On Location: Encouraging Financial Efficiency among PhillyForce 2016 Attendees
Internet Creations Director of Marketing Speaks on Accounting Seed for Salesforce
The fourth annual PhillyForce Conference drew a huge audience of Salesforce users eager to learn what’s new and what’s coming next for the cloud-based platform. They most certainly were not disappointed; the daylong conference featured exciting speakers and presentations, all designed to inform and promote networking among the energized Salesforce crowd.
The 2016 conference, the PhillyForce MeetUp Group’s premier event of the year, was held on May 4 during Philly Tech Week, at the Quorum at the University Science Center. Capitalizing on the fact that it was the Fourth of May (May the fourth be with you…), keynote speaker Mike Kreaden, senior director of Startup Relations at Salesforce, gave “An Insider’s View of the Enterprise SaaS Revolution.” During the funny and informative “Back to SForce” presentation, Mr. Kreaden took PhillyForce attendees on a trip down Memory Lane. Audience members got a true retrospective on where Salesforce has been and where it’s headed.
In a perfect transition, Mary Scotton, salesforce.com developer evangelist, told the crowd to “Put Lightning Out in All the Things.” She discussed the many benefits of the App Builder for developers and myriad ways Lightning is set to revolutionize the platform.
At Internet Creations, we are most proud of Anthony Pica, marketing director, who discussed the many cost and time-saving benefits of implementing Accounting Seed on your salesforce.com org.
Anthony Pica, Director of Marketing at Internet Creations
Whatever Business Challenge You May Have, There’s an App for That
When people hear the word “Salesforce,” they think sales and marketing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s a myth that Salesforce apps are only for sales and marketing. In fact, there are almost 3,000 apps in the AppExchange that provide the flexibility to customize and improve on the functionality of many mid-market solutions.
One of the biggest challenges for many companies is that accounting information is important to various teams within an organization. Unfortunately, however, financial information is often set apart in a separate system from other data repositories. A company may use QuickBooks for financial processes and Salesforce for other business functions. As such, there is little cross-department alignment and collaboration. It’s difficult, for example, to share financial information between sales and delivery teams.
Why is that even important, you may ask? For many companies, like Internet Creations, providing an excellent customer experience is Priority No. 1. Therefore stellar communication internally and with clients is a critical component of success.
When It Comes to Salesforce, Internet Creations Talks the Talk and Walks the Walk
Internet Creations, a business technology and Salesforce consulting firm that empowers organizations to operate efficiently, doesn’t just recommend the cloud-based platform for its customers. Internet Creations embraces and leverages the benefits of the technology in-house, as well.
When the company wanted access to a more comprehensive collections and activity history, as well as a better audit trail, it turned to Accounting Seed for Salesforce. “The automation and self-service capabilities of Accounting Seed help our internal teams save time and be more efficient,” explained Mr. Pica.
Accounting Seed is a 100 percent native accounting and ERP application built on the salesforce.com platform. For payment processing, Internet Creations uses Chargent, also a 100 percent native credit card/ACH payment app that integrates with Accounting Seed and Salesforce. With Salesforce, Accounting Seed and Chargent, Internet Creations has a well-oiled revenue management system.
In addition to boosting the company’s efficiency and organizational structure, integrating Accounting Seed and Chargent on the Internet Creations org has saved time and considerable money. “While the company has experienced 10x growth, our one-person accounting department is still able to manage all things financial,” Mr. Pica said.
Project managers and sales staff can access important information without having to take time out of the accounting manager’s day. The company has even employed an automated collections, simplifying and improving accounts receivable processes with gentle reminder emails.
“By bringing accounting functions into its Salesforce org, the company was able to eliminate silos and enjoy benefits never before realized with previous accounting systems,” Mr. Pica added.
What if the accounting team is already using a “perfectly good” solution, like QuickBooks?
Great question, even better answer. QuickBooks and other similar solutions have drawbacks and limitations. (This is a discussion for a different time.) However, more on point, if you are using Salesforce with a separate accounting application, it’s likely you are suffering from manual work overload because you are having to maintain two separate databases that don’t communicate with each other. Further, and perhaps much worse, you are dealing with duplicate and unreliable data.
Accounting system + duplications and unreliable data = disaster.
The bottom line is this: an accounting solution like QuickBooks might seem sufficient in the beginning. However, if you are a growing company – and intend to continue to grow – you will need more functionality than that type of solution can offer you. On the other hand, Accounting Seed for Salesforce gives you a single, highly customizable, cloud-based system that can scale as you grow. And, it will start saving you money right away; less manual work for employees adds up financially.
Learn more about customizing Accounting Seed and Chargent by contacting Internet Creations today.
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