BQE Software eLetter
January 2005
In This Issue
1. New Year's
Resolutions
2. BillQuick
Add-Ons
3. Resolution Incentives
4. Continued by Popular Demand
5. Your Voice Will Be Heard - Payroll Preferences Survey
6. Beta Testers Wanted
7. FREE TS2BQ Conversion
8. BillQuick Quizzer - $50 For The Right Answer
9. Current BillQuick Release Information
New Year's Resolutions
New diet
plan? Measuring weight loss in hundredths of a pound? Fighting dreams of. . .
Pecan
PIE!! 
Don't give
up. Keep striving for a healthier lifestyle.
Of course,
that takes time and money, which in turn means you
need to make those non-billable, administrative hours that creep into your work life into
billable hours and free time for your loved ones (or your golf game).
BillQuick Add-Ons
Got reports
you want to see every day, every week or every month? Maybe your project managers need to
review and update project status every Monday and review time, expenses and invoices on
the 25th of each month. And the person who handles past due accounts needs an
aging report on the 10th of each month.
Easy, you
say. Just print them. Click, click.
Yes, of
course, you can. It always happens this way because you have a steady, even-keeled
operation that remains perfectly aligned to your needs. No clients interrupt the flow.
Staff and projects always run without a hitch. Your people are the center of the universe,
never leaving the office. Time and expenses are always recorded promptly. And reports wait
patiently on your desk for your attention.
Smooth
sailing, day in and day out.
Okay, now the
reality of your life. Everything and everyone competes for your time. You make
appointments with yourself to manage your firm. You need information to make strategic and
tactical decisions. Generating the same report on the day and time you set aside to review
it can take a few to many minutes depending on printer speed, volume of data, and a lot of
other factors. Interviewed BillQuick customers say they, or their administrative staff,
spend 2 to 5 hours a month generating reports. In most firms, principals and managers
generate their own reports, losing time as they wait.
Workflow Automation
That
non-billable time can be recovered. Agent
Pro, a workflow automation tool for BillQuick, lets you select any BillQuick report
with filters, then schedule it to print daily, weekly, monthly, or on a certain day. Wait,
there’s more! You can also tell Agent
Pro where to deliver the report---your email In Box, a printer or your desktop.
That comes
very close to the ideal: Having reports waiting for you to review them.
Agent
Pro also recovers non-billable hours typically spent tracking timesheets and
“reminding” (a.k.a nagging) staff and managers (and firm owners) “to get in
your time.” In some firms the monthly billing cycle sees the whip cracker ride
through the office. In others the reminder “No time, no pay” induces a flurry of
time recording.
Agent
Pro recovers hours by automatically tracking time entry for each employee, whether it
is daily, weekly or whatever. When the firm’s time recording rules are not met, Agent
Pro informs the person responsible for the task, who in turn can send an email
reminder with a click of the mouse. An added benefit is more frequent time capture results
in more billable hours and more accurate time.
Got
QuickBooks and wish you could automatically schedule and deliver reports from it too?
Well, you can. AutoReporter,
a second workflow automation tool from BQE Software, provides the same reporting
capabilities as Agent Pro, but for QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise, version
2003, 2004 and 2005.
Hi-Ho, Silver – Away! (Again)
For many
firms, staff and managers are periodically, if not constantly, mobile. They head to the
field to check out a project. They travel from client to client, delivering services and
managing client relationships. For example, an accountant or computer consultant may work
with a client’s software and hardware. A project manager for an engineering firm may
spend 90% of his time in the field, managing several projects across a city or a region.
Then
there’s the issue of remote personnel. Engineers, accountants or subcontractors
brought aboard to augment resources for a project who work from home or a satellite
office. Their time and expenses must be accurate and timely just like an employee’s.
Lost administrative hours can be enormous in these situations, 4 to 20 hours per month
according to BillQuick users.
You can
recover those hours without losing accuracy or timeliness, or compromising security, with
a variety of BillQuick add-on modules. Pick the add-on or add-ons that fit your
situation.
Consider
first the nature of the situation. If your mobile personnel can access the Internet from a
client’s office or a hotel room, then Web
i Time & Expense would be an excellent option. They log into your
firm’s secure web page, enter time and expenses using screen similar to
BillQuick’s time and expense entry, then log off. You can bill the client before the
person returns to the office.
Or, if your
traveling personnel have Cell Phone/PDA devices such as the Treo 600 or Samsung PDA Phone,
then BillQuick
Mobile is the simplest and fastest solution. Anywhere they can get a cell phone
signal, the build-in web browser will allow them to efficiently and rapidly record time
and expenses. BillQuick
Mobile’s user interface and data flow is optimized for the lower bandwidth of
cell phones.
Both the BillQuick
Web i and BillQuick
Mobile modules instantly and securely update your BillQuick firm database. If you
prefer to use email, BillQuick
eTools passes information via binary email attachments.
 When
an Internet connection is not available, time and expenses can still be efficiently,
quickly and accurately captured using PDAs. BillQuick
Palm supports any device with Palm OS 3.0 or higher. For Windows CE 3.0 or Pocket PC
2000 or better operating systems, BillQuick
CE is available. Both modules offer intuitive interfaces, two-way synchronization of
time, expense, projects, activities, and other items updated since the last auto-sync,
synchronization of multiple PDAs from the same PC, and a built-in Timer that works even
when your PDA is turned off. The modules automatically integrate with the BillQuick
program and your firm's database.
Resolution Incentives -- 15%, 20%, 25%
Making recommendations is not enough here at BQE Software. We
provide incentives:
15% Off any new
add-on module
AND There's NO LIMIT
on the number of modules you can buy
Wait, there's more!
BQE Software is also offering 15%, 20% or 25% Off additional user
licenses for BillQuick or any add-on module you currently own or buy.
BillQuick Customers who have a current Gold Support contract for
the software for which they want to expand user licenses can take 25% Off the list price.
Customers with a Standard Support contract receive 20% Off the list price. And those who
do not have a support contract receive 15% Off.
How this for a kicker?
When you purchase a new BillQuick add-on module AND a Gold Support
contract for the module, you receive 25% Off BOTH. That 25% off the module's list price
and 25% off the Gold Support annual contract fee.
This special offer ends January 31, 2005.
Drop those pounds. Eat healthier. Don't lose time.
And let BQE Software help you get gain more billable hours and
free time.
Continued by Popular Demand--
20% Off BillQuick Training Courses
Productivity is key to success. Not only new employees suffer from
a period of lower productivity, but supervisors and managers responsible for bringing them
up to speed take productivity hits too. Too often new BillQuick users receive 5 to 10
minutes of informal, in-house, quick-and-dirty training. The end result is ROI takes
longer to achieve, both for your investment in the employee and for your investment in
BillQuick.
To help firms minimize the productivity impact, BQE Software's National
Certified BillQuick Trainers deliver training. While onsite training** is available,
most firms prefer the web-based training courses to keep costs as low as possible. One
important point to keep in mind is our trainers actually use BillQuick, not just
talk about it. Also, our trainers are Premier BillQuick Advisors, working with dozens of
companies every year. They bring this experience to the training environment.
Bottom Line: BillQuick Training delivers an exceptional return on
your people and software investment.
Of course, not everyone needs training. BillQuick is easy to
learn; however, not everyone learns in the same way or at the same pace. On-the-job
training too often lowers productivity and steals profits in the short term. Some users
prefer or need guidance. Others simply want to get up to speed as quickly as possible.
Check out expert-led BillQuick
training courses** for your firm. If you have been using BillQuick for a while, or
prefer a customized course, consider the BillQuick
Advanced 1-on-1 course. You buy 3 hours of a trainer's time (you can purchase
additional 3-hour blocks as needed), then work with the trainer to customize the course to
you.
Continued from last month, you receive 20% off any BillQuick
training course purchased until February 15, 2005. You can take the course
immediately or anytime in 2005.
**Onsite Training
National Certified BillQuick Trainers are available for onsite
training. Onsite training is customized to your company. Because our trainers are
independent contractors, the above discount does not apply to trainer fees and expenses
for onsite services. If you wish to discuss your special training needs with a certified
trainer, contact BQE Software (888-245-5669 or BQ-Training@bqe.com)
and we will put you in contact with them. Fees for onsite training services are negotiated
between the trainer and your company.
Your Voice Will Be Heard
Payroll Preferences Survey
We hear your pains, needs, wants and preferences every day. About
firm management. About BillQuick features. More subtlety in information capture. Ways to
process information. Management information. Staff (and managers) who can't seem to get
their time in at the right time.
In other words, we hear your daily challenges. And we listen.
We deal with immediate issues, even if
it is little more than providing empathy and patience to alleviate your stress.
We track issues to determine if, and
how, we can improve BillQuick and add modules to help you succeed.
We analyze possible solutions or verify
what we thought we heard as a "need" is actually one we should address.
We act. New features. New modules. New
capabilities that save you time and effort, that minimize non-billable hours and maximizes
billable time.
Help us with our analysis. Complete a very short survey and let us
know how you do payroll in your firm and your payroll preferences. Two minutes of your
time could lead to hours saved per month.
Click here
to take a Payroll Preferences Survey.
Beta Testers Wanted
BQE Software continues to advance through its annual upgrade cycle
for BillQuick and all its add-on modules (and a few surprises). In addition to learning
about new features and considering how you can use them in your firm, you can earn
discounts on upgrades based on your level of participation.
If you are interested in testing BillQuick or add-on modules,
please send an email to BillQuickBetaTest@bqe.com.
FREE TS2BQ Conversion
BQE Software will convert your Timeslips data to BillQuick for
free.
That's right, FREE!
Yes, yes, the TS2BQ conversion utility is free. You can do it
yourself. But this offer is different.
BQE Software Technical Experts will convert your Timeslips
database for you. You don't do anything but upload your Timeslips database. For a typical
1- to 2-hour conversion, you save $150 to $300 over normal BQE Software Consulting
Services charges. Then there is the non-billable hours you can turn into billable time by
having us do the conversion.
When you get your grand spanking new BillQuick database back, full
of Clients, Project, Employees, Activity Codes (Service Codes), Expense Codes, Time
Entries, Expense Entries, Invoices and Payments, all that's left to do is edit a few
fields to finalize setup.
Sound like a good reason to tell-a-friend using Timeslips about
BillQuick, don't you think? Be sure they tell us that you referred them so we put a
Tell-A-Friend credit in your account for 50 BillQuick Bucks.
Monthly BillQuick Quizzer
Win $50
It's time for. . .BillQuick Quizzer! (Applause,
applause, applause).
The race is on contestants. Only the first 10 BillQuick users to
email the correct answer to BQ-Quiz@bqe.com win $50
in BillQuick Bucks! Winnings can be applied to any BQE Software product or service.
Hands on your mouse. Remember, date-time stamps on received emails
determine the winners.
And the question is. . .
From the Time Entry (Sheet View),
displayed time entries can be:
A. Manually color-coded
"Blue" to indicate they have been billed.
B. Adjusted or written up/down by
percentage.
C. Forced to balance to the Control
Hours.
D. A & C
E. None of the above.
Hurry and send your answer to BQ-Quiz@bqe.com. You
could be a winner!
Current BillQuick Release Information
BillQuick and QuickBooks 2005
BillQuick 2004 (and BillQuick 2005 in
development now) has been tested with QuickBooks 2005. Everything is A-OK.
Macintosh Compatibility
Quick reminder: BQE Software is compatible with the Macintosh in
two ways: Web Interface and Virtual PC.
Latest BillQuick Version
BillQuick 2004 v. 5.0.96. It includes
enhancements and minor fixes. Click to view the
changes.
If you have Internet access but do not allow
BillQuick to automatically download updates (you turned off AutoUpdate in the Other 2 tab
on the Preferences screen), first turn on the AutoUpdate feature, then select Get Updates
from the File menu. Once download is complete, the next time you exit from BillQuick you
will be prompted to install the update.
If desired, you can download
the update from the BillQuick web site. Click Save when prompted. Next, run the setup
program from the folder in which it was saved.
Happy BillQuicking!
Thanks from the
BQE Software Marketing Team
May Success Follow You
. . . Always |
