Bill.com Blog

Case Study: MontPac Outsourcing

In 2006, Henry Montgomery—a Fortune 500 financial executive with a self-professed passion for accounting—founded Montgomery Pacific Outsourcing, or MontPac, to provide outsourced accounting and financial management services to small and medium-sized businesses. “Serving these clients cost-effectively was a challenge before we started using Bill.com,” explains Montgomery, who credits Bill.com as a big part of MontPac’s success.

Because it’s easy to use, boosts productivity, and is integrated into the company’s processes, Bill.com has freed up time and resources for MontPac to focus on building their business. It works the way the business works while leveraging technology and automating existing processes. And like many companies turning to web-based productivity tools, MontPac values the cost-savings afforded by Bill.com, especially when it’s used enterprise-wide—for their own processes as well as clients’—as a scalable asset.

Bill.com provides MontPac and their clients with the front-end accounts payable processing, documentation, document archiving and retrieval, as well as internal control and platform-syncing capabilities that add exceptional, far-reaching value to their work. Bill.com neatly compliments the full scope of accounting and financial reporting services MontPac provides its clients. Noting that “larger, more expensive accounting platforms and even most vertical market software don’t have the same capabilities as Bill.com,” Montgomery contends that “Bill.com is truly unique in the community we serve.” 

“Bill.com’s internal controls functionality is so user-friendly, even if the delegation of authority reaches all the way up to the CEO,” says Montgomery. Users simply visit Bill.com’s site to look at all invoices to they have to approve or pay, and with a click of a button, their job is done. They can pay in any format—write a check or have Bill.com send a check, pay electronically through the ACH or by credit card— and this makes the whole process is easy and complete, not to mention time-saving and cost effective.

Aside from time and cost savings, Bill.com’s document management capability saves users an enormous amount of effort. Montgomery lauds, “I can’t understate the value of the digital archive!” Prior to Bill.com, Montgomery complained about how many manual, paper-based processes employees had to deal with. “Off the bat, Bill.com provides the invoices already split and in format for data entry and the document is backed-up and in the cloud.”

Being able to access financial information at their fingertips allows users to create financial statements and perform other important tasks quickly. The ability to drill-down to a transaction is another time-saver. As Montgomery describes, “You can look at an income statement and see an expense, click on it in QuickBooks, and you see the related invoice and transaction in the Bill.com vendor file.”

Bill.com makes data entry faster and more accurate. Processing specialists enter the data and the transaction is automatically synced with the platform, “no further processing required!” Montgomery added “Using Bill.com results in a chain of economic benefits, easily justifying expenditures.”

Greater productivity has led to greater customer service. “Bill.com is a marvelous enhancement in our ability to service our clients,” Montgomery praises. No longer encumbered by time-consuming paper-pushing, document-handling and data entry, employees can focus on tasks that add real value to their client servicing.

MontPac is growing quickly and using Bill.com to continually expand its reach to new customers. In fact, when MontPac welcomes a new client, they make it mandatory they sign on with Bill.com. “It’s a very straightforward process and takes practically no time to set up,” says Montgomery. “As long as Bill.com enables MontPac to accomplish our efficiency goals and provide cost saving services to our clients, they will continue to serve our 300+ accounting and taxation client base.”

Download a PDF of this Case Study here

@Billcom Customer Tip - Automate Your Billing

Spending hours invoicing customers, sending reminders and tracking paper checks? Use Bill.com Receivables to automate in 3 easy steps:

1) Recurring Invoices: Just tell us when you want the invoices to be created and we do it for you. We can even automatically send them via email to your customers.

2) Auto Reminders: Just tell us when (before or after your invoice is due) and enter a custom message and we will remind your customers to pay you. If they still forget, we will remind them up to 3 times if you want.

3) Auto Payments: Either you or your customer enter the bank account and/or credit card information and the invoices get automatically paid up to a maximum amount you or your customer specify. 

Great job! Now just sit back and relax. The money will show up in your bank account in 2 business days. You don’t have to do anything else. What can be better than that?!!!

Add the Paperwork Monster to your Twitter Feed: @Pprworkmonster

4 Questions for Laura Redmond from Redmond Accounting

Q. How did you get into your line of work?
Organizing, accounting and technology were consistent themes in my career…from my first job out of school organizing the tech department of a large accounting firm…to accounting at a Virtual Reality company. My subsequent experience as both a Financial Controller and IT Manager allowed me to hone these skills to create efficient accounting systems.

Q. What have you learned through the school of hard knocks?
Get it in writing!

Q. What keeps you up at night?
I enjoy building systems to improve accounting workflow processes and sometimes work until wee hours creating them.

Q. How has Bill.com helped your business chase its dreams?
Bill.com’s features are in line with our hallmarks – cloud-based, paperless, electronic, systemized, orderly and reliable. These traits are not easy to attain in the accounting world rife with important source documentation. We spent many years creating work-around processes to achieve these characteristics: peer-to-peer in-house networks, directories for electronic images, printing and mailing checks and invoices, requesting copies of cleared checks, chasing manual payment status and relaying account history to vendors and customers. Those days are over. Bill.com brings the document image together with the transaction…adds powerful electronic features…and delivers it in a simplified, online interface.  Thank you Bill.com for making our dreams come true. 

Download a complete PDF of these 4 questions

What’s your horsepower?

It’s interesting that that hottest electric car on the market, the Tesla Roadster , touts its 288 horsepower engine. It is an oxymoron in some respects when you think of the imagery--  you don’t think of 288 horses dragging you down a road. Rather, you think of speed. So why is this unit of measurement from 1702 promoted by James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, still used 308 years later? It is because we humans have a hard time adapting and letting go. It is because no matter how hard we try to look forward, we can’t help but look in the rearview mirror for comparison purposes.

One of the things we all hold on to is the technology we’re accustomed to using. Whether it’s the horses doing the work for us or our level of comfort with our metal filing cabinet and filing system, we have a tendency to resist change. As accountants, you are in a unique position to advise your clients and sometimes maintain their systems and processes. You are in the position of looking forward, not just for your own business but also for your clients. That means you have to take extra care and caution when implementing new technologies or processes.

Although some might disagree, my experience through the years is that accountants have generally been early adopters of technology. I only have to look at the family businesses to see that accountants drove the adoption of punch cards, tax automation and payroll outsourcing (before ADP and PayChex). Accountants have consistently been the folks that understand the efficiency gains that technology brings. As a service provider with lots of clients, you have insight to what technologies work long before the market at large does.

That being said, there has also been a sense of caution in implementing new tools. The best example I can think of is the move from DOS to Windows. While most businesses moved in the early ’90s, it was the late ’90s before many accountants made the move. Part of the reason is that Windows didn’t necessarily drive efficiency gains. In fact, I know there were many things that I could do faster in a DOS environment than with the graphical user interface (GUI) of Windows. However, Windows’ GUI simplified things for staff and clients, and so accountants eventually made the switch.

So where are the efficiency gains of today? What are the things you are holding onto that could change your business and your customers’ businesses? I think the biggest area is in changing our viewpoint from a transactional orientation to a process orientation.

Accounting software by nature is transaction based; it is all about recording transactions and reporting on transactions. Tax software is all about reporting transactions in the right buckets. Transaction views fail to provide the overview and the planning we all need. In fact, by nature, transaction views are after the fact.

Process views require that you think before the fact and allow you to add more value to the customer relationship. Process views require that you leverage your expertise and knowledge across all of your clients into each situation. Taking a process view makes you more valuable and, in my opinion, is more fun.

Unfortunately, over the last 30 years, software led accountants to be more transaction-oriented. But the Web has finally started to change that viewpoint. One of the things that got me excited about starting PayCycle and Bill.com was the opportunity to reintroduce the process view to accountants once again.

Payroll is clearly a process that other companies had commoditized away from the accounting profession. Specifically, ADP and PayChex recruited accountants to resale their products. And for the most part, this took accountants out of the process and removed an opportunity to add value to the client relationship. At PayCycle, we used the Web to simplify the process so you could manage your clients’ payroll. We had tens of thousands of accounting firms and some with well over 100 clients using our service. I hear from accountants all the time about how they appreciate and enjoy getting back into the process of helping their clients in this area again. Similarly, at Bill.com our customers constantly tell us they use our service because we understand that business bill payment is a process and not a transaction.

There are lots of processes you can choose to automate for your clients-- payables, receivables, document collection, workflow collaboration, and much more. Taking a look at how your clients work will give you a lot more opportunities in which to advise. As you begin to explore additional areas of client service, I suggest that you leverage others who are already singing this tune. Folks like Darren Root, Doug Sleeter, Randy Johnson and several of the industry contributors hold seminars and speak at conferences. Their whole focus is on helping you stay competitive while enjoying what you do. It’s the whole idea of community learning.

Technology is constantly in flux, and if we aren’t careful or if we’re slow to adopt, we will miss important opportunities. Accountants have been the change agent driving systems migration for years — from ledger books to data processing and from DOS to Windows and now the Web. However there is always pressure to maintain the past. As you move forward and lead your clients down this newest road, I hope you live by the words of the Rolling Stones and don’t let “wild horses drag you away!”

Thanks for reading! René Lacerte
Founder and CEO
@rlacerte

Bill.com Launches Printed Invoice Mailing Service, Expands Breadth of Online Receivables Offering

Company Breaks New Ground in Electronic Invoicing by Bridging the Gap Between Online and Offline Billing for SMBs and CPAs

PALO ALTO, CALIF. — August 23, 2011 — Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, online invoicing and cash management solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and accounting/bookkeeping firms, today rolled out a sophisticated new set of electronic billing features that help businesses and accountants make it easier than ever for their customers to pay their bills, online or offline.

Accounts Receivable from Paper to Portal
Bill.com’s Accounts Receivable (AR) update enables users to send printed bills to their customers via U.S. mail at below the cost of what a typical company would spend printing, stuffing and mailing invoices. It also delivers Quick Response (QR) code on the printed invoice, customizable email templates and automated payment scheduling/reminders, rounding out Bill.com’s already comprehensive online Receivables suite that eliminates billing hassle and helps SMBs and CPAs get paid two to three times as fast as manual invoicing.

As nearly 80 percent of businesses still send and receive paper invoices, Bill.com users now have the option to mail printed bills to their customers via the United States Postal Service, with a single mouse click. This feature fills a very important market segment that connects online and offline financial management, meeting the needs of SMBs and CPAs who work with clients of varying comfort levels in respect to managing both paper-based and paperless payment processes. The addition of U.S. Mail Invoicing allows Bill.com users to receive payments faster from customers who have not yet adopted paperless solutions.

“We listen closely to our users, and many have let us know they chose Bill.com because they were ready to go paperless but some of their clients or vendors weren’t. It quickly became a priority to bridge that gap and fulfill that specific customer need,” said Henrique Ceribelli, senior product manager at Bill.com. “Bill.com is devoted to meeting the holistic needs of SMBs and CPAs today, and helping them take their business where it needs to go both today and tomorrow. We’re bringing an entirely new level of efficiency to the electronic billing process with our approach to AR compared to any other solution in the market.”

Features
Bill.com users can take advantage of new accounts receivable features, including:

• The inclusion of a QR code (Quick Response) on each printed invoice mailed that allows the recipient to scan the QR with any smartphone and link directly into their Bill.com Payment Portal.
• Complete AR integration with leading accounting software solutions, including QuickBooks, Peachtree and QuickBooks Online (via Intuit Anywhere).
• Automatic and Customizable – Users can now set up one-time or recurring charges on behalf of their customers to maximize their cashflow, send invoice reminders on their timeline, and change/save virtually anything in the email invoice – from the logo to the online portal link.
• Integrated document sharing and collaboration – Customers can view invoices online, as well as supporting invoice documentation such as receipts, contracts, signed quotes and sent notes.

“The vast majority of parents at our school pay their children’s tuition online via Bill.com,” said Martha Branch, accountant at the German International School of Silicon Valley. “As opposed to setting up an automatic payment from their bank or mailing a check, the parents who are embracing Bill.com love that they can see not only when the payment has gone through, but also when we’ve received payment. This transparency means fewer calls or emails for us to answer. It’s phenomenally efficient, and both the administration and parents are elated with how much time Bill.com is saving everyone.”

Pricing and Availability
The cost of mailing a printed invoice is a flat 99¢ fee, which includes a pre-stuffed envelope, postage and handling. Bill.com is offered to the accounting profession exclusively though the Bill.com Accountant Program from CPA2Biz, a subsidiary of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Bill.com is available starting at $24.99/Month (Payables Only) and $29.99/Month (Payables and Receivables) with a 30 day risk free trial.  

About Bill.com
Bill.com is an on-demand accounts payable and accounts receivable application for CPAs and small and midsized businesses. With Receivables, Bill.com users can send custom invoices, collaborate with customers and receive electronic payments that automatically sync to their existing accounting software programs. They can also receive, route and pay invoices electronically resulting in time and cost savings of over 50 percent versus manual accounts payable and check writing processes. Bill.com uses enterprise-class fraud protections and integrates with popular desktop and on-demand accounting packages, ensuring consistency of financial data and streamlined financial planning, reporting and audit activities. Bill.com has received numerous awards including Bill.com's Zen (Zero Entry) service winning Accounting Today's Best New AP/AR Product for 2011, a 2011 Innovation Award from CPA Technology Advisor, and a 4-star rating from PC Magazine.

@Billcom Customer Tip - New Settings in Bill.com

We hope you like the reorganization of settings/setup tasks into the new Settings tab! You will notice right away that many tasks are now easier to find, there are some tasks that may take you a couple of days to get oriented with. In order to get ahead of the curve, below are a few common tasks that will now be in a different location:

Accessing Sync: Before you used to go to Setup>Accounting> Sync to access your Sync.

 

 

Now you access it by clicking on Settings, and accessing the different links under the Sync box. 

 

 

 

 

Accessing your list of Classes/Departments, Locations etc: Before you used to go to Setup>Accounting and then see the different lists on the left navigation.

 

 

Now you access it by clicking on Settings and clicking on the Classifications link to get to a page which shows the different lists and also lists which are available but not enabled.

Add the Paperwork Monster to your Twitter Feed: @Pprworkmonster

Bill.com August 2011 Product Release

eInvoices and eBills  - Put the e’s into “e-e-easy”  One company’s eInvoice is another company’s eBill.  When you eInvoice a customer who uses Bill.com, they don’t have to bother entering any of the details in Bill.com (you’ve already done that for them!). So it’s faster and easier for the customer to pay you. 

Your eInvoice becomes their eBill. When you receive their ePayment, we automatically close the eInvoice. And when you sync, everything automatically flows to your accounting system.

Similarly, when you pay an eBill to a vendor who uses Bill.com, you don’t have to bother entering any details in Bill.com (the vendor already did that for you!). So you can focus on when you pay, not how you pay.

Get paid even faster, and pay even smarter.

Get paid faster - Make it easy for customers  Do your customers complain about having to log in to pay you?  Would they rather just give you their bank account and/or credit card information? We hear you, and now you can set that up (including auto-payments).

Messages to customers – Add your own personal/professional touch When you email invoices to customers, would you like a bit more control over what you say in the email? Customize who it is From. Customize the Subject. Customize the details of the message itself. All your invoice emails will go out with a consistent tone and message, set by you.

And to help customers remember they have invoices coming due, automatically send out reminders ahead of time (customized with your own message).

Invoice mailings - Pass the stuffing to us  Tired of printing invoices, stuffing envelopes, and mailing?  Well if you create ‘em, we’ll mail ‘em.  We include a payment stub and a return envelope with each invoice.  And for those customers who prefer to pay electronically, each payment stub includes a Quick Response (QR) code for scanning via Smartphone.

Settings – All in one place  We’ve gathered all preferences and options under the Settings tab.  To tailor the way you work with Bill.com, this is the place to go: everything from adding a user, to setting up a bank account, to adding a logo.

QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online – Invoice your Sub-Customers:Jobs We now sync your complete Customer/Jobs lists into Bill.com, so you can email or mail invoices to Sub-Customers:Jobs.

Jobs in Payables - Changed to Customer:Job When you enter and edit bills, the Job field is now labeled Customer:Job.

Reports - Enhancements  You can now get the AP/AR Aging Summary & Detail Reports as of a certain date. 

You can also get detailed reporting on payments received and convenience fees collected.

Additional Info for Intuit App Center Users (QuickBooks Online Only) We now support “Expense Tracking by Customer”. When you enter a bill in Bill.com, you can enter the Customer: Job for the bill, and that syncs over to QuickBooks Online.

Details for Accountants Only
Accounting packages - Updates

• Sage Peachtree:  we now sync Accounts Receivable. Create invoices and get paid in Bill.com, then sync the invoices and payments to Peachtree (instead of re-typing them). Read one of the Case Studies here
• NetSuite: we now sync Accounts Payable. Over 50 companies are already saving time by syncing! Read one of the Case Studies here!
• Intacct: we now sync Reference numbers for manual payments.  When you update a paid bill in Bill.com, then sync, we give you options for making the updates in Intacct (no need to contact Customer Support anymore). Read one of the Case Studies here!

Onboard clients faster - New Startup  Checklist makes it easier We list the necessary setup tasks, minimizing confusion over what needs to be done.

Reconcile client bank accounts more easily - Clearing Accounts  When you create a new client account, we create Clearing Accounts to reconcile your Bill.com payments and receipts in your accounting package. We post relevant payments and receipts to the Clearing Accounts:

• Bill.com Payments for Payables: we post transactions to the “Bill.com
  Money Out Clearing” account
• ePayments for Receivables: we post transactions to the “Bill.com Money
  In Clearing” account

Replay our August 2011 Sneak Peek Webinar by clicking here

We look forward to having you online for the sneak peek! If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out at: marketing@hq.bill.com

4 Questions for Amber Hurst from Ganze & Company

Q. How did you get into your line of work?
Ganze & Company has been doing bookkeeping  and tax related work for 25+ years. I joined the firm a little over 3 and half years ago. I wanted to work in the accounting field and a tax class that I attended led to a position at Ganze and Company. Not long after I began with the firm we started working on a project to make bookkeeping and accounting tasks less paper intensive and more easily accessible to both clients and accountants. 

Q. What have you learned through the school of hard knocks?
I have learned that it is extremely important to keep the client happy! The easier the transition and the day to day tasks and the less the client has to do the more happy they are. This gives them the ability to really focus on what they are good at, running their business. I have found that clients also like maintain some sense of control and still be in the loop, because it is important for them to understand what is happening in their company financially.

Q. What keeps you up at night?
Making sure that we are meeting our clients expectations and finding ways to exceed those expectations. It is extremely important to be on the same page and have good communication.

Q. How has Bill.com helped your business chase its dreams
Bill.com has made it much easier to develop a “PaperLess” accounting system. We have the ability to access the clients vendor documents when we have questions and concerns. We also are able to provide better more timely information to business owners. The calendar function makes it much easier for clients to manage cash flow and project what is to come. Our clients have also really enjoyed the flexibility of being able to access information on the go and manage payables away from the office.

Bill.com has really helped pull together our accounting solutions. Bill.com is one of the best tools that we use and so far clients have really been impressed.

Download a complete PDF of these 4 questions

 

Note: 4 Questions is a new feature on the Bill.com blog where we will ask the same 4 questions of a different Bill.com customer. Given the tremendous passion and can-do attitude of small and mid-sized businesses, we believe these same four questions will result not in repeat answers, but in interesting insight into many different journeys. Want to be profiled? Tweet us at @billcom and let us know!

Celebrate good times..Come on!

Bill.com celebrated its 5th birthday on August 6th
with Margaritas, Chips, Guacamole and Key Lime Cupcakes. It was wonderful to reflect on what we have accomplished so far, especially when we look back to where we started. We are very proud to say that one thing that has never faltered is our vision of creating a financial platform for small businesses to manage their finances. This belief is so fundamental that it is especially exciting to announce our new release because we have added another major piece to the platform puzzle that really rounds out our Accounts Receivable solution. 

All of you know that we offer a financial platform to manage your AP and AR. Many of you may not know that there are a number of services that we do under the umbrella of our star AP/AR features; things like, ePayment, customer and employee collaboration, and document management to name a few. In the August 2011 release we linked payable and receivable transactions between companies using Bill.com - this simplifies transactions, speeds up payments and provides a holistic picture of your companies overall cash position. 

Over the last year we have worked hard to add core AR functionality.  With the key infrastructure in place, we have now linked AP and AR allowing us to have a full circle process that starts when an eInvoice is processed through the system as an eBill and rounds out the circle with an ePayment to the original eInvoice.

Our eInvoice solution allows your organization to create an invoice in your favorite accounting package (QuickBooks/Peachtree/etc.) and then sync that Invoice into Bill.com Your customer receives and accepts the eBill with no data entry That data syncs and sends over the ePayment to your initial eInvoice. 

Best of all when the bill is paid the payment is automatically applied back to the biller's account. Viola!  It's like magic. Truly this is the bomb - no more data entry for buyer or seller. This release is set-up for paying Bill.com customers. Future releases will allow vendors to create eBills from their free vendor portal.   

In addition to eBill and eInvoice, there are lots of other cool features - US postal mail for invoices, QR codes for the postal invoices, simpler credit card and ACH processing for our AR customers for when you need to enter your customer information for billing and a streamlined set up process.  

For all of us at Bill.com, this is really cool stuff; everything we’ve worked for over the past 5 years is coming together. In short, the future is here and the days of data entry are numbered. Thanks again for being a part of the Bill.com family and for providing such great feedback. Your input makes us better and we definitely enjoy the ride more.  
  
Thank you for reading -- René   @rlacerte

Intuit App Showcase -- Winning the Super Sized Check!

A big thanks to our customers for helping us win at the Intuit App Showcase yesterday! With the heavy chime of a loud gong, the competition was on. Out of the 30 finalists, 4 lucky developers would be able to walk away with bragging rights and a cash prize. The winners were chosen by a large group of QuickBooks ProAdvisors, venture capitalists and talented developers, and included the counting of votes from the Intuit App Showcase website.

 

Our COO Mark Orttung and VP of Strategic Partners Christy Ross were lucky number 16 to present, leading the 4^th wave of presentations. With only 5 minutes to present, Mark and Christy delivered a high impact overview on the ways in which Bill.com changes the lives of our customers. After completing the demo Mark and Christy answered a barrage of excellent questions from the judges. 

Everyone at Bill.com held their breath through the remainder of the presentations which we were watching as it streamed live on the web. After a long deliberation filled with hulu dancers and drums, the winners were announced.

In a flash of excitement, we were breathing again, then shouting and cheering, as Bill.com was announced as one of yesterday's four winners. YEAH!!!!!!!!

@Billcom Customer Tip - Control Over Accounting Periods

Tip for Sage Peachtree users:
Once you reconcile your books and close them, you can prevent Bill.com from posting to prior accounting periods. That way, you can ensure that you have tight control over your financials.

In Peachtree, go to Maintain – Users – Set up security. You will see there is an option under the Company section called ‘Transactions in Prior Periods’. This option is configurable by user.  If you pick one user (or create a new one) and change this setting to View Only, then the user you selected wouldn’t be able to create, edit or delete transactions in closed periods (i.e. periods before the current one).

Going forward, open Peachtree as this "View Only" user when you are syncing with Bill.com and Bill.com will not post any transactions in prior accounting periods.

Sneak Peek of Bill.com's August 2011 Release

Bill.com is excited about our upcoming release on August 19^th and would love for you to join us for an informative update Webinar to gain an in-depth understanding of how the new Bill.com upgrades will make your business finances run even more smoothly.

Wednesday August 17^th at 11AM Pacific we will provide a 45 minute sneak peek of our latest release where we will share how to:

• Get paid even faster and pay even smarter: Bill.com customers can invoice each other with no double data entry and get paid just as easily
• Charge your Customers Easily: You can set-up the bank account or credit card information on behalf of your customers and charge them yourself
• Print, Stuff and Mail Invoices: We'll mail them for you with the click of a button
• Access our New Enhanced Settings: We have made it easier for you to access settings such as managing your chart of accounts, users, sync etc
• Sync with NetSuite and Sage Peachtree: NetSuite sync for AP is now available with nearly 50 companies using it!  Peachtree sync now supports AR!
• Replay the August 17th 2011 Webinar Here

We look forward to having you online for the sneak peek! If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out at: marketing@hq.bill.com

 

Employee Spotlight - Behind the Scenes at Work & Play

As an Operations Specialist at Bill.com I do a lot
of behind the scenes processes: issuing voids, reviewing end of the day, confirming ACH (Automated Clearing House) files, issuing refunds etc. Some of you may ask what the heck do ACH files, refunds and voids have to do with my personal life. Well, for the past 14 years, every Sunday from 6pm to 9pm I dance with a tap company called Tap Explosion. 

On a annual basis we put on a performance to show off our talent as tap dancers and honor the tap masters from the past.

Many of those that come to see us don’t know what goes on behind the scenes of a show. Besides managing the event and going to rehearsal every Sunday, many of us in the group, practice with each other during the week and on the weekends. We work to find costumes for the 16 members of our group, create flyers, choreograph numbers,
find the right music....the list is pretty long.

This year Tap Explosion has decided to do a fundraiser for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) research as an honor to a close friend of our dance teacher who lost her three month old daughter to SIDS. Throwing this event is one of the ways we have decied to show our support for the moms who have lost their children to SIDS and the team feels really charged about it.

On top of learning new dances for our big show, we are re-learning dances that Tap Explosion has performed in the past. Many of you only see the magic of my behind the scenes work at Bill.com, but if you would like, we would love to have you come to the show and see the magic of all of the dancers! Plus all ticket proceeds (and donations) are going to ASIDSI (American Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Institute). Please help us find a cure.

Thank you for support, Margot.

For details on Tap Explosion's show, download the PDF here

Event Date: August 28th 2011
Time: 2PM and 5PM
Location: Historic Hoover Theatre
San Jose, CA 

 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Recently I have been reminded of change and how hard it is to  make happen. Whether it’s a personal change or a professional change, it isn’t easy.  For example, this publication is going thru some pretty cool changes but I am sure it wasn’t easy to get action or at least universal action on all the changes desired.  Maybe you want to switch your business model to a monthly service model or maybe you want to get more strategic with your clients or maybe you want to handover the reins to someone else. All of that is big change and my guess is that your organization puts up resistance when you discuss anything like this.

Why is that?

I used to think that as individuals, we get comfortable with what we are doing and we tend to be lazy.  While that may be true it is more complicated than that. I just finished reading  a great book , “Switch”, by Chip and Dan Heath, that provides some great ways to think about change as well as tools to manage change.

Imagine you are riding an elephant to your favorite ice cream shop. You’ve been going there since you were a kid and love it. It happens to be on the other side of the river. You find out that the bridge is out and have several options – 1) Ride two days out of your way or 2) try a new ice cream shop 2 blocks away that has been getting great reviews. 

The rational part of you thinks the new shop sounds great but the emotional side is very attached to the original place. The rational part of you is referred to as the rider while the emotional part is the elephant.  The Rider can influence the elephant a little but for the most part the elephant does what it wants.  The rider is also responsible for providing the path for the elephant. So no matter how hard you try to get the elephant to go to the new store they keep walking the way to the old store. 

This is the nature of change and our resistance to change. Our emotional attachments prevent us from accepting the rational argument for something new. So whether it is changing your business model to smooth out revenue or moving your technology platform to the cloud to become more efficient or handing over the reins to someone so that you can retire, it all comes down to emotional attachment. Either your customers are attached to the old way of doing things, or your team is attached to what they already know or your employees are attached to you.

So what can you do?

As the rider, you have a few tools at your disposal. They include shaping the path,  focusing on bright spots,  and taking “baby steps”. When you are the rider of an elephant one of your jobs is to pick the path you are going to take. The path will have its own guidance built in to help you get the elephant to go in the direction you want.  The elephant may not know that you are influencing the destination but it will follow the path you set. As a leader in your organization, you can change the destination by changing the path you are on. The principle here is that it is easier to follow path then it is to change the destination. So carefully set the path to influence the change you want.

Focusing on bright spots is a great management tool. All too often, we focus on failures that need to be fixed.  For example, we all have had employees or customers that have been difficult to manage. The tendency is to spend time trying to make them happy. What if instead you took that time and developed your best employees and customers to be even better? Chances are you would be happier and the results would be much better. 

When you have big change to implement with a client or your firm, focus on those small efforts that have been successes in the area of change. If you are trying to switch your employees to cloud based apps that are more efficient, highlight the one employee that has made the switch. Encourage them to do more and to share with others. You’ll be surprised by what happens.

We have all seen babies learn to walk. They don’t start with giant steps running around, they take small steps in the direction they want to go. Taking “baby steps” with organizational change is a much easier then getting the organization to adopt your end plan all at once. 

If you are trying to switch the business model from the annual tax return cycle to a smoother monthly service model, you wouldn’t announce to your employees and customers that starting tomorrow the business model has changed. That would confuse your employees and force customers to leave.  The better approach would be to select some customers that you are already providing monthly services such as bookkeeping, payroll, accounting or general financial advice and offer up a monthly all inclusive fee.  Once you get a few takers, you take an employee and have them manage it. After 6 months, you find out what worked and what didn’t and focus on what worked and roll it out to more customers/employees.

The book identifies many more tools to draw on but hopefully this give you a sense for how to make change happen. Change is never easy but in my experience it is the most rewarding work we do. It may make us uncomfortable but it is also where we learn. So good luck implementing what ever changes you desire and don’t stop singing that tune.

Thanks for reading! René Lacerte 
Founder and CEO
@rlacerte

4 Questions for Bucky Beeman, Owner, The Ground Force, Snappy Signals, Snappy Stop

1. How did you get into your line of work?        
I developed a mind for business and technology while I was still in  high school.  I needed to find a way to make money, so my friend and I started mowing lawns and we created a maintenance business called The Ground Force. I turned a common childhood job into a flourishing local business. Nearly one year after mowing our first lawn, we had 150 lawn care and maintenance customers; now we have over 1000 locations that the Ground Force maintains. My interest of entrepreneurship grew and after our success with The Ground Force, I purchased Snappy Signals and one fast food restaurant called Snappy Stop. I just love being a small business owner.

2. What have you learned through the school of hard knocks?
I learned that starting and managing a business takes a lot of work so don’t be afraid to knock on doors if you have to. I realized quickly that working 12-hour days is necessary part of being an entrepreneur. I am also a true believer that efficiency in my businesses will make me more successful and utilizing today’s technology resources helps me take amazing leaps in a short span of time.

3. What keeps you up at night?
Knowing that not everything is as efficient as it can be. Seriously, worrying about efficiencies does keep me up, but I do use that time to research and find problem solving  solutions. One of the best solutions I have found to date is Bill.com.

4. How has Bill.com helped your business chase its dreams?
The Ground Force is continually growing and now with Bill.com’s new receivables solution, I have found a simplified way to improve my bill pay, invoicing and workflow process and my customers love it. I use Bill.com’s payables and document storage system for my other two businesses, Snappy Stop and Snappy Signals. Before Bill.com, I had 3 filing cabinets full of receipts. Now, my financial office is mobile – I can pay bills, review receipts, send documents and invoice from anywhere, Bill.com has advanced the way I run my businesses and given me the freedom to grow even more.

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  Note: 4 Questions is a new feature on the Bill.com blog where we will ask the same 4 questions of a different Bill.com customer. Given the tremendous passion and can-do attitude of small and mid-sized businesses, we believe these same four questions will result not in repeat answers, but in interesting insight into many different journeys. Want to be profiled? Tweet us at @billcom and let us know!