and analysis only goes as far as the access to the information, so creating a secure remote access capability is the next essential step in aligning the business with growth and profitability goals.
Contact Mendelson Consulting today to find out how we can solve the various challenges facing your business, like better reporting and more flexible and agile IT management. We have the solutions and the platforms that scale to your business needs today and in the future.
