Palladium Technology News

Australia’s ports have rounded out the worst 18 months since 1998 for exporters and importers trying to move their goods through the nation’s major ports, according to Shipping Australia chief executive, Llew Russell . Similarly, across the ditch, ongoing strikes between the Ports of Auckland and its workers has seen  Fonterra, New Zealands’ biggest exporter, ceasing their operations at the port. Several other retailers and exporters have also experienced major disruptions over the busy period. For these businesses, ensuring optimal levels of stock is vitally important. Getting this mix wrong means either being under stocked and loosing sales, or being over stocked and needing to sell surplus off at a discount after the rush has passed. Both result in a loss of profit. However, by employing a modern stock management system, businesses dealing with large amounts of stock can operate far more efficiently.

It follows that it is vital to have a clear picture of what stock you have on hand, what is on order and how much you expect to sell. IRIS Exchequer’s Stock Forecasting module offers a range of functionality designed to ensure your business has the right products in stock at the right time. Our entry level offering predicts sales and usage thus enabling you to maintain your stock at optimum levels. Other add-ons include automated purchase order creation; production works orders and production resource planning.

 With IRIS Exchequer you can view your stock in a logical layout and drill into the history of the item, allowing you to view all purchase and sales transactions. Multiple options for costing stock and the extensive reporting capabilities of IRIS Exchequer means you can always get an accurate picture of your stock at any time.

Equally, being able to search through your serial number history is a quick way of ascertaining if an item is still covered by your warranty – or if indeed you even supplied it. This is an increasingly common issue with people looking to get bargains online from overseas vendors but still expecting the local agents to support them when the product fails.

On the more standard day to day requirements, seeing what stock you have and where it is stored reduces the time it takes to answer customer queries while at the same time increasing the accuracy of your answers. Additionally, stock is easily located once a customer’s order is placed. When they do order, your invoice will be for the correct price for the customer and can take into account multiple discount options and price breaks.

For more information on IRIS Exchequer Stock Forecasting & MRP, you can view our brochure here. To book in a free consulation, call us on (02) 9380 6220 or email info@palladiumtech.com.au.

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Some of the team at Palladium Technology have a go at making some predictions for the year 2012 in tech!

1. The Year of Mobile (Rupert)

In 2012 business software companies will embrace the mobile tablets and smartphones that have been sneaking there way into the office. Here at Palladium half of us are taking our personal iPads into sales and support meetings to more easily convert our notes into Goldmine CRM or put customer data into IRIS Exchequer. In 2012 we will see the release of the IRIS Exchequer Mobile, allowing sales reps to take orders on the road and managers to check essential reports and KPI statistics while out of the office. On a related note, we recently blogged on the future of mobile technology, which you can view here.

2. The iPad continues to grow (Brent)

2012 will see the continued growth of specifically the iPad, which will start to become the default computer for a growing percentage of the population. This will mean that applications will be developed for the iPad and then the PC. As a result, we will see that start of the relegation of the PC to a secondary device, and for a number of users their storage server for their iPad. Additionally, this will also lead to leaps in storage technologies such as Solid State drives becoming more cost effective.

3. Increased convergence between CRM and Social Media (Andrew)

2012 is the year we expect to see this concept really come into fruition. Certainly, social media is now a central element utilised in many organisations marketing mix, giving businesses another channel to communicate and engage with their customers. Greater integration will occur between the so called ‘enterprise’ face of CRM and the social side, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. As a result, this integration will offer organisations enhanced management of their internal CRM functions in unison with their social media activities. Our leading CRM solution, GoldMine, already has this functionality built in. With the GM+View tab, users can easily set up links between prospects in GoldMine and their LinkedIn profiles.

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With Christmas only days away, the end of the year is here! It’s been a turbulent year of events, with the devastating January Queensland floods, followed by the severe tropical cyclone Yasi. On a more positive note, 2011 was a very strong year for the Australian dollar, spending the majority of the year above the US Dollar. Palladium wishes to extend our thanks to all our valued customers for your continued business in 2011. We wish you and your staff a happy festive season and a bright prosperous 2012.

As always we will be avaliable via email or phone during the break should you need to contact us.

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In your daily routine, you may use swipe cards to get on the bus, park your car, or go to the gym. But what about using your phone in the same manner to pay for a cup of coffee? Next month coffee giant Starbucks is rolling out mobile payment systems in the form of an iPhone app across 700 of its stores in the UK.Similarly, across the ditch Vodafone recently started testing its live Near-field communications (NFC) technology at two cafes in Auckland and Wellington, as well as entering into a trial with BNZ. NFC technology allows the user to wave a phone over a payment kiosk, utilisng a chip inside the smartphone. Although this mobile wallet technology has been operational in Japan since 2004, it does make for exciting news. This new mobile-based method is quick, simpler and crucially, more secure than anything we’ve got available at the moment. According to telecommunications research firm Telesyte, the Australian mobile services market will grow from around 29 million subscriptions this year to 35 million by June 2015. This is due to the increasing popularity of tablets, as more people own two or three mobile devices. Additionally, a recent study conducted by marketing research firm YouGov found 42% of smartphone owners want to use their phones as mobile wallets. As such, forward thinking innovative businesses may be able to leverage this technology and increased demand for mobile devices to their advantage. Introducing a mobile payment app adds value to customers, giving them more choice and reasons to shop at their local coffee shop or bank, in turn streamlining the businesses processes and efficiencies.

Following on from this, Toyota recently unveiled their latest concept car, which could be mistaken for a giant smartphone transformer. What might be best described as a smart phone on 4 wheels; this car demonstrates the leading edge of innovation and technology. Acting as a personal computer, the car allows drivers to connect with dealers and others by simply tapping the touch-panel door. As another frontrunner of innovation, Microsoft recently released a this video predicting the sleek, wireless, connected gadgets we’ll all enjoy by the year 2019. This is a wonderfully produced vision of the future of mobile and remote business solutions, celebrating business travel and efficiency. It depicts how future technology will help us make better use of time, attention and strengthen relationships by getting things done at home, work and on the go. Although one cannot predict the future, as IRIS Product Director Paul Sparkes states “at IRIS we too are constantly looking forward, analysing trends, and gathering insights to gain a deeper understanding of how our developments in software and technology can further develop the remote working capabilities of our products”. Keep an eye on our blog in the New Year for exciting new product release from IRIS, such as Exchequer LIVE Mobile, as well as the latest on GoldMine Mobile CRM.

Lastly, if you haven’t already, check out our recently published whitepaer, a handy 7 point check list for dealing with the unexpected.

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How well is your business equipped to deal with the unexpected? The recent Queensland and Victorian floods had a devastating impact on the community, and crippled many businesses. With globalisation, your exposure isn’t just limited to local events either. The horrific Japan earthquake earlier this year caused major supply chain disruption headaches for many importers. If faced with such an event, are you and your staff well equipped to react swiftly and take the correct actions?

In another example recently, New Zealand importers and exporters are feeling the brunt of the industrial dispute at the Ports of Auckland. With Christmas just around the corner, extreme pressures are being felt to make sure stock arrives on time.

In this handy guide, we offer a quick 7-point checklist to ensure you’re well prepared to deal with any unpredictable obstacles, as well as offer a variety of hints and tips to increase your resilience and you keep your business engine running when faced with the unexpected!

Click here to download the full whitepaper. For more information on how IRIS Exchequer can help you deal with the unexpected, please visit www.irissql.com or contact Palladium Technology on (02) 9380-6220.

Recently articles discussing fraud and security have been appearing – one of interest was on the NZ Herald another thought-provoking article was from CSO Australia.

In some ways fraud prevention and computer / system security are now one and the same for a lot of companies. The problem is that every vendor has their own solution that is often touted as “The Solution”. If that is the case then you would expect all advisors to be basically heading in the same direction – so here are two views we picked up that summarises the complexity quite well:

The cloud is public and therefore unsecure. This is a very real issue – moving your data to the cloud means trusting your data and by extension your business, to a company or organisation where you will be but one of numerous users. Careful examination of the security policies and guarantees is therefore strongly recommended.

The cloud by virtue of its size is more secure and robust. This is a very real point – in a nutshell the argument is that a public cloud is larger and more dispersed. As such, it is less vulnerable to a successful attack that will take the service down. Additionally, with such large volumes of data in the service, by obscurity your data is relatively secure and hard to find.

These two points seem to summarise the issues of business security quite well – everyone has an opinion and a usually robust argument for their position. However, what is clear is that there is no right answer aside from some hopefully obvious general guides:

• Security requires thought and planning to derive a system that balances the individual risks you face – just like the locks on your doors and windows of the building you occupy.
• Access control to your data is as important as the data itself – more so if it is not hosted on your own equipment in your own premises – just who can access your data besides you and your staff?
• Business processes can help dictate data security and improve physical security of your other assets such as stock.
• Does the system you are assessing support or improve your own existing security?
• Make sure you understand how your security works – and that security is included in supply agreements especially where you are utilising cloud hosted systems and data.
• Ultimately the backup of your data is your responsibility – even if you “contract it out”.
• Do the applications you use support your security requirements?
• No system is fool proof – the overall quality of fools has kept pace with technology!
• If the data is important – make sure you have multiple copies in multiple locations. Portable hard drives and USB drives mean keeping copies of large amounts of data is inexpensive, easy and portable.
• If you are reviewing a “Cloud” option then compare the security on offer to a service you are confident has robust security. Compare your own systems on the same basis!

On a practical level – here is some advice from Google on security relating to Gmail which can be applied to other systems in a general way.

One year has passed since IRIS announced the Programme of Planned Improvement and as promised this year we have seen four releases of IRIS Exchequer. Earlier in the year, this continued commitment to innovation and improvement saw IRIS voted as the number one Financial Software Supplier to Smaller & Medium Sized Companies’ at the prestigious FDs’ Excellence Awards.

As a direct result of customer feedback, over 480 prioritised modifications and enhancements have been made to IRIS Exchequer in v6.5, v6.6, v6.7, and as of last month v6.8.

Highlights of the 6 series so far

• An all-new method for storing and displaying common screens – Now users can experience an uninterrupted experience when navigating through the screens in Exchequer (v6.5, v6.6, v6.7, 6.8)
• A comprehensive evaluation of regular everyday screens, ensuring any data entered by the user is validated and stored as expected and your data integrity is protected (v6.5, v6.6, v6.7, 6.8)
• Performance gains in key processes, comprising of a revised Budget Roll up process, easy access to our scheduler tool, to improve daybook posting performance and just recently, substantial enhancements to core library reports in the Microsfot SQL Edition (v6.6 and v6.8).

On the horizon for 2012

Due to be released in late January 2012, IRIS Exchequer v6.9 will continue with the Programme of Planned Improvement. This release will see the system expand in the area of user-defined fields, with a further 36 fields becoming available, supporting all transaction types, trader records, stock and job records. As a result, customers will gain greater flexibility when recording business-critical data and will allow for even more detailed analysis. Another new feature will be the introduction of an entry-level audit system with the same product areas having details of record creation and edits being stored. The Microsoft SQL edition programme of improvement will continue, with more of the standard library reports being re-energised to deliver increased performance. This work will also feature in v6.10. Be sure to keep an eye on our blog over the next few months for further details of what you can expect to find in IRIS Exchequer v6.9.

IRIS Exchequer LIVE

Along with the core IRIS Exchequer product, the IRIS Exchequer LIVE series of modules also continues to expand. LIVE Mobile device support will follow on from the launch of LIVE eProcurement. In the New Year, IRIS Exchequer LIVE Mobile will give LIVE customers the power of processing and authorising timesheets and expenses from a Windows Smartphone.

Lastly, if you haven’t done so already, head over to http://www.palladiumtech.com.au/newsletter/ and sign up to receive a copy of our last newsletter of the year.

IRIS PROJECTminder v5.99 has just been released and comes with a raft of new features and enhancements. These beneficial new enhancements seek to improve the users experience and provide greater performance and product quality as part of IRIS PROJECTminder’s planned program of improvement.

New features include:

• New – Timesheet Tracking Dashlet enhancement
• Improved import functionality when creating a project
• New – Import Project Custom Fields functionality
• Expenses report enhancement
• New – Timesheet Email reminder link

As a comprehensive and user-friendly system, IRIS PROJECTminder provides your organisation with all the vital tools to manage your projects, resources, timesheets and expenses. IRIS PROJECTminder offers a simplistic and improved method to deal with project costing, management, planning and billing. With a strong clientele base, IRIS PROJECTminder is perfectly suited to deliver value added benefits to architects, engineers, surveyors, IT consultants and various other time-orientated project centric organisations.

Last month we noted that IRIS PROJECTminder was in the running for ‘Project Planning Product of the Year’ at this year’s prestigious Construction Computing Awards. We are delighted to announce that at the awards last week IRIS PROJECTminder was highly commended, coming in as runner up in its category.
To find out how IRIS PROJECTminder can improve your business, please visit http://www.projectminder.com.au or contact us on (02) 9380 6220.

Earlier this month, we took a look at how the new breed of smartphones and tablet PCs have had a major influence in bringing remote working into fruition. The culmination of our article was a sneak peak at the new IRIS Exchequer Mobile due to be introduced in 2012.

Continuing with the mobile technology theme, this week we are excited to announce the launch of Goldmine Mobile CRM, which is now available on your Apple iPad and Apple iPhone. Goldmine Mobile edition provides mobile users with critical, real-time access to their customer relationship management (CRM) information via their smartphones and tablets. With instant access to the latest customer information, Goldmine Mobile CRM increases sales team collaboration. Consequently, it delivers greater performance from service teams on the frontline, ensuring you never miss a sales activity or customer service engagement.

For more information on Goldmine Mobile CRM please visit http://www.palladiumtech.com.au/goldmine-mobile/ or contact us on (02) 9380-6220 for Australia or (09) 307-5978 for New Zealand.

In other news, we are now active on both Twitter and LinkedIn. Please feel free to comment on our pages and follow us. We will be updating these pages regularly with product information and industry insights. As always, we welcome your feedback!

Lastly, stay up to date and informed with our monthly newsletter, sign up here

IRIS Exchequer v6.8 has just been released and marks the fourth update this year, keeping up the planned feature releases for 2011. With version 6.8, IRIS Exchequer continues commitment to the Planned Programme of Improvement. It comes as a dedicated maintenance release, including popular items requested by users.

 Several enhancements are included in IRIS Exchequer version 6.8 as follows:

• Improved performance on standard reports (MS SQL edition) 
• New specific link to URL option across all Links options 
• Improved messaging around search and filter options 
• Support for the Pervasive 11 database engine
• Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2011  

For more information on IRIS Exchequer version 6.8, you can download the release notes from our website here.

Still not on version 6 – get your site upgraded ASAP

If you have yet to upgrade to version 6, you will be missing out on the latest rapid innovations. We are keen to get all users using the latest release; so please contact us to discuss your upgrade.