Solutions14 Conference Sponsors and Vendors - Part 3

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It is just a few days until the Solutions14 conference being held in Las Vegas will be opening its meeting room doors, and just as importantly the doors to the Expo Hall.  I will admit, Las Vegas is a fun place, and you may be tempted to sneak away from the conference for some Vegas styled fun, but I want to emphasize to you the importance of spending some quality time with all those vendors and sponsors that have come far and wide to provide you with the various conference opportunities you may attend. 

Doug Sleeter, and his entire organization, have done a great job of putting-together a conference focusing on so many different areas of accounting related topics, and that includes securing a multitude of vendors who will be demonstrating and talking-up their products to help you find 'solutions' for your clients as well as your own practice.

It all too often goes unsaid, but Vendors are the lifeblood of every conference, no matter how big or how small.  Sponsors make almost everything you experience during the conference possible. Vendors receive Expo Hall booth space and limited advertising in the conference materials in exchange for their direct or indirect sponsorship of the cost of the educational programs, the various meals and entertainment, and the venue itself.  We sometimes get so enthused about the conference as a whole, that we forget about all that conference vendors who really make the conference what it is.

Now I have (had) absolutely nothing to do with the organization of Solutions 14, rather I am attending as a 'media' representative, and that means that the cost of my attendance has in fact be paid for in part by conference sponsors.  So I feel that the very least I can do is write a few words to encourage you to remember the importance of making the most of Expo Hall hours by spending time with vendors, especially those who can offer you more than just products, but who also offer what we here at Intuitive Accountant call 'Advisor Alliances'.

Many of the Solution14 vendors offer additional incentives to those who stop by their booth in the form of raffle prizes. The vendors you visit while the Expo Hall is open may be your next source of revenue from a referral, residual or partnership program. Vendors who develop software or services that expand the capabilities of basic accounting functions are leading the way for you to open the door of expanding your practice in so many ways. 

With that said, I will close this portion of my narrative with a big "Thank You" to all the Solutions14 vendors, I look forward to seeing you next week.

Here are a few more of the 90+ sponsors of Solutions14 that I will be visiting during the conference (Murph):

Avalara is the leader in sales tax automation for businesses of any size. Our SaaS offering provides the most complete set of transaction tax compliance services available, including tax calculation, exemption certificate management, returns processing and 1099 filing and reporting. Avalara was founded in 2004 and has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in America.

Sales tax provides critical revenue for states. Other than property and income tax, sales tax is the largest source of tax revenue in the majority of the 46 states that collect it. From a government perspective, making sure every sales tax dollar is collected, through audits, fines, penalties rates and rules, is an exercise for income. It’s easy to be lured into a false sense of compliance when it comes to sales tax. Manual sales and use tax management is prone to error and directs staff time to pass-through rather than revenue-generating activities. Automation via Avalara allows growing businesses to leverage limited resources of time and money to remain fully sales tax compliant without sacrificing productivity.

Avalara will be giving away an iPad, so be absolutely certain to stop by their booth to register, who knows a little ‘sales tax wisdom’ might just rub off on you while you are there (Murph).

The Canon imageFORMULA scanner line offers high image quality, leveraging years of experience in developing high-precision optics technologies. It also offers flexible and reliable scanning of mixed batches of documents, from business cards, to checks, to books and large document stacks, to paper-thin forms. And finally, it delivers outstanding value. 

I also want to put in a plug that Canon was the exclusive sponsor of Intuitive Accountant’s Top 100 ProAdvisors for 2014, so be sure to stop by the Canon exhibit booth, check-out their great products, and give them a big ‘thank you’ for being willing to sponsor the Top 100 ProAdvisors awards because you may just want to enter the awards contest this year (Murph).

Concur is the recipient of the 2012 Sleeter Awesome App Award and more importantly is a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions. Concur's easy-to-use solutions help companies and their employees control costs and save time – and even integrate with QuickBooks and other accounting systems. Concur's systems adapt to individual employee preferences, and scale to meet the needs of companies from small to large. Concur helps ensure that corporate travel is booked within policy before the trip is taken, and reconciles expenses after travel is completed. By delivering electronic receipts directly into expense reports, Concur virtually eliminates the need to track and manage paper receipts.

To keep employees productive while traveling, Concur's mobile application enables business travelers to create, review and approve expense reports, and book and change travel itineraries, all from a smartphone. Concur's services provide detailed information to help organizations effectively negotiate with vendors, create budgets and manage compliance. Trusted by thousands of businesses in more than 100 countries, Concur's on-demand services process over $50 billion in T&E spend a year.

Concur takes this functionality to the next level with the Concur Advisor Program. Participating accounting professionals can quickly take control of their own expense reporting, better serve their clients and ultimately grow their practice. In addition, members may obtain CPE credits, access Concur's specialized support, and refer our services to their own clients for additional rewards.

Funding Gates, the company behind FG Receivables Manager, is set on making collections the easiest part of running a business. FundingGates provides smart Accounts Receivable Management centered around their A/R Manager, FG Receivables.

With Funding Gates you can spend less time tracking down customers and more time finding new ones. Analyze your customer history, generate smarter interactive aging reports, and prioritize your accounts receivable management with simple clicks. Analyze your account history, generate smarter interactive aging reports, and prioritize customers with simple clicks. FundingGates' software learns from you and follows your lead - the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes for you and your business.

Keep track of all your accounts receivable conversations. See who is paying on time and who is late. Get the entire communication history with your customer on a single page. Every part of FundingGates Receivables Manager is designed to help you spend less time on receivables and get paid faster. Send reminders with a single click and collect on accounts that do not respond. Get smart recommendations from the most advanced debt collection software to help you get paid.

So this is definitely one booth you will NOT want to miss during the Expo hours, because you can enter to win "a gift after my own heart", an iKrups Combination Espresso Machine and Coffee Maker; when you win, you can brew me a cup of my favorite.

SalesPad LLC delivers software to enhance your QuickBooks experience. SalesPad ERP is designed for service, distribution, and manufacturing companies offering simple CRM and order processing with complete inventory visibility and purchasing functionality. Easy access to customers, configurable workflow, and seamless SQL Server integration make sales and customer service teams more effective. Other SalesPad apps round out role-tailored requirements: CardControl, ShipCenter, and SalesPad Mobile.

Be sure to check out SalesPad's MobileBoards which is designed to automate the reporting of key data from either a QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online company file and deliver it to a mobile device.  Offered previously as only a QuickBooks desktop add-on, SalesPad recently released MobileBoards to QuickBooks Online via the Intuit Apps.com marketplace. MobileBoards comes with more than a dozen stock reports including graphical representations for just the kinds of info busy executives are wanting. MobileBoards has you covered in either graphical or text report formats, from your iPhone, iPad or Android device. Selecting your desired reports is as simple as checking the boxes of the reports you like.  You can view your reports after downloading the MobileBoards app from the iOS or Play store. 

SalesPad looks forward to assisting ProAdvisors in servicing the needs of their customers through our Partnership program.  Stop by the SalesPad booth to register for a chance to win a $200.00 Visa Gift Card.

The award-winning Receipt Bank can help you to increase your firm’s capacity and margins! Receipt Bank is trusted by over 1,000 accountancy firms and thousands of small businesses. The current holder of Xero’s prestigious ‘Add-on of the year’ award, Receipt Bank helps you to:

  • collect invoices, bills and receipts from your clients
  • extract the data from clients’ invoices and receipts without any data entry
  • publish this key data into the leading bookkeeping systems including QBO, Xero, Freshbooks & SageOne

Be certain to stop and visit at their Exhibit Booth to discover how Receipt Bank can help your firm grow faster.  By the way, one of our regular contributing authors here at Intuitive Accountant, Damien Greathead, is in the process of joining Receipt Bank as their Vice President of Business Development for North America. Congratulations Damien! (Murph)

LivePlan by PaloAlto Software is a cloud-based business planning/financial management app that helps Accountants stay connected to their small business clients all year round. LivePlan is the easiest to use budgeting and forecasting tool, and the Scoreboard feature easily connects with QuickBooks and Xero. This unlocks the client's accounting data and places it into an easy-to-read dashboard to allow a small business owner to see how his/her business is doing at a glance, at any time.

As consultants to small businesses, once YOU have given your small business clients access to their financial data via LivePlan, and they’ve had the time to digest and understand where they are financially, they’re likely to turn to you for the advice they need to make their final decision. You are the trusted business advisor who can help them determine the financial dials they can turn to keep their business growing, control expenses correctly, and make sure they never run out of cash. This is where you can add real value and remain relevant year-round. Be sure to stop by the PaloAlto booth to register for their raffle of an iPad Mini (Murph). 

In 2003, Legrand released it's first desktop CRM. Today we have two distinct solutions: Legrand Online for people who want their CRM in the cloud, and Legrand CRM Corporate edition for larger teams that need a combined desktop and mobile solution. The 2014 release of LegrandCRM provides increased productivity with the brand new Outlook and Gmail apps that enable you to access and work with your CRM data right inside of your email app. Legrand Online's deep integration with QuickBooks Online and XERO ensures that everyone in your team has the customer's full history at their fingertips, including sales transactions, empowering them to respond to customer queries and schedule the appropriate follow-up action.

LegrandCRM integrates with your accounting software, Microsoft Office and more, to deliver a full 360° view of all your relationships and activities. Because it is easy to learn your staff will love using it, and you will see immediate improvements in your business. Legrand CRM enables businesses to put into place the systems and processes that will enable them to grow.

Ideal for teams of 10 to 100 people, Legrand CRM is a very practical tool that will bring immediate improvements to your business operation. Legrand CRM is strong in account management, contact management, marketing, e-mail campaigns, quotation management, pipeline management, customer service and scheduling, plus it's accounting software integration permits a 360º view of all your business relationships and activities.

Free yourself from data entry with ScanWriter by Personable, a Gold Certified Solution. Go beyond bank feeds by automating payables, receivables, and your reconciliation from physical paper, PDF or Excel files to save many hours/days of tedious manual work. Supporting QuickBooks Desktop and Online, Xero, Sage and other accounting solutions, users can enter hundreds of transactions in minutes directly from their vendor invoices, receipts, credit card/bank/brokerage statements, payroll reports and achieved ROI in the first month or first project. ScanWriter not only streamlines the workflow; it has helped accountants encode their client’s business logics to add value to their services.

ScanWriter offers an unprecedented Data Entry Automation solution that enters 100’s of transactions into your accounting software, be sure to stop by their booth for a complete demonstration, not to mention the fact that you won’t want to miss your opportunity to win a ScanWriter 160 Scanner Personable is giving away, so be sure to stop by their booth to be registered for the raffle (Murph).