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Archived Audio: 2008 |


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Data Conversions - DMC Audio Message - Monday, December 23, 2008 - 11:28 AM



Hi this is Doris!

Data Conversions: They sound simple, but the results can often be less than optimal. Even the best data conversion performed by an existing manufacturer typically requires testing and review. In its simplest form data can not take on new features if the feature did not exist in the older software version. Also, data that converts without review may place you in a situation where you need to maintain old practices; Meaning, your boxed into the old ways.

There are two ways DMC Systems can help you with data conversion. We know the areas in which to test post conversion so that you can change over to your new system, while cleaning up old, bad habits. Also, if you are seeking to switch software, we are able to cross map or interpret old software features and habits and implement them into the new technology of your choice.

Data migration is important. Operational efficiencies can be gained when performed correctly, easily recouping a consulting cost. Only converting the data will not lead to the best result. A day of consulting can render the removal of costly existing practices, static old information and retooling.

For instance, without instruction post-data conversion you may still be processing invoices in MS Word. Also, professional data mapping or transalation should be high value when switching software. Not all data converts cleanly.

Thanks for listening.

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Accounting Support - DMC Audio Message - Monday, December 22, 2008 - 10:47 AM



Hi this is Doris!

At DMC we believe we must earn a client's trust by delivering recommendations that work. And in the accounting software world, trust and quality work each go a long way.

We offer professional advice and software analysis presale. We also offer accounting software support post sale, because we think that software maintenance agreements need to be more focused on software technical support and less on accounting. Why would we think that?

The recent tones of phone calls and user groups have proven that clients experience far too much trouble when it comes to receiving quality accounting support. Unfortunately, clients simply haven’t been getting the support they need from certain software providers regarding their Accounting questions, and, understandably, clients feel pressed financially to call in their questions only under their maintenance agreements (which do not cover private consulting advice).

Accountants are trained in accounting and should be seen as the first source to answer operational accounting issues and improvements. They are trained in GAAP and understand the full impact of entries and the flow of dollars. DMC Systems Group offers two skill sets: Accounting and Information Technology. We have the knowledge of multiple companies accounting practices and are educated in multiple software packages as well. Our professional accountants work closely with you and are trained to quickly recognize what areas of your systems can be improved. Separate the need for accounting support from software maintenance agreements. DMC Consulting fills and solves for that missing need. Thanks for listening.

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Cost Commentary - DMC Audio Message - Wednesday, December 18, 2008 - 2:55 PM



Hi this is Doris!

We all have our ears to the street on how to best control costs in business. Lately, certain business sectors have been faced with an inability to raise prices while their underlying margins are shrinking. For instance, publicly published technology sectors show that the top line of their software license revenues may be showing moderate growth year to year, but gross margin and overall client additions are on the decline. Meaning it is costing more to garner new clients and sustain growth.

There are few expense lines that seem to be immune from price increases. Health costs are one example....We are seeing the worst increases at all levels of health insurance in 25 years: New deductibles, less coverage, higher copays and personal contributions; and you will find it difficult to shop around for a cheaper policy. Credit card companies are jacking interest rates cart blanche. Many postage Meter providers have hidden fees and software companies have new license fee structures that did not exist just a few years ago.

My advice: Call and address these issues in a professional manner, go straight to the top, and get answers. Remember, you’re not the first person to call in...And I think there is a great power in the hands of the consumer to push companies to behave and keep their customer. Call and complain professionally; it works. Interest rates can be negotiated, license fees reduced and those outrageous fees kept in check.

I am not convinced a small company needs to have a postage meter provided by only one postage manufacturer. Or that keeping licensing and maintenance fees year end and year out for low value is a must to run a company for fear they would cripple your operations somehow. Postpone them; they will take you back when things get better. And regarding the credit card companies, there is legislature in front of the Senate in order to rein in on their alleged user fees and rate jacking. These industries just need some cross checking. Thanks for listening.

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Investing Your Money Safely - DMC Audio Message - Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 7:32 PM



Hi this is Doris!

You know the Old adages..."It's too good to be true" and "A blue bird flew into my window" or getting "stuck or ripped off." None of these ever feel good.

The recent news headlines regarding Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC where federal prosecutors alleged, as reported by Yahoo, said: "He had admitted squandering nearly $50 billion from investors in a massive Ponzi scheme." Yet another shocking story in the midst of recent econonmic typhoon. That's 50 billion just shy of the estimated 25-75 billiion number thrown around to help bail out the top 3 auto makers for a month.

What is a Ponzi scheme....? Simply put....the investment person [or] firm takes your money and offers a better rate of return than you can get anywhere, say 40%. In turn, a person gets more investors to invest money with the promise of an even greater rate of return. In fact, that rate of return is only from the new investors money. Unless you keep adding investors eventually there is no money and the entire thing collapses.

According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, decades later, the Ponzi scheme continues to work on the "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses. Think and be conservative when it comes to investing money, there really are no short cuts, and its pretty impossible to beat the odds. Thanks for listening.

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Go Green! - DMC Audio Message - Friday, December 12, 2008 - 3:54 PM



Hi this is Doris!

Here are some thoughts about Why your company should go green....and how can our office add to the green effort.

Paper, paper, paper. if you are working in accounting, even with automation you can still feel like your drowning in expense report slips. Mailing invoices to clients, photocopying vendor invoices, project files, vendor files and billing backups can suffocate your accounting department in labor costs.

We encourage companies to move to electronic storage and transmission of documents and data. There are ways that you can keep your file systems and maintain control while saving a few trees.

DMC moved to a new filing and document control system a few years ago, which over time should keep our paper copies to a bear minimum. Consider how you too can contribute and utilize us as a resource in the coming year.

Thanks for listening

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Planning for the Unknown - DMC Audio Message - Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 1:06 PM



Hi this is Doris!

Planning for the unknown is not easy. Depending on what stage of life you are in, sometimes sudden illness or the loss of a loved one can spin your accounting into a nightmare. There are times when you or your staff may not be able to work, for surgical, accidental or familial reasons.

We can come in and help you document those accounting tasks that only one person performs or has knowledge of. Or, should the unexpected occur, we offer transitional urgent care to correct trial balances and transfer information to your CPA for final reporting.

Just knowing DMC Systems is available to document critical accounting functions can be a great comfort, and our accountants, bookkeepers, CPAs, and consultants are prepared to help.

Thanks for listening

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Remote Works and Why - DMC Audio Message - Monday, December 01, 2008 - 2:52 PM



Hi this is Doris!

I thought we would all be wired by 1990 when a client of mine who came out of MIT as a traveling consultant said, "in order for us to conduct work, you will need to use the internet". so with my trusty 1400 baud modem, I used hyper terminal dial up to a VAX system in Cambridge and began to transmit business upload files via the internet. No graphics, all plain text.

Amazing, it really took until the past 3-5 years where businesses have finally caught on or see it as a must-have in order to conduct business, not just sending emails and file attachments, but connecting to live data on their network. At DMC we've been remote internally for many many years, fully accessing our accounting via the web and our day to day data files via our virtual private network. What's great is that our clients have been ever increasingly doing it.

That is we are able to connect to clients to teach via live webinars, or adjust and review their accounting in live manner. This eliminates lbs of paper and back and forth in communication that use to take days or weeks with scheduling. We don't place the responsibility on client to use a particular remote interface, we are setup and designed to securely log into most remote networks whether its Cisco, Citrix, gotomypc, Microsoft virtual network, NNC viewer, Remote Desktop for instance.

Remote access allows vendors, owners, staff to perform their jobs from anywhere which affords and maximizes peoples time when appropriate.

Thanks for listening

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BillQuick - DMC Audio Message - Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - 10:12 AM



Hi this is Doris.

There’s a reason so many AE firms and small companies use MYOB and QuickBooks. It's because of their simplicity and ease of use. Price matters too, of course, (its surprisingly inexpensive for all you get) but its the ease of use that make these products popular. However, unless you look to 3rd party solutions, some industry specific needs miss the mark, such as having a strong billing and job cost system designed for the architecturual or engineering fields. I was turned off to most 3rd party solutions because their integration missed the mark and weren't as seamless as I'd hoped. But BillQuick has developed a solution that works.

BillQuick is a stand alone billing and job cost system that has synchronization with the most popular small business general ledger packages. The product collects time and expense, job costs it with overhead and passes the invoices, expenses, and payroll back to the general ledger with surprising smoothness. It also does a pretty neat job of synchronizing customer and vendor records. A great example of this is when we bumped up against a practioner that uses ACT, syncs the customer records with QuickBooks, which in turn synchs with BillQuick. And all for a reasonable cost if you love your small end general ledger package.

Thanks for listening.

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Training - DMC Audio Message - Friday, November 21, 2008 - 08:47 AM



Hi this is Doris.

I wish there was a better word for training, it sounds rote or static. It sounds like what adults have to do post formal education.Preferably, we can call it learning, that is, understanding what we do at our jobs on a day to day or improving our approach through technique and behavior modfication.

We offer training but we prefer to think of it as teaching people to learn and catering to their personal characteristics. Clients learn at differing paces and methods. When they do come to us, especially since its almost entirely post formal education, they want to be understood and to definitely receive a valuable experience.

So we have manuals and books to teach with, but we mostly use them as guides and tools when appropriate, and then we dig in and figure things out on a one to one if that's what makes it work for the client.

Thanks for listening!

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Why hire us? - DMC Audio Message - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 12:44 PM



Hi this is Doris. Why hire us?

In short, we understand accounting. We Live it, we teach it, and we think out of the box when it comes to finding solutions. Software that's fresh off the shelf, or from the maker, doesn't always live up to all of its initial promises, at least not right away. And that's where we come in.

We can make software work for our clients as it was intended to work. Our focus is in operations, (workflow, data entry and the resulting reports). The result our clients often experience after using us is a successful accounting and project/owner management system.

Software serves to make a client happy and to fulfill a client's needs. Accounting is a skill set usually best delivered by those schooled in and dedicated to it. As an Independent consultant firm , we are not focused on a single software software package. We work with and are versed in many software packages in order to provide you the most appropriate fit.

Thanks for listening!

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MAC Lovers and MYOB - DMC Audio Message - Monday, November 17, 2008 - 3:56 PM



Hi this is Doris. Here’s a message for a our Macintosh lovers or windows clients still tethered to an obsolete windows application and want Apple.

MYOB is an application we support, and they have supported us for all our years of existence. For those who don't know what MYOB is, it's a good accounting product that was originally built for the MAC, which is always current with MAC OS, and over the past 20 years it has routinely improved its features and its graphics.

For instance, Account Edge NE 2009 is the newest release of their MAC network version of MYOB. We have clients that operate inventory systems with 4-10 concurrent users, over thousands of items of inventory with assemblies for years. MYOB has a really decent time and billing system for service companys. And it integrates with Daylite, has always done a great job with MAC office integration for mail merge and lables and is now enhanced for applescript.

Remember, MAC is also viable solution, and DMC can help get your company up to speed.

Thanks for listening.

Click for more Daylite Info

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Data Retention - DMC Audio Message - Monday, November 17, 2008 - 1:48 PM



Hi this is Doris. Data retention and backup routines are vital to your company’s well-being and long-term survival. Often times, firms feel as though an electronic data backup is sufficient enough to cover all their needs, and while archiving electronic data is certainly a great part of an everyday backup routine, we at DMC have encountered too many situations in which clients are in need of older data due to unforeseeable events. For example, one of our clients invoices for 2006 needed to be audited by the IRS. Unfortunately, our client discovered that their data sets had been corrupt, dating back to several backups, and so they didn’t have a reliable starting point to go off of.

It’s not just about backing up data or having an automated solution that you “think” is backing up data. Many of our clients use us once a month at a very low cost in order to take a backup of their accounting data and to perform a database integrity check in order to be sure that the data is in good condition and is able to be restored. Be sure to give your backup solutions a second thought and plans for recovery.

Thanks for listening.

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Bookkeeping, A DMC Trademark - DMC Audio Message - Friday, November 14, 2008 - 3:37 PM



Hi this is Doris.

We value and embrace a clean set of books...and so do owners...knowing high quality bookkeeping has been a trademark of DMC for all of its 12 years. Our staff relates to the day to day job of the bookkeeper, meaning we have performed their functions from billing to bank recs to payroll processing. This makes for a great solution in times of absence or transitional training of new staff. Thanks for listening.

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Current Projects Update - DMC Audio Message - Friday, November 14, 2008 - 2:34 PM



Hi this is Doris, and I'd like to share with you some information about our current projects!

This month we're working on an Advantage to Ajera conversion for a local engineering firm of 25 people. In this project, our role is to implement the accounting software and to migrate data such as project information, vendors, and accounting history.

We are also working on a similiar project, for a Wind2 to Deltek Vision conversion, for a 40 person architectural interior firm, helping with software design, installation, training and migration .

To boot, we have begun the test phase of ACT, an older CRM system, into the Vision CRM system, for a 75pp architectural firm with over 6000 contacts.

Thanks for listening, and call us any time at 617 383 6090

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