Rick's Articles & Media

I thought I would share this article with my partners. Feel free to share with your contacts. This article was published by Ruthann P. Lacey. Ms. Lacey is a client and an attorney specializing in the legal needs of the elderly and those with special needs. Ms. Lacey is nationally recognized as an expert in…

In late 2008 the Payment Card Industry released the Data Security Standard Requirements and Security Assessment Procedures (PCI DSS). This security requirement now applies to all businesses, regardless of size, which take payment from customers in the form of Credit Cards. Generally speaking, the PCI DSS requires businesses to take reasonable and appropriate measures to…

It is pretty common knowledge that SMBs are the victims of workplace fraud 9 times more frequently that larger businesses. The main reason is that there is no separation of duties because the lone accountant/bookkeeper handles all accounting transactions. Often the only control in place is that the business owner signs all outgoing checks. Clearly…

In the service businesses which require technicians to travel to customer locations to respond to customer calls and generate revenue there are unique requirements and challenges to be met in order to be successful. At a high level there must be good processes in place to: Take customer service calls and dispatch technicians Dispatch a…

In the course of working with my clients I am often asked to help with personnel issues ranging from hiring, to termination, to rehabilitation and everything in between. In the markets we serve, which are the owners of SMBs, it is more likely than not there will be no HR department, or anyone in the…

QuickBooks Enterprise is the top of the product line for Intuit’s Financial Management and Reporting family of software products. At first glance, the features in QB Enterprise (QBES) look exactly the same as those in the Pro and Premier products. The look and feel of the GUI are exactly the same. However, QBES is the…

In January I started work with the owner of a specialty law practice. The owner wanted help in 2 broad areas. First, he wanted help, or really someone to take over the financial operations of the practice so he could focus on the business, clients, and staff. Second, he wanted to grow the business by…

In November 2009 I was hired to select and implement a business application in a Paint Manufacturing business. For the prior 15 years the company had used QuickBooks but had never gotten the training or consulting help to set up their inventory items correctly. They had tracked their COGS via countless spreadsheets and did manual…

Last month I successfully implemented another Fishbowl Inventory project for an Alpharetta based firm. This company bought and sold used technology equipment and had formerly relied on a very old DOS based system and countless spreadsheets to manage and track their inventory and the financials were created by entering summary journal entries for sales, expenses, and inventory…

In the past few months I have had more than a few calls from QB customers or clients of my partners who have started experiencing severe problems associated with large QB Company files. The problems are usually slow performance, long running reports, QB freezing or crashing, and other similar issues. Last month I received yet…