Entry Software Corporation

Entry

Operations Management

Going With the Flow: Using Flowcharts in Your Business

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A flow chart is a visual representation of a plan or a process. They show steps, represented through boxes about a process that should be taken. Whether we realize it or not, flowcharts are used all around us, most commonly in the form of an algorithm. An algorithm is the more complicated version of a flowchart where it uses calculations or other problem-solving operations in order to carry out tasks. These operations usually take place in the form of computer software. However, in the world of resource management simple, standard, flowcharts are most commonly used.

The reason flow charts are commonly used by companies is because they are simple ways to understand what needs to get done, effectively. For example, when looking for a new job position a flow chart can be created in order to understand the process.

Clear and Concise

A flowchart shows every step of a process in clear fashion, that is easy for anyone to understand. Even the most complex procedures are made easier to follow with visual representations. The direction of the arrows leads to steps on the chart with a natural order making it easy to follow. This helps you make a process known to those unfamiliar with it and your business. For example, new employees and outside members are able to clearly understand what needs to be done while reducing the time needed to learn the details of your business processes.

Workflow Management

Workflow management is another reason to use flowcharts. Documenting a process that needs to get done, not only lays out the process clearly while getting your work done in a timely manner. The benefit of this is that you are in charge of the workflow; having a say in what needs to be done, for whom it’s done for and how long it is going to take. All of this can be represented in a flowchart. In order to meet the needs of your customers and clients, you need to take control of the processes your business should be following. With an organizational flowchart, you can also clearly recognize areas for improvement and create new charts that strive to meet your new goals.

You’re In Charge

Imagine this: you are in a business meeting, where ideas are being thrown at you left, right and center debating on how to improve your resource management. The ideas given are ones that you would like to incorporate into your business. However, all of these comments and ideas are just being thrown at you disorderly, with no given procedure or action.

The most effective way to organize your thoughts is through a flow chart. Take a minute, write down all your ideas and then organize them through prioritization. After, continue working on your plan with”if” statements. This advances ideas by thinking, what needs to be done IF something works out or IF something does not. For example, when an item is broken the steps that should be taken are: “If the item can be fixed with minimal cost, do the following…” or “If the item cannot be fixed with minimal cost or is damaged beyond repair, do the following”…

Saving Money

Flow charts are a great solution if you need help cutting costs and budgeting money. It will allow you to visually see what you are spending too much on and the plans required to effectively cut those expenses, saving money. For example: “If the company income is less than $5000 per month, avoid making unnecessary purchases” or “If company income is more than $5000 per month, but less than $6000, spend money wisely.” Using a flowchart, and having the rules laid out can allow you to make wiser decisions about your companies spending habits.

In the end, flow charts are not only great for visual learners but are also extremely useful to anyone else who is unfamiliar with certain business practices and protocols. Make the most out of your workday and take advantage of the numerous benefits of flowcharts.

Mac vs. PC: Which is Best for Productivity?

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Since the turn of the century, there has been a divide between computer users through commercials, internet arguments, and office place debates: Mac or PC. Everybody has their own personal preference, and in the end, both platforms are more than sufficient for everyday use and productivity. However, there are a few objective differences between the the different operating systems that can appeal more to office workers. Here is a guide to help you choose which ecosystem will make your office the most productive:

Price

Let’s get this out of the way first: as everyone knows, Apple’s computers are more expensive than a similarly-specced Windows PC. The base-level iMac, with 2.3 GHz of processing power, 8Gb of memory, and 1Tb of storage space has a starting price of $1399 CAD. A desktop from HP with more memory, a higher processing speed, and the same amount of storage costs $599 and frequently goes on sale. At less than half the cost, the Windows-powered computer is a much better deal than the iMac. For this reason, a PC would best suit an office with a tight budget, or one that uses their computers mostly for web browsing and simple tasks. However, the Apple’s premium price is not just due to higher margins. Macs are known to have excellent build quality and reliability in comparison to their PC counterparts and can take a higher workload for a longer period of time. For offices with demanding needs from their computers, it might be important to look past the price and analyze some of the further benefits of Apple products.

Software

Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Apple’s OS X both come with a host of software, either stock or as an add-on with the purchase of the computer. The most famous and beneficial on the Windows side is included Microsoft Office, which includes the latest document-writing software including Word, Excel, Publisher, and more. These programs are world-famous for a reason; they are one of, if not the best at their respective functions. Windows computers also include Edge, an internet browser designed to work with the operating system. Edge features significant features and improvements over the previous web browser, Internet Explorer, and offers a clean layout with fast performance. To add onto this, there are a number of third-party applications that are available only for PC such as the Sony Creative Softwares (Sony Vegas, Sony Catalyst, Sony Acid), FL Studio, Fences, and more.

However, Windows faces solid competition from Apple on the software front as well. A suite of documentation software similar to Microsoft Office is free with every Mac product purchased. iTunes, the App Store, and iMessages all come with OS X, allowing seamless integration with iPhones and other Macs connected with the same apple ID. You’ve probably heard before that Apple products are preferred by creators and artists, and a big part of that is from some of the optional apple software. Final Cut Pro is one of the leading video editing software, exclusively available to Mac users. Other programs such as CSSedit, Coda, Espresso, Textmate, Quicksilver, Alfred, Things, OmniFocus are also preferred by coders, designers, and creators. Learn more about Apple’s free programs on their website. Finally, Apple’s web-browsing app that competes with Microsoft Edge is Safari. With an equally appealing interface and decent performance, Safari is more than sufficient. Safari and Edge go head to head, and both work absolutely fine for normal use.

Each office should look into what software they can benefit from, including the many different options offered. Keep in mind, however, that much of the software is cross-compatible.

Cloud Features

Creating and storing files, sharing across devices, and accessing documents from anywhere, are all useful features for many workplaces around the world. These features are offered for free to a certain extent with both operating systems in this comparison, extra features can be added for a small price. Apple’s iCloud and Microsoft OneDrive each offer 5 GB of cross-device storage with their computers. To upgrade to 50GB per month, it will cost only $0.99 per month on iCloud and $1.99 per month on OneDrive. A 1TB option is also available from Apple for $9.99 monthly. While iCloud’s prices are more appealing at first, OneDrive offers some features that may be more useful for productivity and sharing among co-workers. For example, a bundle including Microsoft’s full Office 365 Suite and OneDrive storage is $9.99 a month for five users, each of whom gets 1 TB. This means a small business can share files among up to 5 employees with virtually unlimited storage space. OneDrive expands further to offer custom cloud storage options for any sized business. Overall, the importance of cloud storage depends on how each business can use it, and both competitors offer similar products at nearly identical preference. Be sure to research iCloud, OneDrive, and other third-party options thoroughly before making a final decision.

With today’s technology, it’s difficult to find a bad option for workplace computers. For 90% of tasks, any modern computer is well equiped for productivity. However, workplaces that rely more heavily on technology may need to intensively weigh their options to determine whether Mac or PC is best for them. Overall, a company with a low budget that doesn’t use computers for functions, that are more advanced than documents and video, fit the profile to use Windows computers. Windows is also beneficial when sharing and editing documents among employees that are essential to their operations. It may be worth the upgrade to Mac for workplaces that have demanding needs from their computers, do to extensive editing on videos and pictures, and need reliability from all their technology.

TeamHeadquarters runs on Chrome, Edge, and Firefox on both PC and MAC.

Benefits of Connecting Through One Software App

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The amount of responsibility a business owner’s job holds can generate a significant amount of stress from the countless tasks they deal with on a daily basis. The to-do list is continual and consists of keeping clients happy, tracking your employees, payments to make, sales to close and many, many more. Having software from different providers, to try and manage certain jobs can become difficult to keep track of. Although, this can be eliminated when connecting through one software app.

A typical business uses multiple software applications in order to keep everything up and running such as one for clients’ accounts, one for ordering supplies, one for transactions and the list continues on. Software depending on the provider and service can be extremely expensive; companies try to make you think it’s worth it to buy one software for a certain task. However, at times this can get confusing to have multiple different software serving many different functions. Although there’s nothing wrong with this, it may end up hurting your wallet in the long run and keeping you disorganized. The solution is a one-stop-shop software application that manages all of your documents, payments, accounts and many more, all in just one software.

As a developing business, your money can be easily spent. One day you may have a great steady income, and your business is thriving and the next, you’re scrambling to make money, struggling to pay employees and making budget cuts. In the world of business management, any of these situations can happen. If you’re tight on money and looking to make budget cuts that won’t be detrimental to you and your company, you could start by asking yourself “How many of different software apps am I using?” If you’re using multiple costly software apps that are breaking your bank account, your business could benefit from replacing all of these different software apps with all-in-one software.

Do you find both you and your employees are getting confused about where documents are located, and which software to use for a certain task? If so, you’ll benefit from having all your information in one place with peace of mind that your documents, tasks, support tickets, client information or payment information aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Not only will this lead to better organization and also lead to less stress about where items are stored. This also helps you save time, so you can prioritize more important tasks rather than taking precious time out of your day to find that one document you’ve been looking for.

In the end, having all-in-one software can not only be beneficial for your wallet but also for your stress levels because all of your resources can be easily accessed at the click of a button.

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Importance of Properly Setting Project Milestones

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The importance of setting project milestones

Every project manager knows the importance of keeping a project on track. When a project falls behind, the team needs to put in a great deal of effort to put ensure it is back on track because of the time-sensitive stages of a project; most of the time it leads to the project being delayed or cancelled entirely. Keeping employees motivated to complete a project can be difficult, the easiest way is with the use of project milestones.

Project milestones are important points on a project’s timeline that employees can look at for the visual progression of the project. The thought behind making milestones is to categorize the parts of a project into digestible sections as opposed to viewing the whole project at once; this should motivate your team to complete tasks on time. However, it is important to understand there is more to making project milestones than just setting them. Setting meaningful milestones will motivate your project team members more than setting frequent or unreachable milestones. Here are some things to consider when deciding your project milestones.

Tip #1: Frequency and Timing

As a project manager, you may be tempted to overuse milestones as a motivational tool to keep the team moving along the ladder to reach the surface of success. Don’t fall into the trap of labelling every task completion as a milestone. With more milestones, each one becomes less momentous, inadvertently taking away from the motivation of work. On the other hand, don’t adopt the other extreme approach by ignoring or not recognizing significant and relevant events as milestones. A good compromise is to consistently designate important deliverables as milestones.

Tip #2: Visibility

Milestones need to be placed prominently in the project’s schedule and tracked periodically. Make sure that your milestones have been incorporated into your project scheduling, calendar, or another project-tracking software program. This promotes positive work productivity closer to the goal; similar to a runner getting closer to the end of a marathon.

Tip #3: Accountability

Milestones are commitments that must be met on time. If a milestone is missed, it needs to be addressed immediately by re-examining the resources to determine if they are properly matched to the objectives. This reinforces the meaning behind each milestone and the importance of the impact when achieving each milestone.

Tip #4: Fallibility

It may sound counter-intuitive, but you should select challenging milestones that carry a degree of risk for failure. Treat milestones as learning experiences and opportunities to make adjustments, so the final product can be flawless. People learn from mistakes; applying this philosophy to your projects will assist you to do your best work.

Understand project milestone management and reporting. Contact Entry Software for more information.

Biggest Workplace Pet Peeves

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Workplaces, for most, can be a place where a vast majority of your time is spent. However, it can be very easy for workers to become annoyed with co-workers in the workplace, regarding their actions. People want to keep their workplace as an enjoyable/tolerable environment since they spend a significant amount of time there. Time management and organization are common areas employees lack. This can lead to late assignments, messy work areas and lost files down the road, which is not the “ideal” employee managers and owners want. Pet peeves are always rising issues within the workplace, although with simple solutions it can be fixed

Procrastinating is a rising cause of poor time management these days, from the rise in technology and social media. Time management is an area many people struggle with, especially in the workplace. For instance, imagine you are working on a project that has a short timeline with a co-worker, and as the due date approaches you realize that your partner has little to nothing done. This can become quite frustrating in workplaces, as it not only hurts the worker that can’t manage their time but also has a negative effect on co-workers and the company.

Lack of organization is yet another pet peeve that highly occurs in the workplace. Why? Organization and time management go hand-to-hand with each other if someone is unable to manage their time it can lead to poor organization. This adds a negative, unwanted weight to the company that isn’t helping them. From a manager’s perspective, they are responsible for making sure their employees are productive with completing the required work. If employees are not being efficient with their time, it can become very annoying for the manager. Failing to manage time can raise many problems down the road, creating unhappy managers, owners and customers. Easily enough there are many tactics for both employees and managers to help ease their “annoying” traits in their workplace.

Create a List

Keeping track of what you have to do for either a day or month can help remind you about important deadlines or tasks that are coming up. Seeing visually all the tasks that need to be done can help you organize the importance of each task; helping you accomplish each in time. Now, having forty tasks jotted down on a piece of paper is too overwhelming and can cause you to fully ignore the list entirely. The key to a list is keeping it very simple so that you can instantly see what needs to be done.

Set Reminders

Nowadays technology has become very popular, and with this, we are able to do many things on just one device. Setting reminders on your phone, about important projects or jobs that need to be completed for work, is a great way to keep yourself on track with meeting deadlines; keeping your manager happy.

Set Deadlines/Goals

Set a deadline for a project or task you have been assigned to, and try to stick with it. To help you from being late on projects, set your deadlines a couple of days before it is actually due, so that if any unexpected circumstance arises you have extra time to ensure it will be completed on time.

Project Management Systems (PMS)

As an owner or manager, you may find it very beneficial to invest in a good project management solution, to help boost your time management. These solutions are usually always, easy to use and extremely useful when it comes to keeping businesses on track. PMS’s organize and display tasks and assignments that need to be done and what employees are working on what. With this, managers can assign employees different tasks and delegate tasks efficiently. PMS’s can also help identify the areas employees or the company is lacking, which allows managers to add extra time or help to make sure the work is getting completed on time. PMS’s come with many strong benefits that can assist managers with their time management in a much easier and more organized way. This saves crucial time, that can be used in other areas maximizing the work efficiency, leading to an increase in success for a business.

All in all, there are many pet peeves like time management and organization that occur within a workplace irritating co-workers, making their work environment unenjoyable. In addition, having poor time skills can lead to problems that may hurt the company down the road, with unhappy customers, partners or clients. It also does nothing towards your reputation but bring it down. However, not to worry, because there are many easy solutions previously mentioned, that can help you stay on top of your assignments at work!

How to Streamline Your Workplace Scheduling

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Traditionally, workplace scheduling has been done by creating a timetable that was given to employees or displayed at work, so employees could record their shifts as they come into work. Specific schedules were made for employees that outline their duties during their shifts. This system works, however, it is sloppy and has much room for error. Centralized schedules make it difficult to track employees unavailable days, unexpected sick days or changing project outlines. This system has grown to be simply outdated, with the many other beneficial systems now available.

With the strong tech-based society we live in, there is no surprise that tech companies have found a solution to the outdated scheduling issues for businesses small and large. Scheduling solutions provide a hub that gives employees a visual playground of the individual tasks designated to each person. Tasks can be added or removed by the employee and their superiors and can easily be adjusted if any unforeseen events occur. Additionally, any important events that need to be noticed, like meetings or interviews, can be scheduled in notifying everyone involved over email or text message. The beauty of using scheduling solutions is that it simplifies the work that needs to be done by the business! 

Still not convinced? Here are some more benefits of using an online scheduling solution:

Wide Selection

Online scheduling solutions come in various shapes and sizes. With the wide expanse of the internet, there are many scheduling systems out there; one is bound to best suit your business. Some scheduling solutions are built with certain users in mind ( e.g. TeamHeadquarters for IT Managers and CIOs). With a wide selection, this means solutions will fit in your price range. By researching you can find a scheduling solution that offers you exactly what you need, for the price you want.

Easy to Maintain

One of the biggest issues with the traditional method for scheduling is that it takes added time and effort from a business. However, an online software solution does most of the busy work for you! When you input information into the schedule, it will automatically notify each employee about their shifts or new update. Additionally, some scheduling software integrates with other known software, where they can notify you as well. Scheduling solutions reduce some of the workloads off your back, so you can redirect it towards building a better business.

Accessible Wherever, Whenever

About one-third of meetings scheduled online were scheduled during closed hours of the business. This statement shows how important online scheduling software can be to a business. With a traditional system, it would be difficult to notify everyone, that a meeting was scheduled for a certain time. With an online scheduling solution, you can access the database from home to input meetings easily notifying everyone involved!

The traditional system of scheduling, although it can be effective, is not “the best” for the modern tech-based business world. There is a variety of software available that will fit your business’s wants and needs. Online scheduling solutions are simple to use and maintain because they do all the “heavy lifting” of scheduling for you! Best of all, it is accessible from mobile devices or personal computers which will help organize your business better! It is worth the time and money to invest in an online solution of scheduling.

See how TeamHeadquarters can help with resource scheduling.