July 2009 - Posts
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In this week's webinar, Ryan Bell
will do an introduction to actions in Method. This level 1 webinar will cover 4 of the actions within Method and explain what "events" are when dealing with customization.
So how do you join and participate in the webinar? Simply follow the directions listed below.
Title: Community Webinar 4: Introduction to Actions - Level 1
Date: Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM - 1:30 PM EDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/230283651
Cheers,
Danny Do Couto
Method Integration
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It’s hard to believe a week has already passed since I posted the first CRM movie on the Sales Center. Time sure flies...
I hope you’ve had a chance to view the first movie in the 6-movie CRM series, and in case you haven’t, you can click here to link to the Sales Center blog post.
Like the Sales Center, it is essential to have a user-friendly Call Center that your employees are keen on using daily. With the Method CRM Call Center, you can ensure that all customer contacts are documented and handled with care.
Movie #2 – Call Center
Method CRM makes it easy to resolve issues and reference customer history. Learn how the Method CRM Call Center makes it simple to create, track and edit cases, activities and solutions.
What is a call center “case”?
We’ve all had to call a customer service department at one point in our lives. We call up, give them our contact information, and explain the problem we are experiencing. The customer service staff then either gives us a solution, or escalates it to someone else who will provide the solution either right away, or they may have to call us back at a later time.
But how do they track this on their end to make sure we don’t get forgotten? They have call center software! As soon as a call comes in they create a “case” (aka a “ticket”). The case is then assigned from staff member to staff member until a solution is provided. At any point in time the call center managers can see a list of outstanding cases, who is working on them now, and who has worked on them in the past.
What does this mean for you? Well, with Method CRM, your customer service experience goes way up because customers never fall between the cracks and you have one central place to see the status on all outstanding issues.
Problem + solution = Happy customer = More money for you!
View CRM Movie #2 on the Call Center
After viewing the movie, if you have any unanswered questions about the Call Center features, please post your questions in the Method Forum so they can be addressed appropriately.
Be sure to check back soon for movie #3 on the List Builder.
Have a nice day,
Katie
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Having access to your QuickBooks and business data is vital to any successful company’s survival, especially in today’s economy. Not only does the data have to be easily accessible, it needs to be fast, secure and provide little to no additional work in order to keep it running. It doesn’t matter how small or large your company is, the same rules apply and if you don’t think your company’s financial and business data should be a high priority, it’s time for a wakeup call. What’s that old saying? Time is money. 
Many Method users already take advantage of the fact that their QuickBooks and business data can be accessed from anywhere, provided they have access to a simple webpage. This cuts down the immediate overhead costs of installing and administering software applications on PCs (or Macs) being used in the office. Not to mention, if you’re a small business and you’re the one taking care of all the admin needs for your employees, you know exactly how much of a pain it can be, especially when you would rather focus on your business.
Method allows for all your data entry to be done in the cloud, so your admin, sales, marketing, support, and remote staff never need to worry about where they can access their data. Of course, any QuickBooks data they enter through Method is going to appear in QuickBooks just as you would expect. Now as a business owner, I know I can have all my staff doing their data entry through Method, control what they see and how they enter data, have them use industry applications that I can tailor to my own needs by customizing Method and never have to have my employees touch QuickBooks. Great!
What about your accounting department that needs to use QuickBooks desktop? Or the business owner that wants to have access to his or her QuickBooks data? Or even the accountant who now manages the QuickBooks files for their client but doesn’t want to be responsible for hosting the QuickBooks file at their own office?
Wouldn’t it be nice to put your QuickBooks desktop in the cloud so that only privileged users would have access to QuickBooks and everyone else does their data entry through Method in a controlled environment that you can change?
Guess what? Now you can!
I am very happy to announce our partnership with InsynQ. InsynQ provides accounting professionals and their clients the ability to host their QuickBooks desktop in a hosted and secure environment. This places the traditional QuickBooks desktop that you have installed on your laptop, home PC, office PC or server in “the cloud”. That way you have access to it anytime and anywhere you want. To make things even easier, the server on Insynq is already configured and ready for QuickBooks and for Method from day
1. This means you can get up and running in no time.
With this exciting partnership, you can place your entire company’s QuickBooks and business data in the cloud and have it accessible from any location.
Your back office (by InsynQ)
Manages your QuickBooks desktop data and is accessed only by owners, managers and accountants that need to access QuickBooks directly.
Your front office (by Method Integration)
Manages all other data entry for your admin, sales, marketing and support, including QuickBooks related data, CRM and industry applications such as Field Services, Professional Services, etc,
Listed below are a couple of example implementations. For more information on InsynQ and getting started, click the link below:
http://www.insynq.com
Sample implementations of Method Integration and InsynQ
Company: Jerry’s IT Consulting Company
Before:
Jerry owns a small IT consulting company that is growing rapidly. He needs to be able to allow his 2 office staff to schedule technicians as calls come in and also allow his field technicians to keep track of their time at a client’s location. He would like to avoid having to manually enter in the technicians’ timesheets. Jerry also has an accountant that comes in weekly to do his accounting since he has QuickBooks installed on his laptop.
After:
Jerry now has his QuickBooks desktop hosted with InsynQ. When he needs to access his QuickBooks information, he simply does so by logging into the InsynQ server. He has also setup an additional user so that his accountant no longer needs to come into the office to do his accounting. Jerry also setup his Method account and has his 2 office staff scheduling work through Method Field Services. They are able to add new customers through Method and dispatch work for technicians. The technicians also login to Method to enter in their times and see newly scheduled work. The services times being entered and customers being added by the office staff appear in QuickBooks in real-time and the only people having to access QuickBooks directly are Jerry and his accountant. Jerry sleeps well at night knowing his data is secure with Method and InsynQ.
Company: Mina’s Accounting Services
Before:
Mina is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. For several of her clients, Mina needs to login remotely to their computer to do their accounting work. Mina typically needs to call the client in advance to ensure they are not using the PC she is logging into. This is sometimes frustrating since she needs to wait until that user if off the computer before she can do any work. For some of her other clients, Mina collects their QuickBooks file on a monthly basis in order to do the books. Most of her clients do basic functions in QuickBooks like creating invoices, bills, entering times or receiving purchase orders. Mina would love to have a way to manage the QuickBooks files for her clients while allowing her clients access to necessary information and allowing them to run their day to day business. She would prefer to not host the QuickBooks files at her office since the infrastructure and security are not in place.
After:
After learning about Method Integration, Mina was thrilled with the idea of hosting the QuickBooks files for her clients and having her clients do their data entry through Method. All the business functions her clients needed were available using the Method interface and this meant that she would always have access to the QuickBooks desktop data. Since InsynQ had the ability to host the QuickBooks files and run Method, Mina now has all of her client QuickBooks files hosted on InsynQ and logs onto the CPAASP(InsynQ) server to do her day to day work. Her clients are thrilled since they’re no longer interrupted in their daily operations to assist Mina and are able to gain access to their information over a simple webpage.
Cheers,
Danny Do Couto
Method Integration
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I’m sure many of you out there are happy to read this announcement about the arrival of Method CRM movies. There will be 6 movies in total and I'll aim to post a new one each week, so if you haven't aleady, subscribe to our RSS feed so you know each time a new movie has be posted.
What is CRM?
It’s “Customer Relationship Management” which is just a fancy name for what you already do every day in your business when you interact with customers. Every successful business keeps track of what sales opportunities they have on the go, what customer problems need to be resolved, and what appointments and follow-ups they can’t forget about. Whether you are keeping track of all this in your head, on a note pad, post-it notes, Outlook, or even in the “Notes” field for the customer in QuickBooks… everyone is doing some kind of CRM already. What Method CRM does is just make everything way more streamlined and easier to manage. And since Method CRM is synched real-time with your QuickBooks customers and transactions, and since it is tightly integrated with other Method apps, it just makes it the best CRM tool out there!!
Who should watch these movies?
If you are using Method Starter Edition, and want to see what you are missing – this is a great way to get a sneak peak.
If you are using Method Full Blown Edition, you might be sitting there wondering, “Do these movies still apply to me?”. Yes they do! Keep in mind that CRM is a base for all editions, including Method Full Blown Edition, Method Field Services and Method Warehouse.
In other words – every Method user will benefit from watching these movies.
6-movie Method CRM series
As mentioned, I’ll aim to post a new movie every week, with each movie focusing on a particular feature in Method CRM. The 6 movies will cover:
1. The Sales Center
2. The Call Center
3. The List Builder
4. Customer Portal
5. Real-time QuickBooks integration
6. Outlook integration
These movies will help you to understand the benefits of using Method CRM and clarify any questions you might have. If you’re still uncertain about any features or how to utilize CRM functionality after viewing the series, please post your questions in the Method Forum so that they can be addressed appropriately.
Movie #1 – Sales Center
You’ll learn how to ensure no sales opportunity falls through the cracks, close more deals, track the success of marketing campaigns, and schedule follow-up appointments.
Without any further ado, here is CRM Movie #1 on the Sales Center:
http://www.methodintegration.com/blogmovies/SC-AppLibrary.wmv
Have a nice day,
Katie
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In this week's webinar, Amanda Mahadeo will introduce the customization of screen in Method. Advanced properties, Section layout and how to drag and drop field / objects to screens are some of the focus points that will be explored. You won't want to miss it!
So how do you join and participate in the webinar? Simply follow the directions listed below.
Title: Community Webinar 3: Introduction to customization screen
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM - 1:30 PM EDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/687530026
Cheers,
Danny Do Couto
Method Integration
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In our second Community Webinar, Valbon Shabani will introduce you to tables & fields in Method. This webinar will focus around defining the different types of tables and fields and creating new tables and fields for use in Method.
So how do you join and participate in the webinar? Simply follow the directions listed below.
Title: Community Webinar 2: Getting started with Tables and Fields
Date: Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM - 1:30 PM EDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/112074195
Cheers,
Danny Do Couto
Method Integration
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Our very first community webinar will be hosted by Ryan Bell, a Business System Consultant and member of the Method Team. He will be covering how to get started with Method. These topics are focused around how to navigate through the various preferences and options within Method. Many of the initial questions we get after someone gets started using Method will be addressed in this webinar.
So how do you join and participate in the webinar? Simply follow the directions listed below.
Title: Community Webinar 1: Getting started with Method
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/215282083
Cheers,
Danny Do Couto
Method Integration
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Here at Method we strongly believe in a sense of Community and this is always something we keep in mind with everything that we do. Our community members are rapidly implementing Method into their business and seeing the benefits of doing so.
Having been in the IT and software business as long as I have, I am used to seeing the different stages a company goes through when implementing new software into their business. The process can be very exciting and scary at the same time but in the end, when you start to see the results, it is SO rewarding. I still and probably always will, get a kick out of hearing success stories from community members, who have embraced the power of Method and leveraged it in their business. 
To help expedite the learning process with Method, I am excited to announce that starting next week; Method will be hosting Community Webinars. Want to hear the best part? These webinars will be offered FREE of charge.
Each webinar will last approximately 30 minutes every Wednesday at 1:00pm EST and will be taught by one of our very own Business Systems Consultants. New topics will be discussed and we will be recording all of the webinars so in case you miss it, you are able to view it at your leisure.
So how do you stay up to date and join the webinars? Just be sure that you are subscribed to the RSS feed on the Method Blog which you can do by clicking the link below. The RSS feed will notify you whenever a new blog entry is made and will contain the link to the next webinar.
Want to register for the RSS Feed? Click HERE!
Ryan Bell will be teaching the very first webinar this coming Wednesday so lookout for the blog on this webinar to be release shortly.
Cheers,
Danny Do Couto
Method Integration
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