Melanie J. McFarland Absolutely agree. Empower the field worker to focus on their core responsibilities AND support the streamlining of back-end operations toward analysi
Jonathan Frei I like how straight forward the process is.
TROY Sounds like a good idea but how is that better than just getting a pda solution for guys?
Bert Hermanus Great article. There's a lot of good information here, though I did want to let you know something - I am running Redhat with the circulating beta of
Sandy Naidu Looks good - the digital notes can also be transferred straight on the computer, right ?
Brad Hi JDW - yes it would be a great tool for any kind of business that needs to invoice from the road. If any of your clients are contractors or service
Spencer Is this real? I need that for my new plumbing company for the lads. But we will use sage for this is there a sage pen?
JDW Interesting - as an accountant I think that would be a great tool to use for busineses of any size that I deal with.
Any ideas on when it might be
They have also made a nice little video, I must admit that the Xero team are excellent at make very succinct videos that give enough info to whet your interest without going too deep into details, something we need to learn from.
If you want more detail on the Xero online accounting and simPRO online estimating, job management and invoicing solutions, please see below:
If you are looking for an estimation or project management package that gives you flexibility and delivers real productivity benefits then you can’t afford to miss the pairing of simPRO Enterprise and Xero – web based solutions at their best.
I attended the Xero session at the beautiful ICAEW building at 1 Moorgate Place London this morning and met Gary Turner (UK MD) and Rod Drury (Kiwi Co-Founder of Xero).
They gave an excellent presentation as to the where Xero came from, the entire philosophy of their business model and where Xero is going.
It was aimed at accountants and bookkeepers as Xero tries to encourage them to become partners and bring on new clients under the Xero Partner Edition which allows practises to really get active in managing and supporting their clients.
As a Developer Partner (and a Xero user for Acorn Software), I was most interested in hearing where Xero is heading. Here are some of the highlights that I noted down:
By September this year there will access to automated bank feeds to many thousands of banks globally thanks to an integration with some financial aggregator that pretty much all the banks use. That means for the UK that there will be approximately 80 financial institutions with direct feeds into Xero. Can’t wait for that.
Also it is expected that by about September that Xero will be able to produce final accounts – making another compelling reason to go Xero.
As part of the above change, online filing with HMRC will become available. I’m not too clear on the dates of that coming into play – but I hope that it will in the same sort of roll out time frame.
One thing about Xero that I wasn’t previously aware about was the fact that it manages both Cash & Accrual based accounting simultaneously. All the data is in the system, you choose which reports to run and it prepare the figures accordingly. What a breath of fresh air considering the tortured process of sending these details from simPRO to Sage that we have been experiencing.
It was also interesting to hear Rod talk about coming up with the business concept for Xero and how it came from the “fundamental shift” to cloud computing being driven by the `mass’ of consumers. But for a traditional business model it is hard to create a web based business for consumers as these consumers generally want everything free (think Gmail, Facebook, Twitter etc etc). So the next largest market to target was the small business (Gary mentioned that there were 4.7 million businesses in the UK, 2 million of them with very small often with only 1 employee). There is a mass of them out there with a decent percentage of them willing pay some money for a product that either
“How can I be assured that the financial data in simPRO matches our accounts program?”
This is one of the most common questions I get from concerned bookkeepers and Accountants regarding the use of simPRO. One of the most important things to do here is to ensure that the security profiles of your users are adjusted to ensure that transactions cannot be created, deleted or edited by a staff member who does not understand the accounting implications of doing so.
If a financial transaction in simPRO has been posted to your accounts program and that transaction is to be altered or deleted, the user who has rights to do this will receive a warning message in red. The alteration will need to be manually adjusted in the accounting program as well.
The list below contains a step by step procedure that should really be followed at the end of month to ensure that your simPRO and accounts package reconcile. It could also be followed for the whole financial year when the accounts are being closed off.
We just finished a rewrite of the simPRO Sage Accounting Link (Sage Accounting Link 6). The Accounting link exists so that invoices are created in simPRO (the operations system) and then get posted across to Sage (the accounting system).
It seems that the Sage API is easier to work with than both the QuickBooks and the MYOB equivalents because we require less than half the lines of code to write the Sage link than to write the QB or MYOB links.
Here’s the stats:
QB Link (simPRO Lite and Enterprise combined) = 16,810 lines of code
MYOB Link (simPRO Enterprise only) = 15,209 lines of code
New Sage Link (simPRO Lite and Enterprise combined) = 7,263 lines of code
We can’t comment on the Xero link yet because it hasn’t been finished.
For the record the Sage link runs faster than both the QB and MYOB links. The one problem we encountered with Sage though is that it will allow duplicate entries of invoices & payments where QB & MYOB won’t. So we needed to actually write into the Sage link a duplicate entry search & denial of posting to ensure that duplicates weren’t accidentally posted.
simPRO as a SaaS product is constantly evolving to meet the demands of it’s massively growing client base. Due to needs of the growing number of companies choosing to implement simPRO to help them run their business more efficiently we are always coming across new and better ways to get the job done.
Here are some of the most recently development highlights:
CIS Management – UK Only
As part of HMRC’s attempts to control the taxation of the self-employed trades, CIS (Construction Industry Scheme) was introduced about 2 years ago as a means to collect tax from the primary contractor who withholds (usually) 20% of the labour component when they pay their subcontractors invoices.
As part of this months release of simPRO 10.5.0 there will be a full CIS integration giving complete control over invoice creation, amounts to withhold, reporting and calculating CIS payments due. Not to mention the most important thing – built in reminders that tell you when you need to complete your CIS paperwork and when to make your CIS payments to HMRC so you don’t get fined.
simPRO Enterprise will have full CIS integration making it suitable for both the prime contractor and subcontractor roles. simPRO Lite will have CIS integration only available for the subcontractor roles. This feature combined with the RCTI (recipient created tax invoice) feature means that you can now get into full control of your paperwork and the paperwork of your smaller (less organised) subcontractors.
It is designed to work for any business that gets caught up in the CIS system.
More details and screen shots will be released soon, but if you would like a copy of the scope of the CIS integration please let us know and we will be happy to forward you a copy and discuss how it will apply for your business.
We are very excited today to announce the release of our full integration of the simPRO Mobile Digital Pen with the online leader in accounting systems, Xero.
Put simply this new integration from the simPRO Mobile Digital Pen (that we internally nicknamed the Xero Pen) allows field based staff to complete an invoice sheet using a pen and paper and to have that instantly and electronically able to be updated into Xero.
Imagine the small trade service business completing their invoices at the clients site and having that invoice instantly available for a book keeper to update in Xero. Imagine a catering business delivering to their client and getting a signature on the invoice sheet before it is electronically sent and updated into Xero.
Delays in invoicing, late nights catching up on paper work and double entry of forms is now a thing of the past! Anyone in the business can now complete an invoice and have that available instantly for Xero.
The simPRO Mobile > Xero Digital Pen system works by utilising the Anoto based digital pen & paper technology to create invoice pages (either loose single sheets or duplicate sheets in pads) that are filled in using a digital pen. Once an invoice sheet is completed it is sent via Bluetooth to the users mobile phone and routed through the internet to the web based simPRO Mobile form portal.
In the form portal, the original invoice form is displayed in a PDF format showing all original handwriting and signatures and is also converted into a data file using powerful handwriting recognition software. The form is checked for accuracy and any errors can be fixed and additional items can be added if required. The form is then submitted which archives a copy in the simPRO Mobile form portal and then sends the data file to Xero where it is added in as a draft invoice.
We currently have a generic invoice form available in $, £ and € that is freely available to anyone (although it is designed to fit a service company). We plan to add other generic forms to the system over time.
Of course we can design, build and integrate any customised forms for any type of business. Forms are not just limited to invoices though, they can also be expense claims, asset registering or for any other function within Xero. And because the simPRO Mobile Digital Pen system can also send photos attached to the forms, you might be able to send copies of receipts, suppliers invoices, images of the assets being recorded etc into the simPRO form portal to accompany the forms for faster processing.
Below is a quick video showing the “Xero Pen” in action.
If you are running the Sage – simPRO Accounting Link, you may need different tax codes such as T0 – tax free, T1 – standard VAT or T9 – VAT Exempt so your invoices properly match up between simPRO & Sage for your VAT reporting.
Here is how you do that:
Set Up Different Tax Codes
The first thing to do is set up the tax codes in simPRO. Go to Admin > Setup > Tax Codes > View
This will show you all your current available tax codes.
To match them up with the standard Sage codes of T0, T1, T9 – create new tax codes by clicking “Add”. Name them the same as the Sage tax codes but drop the T – so “T1” will be listed as “1”, T0 as “0” etc and enter in the tax rate.
You can add in as many different codes as you need.
Choose which Tax Code you want to set as default (usually Tax Code 1 – Standard 17.5%). This code will automatically be inserted into all quotes & jobs unless changed.
See image below for example.
Add Sage Tax Codes
Choosing a Tax Code in a Quote/Job
When you create a job/quote, the tax rate will be set as the default rate (normally Tax Code 1 – 17.5%).
If you need to choose another Tax Code, simply open up the relevant department (note: it is to be changed in the department section not the job overview section) and click the drop down arrow on the Tax Code box and choose from your other available Tax Codes.
This will then apply the tax rate that you had set up in the Tax Code setup page and will match to the corresponding Sage tax code.
See image below.
Choose A Different Tax Code
Click `Update’ underneath the Tax Code when you have selected the new rate and it will apply to that section. If you have multiple sections where you need to have the different rate, make sure you adjust the tax code for each of those sections.
I recently read an article on the Intuit Labs Website (Intuit make QuickBooks, one of the world’s leading accounting packages for small & medium businesses) about a new Digital Pen system they are working on to integrate into their QuickBase database systems.
The video in the file shows a Dr. Gang Wang showing how a form can be digitally converted and then printed from the QuickBase Digital Pen system to work with an Anoto based digital pen. The resulting form can be completed with the digital pen then viewed back inside the QuickBase database as an image (with original handwriting) and the text then converted and merged into the correct database fields. It appears to just work with docking cradle, not via Bluetooth & mobile phone.
Dr. Wang is currently looking for companies to do some testing with them in integrating into QuickBase – once that is mastered, how long until we start to see a QuickPen with an integration option to QuickBooks?
I think that this is a great development and shows that with seriously large businesses such as Intuit starting to dabble in the digital pen business, then digital pens have really started to reach the mainstream business mind.
To help improve your productivity and reduce potential data entry errors, it is now possible to export employees times, including overtime rates and non-job related activities, from your simPRO schedule then import that into your payroll or accounting package.
You need to do a few basic setup steps in simPRO first and then you are ready to go. See these articles on the simPRO Online Resource centre:
Note: It is important to ensure that your employee schedules in simPRO are kept up to date to ensure the accuracy of the data going into your payroll/accounting package.
This function is only available on simPRO Enterprise.
With the release of windows7 and with 64-bit operating systems becoming more prevalent, the accounting links and installers have been updated.
The most important thing is that the link now installs into a common folder for all users. The location of this folder is different for each OS. For example:
The simPRO to Xero and simPRO Digital Pen to Xero integrations have now officially been released!
Absolutely agree. Empower the field worker to focus on their core responsibilities AND support the streamlining of back-end operations toward analysi
I like how straight forward the process is.
Sounds like a good idea but how is that better than just getting a pda solution for guys?
Great article. There's a lot of good information here, though I did want to let you know something - I am running Redhat with the circulating beta of
Looks good - the digital notes can also be transferred straight on the computer, right ?
Hi JDW - yes it would be a great tool for any kind of business that needs to invoice from the road. If any of your clients are contractors or service
Is this real? I need that for my new plumbing company for the lads. But we will use sage for this is there a sage pen?
Interesting - as an accountant I think that would be a great tool to use for busineses of any size that I deal with. Any ideas on when it might be