Equine Accounting: Seven tips for getting paid by your clients on a more timely basis...

You've got a barn full of boarders and lots of lessons scheduled. Everyone's happy with your services. But you are having trouble collecting from those clients. What can you do to make collection easier and faster?

1. Bill your clients on a timely basis. Your invoices for board should reach your clients at least one week before their payment is due. Take the time to create an actual invoice - even if the amount due stays the same from month to month. If you don't have the time to bill your clients, hire someone to do it for you. You know that the reason that you don't have time to do the billing is because you are too busy cleaning stalls, turning out and doing all the other things it takes to make your clients and their horses happy. But the message they get when you don't bill on time is that the money isn't that important to you. So why should it be to them? 2. Have new boarders sign a contract that specifies when board is due and have current boarders initial the contract yearly. It may not have a lot of legal clout but it reminds your clients that you are first and foremost a business and operate as such. If you use this procedure with everyone, you aren't likely to get objections to doing so.
3. Ask for a security deposit from new boarders. This is standard procedure when you rent an apartment so why should it be any different when someone rents a stall from you? Having the security deposit gives you a little cushion should someone get behind. But never offer the client the option to apply the security deposit to an arrears balance unless it is their last month of boarding with you. If you increase your board, then the client must increase the amount of the security deposit. Your state may have regulations relating to maintaining security deposits so check with them before setting up any policy.
4. Have clients prepay your boarding or lesson fees. Offer them the option to "buy in bulk". This is especially effective for lessons. Offer a package of ten lessons with a discount for prepayment. Boarding barns can offer a discount when payment is made in advance on a quarterly basis.
5. Offer clients the opportunity to pay by credit card. PayPal and Intuit offer affordable credit card services that you can access from a smartphone or computer. There are fees involved but accepting credit cards can save you the time you spend chasing clients for payment. But I would not suggest maintaining credit card information on file. Massachusetts is in the process of implementing a new privacy of information law that includes security of credit card information and your state may have a similar law in place. Instead, explain to clients that they will need to provide their credit card for each charge. Some barns currently will only accept credit cards as a form of payment. This eliminates the need to make bank deposits and the problem of a check returned for insufficient funds.
6. For invoices for board, consider e-mailing the invoices rather than handing them out or leaving them in tack trunks. Clients are more likely to forget the invoice at the barn, in the car, etc than an invoice delivered directly to their computer. Checkbooks are usually kept close to the computer so it's easy to write out the check right then and there. For lessons, you should not have to be sending invoices, unless it is for a prepayment package. If the client does not prepay, then payment should be made at the time of the lesson. 7. Some barns charge extra fees for time spent holding the horse for the farrier, administering meds, etc. You may get distracted during the day and forget to make a note that the client needs to be billed for those extras. So consider either increasing the monthly board to cover all of the extras or offering an annual charge (to be paid at the beginning of each year) to cover all of the extras. The fee wouldn't be mandatory for all clients but by discounting it, you can make it attractive enough that many of your boarders will sign on.

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Implementing Intuit Statement Writer on a Secure Network

The Intuit Statement Writer is a custom reporting and financial statement tool for use with QuickBooks Premier Accountant and Microsoft Excel. The solution has a few peculiarities that must be addressed in order to make it function properly (or at all!) in a networked or hosted environment.

The issues center primarily around the fact that the application was designed for use on a standalone PC, and doesn’t take into consideration the potential for redirected or restricted data folders. Further, the method of integration with Microsoft Excel requires specific support from the Excel application, so care must be taken in selecting the version of Excel (or Microsoft Office) to be used.

In computing environments where the QuickBooks and Office applications are installed directly on each PC, and where data is stored locally on the PC, most of these issues become irrelevant. When the applications are utilized within a strictly controlled domain, however, a variety of issues may arise. If the applications are to be utilized in a terminal server environment, then many issues will certainly come into play.

The Intuit Statement Writer solution requires QuickBooks Premier Accountant v2010, and Microsoft Office 2003 or greater. The version of Office or Excel used must be at least version 2003, and it must be either the full standalone version of Excel, or Excel as part of MS Office Standard, Professional, or Enterprise. Excel as part of MS Office Small Business, Basic, or Student/Teacher editions is not compatible. All editions of Excel 2007 are compatible.

By default, the Intuit Statement Writer (ISW) stores its files on the local PC where the application is installed. The application utilizes the local “My Documents” folder as the location for ISW files. In an environment where the My Documents folder is redirected to a network folder or share, the program fails to install or run properly. The specific error messages encountered may vary, but are essentially indicating the same issue: you are attempting to use an unsupported file folder location.

Intuit Statement Writer (ISW) requires full trusts and permissions to the My Documents folder, which is automatically granted when the folder is local to the PC. When My Documents folder is pointed to a shared network drive, the trusts and permissions are no longer granted and the error message will appear. According to Intuit, “Intuit Statement Writer files and appearance files (.gsm and .gss) can be stored on a server or network drive, but it is not possible to open and work with the files while they are located on the server without modifying security policies on the machine. Because we don't recommend this, the files must be local when working with them." It is necessary to copy the ISW file you wish to work with to your local drive, and, when finished working with the file, copy it back to the server.

In addition to having difficulties using server or network drives, ISW also will not function as a multi-user application, due to the architecture and reliance upon the MyDocuments folder. While ISW may be used without issue while QuickBooks is in multi-user mode, only one user at any time is able to work with the Intuit Statement Writer files.

Relating to the policy and permissions issue, there is a Microsoft Support article which describes a potential resolution (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9w6bd8f1.aspx How to: Grant Permissions to Documents and Workbooks in Shared Locations (2003 System)) This article addresses this issue and provides information on modifying security policies around the Office Document Membership Condition on the computer(s) where ISW will run.

Two methods are provided: using Visual Studio command line tools, or using the Microsoft .NET Framework configuration tool.

In an effort to simplify making these changes on your systems, Intuit has provided a batch file which can be run on the system where ISW is installed, and where the My Documents folder is redirected for the user.

Obtain the batch file here: https://www.quickbase.com/db/bewwfafti?a=GenNewRecord

This batch file (actually 2 batch files) grant full trust to the ISW dll files, checks to see if and where the My Documents folder is redirected, and attempts to grant full trust to the specific network location of the My Documents folder through the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 assemblies. Care must be taken any time .NET security policies or configurations are adjusted, especially when working within a secure domain. The .NET Framework Configuration tool (Mscorcfg.msc) enables users and administrators to modify security policies for the machine policy level, the user policy level, and the enterprise policy level.

From Microsoft: "Prior to the .NET Framework, most Windows applications had free access to all of the local computer resources, including the registry, file system, event logs, environment variables or available printers. Due to the limitations of role-based security, administrators were conditioned to accept that nothing was off limits to a running application as long as the user (or the user context under which the application is running) was authorized to use the resource.With the proliferation of distributed component-centric systems, it's not uncommon for applications to download and execute components from Internet/intranet sites or network shares. The possible negative consequences of such applications are obvious. Malicious code, whether by design or not, could be loaded from an external entity and wreak havoc on a local computer or the network on which it resides. There is also the threat of security breaches that could jeopardize the privacy of sensitive data."

Because the Intuit Statement Writer utilizes features of Microsoft Excel, it relies heavily on the behavior of the Office applications and document permissions on the computer and network. These permissions are often controlled by establishing security profiles or policies via the .NET framework. If the location of a Microsoft Office 2003 document is not secure (for example, a SharePoint site or file share that users—possibly including malicious users—can write to), or if you are not sure who has permission to upload content, you can grant permissions only to documents and workbooks in the location, rather than to all content. You do this by using the Office Document Membership Condition, and modifying the security policy to check for this condition on the computers on which your solution will run.

When you use the Office Document Membership Condition, only Office documents are trusted; assemblies and executables are not granted permissions to be run from the share.This permission or trust is often assigned to a “code group”. Code groups can provide information on how the system determines the allowed permissions. The allowed permission set for the policy level is the permission set associated with the code group that has this attribute.

When all policy levels are considered, the runtime never grants the code more permissions than those associated with the Exclusive code group. Within a given policy level, code can be a member of no more than one code group that has the Exclusive attribute. This may be problematic for some administrators who wish to implement the Intuit “fix”, which creates a policy group and then establishes that group with the Exclusive attribute. Network administrators with pre-existing security policies may well find that the Intuit fix will not work as delivered, due to the fact that Exclusive policy groups may already exist to govern the permissions of Office or other documents.

Intuit KB Article: http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1011230

1. After the zip file is downloaded, you will need to extract it to the desktop...

2. After the file as been unzipped, open up the ISWFix1 folder and double-click on the ISWFix1.bat file.

3. These steps will need to be performed for each computer or user account that needs access to ISW.

4. Terminal Services/Citrix: Ensure the ISWprefs.ini file is set to not delete itself when the user logs out.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2bc0cxhc(VS.71).aspx#cpconnetframeworkadministrationtoolmscorcfgmscanchor4

Microsoft .NET Framework configuration tool

Turning to IT When Times are Tough

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Turning to IT When Times are Tough

When budgets get tight and the economic outlook is bleak, business owners and executives tend to turn to information technology departments and projects as a potential area for cost cutting. The reason for this is that many businesses view IT purely as a cost center, making it a prime target when driving to reduce operating costs. A recent survey by McKinsey & Company, however, indicates that the current trend is a bit different.

The new research indicates that many non-IT executives "seemed to have a developed a healthier appreciation for their information technology functions" according to Joe McKendrick in a recent ZD Net article on the subject. McKendrick mentions that business executives generally seem pleased with the way the information technology is helping organizations get through these difficult economic times, "navigating the rough seas" as he puts it.

"The survey also suggests that organizations that took the most advantage of information technology going into the recent downturn may have come out the strongest" observes McKendrick.

The McKinsey & Co Study, authored by Roger Roberts and Johnson Sikes, reported that the recent economic downturn actually increased awareness of the role information technology can play in improving business processes and reducing costs. As for the quality of services delivered? The study revealed that non-IT executives largely believe their IT functions responded effectively to the economic crisis. A majority said current performance in providing basic IT services is very or extremely effective. In contrast, IT executives had a dimmer view of their performance, with only a minority being satisfied with service delivery levels.

There have always been questions about the alignment of information technology to the business need, and IT is often perceived as being out of touch with the business. In this new research, McKinsey & Co indicate that IT executives are very aware of the issues of keeping up with the business and are finding innovative ways of addressing them.

Joanie