June 2006

Preferential tax and economic growth

June 29, 2006 General

Subsequently, we had a live conversation and while I find it hard to disagree with his view that Ireland’s admittedly preferential tax system of itself confers haven status, I don’t believe it can be viewed in isolation…. Despite Richard’s assertion that Ireland’s prosperity has arisen out of EU grant funding and not business wealth creation, the country has one of the best educated and smart workforces on the planet.

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Text Link Ads support sucks – so they're gone

June 28, 2006 General

Despite TechCrunch liking them enough to give them real estate at their place (Mike Arrington has a policy of including companies he likes as ad sponsors…. For reasons that are still a mystery, the ad code doesn’t work on sites that use Wordpress and have sidebar widgets enabled.

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Workflow is a joke

June 27, 2006 General

My fear for the future is that in the current rush to get so much ‘stuff’ out there by the open source community and others who are providing low cost or free tools and services, that developers will forget that standards absolutely must be adhered to if we’re to have interoperable applications and services…. but if tech companies want to make an appreciable difference then they need to start eating their own dog food and giving us the confidence to use tools that truly automate time consuming ‘stuff’ like billing and payment.

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How number crunchers put a value on a name

June 27, 2006 Marketing

The gist is that finance and marketing don’t talk to one another(yawn), that accountants prefer DCF calculations based on brand investment figures that are otherwise dumped in goodwill while marketers prefer measures based on surveying attitudes to brand…. But in the meantime, while they hold value for certain markets, surely we should be considering the value of these human assets (sorry to the HR people who hate the expression – come up with something better – someone – please) in their contribution to the brands they represent or create.

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How to steal from your supermarket (and get away with it)

June 27, 2006 Innovation

Apart from being another reason retail supermarkets work on such fine margins, it turns out that with stores having up to 40 till lanes, shift changes, toilet, tea (coffee I guess in the US and France, probably a beer in Spain) and lunch breaks it is nigh on impossible to keep track of the cash…. Which reminds me of the story about the supermarket that couldn’t figure out why takings didn’t reflect stock movements – until they counted the number of till lanes and discovered an extra one they didn’t know existed.

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Influencing people…one at a time

June 27, 2006 General

Folk like Hugh MacLeod and Robert Scoble say that influence is built one person at a time…. Because a while back I wrote about a newish company led by someone I’ve known for years and who is doing REALLY interesting things (can’t name in this context) in the business intelligence space.

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Why are so many Chartered Accountants no good for business?

June 27, 2006 Innovation

But it wasn’t until I spoke with Ian Fereday who is head of financial control and business intelligence at Lloyds Pharmacy that I really understood why practitioners have such a hard time adjusting to the idea of being a business advisor or change agent. Here are the key measures they work with: Dispensed volumes Over the counter sales values Medicine use reviews People development Note that only ONE is directly related to financial measures.

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Winweb's next generation accounting services

June 26, 2006 Cloud Computing/SaaS

Now for the goodies included in the new release (available now): CRM – Ticketing system * Resources section with Links, Tools and Software Links * Over 1000 Documents for small Businesses * Automated credit card clearance facility * eBay Integration of e-Shop * Knowledge Base integration for clients web sites * Live Support integration for clients web sites * Noticeboard * Online spreadsheet application * Online wordprocessor application * Upload documents by fax services for bookkeepers and their clients * WordPress Blog integration for clients web sites * Credit control service * Database management facility * Design service * Diary management * Search engine optimisation * Telesales service Slated for the next release (September timeframe): Professional accountants’ website design Cash accounting update Improved cashflow monitoring non-VAT clients US GAAP compliance Stock control SOP/POP EPOS integration UI update Generally, the architecture is being transformed to use plug-ins for enhancements…. This will also give professionals the opportunity to offer clients new functionality as they become more comfortable with the system rather than dumping a ton of functionality onto the table – much of which would never be implemented.

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New resource – Accountants At Large

June 26, 2006 General

Following on from Jeff Nolan setting up Enterprise at Crispy News, I did the same for stuff around our profession and gave it the title Accountants At Large…. The links take you to the original article and there is a bookmarklet available so you can easily pop items up from wherever you are on the Web without having to first launch the site.

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Advising the small business about software

June 26, 2006 Cloud Computing/SaaS

The key question is one of whether the software/servce delivers (near) instant value as explained by Jeff Clavier in his discussion about investment in technology startups…. You can get a free service or, if you’re very small, default to Excel, but does this make low cost or free offerings less valuable than the packaged app?

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