Use Your Reporting Tools

Spreadsheets are great for calculating interest but they are not an effective way to generate reports. Use your software. Today every business management software package has some kind of custom report writer available, yet many businesses are creating their business critical reports using Excel. Learning your system’s custom reporting tool and creating your reports using these tools will provide companies with huge return. Once custom reports are created, and all transactions are completed for that accounting period, then reports are generated at the touch of a button and the report contains actual data. Spreadsheet reports require too much time for data entry, possibility for data entry error and probability of formula corruption. Spreadsheet reports lack timeliness, integrity and the ability to reproduce historical reports.

LinkedIn, Common Craft and a nugget buried in the FAQ

By Brian Rice

In the latest issue of the Peachtree Insider (find the pdf version here), Sage continues to provide some pretty useful information about the software. In this issue, they also step outside the typical boundries and write just a bit about LinkedIn (find my profile here). They do a fair job at outlining LinkedIn, but I’ve always thought the best way to explain a concept is through an example and the folks at Common Craft have nailed it with their unique style which is clever in its own way. Take a look here.

Sage still provides some helpful information about modifying your printed forms to show your company’s image. One of the most useful items is down in the Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: How can I get a detailed purchase and sales history for specific inventory items?

A: Try printing the Item Costing Report found in the Inventory report group. Click the Options button for this
report to report on a range or specific inventory items.

Let us know how you use LinkedIn, what you think about Common Craft or what FAQ you would like to have answered by leaving a comment.

Improve Productivity By Using The Keyboard

In the latest issue of The Peachtree Insider, the tip of the month addresses keyboard shortcuts: a way to keep your hands on the keyboard rather than slowing down to move to the mouse for a couple of clicks just to go back to the keyboard. If you are unfamiliar with reasons why you might want to leave your mouse alone, read this.

While the short list included is a fine start, it hardly scratches the surface on ways you can keep your productivity up by keeping your fingers on the keyboard. Going beyond mere keyboard shortcuts, other tools are available to help with text substitution. Text substitution is a system in which a user creates a hotstring (specific characters) that when typed are automatically replaced with a longer string of text. For example, rather than typing the entire name of our company, I can simply type A-S-L to get Acuity Solutions, LLC.

I recommend Texter from the folks at Lifehacker.com which works across all Windows applications so you can use it in Peachtree, Word, Excel, Outlook…you get the idea. Texter allow users to include date and time variables in text replacement and punctuation can be used in hotstrings. By the way, it’s free.

If you’re using text substitution, let us know how it works for you. We also want to hear any others ways you avoid the mouse.