What is Online Benefits Enrollment?

Online benefits enrollment software allows employees to use the Internet (or their company network) to securely access information about benefit policies and prices.  Employees are guided step-by-step through the process of selecting the benefits they wish to participate in and enter the necessary information into online enrollment forms. 

Once the employee enters data online, the information is immediately available to HR for review & approval and can automatically update your HRMS system thus eliminating duplicate data entry.  Online Benefits Enrollment software also provides tracking and reporting features that allow HR personnel to monitor the progress of each employee through the open enrollment process.  You can even set up automatic email reminders that are sent to employees who have not completed the enrollment process in a timely manner. In addition, newly hired employees can enroll in benefit plans and current employees can update information from life events that impact their benefits.

Sounds Interesting but What are the Benefits?

Reduced HR Call Volume – because employees have direct online access to important details during the enrollment process, they are able to easily find answers to common questions on their own.

Shorter Cycle Times – Research suggests that a paper-based open enrollment process can take 6 to 8 weeks (from assembly & distribution of forms to manual completion and submission of those forms to HR).  Online benefits enrollment software can streamline that process down to 3 weeks or less.

Eliminate Duplicate Data Entry – you can completely eliminate duplicate data entry with an online benefits enrollment solution that integrates with your existing Sage Abra HRMS software.

Reduce Material Costs – paper, printing, and postage are essentially eliminated by removing paper from the process and directing employees to electronic resources for forms and benefit details.

Sage Abra Benefits Enrollment

Your Sage Abra system offers an integrated Benefits Enrollment module that will save your company countless hours and piles of paperwork.  Easy, step-by-step wizards guide administrators through the benefit plan set-up process, and walk employees through open enrollment. It even includes year-round life events management that allow employees to update information such as marital status and dependents.  Perhaps best of all, it’s completely integrated with your Sage Abra HRMS system which eliminates duplicate data entry.

Read the whitepaper “Paperless Benefits Management Strategies: Containing Costs and Complexity on a Budget” for more details of the benefits of Online Benefits Enrollment.

Marketing
For many businesses, customer relationships are considerably more profitable after the initial sale.  Implementing marketing programs aimed at current customers can be an important advantage in building customer loyalty and mutually beneficial relationships.

SageCRM Marketing empowers your marketing team with tools to plan, execute, and evaluate the performance of targeted marketing campaigns.  You can segregate campaigns aimed at new business vs. those that are targeted to existing customers as well as track and measure every phase of a given campaign.  SageCRM Marketing also allows you to build a detailed profile of your customers over the course of your relationship to ensure that marketing communication is highly relevant.  With the right information, your marketing team make can design effective promotions based on a customer’s previous purchases, product preferences, and other important characteristics of your relationship.

Customer Care
Sales and marketing bring new customers to your business, but your Customer Service department keeps them with you for the long haul.  SageCRM Customer Care provides your customer service personnel with fast access to service requests, call and escalation history, recent customer communications, support cases, email communication,  documents sent and received, and much more.  Plus, all service and support activities are captured in SageCRM so that you start to build a knowledgebase of common issues and resolutions.  Your service reps can then use that knowledgebase to quickly resolve common challenges.

Whether you sell products that require technical support or offer service agreements that continue well beyond the initial sale, SageCRM Customer Care provides the tools you need to manage resources, quickly resolve issues, track customer requests, provide high quality service, and build long-lasting and loyal relationships.  And with all of that information at their fingertips, your customer service reps will have a better opportunity to cross-sell complementary products and services.

Mobile Access
If you have service personnel that work in the field, then all that great customer information stored in SageCRM is rendered useless unless you can provide access to your field personnel.  That’s where SageCRM Mobile Solutions comes in.  Using a PDA, your field service reps have real-time access to customer contact information, account history, and can schedule follow up activities and appointments.  Or you can use the web to access the same features … even if you’re not connected, you can work offline and synchronize with the SageCRM database later.

By enabling sales and service personnel to securely access SageCRM using the web or mobile device, you’ll ensure they have information available to resolve customer issues quickly, place orders efficiently, and keep customers happy.

Try SageCRM free for 30 days!

What’s New in SageCRM v7.0?

It’s a simple premise … the sooner a company knows about an issue, the sooner they can react and take steps to resolve the problem.  Whether inventory is running low, a vendor delivery is late, accounts receivable invoices are past due, or a customer problem has cropped up, your reaction time will determine how significant, or insignificant, the impact on your business will be.  Let’s take a look at how automated business alerts can improve your reaction time.

Eliminate the Slack with Business Alerts
With the right technology, you can dramatically shorten the delay between the occurrence of an event and delivery of notification to the right person.  Business Alerts for Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 can help you do just that.  The Business Alerts Module utilizes your email system to notify you whenever a significant event occurs in your system.  You define the events and parameters that trigger the alerts and the targeted individuals that will receive email notification when the event occurs.  You’ll also benefit from configurable, pre-built alerts that are simple to use and included with the module or build custom alerts to meet your specific needs.

Tug O’ War – Push vs. Pull
Traditional reports provide valuable information and allow you to analyze large volumes of historical data in an easy-to-read format.  However since the data is typically “pulled” from the system well after the fact, reports may not be the best medium for real-time information delivery.  Relying solely on reports is a bit like looking at your business through the rear view mirror.  On the other hand, the Business Alerts Module embraces the concept of “pushing” information out to email recipients as events occur.  When used together, traditional reporting combined with Business Alerts will transform your company into a fast-reacting and nimble enterprise.

Better Communication
In addition to keeping your staff better informed and alert (pun intended), Business Alerts can also send email notifications to customers, vendors, and anyone else that interacts with your organization.  This feature is especially useful for automatically sending past due reminders, shipping notification, and low inventory alerts.  Business alerts will also reach your staff, customers, and vendors anywhere they do business … in the office or on the road through a laptop, mobile phone, BlackBerry, or any other device with email access.

Companies with quick reaction times have a competitive advantage and can deliver better customer service.  

View this 8 minute demo of how an employee can use Business Alerts to stay on top of their tasks and keep his/her finger on the pulse of your business.

If you want to reshape that box of software to create a custom fit, then you should consider the Sage MAS 500 Customizer module.  It allows you to modify screens, forms, toolbar buttons, terminology, and add or remove data entry fields so your Sage MAS 500 installation fits you like a glove.

Do I have to be a Technical Wizard to Use It?

The short answer is … it depends.  What does it depend on?  The level of complexity of the modifications you’d like to make. Most cosmetic changes can be made without extensive programming knowledge.  It’s relatively easy to re-order the tab sequence, change screen text and colors, and deactivate fields you rarely use. 

But if you want to kick it up a notch and really give your Sage MAS 500 system an extreme makeover, Customizer is flexible enough to significantly alter the application interface, add new screens and fields, and really get your hands dirty with Microsoft VBScript and source code.

Improve Workflow and Efficiency

Customizations can be created for each user or group of users based on the way THEY use the system.  Does your order entry staff have to tab through a bunch of fields they never use?  Get rid of those fields with Customizer and clean up their screen.  Want to create an interface to another system used in your company?  Customizer has you covered.  Any way you slice it, you’ll improve productivity, streamline workflow, and reduce data entry time because Customizer makes Sage MAS 500 work the way you do … not the other way around. 

And from a security and maintenance standpoint, customizations are stored on your MAS 500 server, not on individual workstations.  That makes it easy to manage all customizations from a single location as well as roll those customizations forward when you upgrade to a new version.

Break out of the box with the Sage MAS 500 Customizer module. 

Download the spec sheet for more information on Customizer features and reports.

Better Cash Flow and AR Collections
SageCRM provides an “AR Collections Manager” that allows your accounting personnel to prioritize and manage customer collections and rapidly convert outstanding invoices into cash in the bank.  The AR Collections Manager consolidates outstanding account information into a single view that combines graphs and data in tables that allow you to quickly identify potential problems and schedule follow up action.

Plus, the integrated Calendar and Task Manager takes you beyond a static printed aging report and arms you with tools to prioritize collection calls, escalate accounts, and schedule automatic email reminders.  And since everyone in your organization is working from the same Extended Enterprise database, your sales people will have access to customer history and can help keep the collections process moving during their interaction with customers.

No More Hand Holding
No doubt your accounting department receives multiple requests each week from sales and customer service regarding status of orders, shipments, refunds, credit lines, payments received, and endless other accounting and operational inquiries.  With Extended Enterprise Suite, SageCRM can provide a window to Sage MAS 90 and 200 because all data is centralized in a single database.  That means sales and customer service personnel get fast answers using SageCRM to perform their own operational inquiries while Accounting benefits from fewer daily interruptions.  In fact with appropriate security settings, sales can enter orders directly into Sage MAS 90 and 200 from the SageCRM desktop.

Improve Vendor Management
SageCRM makes it easy to stay on top of vendor discounts, track special contract arrangements, and process purchasing requests and quotes in a timely fashion.  With the Calendar and Task Management functions, you can set up task reminders to take advantage of timely payment discounts.  Using the Communication Management function of SageCRM, you can keep track of key members of your Vendor’s team and collect all agreements and documents in one place which will ensure fantastic vendor relationships.

Those are just a few examples of how SageCRM and the Sage MAS 90 and 200 Extended Enterprise Suites will transform your business from a restricted enterprise with departmental bottlenecks to an integrated and free-flowing extended enterprise.

Learn more…

What is ESS?
ESS technology provides a central location for company personnel to view and update important personal data and company information. As the name suggests, ESS enables employees and managers to “self serve” (rather than contacting the HR department) for routine tasks or inquiries such as time-off requests, review of current benefits, updating dependents, review record of attendance, and more.  ESS access is typically delivered over the internet or company intranet.

The Benefits that ESS Offers
By automating employee activities such as time-off requests & approvals or dependent/beneficiary changes, companies can save considerable administrative time and expense associated with paper-based forms and manual processes.  Other benefits of ESS include:

• Elimination of Duplicate Data Entry and Better Accuracy – By allowing employees to enter routine record changes themselves, you eliminate the need to have HR staff re-enter the same information on a paper form or into an HR or payroll system.  This also helps to reduce errors.
• Reduced Transaction Costs - Partially or completely replacing paper-based processes reduces (or completely eliminates) the time and costs associated with copying, routing, printing, mailing, filing, and storing paper.
• Improved Focus – ESS technology allows HR staff to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as employee retention strategies or developing competitive benefits packages, rather than getting bogged down by routine administrative functions.

Introducing Sage Abra ESS
Sage Abra ESS will streamline your company’s HR processes and give employees ownership of their personal information.  Employees can request time-off, review benefits information, access performance reviews, update specific fields, and review payroll information.  Managers can view a direct reports’ personnel file, view and post employee notes, review attendance information, and approve time-off requests.  Companies can also post important documents and messages for employees to review.  Perhaps best of all, submitted and approved changes are automatically updated from ESS to the Sage Abra database which eliminates duplicate data entry and possible errors.

See Employee Self Service in action by viewing this 4 minute demo video.

Microsoft is offering a $200 per user cash incentive to any organization that transitions from Salesforce.com or Oracle to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.  This offer is available through June 30, 2011 and can be combined with the discounted pricing of $34 per user per month for Dynamics CRM 2011 Online, which will be available in January 2011.  Learn more about the “Cloud CRM for Less” offer today!

Sage is offering two versions of their “Switch and Save” offer.  Organizations interested in either Sage SalesLogix (on premise) or SageCRM save 60% off  the software license price, 5% off a 2 year maintenance and support contract, and a 10% discount on data conversion services from your Sage software partner, like Socius.  Organizations that prefer Sage SalesLogix Cloud Advanced Edition are eligible to receive a discounted rate of $40 per user per month for the term of the contract, with a 10-user minimum when switching from an eligible CRM product.

To be eligible for either of the Sage customer relationship management offers, an organization must have a current licence of one of the following competitor’s products:  Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, SugarCRM®, GoldMine®, Maximizer, Siebel, Pivotal, Onyx.

Let us know if you are looking to make a switch to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Sage SalesLogix, or SageCRM.

What’s new in Accounts Payable?

ACH Electronic Payments
Increase your efficiencies, improve your cash management, reduce operating costs and lessen the risk of lost or stolen checks by paying vendors electronically using an ACH file created from the Accounts Payable module.

You have the flexibility to select and set up one or more financial institution(s) for your electronic payments, and for each one you select, define the format and layout of the ACH file. The feature includes pre-note functionality, and flexibility in your electronic payment distribution, including options to allocate amounts between one or more accounts.

ACH information on processed payments, historical information and vendors paid electronically is available on AP Reports. They can include auto checks, manual checks, voided checks, reversals, credit card transfers, electronic payments, wire transfer information in any combination.

New Menu Selections:

Electronic Distribution with Accounts Payable Checks, Extended Stubs, and Electronic Payment Remittance Advices

Save time, money, and the environment by utilizing Paperless Office to process, send and retain electronic copies of Accounts Payable checks and extended stubs, and remittance advices created for ACH Electronic Payments in PDF format. Easily access PDFs using the Vendor Viewer from Paperless Office or the Checks panel in Vendor Maintenance Inquiry. 

By Alan Niergarth, an Ohio Sage software consultant

1. Contract Pricing (Item) – This is where per customer and warehouse you define what a customer will pay for an individual item.
2. Contract Pricing (Product Price Group) – This is where per customer and warehouse you define what a customer will pay for a product price group. A product price group is assigned to an item. An item may have only one product price group.
3. Inventory Pricing (Customer Price Group) – This is where per item and warehouse you define the customer price group. A customer price group is assigned to a customer. A customer may have only one customer price group.
4. Inventory Pricing (Standalone) – This is where per item and warehouse you define the price for an inventory item.
5. Matrix Pricing by Customer Price Group (or by Product Price group) – Once the product price groups and customer price groups are established, this is where you can enter specific price information for a product price group and/or customer price group combination.
6. Product Price Group – If no matrix pricing is established, pricing options can be established when building the product price groups.
7. Customer Price Basis – On the customer record, you can define per customer how to calculate the price of the item. You choose a price base for the customer. The choices are: Average Cost, List Price, Price sheet 1, Price sheet 2, Price sheet 3, Price sheet 4, replacement cost and standard cost. You can also define a percentage to add to the base price for the customer.
8. Standard Price of the Item – If none of the above exists then the standard price of the item is used.

MAS 500 can also establish promotional pricing. Here you can establish a date range for the promotion as well as add items to the promotion. In determining the sale price if a promotion exists, MAS 500 will use the 8-step hierarchy from above and also calculate the promotional price and will return to the sales order the lower of the two prices.

When establishing pricing in the difference variations, MAS 500 gives us the ability to establish an effective date and expiration date. Besides different methods for calculating the price (Eg..Discount %, Discount Amt., Markup %, Markup amt.), MAS 500 also lets us define quantity break pricing if needed.

The different pricing features of MAS 500 allow flexibility to match your current pricing model. The key is defining how your pricing model works now. In most cases, once defined, MAS 500 has been able to fit the needs of pricing products to customers. 

By Ohio Sage MAS 500 Consultant, Jeff Steel

Saugatuck Technology recently released the findings of their 2010 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) survey via a whitepaper sponsored by Sage, “Software-as-a-Service: Managing Key Concerns and Considerations.”  One of the key findings of the survey indicated that by 2012 50% of small and midsized businesses will have adopted a SaaS-based or Cloud-computing CRM system.

Although growth in this market-space seems certain, there are still some concerns with the SaaS platform that are shaping the decision making processes of those adopting Cloud-based CRM solutions.  According to Saugatuck, the top three concerns that SMBs weigh when selecting a Cloud CRM solution are:

• Data security and privacy
• Data and transaction integrity
• Customization for unique business requirements

Although data security and privacy is far and away the greatest concern for most SMBs, very few take into consideration the security and privacy gains that can be attained through a single-tenant system vs. a multi-tenant system.  Only 8% of respondents indicated that they would take multi-tenancy into consideration when selecting a cloud-based CRM solution, despite the fact that a single tenant system would improve security and eliminate the chance for data to accidentally be migrated from one company to another, which is possible on a multi-tenant system.

Whether this is due to confidence in the multi-tenant system’s security, a lack of knowledge of the differences between single and multi tenant systems, or a cost-savings on the multi-tenant systems that outweighs the risks, is not addressed in the paper.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know how multi-tenancy vs. single-tenancy factors into your CRM cloud computing decision.