Want to quickly get your FreshBooks and IAC-EZ accounts set up and working together, like it was kismet?
This entertaining video will show you how. Handcrafted by IAC-EZ and FreshBooks user, Ali Rowan, it explains how to link the two systems, the various options that exist and everything you need to know to make sure that your IAC-EZ account and FreshBooks account play nicely together.
Welcome to a new feature in the blog. Here, I will take the time to look at a specific tab and subtab and explain what you can do with it. For people who are thinking about becoming IAC-EZ users, it will help you to understand what you can do with an IAC-EZ account. And for people who are already IAC-EZ users, it will help you to become more familiar with the service.
In today’s InDetail blog, we’ll look at your main Dashboard.
This is the default tab you see when you login to your IAC-EZ account.
This page gives you a picture of what is going on in your business. Businesses can be so chaotic and there is always so much information being thrown at a business owner, it’s hard to get a really clear picture of how you’re doing. But this will tell you.
On the top left you’ll see a summary showing a breakdown of revenue, less cost of good sold (COGS), then gross profit, less expenses, then net profit. Your goal, should you choose to accept it, is to grow that bottom number. This summary shows both the current month and the year to date.
Of course it gives you all the information at a glance. If you (or your staff) are entering income and expenses throughout the day, keep the page open and you’ll see the numbers tick up and down with each change.
Directly below that is your outstanding amounts – either stuff you expect to come in (receivables) or stuff you still have to pay (payables).
This can help you manage your accounts receivables and payables. If you notice that there are unusually high amounts of receivables or payables, figure out why. Are you accepting more work with delayed payment than you should? Have there been some unexpected bills lately?
And directly below that is your planning calendar where you’ll see dates of bills you expect to pay in red.
Watch for a cluster of bills at once – that’s a good warning sign that you might have to draw on borrowed money and credit to get you through that period.
On the right, you’ll note the recent activity list which shows some of your latest financial activity (with information buttons so you can click to learn more about each one).
If other people are entering numbers, this is great place to keep track of what other people in your organization are doing.
And directly below that is an area where we headline any news, contests, or helpful hints that you should know about.
As always, if you have any questions, don’t be shy! Ask away!
Web 2.0. You’ve heard us talk about it before. It’s a concept that has transformed the internet. IAC-EZ uses Web 2.0 concepts now (and our roadmap includes even more concepts for the future). So I want to answer the questions: What is Web 2.0 and How is IAC-EZ using it?
What is Web 2.0?
The first iteration of the web was all about bringing offline data online. Businesses would put up websites about themselves that have since been called “brochureware”. That is, the sites were one sided – businesses telling the world about themselves. The standard “old school” website is a good example.
With all of this information online and more being added every day, something needed to be done. Simply put, the amount of information was making the internet unmanageable. Not only that, businesses were realizing that they needed to do more than simply talk TO their prospects and customers… they needed to talk with them.
And that’s where web 2.0 technologies and concepts come in. While new information is continually being added, it is now being sorted, managed, and clarified through the wisdom of the crowds. In other words, it’s being used. A great example of this is a blog: An organization adds information (which might be its own information or it might be linked information or multimedia), and that information can be accessed though tags, it is commented on by others, and in some cases, it can be republished elsewhere and “mashed” (that is, reconfigured with other information).
At IAC-EZ, we love the web 2.0 concept. Some of these ideas and technologies incorporated into our site include:
This blog, of course!
You can tag your accounts with labels that will later allow you to observe their impact in your reports
You can sync your IAC-EZ and your Freshbooks account so that invoices and payments in Freshbooks are reconciled in your bookkeeping.
Even our design is reflective of web 2.0, which is marked by clear simplicity with a dash of lightheartedness!
What does tomorrow hold? If I were to gaze into my crystal ball and look into the future (or just look at the IAC-EZ roadmap), I can tell you that there are more web 2.0 features coming. We want to sync with other people, broaden the use of tags, labels, and categories, and allow you to not just put information into your IAC-EZ account but USE that information for your business? success.
We might not be there yet, or tomorrow… but we are getting there and hopefully will be ready the second ‘Web 3.0′ is released.
Business owners! I know I have your attention with that title! What business owner DOESN’T want to grow their business, especially in this economy?!?!
Well, IAC-EZ is here to help. With one simple function, IAC-EZ can help you make more sales, and make more per sale! In fact, with just the click of a single button! I like to think of it as a “grow my business” button. But in reality, it’s information that you already have in your IAC-EZ system that you can use in new ways to get more business.
From your Headquarters, go to Contacts. Then choose Customers from the submenu. (Okay, that’s not the click of a single button? it’s 2 clicks).
There’s a list of your customers (no kidding) and, their year to date invoices. From this list, you can…
Based on YTD spending, look at the top 50% of your customers and send them thank you notes and an “exclusive offer”.
Using the same YTD spending measurement, look for the lowest-spending 50% and figure out why they’re not spending more. Are they going to a competitor? (If so, find out why). Are they simply a smaller company and need less of your goods? (If so, help them grow with useful advice and suggestions that will make YOU a higher value vendor). Are they under a budgetary strain and can’t buy as much as they’d like? (If so, see if you can’t work out another kind of deal with them: perhaps a payment plan).
Determine what factor is similar among your customers who spend more, which is not similar among your customers who spend less ? then hone your marketing to reach more customers who are like your biggest customers.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.
If you want to continue to grow your business, click one more click. From the list of customers, click on any given customer. That will take you to a list of their spending at your company. Look at that list for each of your top-spending customers. What do you notice? Are there purchasing trends? If so, are those trends seasonal? Are they related to the economy? Are they impacted by some other kind of cycle? Try to determine what those cycles are and then…
Contact your customer proactively and remind them that it’s time to purchase more of whatever you’re offering.
Recommend that, if they bought 10 widgets one month and 10 the next month in past years, they could buy 20 and get a bulk discount this year.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S EVEN MORE.
If that’s not enough ideas, I’ve got one more. I want you to look at your contact list and think about who is NOT on there. If I’m not mistaken, you probably have a list of people you decided not to enter onto your contacts page… probably because they were previous customers who hadn’t bought from you in a while. Go dig up that list and call them. Ask them to do business with you again and offer them an incentive to come back to you.
Imagine spending more of your valuable time and resources on growing your business instead of administrative work; imagine focusing your energy on your customers instead of on your bookkeeping; imagine making better business decisions based on more accurate information rather than on estimates and guesswork. IAC-EZ helps you to run your business more efficiently and profitably with our easy-to-use bookkeeping interface that does all the hard work for you! Save time, money and effort while you grow your business. Meet the team, take the tour, and sign up for your free trial.
