Up Close and Personal

by Doug Deane, President of DSD

The San Diego East County Chamber of Commerce just held its 12th annual Ethics in Business program for high school seniors. I founded this program back in 1989, and it's based on the same set of values and ethics that we live by here at DSD. Every year, we take about 120 students from 10 high schools in the East County, and we expose them to scenarios, experiences, and dilemmas that will prepare them to handle the many ethical challenges that will face them in their personal and business lives. We were lucky enough to have won the 2003 California Foundation for Commerce and Education Award last year for this program. A reference to the award can be found at: www.eastcountychamber.org.

Ron Hutzul on our staff joined me this year, and I think that he'd agree that the 30 or so facilitators from our business community get just as much out of the program as the students. It never ceases to amaze me how bright and thoughtful our high school students are. In these times of reduced budgets and increasing class size, I think that it's really important for the business community to come together to improve the quality of our children's education. If you are a Chamber of Commerce member in any city, I would strongly encourage you to participate in your chamber's business education committee.

The students in our program are most engaged by our definition of ethics. It's not just about honesty, it's also very much about not being manipulative, controlling, roundabout or insensitive. At DSD and in our Ethics in Business program, we define "ethics" as how you treat people. We think that more than any other factor, your ethics will determine how successful you'll be in your professional and personal life. We encourage you to look at DSD's Statement of Values on our website's About Us page.

-Doug

Managing Your Growth with Sage Software

In this new online series, Sage Software product and solutions experts spotlight the new features of MAS 90 and MAS 200 4.0-as well as some of the Sage Software add-on solutions currently available. You will see these products demonstrated and learn how they can add further functionality to your current MAS 90 and MAS 200 system. By automating complex processes with new software solutions, you can eliminate time-consuming steps and improve your company's profitability. And for customers that are looking for more advanced capabilities, migration to MAS 500 could be just the software you need to take your business to the next level. In the convenience of your home or office, please join us for an informative online session to learn more about the right direction for your organization.

The available dates are:

• March 17, 2004 9:00 - 10:30am
• April 21, 2004 9:00 - 10:30am
• May 19, 2004 9:00 - 10:30am
• July 21, 2004 9:00 - 10:30am

MAS 90 and MAS 200 4.0 - Best's Most Significant Release Yet!

MAS 90 and MAS 200 Version 4.0 represents the most significant release in Sage Software’s history! Attend this Web event and be among the first to see this exciting new version of MAS 90 and MAS 200 in action.

The available dates are:

• March 16, 2004 10:00 am - 11:00am
• March 30, 2004 10:00 am - 11:00am
• April 6, 2004 10:00 am - 11:00am

To Register for the above webinars, please contact your Account Manager, Stephanie Smith at 619-683-9900 or StephanieS@dsdinc.com. 

Existing Customers

• Receive Up to a 15% Discount on Manufacturing Modules*

• Receive a 15% Discount on the Purchase of the Starship Module*

*Some restrictions may apply. Please contact Stephanie Smith for further details and other available promotions.

by Josh Thigpen

MAS 500 version 6.3 was released in September and DSD is spotlighting some of the powerful new features that have been incorporated in this release. In this month’s feature, we’ll outline improvements to the Manufacturing module. Best has made significant improvements to Manufacturing’s integration with the rest of the package as well as adding a number of valuable enhancements directly to the Manufacturing module.

For those organizations that use project accounting, Best has made significant strides in improving the integration between PA and the Manufacturing module. Once a project is posted in 6.3, the Generate Work Orders button becomes available and this allows you to tag work orders to specific items on that project. This allows manufacturers to group work orders to a project for costing purposes. To go along with this new “tagged Work Order” function, Best has also improved the Work Order inquiry to include Project and Master Project ID navigator options, and they’ve added a Project and Master Project MRP button, which allows project managers to run mini-MRP for single projects and gain greater insight into their future requirements.

Purchase Order Generation from MRP is also improved in this new release allowing improved consolidation of planned purchase orders. This not only reduces the number of purchase orders generated, but makes order management that much simpler. Sales Order also has improved integration with the ability to generate a work order from the out of stock manager, allowing the sales staff to jump-start the process of replenishing, leaving the production manager to perform scheduling and logistics tasks. Additionally, you now have the ability to explode BOM on quotes and sales order acknowledgments for configured and simple bills of material, as well as control the explosion of the first level of the BOM and the printing of any Configurator options.

Best has also made a number of enhancements to the Manufacturing module itself including merging Inventory and Manufacturing Cost tiers, which means that the inventory cost tiers now include all manufacturing cost components. The BOM report now allows sorting and selection by routing ID and status and the Work Order Picklist can now be saved and reprinted. Machines, Work Centers and Tools see improvements in maintenance and inspection functionality. Inspection dates have been added allowing preventative maintenance on tools and machines and assign employees to conduct those inspections. On completion, you can trap any comments associated with the inspection in history. To better manage this functionality, Best has added alerts for inspection and overdue inspections, which will send notifications to assigned employees (identified as inspectors in Business Alerts), making the management of this critical process automated.

For more information on MAS 500 please contact Josh Thigpen of DSD Professional Services at 619-683-9900 or JoshT@dsdinc.com.

As you may know, TeleMagic is at the end of it's life span. Technical support is no longer available from Best Software, and no new versions have been created in two years. However, Best Software would like to keep you in the "family". DSD Business Systems, in conjunction with Sage Software is offering a deal of a lifetime for those TeleMagic installation that would like to upgrade to something more robust - SalesLogix.

Until the end of March, you can upgrade from TeleMagic to SalesLogix on a license-for-license basis for 50% off the retail price of SalesLogix. In addition, your mandatory maintenance and support fees, which usually adds 20% to the cost of the software, have been waived for the first year. There is no requirement to purchase additional maintenance and support in subsequent years, but it is usually a good idea to do so.

SalesLogix boasts many features, including multiple contacts and opportunities for a given account record, a "tabbed" interface for additional information on a given record, excellent integration to Microsoft Outlook, literature requests and fulfillment, a customer service and support module, sales forecasting, and automated processes. In many cases, customization is just not necessary because SalesLogix contains everything you need to get your sales, marketing, and support efforts to the next level.

Many clients using SalesLogix have reported to us that using this product is so easy that it actually doubled their sales within one year. Why doesn't your company become one of the many happy statistics? Contact Stephanie Smith (StephanieS@dsdinc.com) at 619-683-9900 today to ask for your upgrade to SalesLogix.

In these days of cut-throat competition, the more information you have in one place on your customer, the better. DynaLink for SalesLogix raises the bar for your business by linking your MAS 90, MAS 200 or MAS 500 accounting software with SalesLogix.

Inside of SalesLogix, you can see a customer's current balances, invoice history, open orders, and even the last payment received. All this without leaving a SalesLogix screen. Reporting on past sales plus future opportunities for a given client becomes a far more easier task than ever. You can even place a sales order in MAS 90, MAS 200 or MAS 500 just by clicking one button in SalesLogix!

Give your sales and customer service people the tools they need to excel in your business. Contact Nicole Stone (Nicoles@dsdinc.com) or Stephanie Smith (StephanieS@dsdinc.com) at 619-683-9900 for more information about DynaLink for SalesLogix.

The "Sales Edition" from SalesLogix is an inexpensive way for smaller businesses to harness the power of a full CRM system without the full system price tag. For just under $3500 (excluding sales tax), you can get a 5 user SalesLogix system that includes a SQL based engine, a full featured sales client - Account records, Contact records, and opportunity records. Also included are automatic processes for streamlining the sales process, a complete integration to Microsoft Outlook's E-mail and Calendaring capabilities, literature fulfillment features, activity and task management, and a full mail merge and e-mail merge capability. You can even deploy remote users on their laptops with a copy of SalesLogix, so that your road warriors know what's up with a given customer. Additional users for this system are just under $700.

Contact Nicole Stone (NicoleS@dsdinc.com) at 619-683-9900 for more information on this affordable way to get the best - SalesLogix.

What are Opportunity records and how can they help?

1. The company (account) of the potential sale.
2. The expected decision date.
3. The potential amount of the sale (goods and services).
4. The chance of winning that potential sale.
5. The list of contacts for the account that is associated with the potential sale, including their role and influence.
6. The competition, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Once this is documented, potential sales can be marked as “Closed – Won” or “Closed – Lost” when a decision has been made, as well as tracking the reasons why the potential sale was won or lost.

1. The ratio of deals that have been won to the number of potential deals.
2. The “pipeline” timeframe for an average sale.
3. A forecast of what can be expected to close next week, month, etc.
4. A listing of all pending proposals. (Places focus on the follow-up of the “low-hanging fruits.”)
5. History of proposals made to a company in the past. 
6. With the proper accounting link, opportunities can easily be converted into sales order in the accounting system. 

For more information about using the Opportunity System in SalesLogix more effectively, please contact Mike Mahoney (MikeM@dsdinc.com or 619-683-9900).