December 2009 – Unified Network Services

QuickBooks To Update Or Not To Update

I tend to work on the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” level. I’m never the first person out selling the latest business technology and I never recommend the latest and greatest software for your business systems production environment. But, you can count on me to be on the bleeding edge with my own business software and hardware, both in production and in testing and evaluation. After all, I do this for a living.

I’m comfortably familiar with the bleeding edge, except when it comes to QuickBooks, the software I use to bill and count money; that’s right, MONEY. It took me from 1999 to 2008 to change my own version of QuickBooks. There is just too much at stake to move me off of the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” level. Change isn’t easy so if you want to change a software version, one needs a very compelling reason to do so. And one needs to schedule the transition carefully and deliberately, to positively impact one’s business, as opposed to the other stuff I constantly read about.

So, if you see one of these, avoid the urge to press the left button.

You’ll thank yourself later. After all, it’s too close to the end of the year, tax season and 5:00pm.

Secret To Twitter Marketing

Business Systems Support Marketing Planning

Read “A Start-Up’s Tale, Tweet by Tweet” at WSJ

Print “A Start-Up’s Tale, Tweet by Tweet” as a PDF and save it where you can find it again.

Research, research and research some more.

Read “A Start-Up’s Tale, Tweet by Tweet” at WSJ again.

Plan, plan and plan some more.

Read “A Start-Up’s Tale, Tweet by Tweet” at WSJ the third time.

If you didn’t learn anything new after the third read, execute your plan.

Otherwise, revise your plan, then execute your plan.

Read “A Start-Up’s Tale, Tweet by Tweet” at WSJ for extra motivation.

Work, work and work some more.

Read “A Start-Up’s Tale, Tweet by Tweet” at WSJ for additional motivation.

Continue working, enjoy and measure.

Disclaimer: I’m on my second reading.

How to Ensure EMR Can Co-Exist in Your Doctors Office or Clinic

Business Systems Support EMR Medical

APC has an interesting white paper about deploying EMR. You can download it here. (requires new account setup) Of course their take is from a power perspective.

The key things you want to be sure of when you consider where to actually put your equipment should include the following:

• Ability to provide enough cooling for the hardware as the hardware needs it
• Ability to simply and easily add new hardware. Storage, for example, is going to grow each and every day – just look at your paper files
• Ability to provide dependable power to the hardware that is protected so that it is not interrupted and can expand when you add new hardware
• Ability to see and manage of potential problems from power, cooling, or security
• Simplifies the set-up and use of new hardware by simplifying cabling.

I see these as the top five reasons to think real seriously about a HIPAA compliant virtual hosted environment for your new EMR deployment. Keep the hardware out of your clinic and save a ton of money and headache.

Cloud QuickBooks – Let Me Lay It Out For You

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Business Systems Support QuickBooks

What’s all the fuss about QuickBooks not being ready for cloud computing? This one’s easy. Since version 9, Intuit fully supports QuickBooks Enterprise installed on Microsoft Server 2008 with Terminal Services deployed. Details for installing QuickBooks on a Terminal Server clear up any questions about setup and make the process easy for anyone schooled in Server 2008 Terminal Services.

Currently available hosted QuickBooks solutions sets the precedent for reasonable speed, performance and security of applications solutions from vendors like InsynQ, Right Networks, myownasp.com and many others. Licensed through Intuit for hosting QuickBooks Pro through Enterprise and various add on software, these companies move thousands of QuickBooks users off of local computers, into hosted data centers with stable monthly services charges, usually around $50 per user. Strong arguments can be made for these solutions to be QuickBooks in the cloud, but not by popular definitions.

Contributors to Wikipedia state that cloud computing “typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.” The key phrase here is “dynamically scalable” placing cloud computing firmly in the realm of services from Amazon Web Services, gogrid, The RackSpace Cloud and others. The “cloud computing” model, pay-as-you-go for server RAM hours, data transfer and storage usage easily scales from one to thirty users, the size of a large QuickBooks Enterprise deployment.

So, what about your QuickBooks in the cloud?

It’s a matter of time before QuickBooks Enterprise will not be the only product supported on Microsoft Terminal Services, by Intuit. Until that time comes, focus on using Enterprise for your cloud computing environment. Size your Windows 2008 server for the appropriate amount of QuickBooks users and add on software. Provision your Windows Server 2008 resources from a cloud service provider. Configure your virtual server to use terminal services. Complete a routine remote installation of QuickBooks Enterprise, a very straight forward task. Determine your method to deploy the application or desktop to end users. Copy your production company files and databases to your virtual server.

Your now in the cloud with your production QuickBooks environment. Enjoy the control you have over configurations and licensing. Scale to your maximum thirty users as needed by provisioning processor, RAM and storage as needed. Perform processor intensive operations like company file verify and rebuild, manipulating financial statements and spreadsheet operations on your virtual server’s desktop. Best of all, pay-as-you-go for computing resources. Your virtual QuickBooks Multi User environment in the cloud will pay big returns. ROI determined by your monthly expense compared to market pricing of hosted QuickBooks users, currently $50, should help make your evaluation and decision making process easy.