auditingsoftware

Having a minimum par stock level and proper inventory help maintain the proper supply needed in the rooms. Monitoring various items through proper stocking and regular inventory of any categories, whether supplies for guest amenities, cleaning, food, linen, towels etc., help in keeping the hotel to operate smoothly and efficiently.

There are numerous items being used to operate a hotel but since a regular room has a bedroom and a bathroom, bed linen and towels are the primary items required in the room. The availability of these items are vital to be always on-hand.

Physical inventory is needed in order to find out the quantity that are missing, stained or misused. Possible treatment of the stained or misused is done and once treated are put back into circulation. This on-going procedure help reduce shortages and save future expenses.

Par Stock Level are standard quantity of items to be maintained. This will be the total set of items multiplied by 3 par: 3 1/2 par; 4 par; etc. The total number of missing and discarded must tally with the total number of items in circulation to equal the set-up par level.

Variance will be the quantity of items that are either above or below the par stock level. The total quantity of items to be purchased in order to set the quantity of items back to its par stock level will depend on the outcome of the inventory made.

To site an example for this:
Room No.= Bath towel= Hand towel= Face towel= Bath Mat= Bed sheet
101======4========4=========4=======1=====3
102 ======4========4=========4=======1=====3
103 ======4========4=========4=======1=====3
Sub Total==12=======12=========12=======3=====9
Ldry Rm.==02========05=========03=======4=====3
Total ====14========17=========15=======7=====12
Par Stock =36========36=========36=======9=====27
Variance(-12)=======(-19)=======(-21)=====(-02)===(-15)

Based on the above example, there is a discrepancy on the variance level, therefore these quantity should be made available and be added in circulation in order to maintain the par level of the stock item that are in circulation.

Without the proper stock of items being maintained and controlled, negative outcome such as follows may occur;

1. Housekeepers, linen runner or laundry attendants will be consuming more time in completing their tasks. (Housekeepers will be going back and forth in the laundry area checking for the availability of items they require to complete each room that they are cleaning. They will be wasting their time in the checking of items instead of putting more time in the cleaning of rooms. This activity affects the quality of work and the payroll. Same thing goes with the linen runner or laundry attendants. They will have to cater to the individual needs of each housekeeper instead of doing their tasks efficiently and in an organized manner. They too will have poor quality of work and consumed more time than they should.

2. Payroll increases

3. Quality of work affected.

4. Low employee morale.

5. Customer dissatisfaction.

These and many other outcome will be experienced due to supply shortages. It is very important that physical inventory takes place on a regular basis to avoid inconveniences and most especially being able to control the budget.

Author: Natividad Imm
Source: ezinearticles.com

New small businesses and entrepreneurs quickly discover that the accounts payable process can turn into a monster. If it isn’t handled properly, unpaid bills pile up and get paid late, making vendors angry and possibly damaging the business’ credit rating.
Once a consistent procedure is developed, the accounts payable process can go smoothly. If you are in business by yourself and cannot afford to hire outside help, here are ten tips to help establish a consistent accounts payable process:
1. Purchase accounting software with an accounts payable module. In today’s business and computer world, some may wonder why this even needs to be a suggestion in a list such as this. Surprisingly, Internet research indicates that up to one-half of micro businesses (defined as under ten employees) do not use accounting software, instead using spreadsheets or even paper ledgers.
The advantages of using accounting software with an accounts payable module are tremendous and far outweigh the cost and learning curve. When used correctly and consistently, the software will serve several important functions: a reminder as to when bills are due; a generator of payments; and a recorder of payments into the checking register. The time savings alone over doing these functions manually warrant the purchase of accounting software.
2. Utilize the vendor’s auto-debit or auto-charge feature, if available. Utility companies, and other types of companies who have recurring payments, often offer auto-debit or auto-charge services. When used, the amount due is automatically deducted from the business checking account, or charged to the business credit card, on the date shown on the invoice. Often, the paper invoice is still mailed, but sometimes the vendor insists on emailing invoices when this service is activated. Either way, the invoice is available for viewing before the amount is deducted or charged. When used in conjunction with accounting software, the amount can be post-dated into the checking register or credit card register. If the company has a good and consistent cash flow, this procedure saves time and money by avoiding the bill payment process altogether.
3. Utilize the software’s internal “bill pay” feature, if available. QuickBooks, for example, offers a “Bill Pay” feature that is very inexpensive and easy to use. Once established, bills are paid electronically according to the software user’s authorization. The bill payment service takes the authorized amount from the designated bank account, then either issues a paper check to the vendor, or electronically transfers the money to the vendor’s account. The low monthly fee is not much more than the cost of postage and paper check printing.
4. Enter unpaid bills in a timely manner. Do not delay entering unpaid bills into the accounting software. Waiting too long to enter them can result in late payments, finance charges, and possible damage to the business credit score.
5. Enter unpaid bills correctly. It is very important to examine the bill and enter the correct vendor name, bill due date, and invoice number. Entering an incorrect due date will result in a payment occurring sooner or later than necessary. After entering them, stamp them as “Entered” or “Posted” using a rubber stamp with red ink. Be sure to write on the bill the date they were entered.
6. Organize unpaid bills. If there are many bills, organize them in an alphabetical file system to make them easy to locate. However, a small amount of bills may be placed in a single file.
7. If cash is tight, determine your cash flow before paying bills. Simple cash flow reports are easy to generate in Excel. Start with the actual amount of cash available to pay bills. Include amounts in checking accounts, savings accounts, and lines of credit. Subtract bills that need to be paid immediately. If there is not a comfortable cushion of cash left over, reduce the the amount of bills to be paid.
8. If cash is tight, communicate with any vendors who must be paid late. No vendor appreciates being paid late, but they do appreciate open communication. If you must pay a vendor late, let them know, and let them know a specific date you plan to pay them. Then, make every effort to pay them by that date.
9. Pay bills on a consistent timetable. Establish a regular timetable to pay bills – weekly is a good and common choice.
10. After they are paid, stamp them correctly, then file them. Buy a rubber “Paid” stamp, and use it on each bill that has been paid. Write the check number (or payment method), date paid, and amount paid on the bill. File them according to how they appear on the tax return. In other words, file Utilities together, file Office Supplies together, file Travel and Entertainment together, etc. This makes them easy to locate in the event of an audit.

Author: Jennifer A. Thieme
Source: download

Calgary, Alberta July 21, 2004 — Print Audit, the leading print tracking software developer, announced today that Oki Data Americas, Inc. has chosen Print Audit’s software to help its resellers analyze their client’s print volumes.

Oki Data will utilize Print Audit’s Reseller Assessment Program (RPAP) to conduct assessments on behalf of its resellers. The RPAP allows office equipment resellers to purchase a special 30 or 60-day version of Print Audit’s flagship software, Print Audit 4, directly from Oki Data. The software provides a complete view of an organization’s printing volumes over a period of time. Oki Data resellers will be able to analyze these print volumes using Print Audit 4’s comprehensive reporting tools and create specific proposals related to their customer’s needs.

The inclusion of the Print Audit’s RPAP solution is the latest step in Oki Data’s expansion into managed services. These services are designed to help Oki Data’s end user customers discover opportunities for reducing costs, improving overall printing fleet effectiveness and managing their fleet for optimum performance.

โ€œWe are thrilled to have Oki Data Americas join the growing list of Print Audit partners. More and more hardware vendors are beginning to see the value Print Audit can add to their sales strategy,โ€ said John MacInnes, President and CEO of Print Audit. โ€œThe RPAP allows resellers to differentiate themselves from competitors by giving them the ability to recommend hardware solutions based on real data gathered by Print Audit 4.โ€

Print Audit has been developing print tracking and copy auditing solutions since 1998 and its products are in use around the world. Print Audit’s products enable their customers to analyze, reduce and recover their printing and photocopying costs. The market for Print Audit’s products continues to grow as many diverse organizations realize the value of controlling printing expenditures.

About Oki Data: Oki Data Americas, Inc., headquartered in Mount Laurel, N.J., and a subsidiary of Oki Data Corporation of Japan, supplies PC peripheral equipment including color digital LED printers, serial impact dot matrix printers, multifunction products and facsimiles. Known for durable and reliable products, Oki Data is ISO 9001 certified and also offers a full line of options, accessories and consumables. Its entire line of products complies with the EPA’s Energy Starยฎ Program. Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd., parent company to Oki Data Corporation, is a $5.9 billion multinational corporation with headquarters in Tokyo and is a world leader in information processing systems, telecommunications and electronics.

For more information please contact:

Print Audit – North America

877.41.AUDIT (28348)

http://www.printaudit.com

inquiry@printaudit.com

Print Audit – Europe

+44(0)1483 726206

http://www.printauditeurope.com

inquiry@printauditeurope.com

Print Audit โ€” Australia/New Zealand

+61 3 95243111

http://www.printauditaustnz.com

inquiry@printauditaustnz.com

Author: Anonymous
Source: free-articles

For many manufacturing and distribution businesses, transporting the inventory from one place to another can represent a significant share of our expenses. It’s important to understand the shipping options available in order to make rational choices that make our customers and buyers happy, but also ensure that we can maintain good enough margins and keep our costs low in order to stay in business. The two main components of shipping that can have a huge impact on your costs are the speed that is required and any special treatment that is required. You can save a ton of money on your inventory transportation if you plan ahead of time so that you are not shipping at the last minute since a rapid method of transportation can cost many times using a slower method if you are not on deadline. Similarly, if you can package your inventory so that it does not require special treatment, you can probably get better rates.

Unfortunately, special handling can be necessary if your products absolutely need special treatment like staying frozen for example. The key is to understand your shipping options and their corresponding prices in depth and then orient your business around being able to take advantage of the cheapest possible prices. Being strategic like this can often be the difference between being an unsustainable business with high costs, and one that is able to survive on slim margins by making smart choices and keeping costs to an absolute minimum. Some planning up front will save you a lot of money in the long term!

Author: Jason H Stevens
Source: ezinearticles.com

Like a lot of people, we often thought about having our own
business, but weren’t sure what to do. One day my wife, Kim, was
talking to her brother, Chris, and he started to talk about his
six pack abs. Not to let an opportunity to needle my
brother-in-law go by, I told him he didn’t have six pack abs,
but had twelve pack abs from all the Budweiser he drinks. Of
course this brought on an insult melee, which turned into a
brainstorming session on a company called 12 Pack Abs., which
offered humorous athletic apparel. As the discussion progressed,
we felt that it was a novel concept to offer this kind of
athletic apparel, but “Abs” was too narrow and thought Gym would
be more encompassing. From that point on a business concept was
born. After that we met almost nightly, getting ideas for
different shirt designs. When we had ten or so, Kim, who is an
artist, drew up color pictures so we could see the designs. What
transpired below are our experiences in setting up our company,
12 PACK GYM, Inc., and our web site www.12packgym.com.

Since none of us ever put together a business before, the
prospects of doing so appeared daunting. However, we figured we
were a reasonably smart group of people with backgrounds in
business, art, management, and distribution. The first order of
business was to secure a domain name or internet address. I got
a recommendation from a coworker. I looked up that company on
the internet, and they were offering a two year registration for
forty dollars. I did a search on www.12PACKGYM.com, and it came
up as available. The price seemed reasonable, so I signed up for
www.12PACKGYM.com domain name. I later came to learn that we
could have gotten that cheaper if we had researched other
companies that offer that service.

The next order of business was to figure out what type of
business we wanted to be. Since there are three of us, our
choices were Partnership, Limited Liability Company or L.L.C.,
or a Subchapter S Corporation. Each entity has its own
advantages and disadvantages. Partnerships are relatively easy
and inexpensive to set up. The downside to them is you have
unlimited liability. With an L.L.C. you have the income
treatment advantages of a partnership, but you have limited
liability. The downside to these is that they are more complex
and cost more to set up. Also, there are differences in how
L.L.C.’s are treated depending on what state you are formed in
and doing business in. In addition, if you get into legal
trouble, because of their relative newness, there is limited
case law for these entities. The last type of entity and
ultimately the one we went with is a Subchapter S Corporation.
These are actual corporations that you own stock in where the
IRS treats income distributed to the shareholders like a
distribution from a partnership. You have limited liability.
There is very strong case law for this type of entity and the
rules are the same no matter which state you are in. The
downside to these is that they are complex to set up; there are
a host of different filing requirements with the state you are
incorporated in, and they cost more to set up. We set our S
Corporation up with the assistance of a company called Par Corp
Services, LTD, which I found on the internet. For a fee of
approximately $400.00, they filed the necessary paperwork with
the State of Illinois to incorporate 12 PACK GYM and answered
questions we had.

There are also additional things to be aware of when doing
business. In Illinois we have to collect and remit sales tax to
the state. Because we are so small, this is done on a quarterly
basis. The state contacted us shortly after we were
incorporated. They also need to know if you have employees for
payroll tax withholdings. Another beneficial thing to get from
your state is a tax exemption reseller’s certificate. You
contact your state government, in Illinois they have a web site,
and apply for a tax exemption number. Once issued by the state,
you can use it with your suppliers to not pay sales tax on
materials used in the creation of your product. The theory is
that the tax will be collected and remitted to the state when
that product is sold to the end user. Be careful only to use
this for things that are ultimately sold to the end user,
otherwise, if audited you could face back taxes, penalties, and
interest. Look through your state’s web site or call them. They
are happy to help you with making sure you are following all the
rules and doing things properly.

Another critical element to your business is lining up suppliers
for the raw materials used in your product. Kim went on-line and
researched dozens of clothing companies and transfer companies.
We requested information from them and talked to the ones we
were interested in using. Most of them are wholesalers and
require the reseller’s certificate number. If you do not have
one, they will either charge you tax or not sell to you. I would
also suggest you find different, multiple companies that offer
the same or similar products that you can use in production of
your product. This is just in case one is out of stock or goes
out of business, you have another place to go to get what you
need. At this point, you will need to also think about is
packaging. A good starting point for packaging materials is a
company called Uline. Generally, their prices and selection are
the best and you receive your order the next day.

Another decision you will have to make is on shipping. Who will
deliver your goods to the customer? Chris looked at all the big
names like Federal Express, UPS, and the U.S. Post Office. For
our purposes the U.S. Post Office Priority Mail was the best
solution.

Keeping track of your company’s financial information is
critical. There are numerous accounting software products on the
market for small business. Depending on the size and complexity
of your business, and your own comfort doing accounting, will
dictate to a degree what type of software to buy. With our
business I looked at Quick Books and Peachtree. Of those two,
Quick Books is a good program, but geared for someone not that
familiar with accounting. Peachtree, in my opinion, is a little
more sophisticated and has a better inventory module. I priced
out Peachtree on-line and purchased it for around $225.00.

In conjunction with all the above it is advantageous to have a
business checking account. We called around to many different
banks and received information on all their small business
checking accounts. We compared fees and services and decided on
an account at a local bank that offered free small business
checking if we write ten checks or less each month. Any checks
written above that limit we are charge a fee per check. We can
also, at any time, roll that checking account into a regular
business checking account, but we will be subject to additional
charges.

A big and expensive decision we had to make was on a web site.
All three of us have purchased merchandise over the Internet. So
we were familiar with sites that offered merchandise for sale.
As we surfed the net, we wrote down things we liked about
different sites we used and the URLs so the web designer could
look at them as an example. Our next step was to roughly draw on
paper what we thought our site should look like. My next step
was to look at canned web site creation programs to see if I
could do this myself. Truthfully, it would have cost us about
$500.00 for the software and I am sure I would have been in over
my head. Kim had a friend that was a programmer and he said he
would help us and create the web site. He came over and got all
our information and said we would have it in a month. Well a
month came and went and no web site. We were getting a little
upset because we wanted to hit the Christmas season. Finally,
after two months we decided to get a professional. I went
on-line and searched on web site designers. A free service came
up that required me to put in my desired information about our
web site and it would recommend a web designer for us. We also
looked in our telephone book for local web site designers and
contacted several of them. Based on our requirements, they all
submitted a proposal to create our web site. We talked to each
of them on the telephone and decided to go with the firm that
the on-line search site recommended. Let me tell you, it was the
best decision we made. They recommended a small firm based in
Chicago called www.evolvedsites.com. The owner is Siobhan Tobin
and she is absolutely wonderful to work with. They are very
professional, responsive, and will take the time to explain
things to novice people like us about how the web site works. I
would highly recommend that company to anyone looking to build a
web site.

Another decision that must be made is if you are going to take
credit cards on your web site. A starting point would be to ask
your bank who they would recommend. Our web site designer has a
company they work with or you can look on-line and find a number
of companies. We looked on-line and asked our bank. Be aware
that some banks do not support some of these credit card
clearing house software programs. The company we use is
Retriever and the credit card processor (clearing house) is
Authorize.Net. A couple of things you will learn as you
investigate these companies are the fees that are levied. With
ours there was a one time application fee, fixed monthly charges
of about $40.00, and a per transaction charge. I approached
dealing with these companies like I do buying a car. I laid all
my facts out for each of the companies I was looking at and
haggled with the price, but remember you don’t have that much
leverage so be reasonable with what you are asking for as a
reduction. Also, American Express has a higher fee then VISA/MC
and with Discover Card you deal directly with Discover Card.

The last decision to get your web site on the Internet is
hosting. You can either host the site yourself with a server,
some software, a DSL line, and some technical know how for the
set up and maintenance. The other option is to have someone host
your site for you, which means you rent space on someone’s
server and they promise to have your site up on the Internet.
They do the maintenance on the server, but probably not on the
web site. You can find hundreds of companies by searching on the
Internet that offers this service. Originally, we signed up with
AT&T, but when our friend didn’t come through with the web site
we dropped that service. That mistake cost us about $200.00. We
looked at other companies on the Internet, as well as, our web
designer’s service. We decided to go with our web designer,
www.evolvedsites.com, services because their rates are
competitive and their service is excellent.

Once all of the above was completed, we went live with our web
site. I would love to tell you that as soon as we flipped the
switch on our web site we were inundated with orders, but that
would be a little bit of a stretch. We were just one of many web
sites floating around in cyber space. Marketing is the name of
the game, but if you’re like us you have big plans and a little
bankroll. My suggestion is to take it slow in the beginning. One
of the first things you should do is submit your site to search
engines. This service was included in our web site design. You
should also resubmit your site every twelve weeks or so to make
sure it is not dropped from the search engines. You can either
do this yourself or you can pay a company on the Internet to do
it for you. Doing it yourself is time consuming but I’m told
search engine programs are more receptive to this then the mass
submissions from companies. We have done both. After that is
done, it will take a couple of weeks for those submissions to
take hold. Another option is to issue a press release. Search
on-line using “press release” and many companies will come up.
We used Majon International. I looked at samples of press
releases out there and wrote my own, then submitted it to them
and signed up for one of their release packages. Our results
varied. We saw some increase in traffic on our web site. We
received numerous e-mails and calls from Internet Shopping
Malls, and Newspapers to advertise. We received a call from a
home shopping network company, which was very interesting, but
would have cost us $14,000.00 for a four minute test commercial.
But best of all we received a call from The Northwest Herald
newspaper that did an article on our business. It was half a
page in size and when it came out on 4/18/02, we saw a
tremendous increase in traffic on our web site. Another thing we
have tried was to use a company called I-web-marketing, which
guarantees traffic to your site. You select the number of hits
to your site for a prescribed dollar amount and submit your
information with them. Our experience with this is that we are
seeing an increase in site traffic, but not the corresponding
increase in sales. Our next avenue is to put advertisements in
selected print publications.

Some of the marketing avenues we haven’t tried are reciprocal
advertising, which means you put a link to another web site on
your web site and they put your link on their web site. We have
not tried banners or pop up windows because they are pay per
click advertisements and could get really expensive. Not to
mention the pop up windows are incredibly irritating.

It has been a fun, sometimes strenuous learning experience
launching our web site business. I hope some of our experiences
can benefit you as you plan your own web site. Although
www.12PACKGYM.com has only been up for a short time, we are
encouraged by the response and will continue with this journey.
Remember to take things slow, have a plan, and surround yourself
with positive, capable people.

Author: John Bubula
Source: articleage.com

Topeka, KS September 23, 2004 — INSYSTEK, Inc. a Kansas software company will be showcasing their range of IT management solutions at the Kansas City ITEC exhibition to be held at the Overland Park Convention Center in Kansas City from October 27-28th.

The annual ITEC exhibitions form North America’s largest series of regional business-to-business events, providing an effective marketing vehicle for local and regional solution providers, VAR’s, systems integrators and national vendors to reach IT and business professionals in their local areas. ITEC focuses on key business centers throughout the US and Canada, providing a trusted platform for IT and business professionals to support informed decision-making with insight on technology development and access to technology solutions. The face-to-face interaction of the exhibit floor combined with the educational value of the conference sessions and case studies, provide attendees with a contextual opportunity to see and learn about technology solutions that can most positively impact their business.

โ€œAlthough we deal with a number of clients on a national and increasingly international basis, we are a home-grown Kansas company first and foremost and as such are focusing a portion of our marketing efforts on solidly establishing ourselves in the local market,โ€ said Alex Turner, INSYSTEK President. โ€œAs a Gold Sponsor of the Kansas City ITEC we feel that this investment will contribute to maximizing exposure in the local market for us โ€” and it’s important to support opportunities such as those that ITEC provides, that expose new and emerging technologies to organizations across North America on an on-going basis.โ€

The entire range of INSYSTEK Agentlessโ„ข management solutions will be on display at the show, with comprehensive demonstrations of the features and benefits delivered by all solutions. These management solutions provide system inventory/audit, software deployment and performance & availability capabilities, enabling organizations to gain wide-ranging control of their environments, automating traditional manual management functions, enhancing overall manageability, increasing remote system security – positively impacting the bottom-line.

โ€œWe will be delivering a series of seminars at the INSYSTEK Agentlessโ„ข Management Theater throughout both days of the exhibition as well,โ€ explained Turner, โ€œthe sessions will address the features and benefits of Agentlessโ„ข system management, highlighting critical management areas like software compliance, change management, software deployment and performance & availability monitoring.โ€

More information on the Kansas City ITEC exhibition and the INSYSTEK range of Agentlessโ„ข management solutions can be found on www.insystek.com or by calling toll free 1-877-467-9783.

Author: Anonymous
Source: free-articles

Treatment for aching bones, joints and muscles is the sole specialty of the Orthopaedic Hospital of Wisconsin. The Glendale, Wis.-based hospital sees a steady stream of patients who require physical and occupational therapy. Because of high patient demand, the hospital’s state-of-the-art rehabilitation clinic grew from having a handful of therapists on staff to having 16 clinicians in just a few years. During the growth spurt, the clinic experienced problems with its manual processes for information management. Therapy clinic scheduling was the thorniest challenge. Patients were turning up for appointments that weren’t on the books.

Front-desk staff and clinicians were at odds over who was to blame. Todd Heikkinen, director of rehabilitation services, decided it was time to toss the clinic’s scheduling books in favor of a physical therapy software system. As a result, those errors have fallen off to near zero. What’s more, the department has witnessed an 80 percent improvement in the timeliness and accuracy of therapist documentation by implementing the therapy software. The new system also came with the unexpected advantage of ensuring complete accuracy in therapist billing and coding, says Heikkinen. He calls that fact huge and says it allows him to rest easy about the prospect of a visit from JCAHO or Medicare.

The Orthopaedic Hospital of Wisconsin is a relatively young facility, and since they were only beginning with a small clinic (a staff of six or seven clinicians), the hospital’s rehabilitation department chugged along with old-fashioned information management processes. “We used paper scheduling books and paper charts,” says Heikkinen. “All of our statistics were compiled manually out of the scheduling books.” The paper-based system wasn’t ideal, but it worked – for a time. With each new therapist hired, however, the office began to experience an exponential increase in scheduling errors.

Just eight months after opening its doors, the clinic reached a crisis point with its manual recordkeeping methods. It needed an automated information management solution, and fast. “Front desk employees had to deal with patients who were coming in at incorrect times or whose appointments had been erased,” says Heikkinen. “It created friction between patients, the front desk and clinicians. These errors triggered tense moments.” When the clinic’s staff reached critical mass at about 14 or 15 therapists, the system had cracked. “The small systems just weren’t working for us anymore,” says Heikkinen.

Heikkinen wanted a new system that would improve the accuracy and dependability of the clinic’s scheduling system. He also wanted help monitoring the clinic’s workflow and performance. Finally, he hoped to find asystemwhose reporting capabilities would allow him to provide an accurate portrait of the practice – on demand – to Orthopaedic Hospital’s CEO and owners. “My concern was for accuracy above all else,” says Heikkinen. “I wanted a fail-safe system for therapy scheduling, clinical documentation and administration.” The industry movement toward an electronic health record also swayed Heikkinen’s decision. “I don’t think anyone disagrees that the electronic health record is going to be a standard feature everywhere in a short period of time,” he says. “It’s important not to end up so far behind that it’s difficult to catch up.”

After examining several products, Heikkinen selected a comprehensivephysical therapy softwareto solve his clinic’s scheduling woes and other errorprone processes. He found a system that had everything he wanted. Some products he looked at had great scheduling programs; others had great documentation modules. But there was only one proven software program superior in tying all of the administrative and clinical information management aspects together. He had found a therapy software system that had seamless integration.

What the front desk enters into the system automatically appears in the clinicians’ systems and in the administrator’s system. There’s no duplication of data entry or room for more errors. It all happens behind the scenes electronically in one unified suite of software. Four or five key staff members attended a demonstration for the software to confirmed Heikkinen’s choice. As clinicians, they particularly liked the point-and-click menu system, which meant they wouldn’t have to type so much. “They appreciated being able to click boxes instead of typing sentences,” says Heikkinen. “The knowledge base is very thorough. It’s rare that a clinician would have to type in a sentence that doesn’t fit the normal flow of the knowledge base.” Some of the systems Heikkinen rejected had clunky interfaces that required clinicians to use a lot of keyboard commands. “Those systems would never fly at my practice,” he says.

After implementing the software, the rehabilitation clinic decided to eliminate even more manual processes. It asked the software company to integrate to the main hospital system, one for medical records and one for billing. “We were an island that was functioning well, but to get billing information from the rehab software to our hospital system, was a manual process,” says Heikkinen.The software interface connected to the hospital’s document management system. Medical records transfers that once required 100 hours of labor now took only 20 minutes with the interface.

Accuracy in therapy scheduling and in other aspects of clinical information management has improved nearly to the point of perfection since the clinic implemented a physical therapy software system. “Errors are obviously still going to occur,” says Heikkinen, “but with this system, we can find out where the process is breaking down and deal with it.” Heikkinen has noticed improvements in clinic productivity, even though this was not an explicit goal of the implementation. Therapists who were quick on paper are “fast as lightening on the therapy software,” he says. However, those who always took a lot of time to complete their paperwork still take a lot of time on the electronic system. Nevertheless, says Heikkinen, the clinic has seen an 80 percent improvement in the timeliness and accuracy of therapists’ documentation. Moreover, the system makes it easy to monitor workflow.

Physical Therapy Software helps root out any issues before they turn into bigger problems, but with paper charts there’s no way to know if somebody’s beginning to drown.” As director of the rehabilitation department, Heikkinen may be asked at any time to give a snapshot of his service line’s business to the CEO or other top executives. The software allows him to do that. Productivity figures, referral patterns and reimbursement rates are just a few of the reports available at his fingertips. “With this therapy software, I can generate a report on anything I want to see, for any time frame, within three or four keystrokes,” says Heikkinen. “The system gives me hard numbers to show exactly how the practice is doing. With a manual practice that’s impossible. You’d be looking at chart audits, and only dealing with a rough estimation.”

One benefit of the rehab software that surprised Heikkinen is its accuracy in therapist billing and coding. The importance of this feature is huge, he says. While working for previous employers, he always dreaded the moment when JCAHO or Medicare would come around to do their inspections. What if they pulled the one chart showing how a therapist billed four units instead of two? “With our new therapy software, there’s literally zero concern over that issue,” says Heikkinen. “All a therapist has to do is enter what they did with the patient. The software automatically converts that into the proper billing amount. It’s all perfectly done, every time.”

Author: Jill Howell
Source: ezinearticles.com

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla.โ€”Many corporate directors and the internal audit executives who serve them support wholesale changes in America’s financial reporting and monitoring systems in the wake of Enron’s bankruptcy, according to new surveys conducted jointly by The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).

Pluralities of respondents to a survey of directors and to a companion survey of top-level internal auditorsโ€”47 percent and 47. 6 percent, respectivelyโ€”believe major changes are needed to U.S. accounting standards. In contrast, only 29.1 percent of responding directors and 25.8 percent of auditor respondents say no changes are necessary. The remaining respondents say they are not sure.

Directors are more evenly divided on the issue of whether a new public group should be established to monitor external auditing, as proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Although 37.3 percent of respondents favor this proposal, 35.1 percent oppose it, and 27.6 percent are unsure.

โ€œIn his State of the Union address, President Bush indicated strong support for accounting reform,โ€ points out IIA President William G. Bishop III. โ€œAnd based on the results of the very timely research we’ve conducted in partnership with the NACD, internal auditors and those responsible for corporate governance agree that major changesโ€”perhaps including renewed public oversight of external auditingโ€”are needed.โ€

โ€œThrough the governance survey,โ€ says NACD President Roger Raber, โ€œcorporate directors from a broad spectrum of public and private sector companies have made a collective call for industry self-regulation. They are expressing significant concern for protecting shareholder and employee investment and for assigning corporate accountability.โ€

Although few audit committees or boards have met since Enron’s collapse, many respondents to both surveys report that Enron’s collapse already has sparked plans to consider a variety of changes within their organizations. Most of these actions, according to survey respondents, involve key areas such as:

ยท
Understanding the risks and making accurate disclosures of derivatives, off-balance-sheet liabilities, and other complex financial transactions.

ยท
Adequacy of oversight by directors serving on audit committees and boards;

ยท
Corporate ethics and enterprise-wide risk management policies and procedures;

ยท
Reliance placed on the independence of the external auditor; and

ยท
Adequacy of internal auditing.

Areas identified in the surveys that may be ripe for more study and perhaps additional controls include policies on the selection and/or retention of external auditors and on hiring employees or former employees of the external audit firm.

The Internet-based surveys were conducted Jan. 25-26, 2002, among 1,200 members of the NACD and 2,150 chief audit executive members of The IIA. Results were compiled based on 278 responses to the auditor survey and 135 responses to the director survey. Copies of the surveys and the responses are available from The IIA.

Established in 1941, The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) is an international professional association with world headquarters in Altamonte Springs, Fla. The IIA has more than 75,000 members in internal auditing, risk management, governance, internal control, IT audit, education, and security. With representation from more than 120 countries, The Institute is the recognized authority, principal educator, and acknowledged leader in certification, research, and technological guidance for the profession worldwide. IIA Web site: www.theiia.org.

Founded in 1977, the National Association of Corporate Directors is a nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to enhancing director effectiveness through research, continuing education, peer forums, and in-house advisory services for corporate boards. NACD promotes high professional standards among directors and is a leading authority in traditional and cutting-edge corporate governance issues. NACD’S 11,000 members and customers represent boards ranging from Fortune 100 and NASDAQ companies to the smaller OTC, private, and closely held firms. NACD Web site: www. nacdonline.org.

NACD Contact:
Doreen Kelly Ruyak, Senior Marketing & Communications Executive

Tel:
+1-202-775-0509, Ext. 211

Fax:
+1-202-775-4857

E-mail:
dkruyak@nacdonline.org

Author: Anonymous
Source: free-articles

Recent statistics collated during 60 corporate audits undertaken by an Irish company between June and September 2006, found that 31.2% of the 5,000 PCs scanned contained digital pornography or other inappropriate images, 8% of the 5,000 email server accounts and 4.5% of 10,000 file server shares scanned were similarly affected. These figures support the recent Audit Commission’s findings that 47% of reported IT incidents is for accessing inappropriate material.

This may be no surprise to the seasoned IT security professional; who understands the most difficult IT security threat to prevent is that of an ‘insider attack’. Those downloading and distributing inappropriate content will happily ignore corporate policies and will go to extraordinary lengths to bypass corporate protection systems in order to obtain material which, while maybe titillating or amusing for some, more often than not causes offence and distress to those who receive it inadvertently and leaves a latent threat to the corporation inside their defences.

Corporate officers, who have a clear understanding of reputational risk but little experience of IT security, wrongly assume that boundary protection systems will prevent any digital pornography from entering the network.

Unfortunately, there are a myriad of ways that illegal or inappropriate images can get on to the desktop and corporate network other than via the Internet. Typically, a computer will have conventional points of entry such as CD/DVD, Ethernet card, serial and parallel ports; modern connectivity protocols such as USB have opened computers up to multiple new hardware devices with very high data transfer rates. The ability to plug and play using USB has meant an extremely rapid introduction of storage devices such as portable hard drives, PDAs, USB Keys, mobile phones and media players that are very hard for corporations to control.

Unmonitored web activity on computers and PDAs at home is now widespread. This is a situation that will only get worse with the rise in easy instant connectivity to WiFi hotspots and broadband at home. In addition, peer to peer communications, encryption of transmitted data and secure internet connections will all bypass or compromise any corporation’s gateway filtering solutions.

The majority of corporations currently rely solely on image protection at the internet gateway that works by blocking traffic from a banned list of sites or filters out spam emails. But the mere fact that 20,000 new pornographic web pages are launched per day means that it is impossible to keep an up to date list of harmful sites. Such systems, while an essential part of any IT defence solution, can do nothing to counteract increased threats from new technologies such as PDAs, memory sticks, DVDs CDs, digital cameras and camera phones.

Legislation.

Worryingly, in many jurisdictions, corporate officers are largely unaware that they and their companies could be held criminally and civilly liable if illegal images are found on corporate computers. Put simply, there can be huge legal, financial and reputational implications for the corporation and its officers if they do not take appropriate measures to ensure illegal and inappropriate images are not stored on corporate computer systems. Irrespective of any legal penalties, adverse publicity can have a detrimental effect on a corporation’s reputation which can affect trading performance.

How to ‘cover-up’ without a ‘cover-up’.

The shear quantity of images found during audits emphasises the fact that policies and gateway security technologies alone are not sufficient to prevent inappropriate and illegal images in the workplace. Corporations are turning to Auditing and Monitoring corporate IT assets in order to help manage this growing issue.

Image auditing is the preferred route of many corporations and software solutions exist which will scan IT systems for illicit image content held in static files on corporate IT resources. One advantage of image auditing is that no software needs to be deployed on target machines; one disadvantage is that encrypted or password protected files cannot be analysed.

Screen monitoring is often restricted to ‘high risk’ IT assets such as laptops which are rarely connected to the corporate network. Screen monitoring detects illicit images while they are being viewed on the computer screen. One advantage of screen monitoring is that it is ‘always on’ monitoring 24 x 7; one disadvantage is that a company must manage a software deployment to all target PCs. Whichever method is used, three phases are usually employed:

•Discovery;
•Categorisation;
•Reporting.

Discovery: Software solutions use advanced algorithms to provide a statistical likelihood that an image contains illicit material. If an image transgresses a threshold level then it is returned to the auditing or monitoring application for review.

Categorisation: automatic classification of known illicit images, an auditor will review the remaining suspect images for illicit content.

Reporting: automatically generated reports which provide sufficient information for a disciplinary decision to be taken without displaying the image (to prevent potential distress to those viewing the image) or identifying the target (to prevent any prejudice during or after the disciplinary process).

A change in culture is needed Almost all corporates will say they actively discourage access to inappropriate images. They back this up by pointing to the corporate acceptable usage policy and the implementation of boundary protection systems. However, the reality is that almost all establishments, whether they are public limited companies, privately owned companies, central government departments or local government authorities, educational establishments, hospitals, not for profit organisations or religious groups, will have digital pornography residing on their corporate IT assets.

Many companies act by sending out warnings that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated. An Irish company’s experience is that this achieves little or nothing.

The only way to eradicate illicit image abuse in the workplace is to change the corporate culture; no amount of corporate policies and vocalisation will change it without strong policy enforcement. Nowadays, companies cannot afford to just ‘talk-thetalk’ they must ‘walk-the-walk’. Acceptable levels of behaviour should be clearly defined; penalties for breach of corporate policy should be well understood and staff should know that the organisation is actively auditing or monitoring corporate IT assets and such penalties will be brought to bear on anyone caught breaching policy.

At the same time staff should be fully aware of what actions to take if they accidentally receive, view or uncover inappropriate image material.

Author: Colm Doherty
Source: isnare.com

TAMPA, Florida. November. 17

(http://www.realtimenorthamerica.com/ ) realtime North America, Inc. has announced today that Brevard County of Florida has won the prestigious InfoWorld 100 Award with bioLock, the first and only fingerprint access and function control system for SAP.

InfoWorld editor-in-chief Steve Fox revealed the 2003 InfoWorld 100 list. The annual awards honors IT departments that demonstrate the most creative use of cutting-edge technologies to further their business goals. InfoWorld readers, technology partners, and end-user companies nominated companies in early Fall 2003. Winners were formally announced in the November 10, 2003 edition of InfoWorld.

“The InfoWorld 100 recognizes agencies like Brevard County, Florida, that made the best use of technology to enhance their businesses,” stated Thomas Neudenberger, COO of realtime North America Inc. “Brevard chose bioLock because the county needed to have secure single sign-on to multiple systems, to provide extra security for access to sensitive information in their HR systems and to assist in compliance with the federal HIPAA standards (original release: http://www.realtimenorthamerica.com/download/030731PressReleasebrevard.pdf)

Every year, InfoWorld names 100 companies that have made the best use of information technology to meet their business and technical objectives. This year, the list of technologies implemented by winning companies ran the gamut from Web Services to Wi-Fi, with project budgets ranging from as low $35,000 to more than $50 million.

A full list is available at: http://www.infoworld.com/565

About InfoWorld Media Group

For 25 years, InfoWorld Media Group has provided cutting-edge coverage and evaluation of IT products and services for technology experts in senior management. Through integrated channels including print, online, events and demand generation, InfoWorld reaches the most influential senior-level information technologists — those who drive their enterprises’ strategies and technology purchases. Powered by a continued investment in an independent Test Center, InfoWorld analysts and editors provide both hands-on analysis and evaluation, as well as expert commentary on issues surrounding emerging technologies and products. Visit InfoWorld at http://www.infoworld.com

About realtime

realtime is an SAP solution house that was established in 1986 in Europe and is still managed by former senior SAP employees. realtime has a client base of over 200 “Fortune Global 500″ customers in Europe and in North America including Bayer, DaimlerChrysler, Siemens, Toyota, Esso, Procter & Gamble, DuPont, Black & Decker, Nestlรฉ, and others. realtime has supported these clients with both services and software solutions. In addition to bioLock, the first SAP certified fingerprint access and function control system for SAP, realtime has over 150 users of its other popular software solutions, including APM, which provides automated access rights administration and auditing functions in SAP R/3. For more information about realtime North America Inc., see http://www.realtimenorthamerica.com.

All company and product names listed above are the property of the respective companies.

Author: Anonymous
Source: free-articles