SurvivalWare 3.1 – New Comparanator Options

The comparanator  has been much improved in version 3.1.  There are now a total of ten “Styles”:

• Basic Line Chart

• Dual Scale Line Chart

• Actual vs. 12 Month Average

• Actual vs. Budget vs. Last Year

• Next Year Budget

• Peer Group Members

• Scenarios

• Peer Group vs. Benchmark

• Actual vs. Comparison Group (25/50/75)

• Actual vs. Comparison Group (5/25/50/75/95)

 

 

 (right click)

To select a comparanator style, and make it the default going forward, simply Right Click on the Comparanator Icon or select “Set default Comparanator style…” from the File Menu  in the DataViewer or Projections Module.

Basic Line Chart

Graphs the focus row (and Next and Previous rows as requested) against a single comparison row.    You can browse through a list of variables in the Fort Knox model to pick a comparison row.  Once selected, it is “sticky” – i.e. it remains the default comparison row until you explicitly change it. 

The Basic Line Chart uses a single scale for the Y-Axis, which means it is useful only when comparing rows of similar magnitudes, e.g. two different expense lines. 

Here is “Total Overhead” vs. “Sales”:

 

  

Dual Scale Line Chart

 

 Useful for comparing variables of different magnitudes. 

Graphs the focus row (and Next and Previous rows as requested) against a single comparison row, using separate y-axis scales for each row   You can browse through a list of variables in the Fort Knox model to pick the comparison row.  Once selected, it is “sticky” – i.e. it remains the default comparison row until you explicitly change it. 

Here is “Delivery Costs” vs. “Sales” in a Dual Scale Line Chart.  The scale for “Sales” goes from zero to 250,000.  For “Delivery Costs” it goes from 0 to 15,000.

Actual vs. 12 Month Rolling Average

Graphs the focus row (and Next and Previous rows as requested) against the twelve month moving average for that row.  Note that you are not given the option to change time periods like you are with the other comparanator styles.

Actual vs. Budget vs. Last Year

Graphs the focus row (and Next and Previous rows as requested) for the twelve months of the current year.  For the same 12 months, the Budget numbers are graphed, as well as, last year’s numbers.  Note that you are not given the option to change time periods like you are with the other comparanator styles.

Note: Current Year Budget values can be entered in the Budget Module. 

Next Year Budget

Graphs the focus row (and Next and Previous rows as requested) for the twelve months of the current year.  For the same 12 months, the Budget numbers are graphed, as well as, the numbers for Next Year’s Budget.  Note that you are not given the option to change time periods like you are with the other comparanator styles.

Note: the Next  Year Budget values can be entered in the Budget Module. 

Peer Group Members

These can be separate locations if you have multiple outlets, or clients of yours who have agreed to share data files.  This style graphs the focus row (and Next and Previous rows as requested) with one line representing each group member.  It is useful for small groups. 

You can create a CSF file in the DataViewer, Projections Module, or Rusty’s ToolBox.   Select “File ‘ then “Create CSF File”.

Scenarios

This does the same really as Peer Group Members, but the group members are different scenarios for the same company as opposed to different companies.   You create the scenarios by typing in different assumptions or using the Forecast Tool to access different forecast techniques.  Then save each result under a new name (File / Save Company As…). 

You would normally select this style from the Projections Module as opposed to the DataViewer.

Peer Group vs. Benchmark

Here’s “Total Overhead” for the month of March 2010 for the group.  US201 was selected to be the benchmark. 

You can build your own  benchmark file and enter published industry stats by setting up a new company.  Check the box “Use this file for Benchmark data only.”  This allows you to enter values for calculated measures such as “Inventory Turns” or “Days of Cash.”

Actual vs. Comparison Group

In SurvivalWare a Comparison Group has special meaning:  it is a collection of company or locations which have been assembled in a central area (e.g. by a corporate analyst for a franchise company), and analyzed through the Company Stats module in Rusty’s Toolbox.  The analysis produces a set of “meta data” files than can be re-distributed to the participants without compromising anyone’s privacy. 

These two comparanator styles let you graph your performance against the percentiles of the group – either 3 at a time (25^th percentile, Median, 75^th percentile) or 5 at a time by including the 5^th and 95^th percentiles as well.

We’ve included a sample comparison group so you can see how this works. It is called “fake-meta-data” and the files are all contained in the folder ..\Survware\FortKnox\ComparisonGroups.

SurvivalWare 3.1 – A Sneak Preview

There have been a number of improvements to SurvivalWare that have been made this year,  and we have decided to make the new version available sooner rather than later.  Look for the official announcement later this month.   We continue to simplify the user interface, while at the same time making sure SurvivalWare does what you need it to do.  The most popular new feature seems to be the new Time Scale / Time Span icons that appear on the Trend graphs so that you can instantly switch from Months to Quarters or Years, and expand the view from History, to more History, and on to Projections.

The top row controls the time scale.    The current selection is greyed out (in this case Months).  The second row of icons lets you control the time span appearing in the chart, with more time periods appearing in the chart as you go from left to right.

Some other recent advances:

 

Shopping Cart to gather variables from around the model for viewing or reporting

New Comparanator styles

Create CSF File menu item allows for quick creation of peer groups or scenario lists for graphing and reporting

Advanced Data Load option simplifies the user interface for loading non QuickBooks data

Forecast Tool upgrade – can model “delays”  in key line items.  Also Term Loan calculator

Analyze company stats feature in the Toolbox: brand new user interface to make it easy for franchise groups to calculate percentiles for their locations

Automator (Pro version only): complete overhaul of the user interface so that command lists and explanations are available on the screen as you are building applets.

AlphaGraphics Customers:  the new Budget module development work is proceeding and should go into testing soon.  The hope is to release this feature in SurvivalWare version 3.1.

Cash Flow Management Tips

Last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal featured yet another article on the sad state of small business bank lending.

(“Real Collateral Damage – with Assets Harder to Value, More Small Businesses Need Cash to Get a Loan” 7/22/2010 pg B1)

After I turned to page 6 to continue the article, I kept flipping back to the first page to make sure I wasn’t reading the Onion.  Banks are apparently – and with a straight face – offering to lend you your own money and charge you interest for the privelege.  Their wording of the offer is slighly different, but the outcome the same.

In these perilous time, I figured it would be a good idea to revisit some proven cash flow management techniques.  If you’re a small business owner, you have to steel yourself against the probability that credit will NOT be forthcoming, and that the government is not going to bail you out. 

Here are some of the latest tips gleaned from our recent Webinar on the SurvivalWare Cash Planner.

Tip #1:  Roll up your sleeves and do some detailed cash planning when (and only when):

1. You are just starting out
2. You’re in trouble (less than 15 days cash)
3. You’re in transition (new hires or layoffs, new product release, etc.
4. You’re a practitioner of Just-in-Time Capital and you want to stick it to the banks by not borrowing from them

Tip #2:  Find out which vendors will accept credit card payment of invoices.

It is amazing who will accept credit card payments now – lawyers, accountants, marketing consultants and other service providers in addition to the usual product vendors and retailers.  If you can, run all our your non-payroll expenses through your American Express, and earn points at the same time.  That extra 30 days can be huge.  But of course, this works only if you can pay AMEX on time each month.

Tip #3:  Find out what it means to be “on-time” with American Express.

Sally from Salt Lake City reports that she called them recently about 10 days ahead of the due date on the bill, and asked if she could split the payment in half.  She was told no, they couldn’t do that, but that she could take advantage of the 15 day grace period.  This turned out to be one of many key “baby steps” she took to get through a real nasty cash crunch.

Tip #4: Change the lag in work to payday.

Donnie in Des Moines changed payday to the 8th and 22nd from the 1st and the 15th of each month.  The key to retaining employees is to make the announcement in advance – not the day of payday.  Since over half of his costs are people costs, this had a significant impact on his “Days of Cash” – increasing it by 4.

Tip #5:  Be persistent.

Duh.  Hank in Houston tells me that if Plan A doesn’t work, he goes to Plan B, and if that doesn’t work, to Plan C.  He points out there are 26 letters in the alphabet.

What are your most effective Cash Flow Management practices?  We’d love to hear about them.

More Info

White paper on Just In Time Capital:

http://www.survivalware.com/articles/just_in_time_capital.php

10 Tips to Survive a Cash Flow Crisis:

http://www.survivalware.com/articles/10tips.php

SurvivalWare Cash Planner – 45 minute webinar from 7/14/2010:

www.survivalware.com/download/2010-07-14_Webinar_SurvivalWare_Cash_Planner.wmv

Transparency Pays – the Power of Information

On a plane trip back home from Omaha last night, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal called “The Summer to Go on a Power Diet” discussing products and techniques for reducing power usage.  In the body of the article, they talk about the impact of  just making cost information available:

“A study by the Envirnmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford showed a 5% to 15% reduction in power consumption just by providing energy information to users.”

( Article link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308791120750332.html)

Kevin Cushing talks about a similar benefit from sharing financial information with employees. 

In a recent video testimonial, he explains:

“And something I think that’s understated in SurvivalWare, and in sharing financial information as a whole, is how can you keep your employees informed about the financial health of your business?  A lot of small business owners think that their employees don’t know, or don’t care, or it’s way over their head.  Other ones want to hold it all in, because they feel like that’s private information for them and they shouldn’t be sharing that with their franchisees.”

“Well, whatever a person’s philosophy is, that’s fine.  But, SurvivalWare gives you the opportunity, to the person who would have a perspective like mine, that the more your employees can know about the health of your business, the more that they can do to improve the performance of the business.”

(see his remarks at  http://www.survivalware.com/videos.php under Testimonials – the 5:53 one)

It reminded me of my early days as an industrial engineering student when I learned about the Hawthorne Effect.  Look it up on Wikipedia if you want the details – but in a nutshell some industrial engineers were trying to improve productivity at this huge GE Plant in the early 1900’s, and kept meticulous production records to help them study the impact of certain things.  They turned up the lights – and sure enough productivity increased.  They turned the lights back down – and guess what – productivity increased again!  They concluded it was the attention from management, knowing what was being watched, that led to the improved performance. 

My advice is to shine the spotlight on those metrics and measures that are most important to your business, and share the information with employees so they know how they can best imrpove the performance of the business.  And I guess now I’ll have to practice what I preach!

Customer Interview: Gregg Moore, CEO Workplace Integra

The thing I love about Gregg Moore is his enthusiasm for what he does.  As he says,  “I’m a blessed man.  I get to get up and go to work every day and do something I thoroughly enjoy doing.” 

That’s not the only thing we share in common.  Gregg also feels like it is critical for him to systematically analyze his financial performance and manage his cash flow.  Kelly “sat down” with Gregg via telephone a few weeks ago to get his perspective on running a small business, and where SurvivalWare fits in.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  So, why don’t you tell us about your company and your specific role in the company?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Sure.  Well, I’m the President of a company called Workplace Integra, and we deal with occupational safety and health.  We provide onsite consulting, mostly in the area of occupational hearing conservation, but some other areas as well. 

And we also provide this really nice software package called Workplace Applications, which is used primarily by occupational health nurses and people responsible for safety in manufacturing environments.  So, that’s pretty much what we do. 

I guess the company has been around in its present form since the year 2000, although several of us in the company were with a predecessor company that actually went back to the early 1980s.  So, we’ve all been doing this stuff a long time and just love it.  I tell people I am a–I’m a blessed man.  I get to get up and go to work every day and do something I thoroughly enjoy doing.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, what kind of got you started with this?  What other industries do you maybe have experience in? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, sure.  Well, my training is an audiologist.  I have a master’s degree in audiology from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.  I graduated in 1988, and from there went into the United States Army and was an Army officer.  And about half of the job of an Army officer is hearing conservation, because the Army has some very loud toys and hearing loss is a big deal in the military. 

So, that’s kind of where I got my start in hearing conservation, and just liked it so much that decided to try to make a career out of it.  And that’s pretty much been the great majority of my career since graduating, oh, gosh, how many years ago has it been?  You know, 1988, a nice long time that I’ve been doing this.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.

And so, for example, what would be a safety measure precaution that you would advise a company to take that would kind of help with hearing conservation? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Ah.  Well, it all starts with a good thorough noise survey, that is, we actually go out and measure how much noise there is in the environment and how much of that workers are actually exposed to.  And then, based upon that, we make certain recommendations. 

Now, there’s this thing called the OSHA Noise Exposure Standard which all manufacturing companies have to comply with if their noise levels are above a certain amount.  And so, we help companies to comply with those requirements, but also to go really well beyond them, particularly in the area of hearing protection, that is, the actual wearing of earplugs and earmuffs.  And training is extremely important.

So, we help companies to develop really effective hearing conservation programs that will go well beyond just the sort of minimal regulations that you have to comply with. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay. 

And so, you said the majority of your customers are the big manufacturing plants that have a lot of noise. 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, yes.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Do you have smaller customers as well?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Um-hmm, we do.  Gosh, I guess the customer size ranges anywhere from very small companies with maybe only about 40, 50 people up to companies with–you know, multistate type companies, really multinational companies, with tens of thousands of employees.  So–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Okay–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –It’s a very wide spectrum that we cover. 

And geographically–of course, the vast majority of our customers are in the continental United States.  But, we also have clients as far away as Hawaii and American Samoa, and actually went to Saudi Arabia last year.  You know, very far-flung. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm.  Okay. 

And then, how did you find out about SurvivalWare?  And what made you decide to buy it? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Well, I initially found out about SurvivalWare through Philip Campbell. 

I had–well, going back a step, I earned my master’s degree in business administration, my MBA, a good many years ago in the early ’90s.  And I remember, you know, going through the accounting classes and really struggling with the cash flow, you know, statement.  It really didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time.  I understood what it was for and sort of basically how to do it, but it never really made much intuitive sense to me.

Well, you know, all these years later and I’m out here running my own business and here I am having to deal with cash flow issues again.  And I was using a–of course, our company uses Peachtree, you know, to do our books, but I really did not like the cash flow piece of it.  You know, it was kind of your basic accounting model cash flow statement.

So, I was out there searching for something that would help me do things more intuitively.  And I just sort of stumbled, really, upon Phillip Campbell and upon his book on cash flow principles, and that really intrigued me.  And so, I read the book.  I talked with Philip.  And that’s when I really learned about SurvivalWare, was through him.  But, very quickly after that I purchased the software, and Philip was quite instrumental in helping me get things set up.

He did a lot of legwork to get the program set up to where I could use it.  And have thoroughly enjoyed it since then, I can tell you that.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, besides Peachtree, have you used any other kinds of accounting software in the past?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Yes.  When I had a much smaller private practice, I used QuickBooks.  And for my own personal use, I use Quicken software. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.

And then, you said that you were looking to find a program that could help you analyze your cash flow more intuitively.  Do you care–?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –That’s right–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –To elaborate on that?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Well, of course Philip, you know, developed this peace of mind cash flow model, and that made a lot of sense.  And, you know, of course there were two ways that I could go about trying to implement that peace of mind model, which is a more intuitive way of looking at cash flow.  One was I could sit down and try to do it on a spreadsheet.  And, you know, that I can do but, of course, it’s extremely labor intensive. 

But, then the other is to go out and buy somebody’s software that already had that model built into it.  And fortunately, SurvivalWare did.  And so, that’s really what led me to purchase this particular software package was because it already incorporated that peace of mind cash flow model in it.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.

And how important is it for you as the President of your company to keep track of your cash flow?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, extremely.  We are a small consulting firm, about one and a half million in sales.  And in just sort of the nature of consulting, you really have to watch the cash because it’s a little unpredictable, you know, what’s going to come in from month to month. 

So, we really have to be careful not to overspend and to make sure that we have adequate cash flow to meet our needs on a month-to-month basis.  Yeah, critical.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm.  Um-hmm.

And what is your user experience with Excel and what are some of its limitations? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Well, I like Excel tremendously, and probably would be considered a power user of Excel.  But, you know, there are limitations with its graphing capability.  Virtual anything you do in it, you have to manually set up.  If there are minor changes, then you might have to go back and make those changes across lots of different spreadsheets. 

You know, it can be a real pain to use if you’re doing really complex things like looking at data over a long time period.  And you can think of these monthly imports coming in from Peachtree, if you will, you know, profit and loss statements and balance sheets.  You know, those things really add up over years and year and years.  And it can be a bit difficult to go back and make a change and have that change carry back into all those various columns, if you will.

Well, the way Rusty has set up SurvivalWare, gosh, it’s just so much easier to implement even minor changes.  And, you know, you do it and you go on.  It’s extremely quick and simple to do, much easier to do than dealing with Excel. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.

And so, was it easy to learn how to use SurvivalWare? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Pretty easy, yeah.  The software’s quite intuitive.  You know, I probably don’t use it to its fullest potential.  I use it for what I need to use it for.  It will certainly do a good bit more than what I need it for, and I probably need to sit down with it, particularly with the new version coming out. 

But, yeah, it’s–it was easy to set up, very easy to use, and I think you’ll get out of it just as much you put into it. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm. 

And so, how often do you use it? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, gosh.  Hmm.  At least monthly, because usually I’m importing data on a monthly basis.  You know, for instance, when April is done, about a week or so thereafter, I’ll import the profit and loss and the balance sheets from Peachtree, and that’s when I look at it.  And then, I may come back to it, you know, two or three times over the course of the month just if I want to look at something in particular.

So–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Um-hmm–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –At least on a monthly basis. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  How long have you been using it?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  I think, what, three years now?  Yeah, three years.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Great. 

And were you able to learn how to use it on your own, or with help from Learning SurvivalWare?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Actually, Philip.  When all this was set up, I paid Philip to do a little consulting work with me and he showed me some things.  But, of course, I had already kind of dived into it. 

So, it did not take long to pick it up at all.  Although I will say that if you can get at Philip or Rusty or, you know, just somebody to kind of help out right at the beginning, I think the learning curve is greatly reduced by having somebody kind of walk you through a few things who has done it and who knows that software well. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm.  Of course.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  I–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –And–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –Know that in our own company–and, of course, we are software producers as well.  We generally just don’t let that software out the door at all unless the client commits to some pretty extensive training, because otherwise we’re setting them up for failure. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm.  Okay.

How easy is it to load data and do projections?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  It was a bit of a struggle at first to learn how to load the data.  But, I think that’s mostly because there’s no kind of direct import into SurvivalWare from Peachtree.  So, it took Philip a little while to figure out how to do that.

But, once that was done, then from that point it was a piece of cake.  I mean, I can do it–you know, it takes all of about three minutes these days.  And I can’t remember the last time that I had a problem with it.  So, it’s a very smooth process once it was worked out.

It’s probably a lot easier coming from QuickBooks than it is from Peachtree.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm.

And what do you like best about SurvivalWare? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  What I like best about it, its ease of use, certainly that peace of mind cash flow analysis that’s built into it. 

I like the fact, too, that Rusty’s very responsive.  If there’s an issue, you’re not sure about something, you know, you pick up the phone, you send an e-mail in, you’re pretty much going to get him.  And I have found him to just be very, very responsive to my needs and concerns.  And I’m not even close to being his largest client, by any means.  I’m a pretty, you know, small potato in that field. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.

And have you seen the new version?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Yes, I have, and it’s sitting on my computer.  And actually went through a little webinar yesterday with Rusty, and I like it.  It looks to be some pretty significant improvements.

The neat thing I like about the software–and, you know, of course it’s designed for really a small company like myself.  But then, you know, it can also be really scaled up to really, really big companies with people who will take the time to start customizing it. 

And I think that’s one of the things that I saw on the webinar yesterday is that it’s actually far more customizable than I though that it was.  And if somebody’s willing to take the time to sit down and learn how to do it, that’s an extremely powerful feature in that software. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Yes.  I saw that, too. 

And so, another good thing is you’re able to save your customization so that once you have set it up for, you know, the first go-round, you can come back to it and use that same model to do what you need every month following. 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Yes, it is very powerful. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, what could you not do without  SurvivalWare that you can do now? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Well, probably nothing.  I mean, you know, most everything that it does I could do, but I would have to take the time to sit down and really sink a lot of effort into developing spreadsheets, and then, you know, try to keep the graphs up to date.  I think I could probably do just about everything with spreadsheets that I do with SurvivalWare, but the time savings, you know, and just not having to sit down and actually design all that stuff and support it, that’s what makes it attractive to me. 

It’s pretty–it’s an off the shelf software package that was easily customized to my needs.  And basically, all I have to do is just push a button and it does its thing.  It just saves me an awful lot of time and therefore money and headache involved in doing it another way.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  If you were to estimate a percentage how much time you think it saves you within a month, what would you say?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, gosh.  It’s probably reduced–yeah, easily 90 percent, because there again all I have to do is go into it, load the data, which takes, you know, two to three minutes, and then it just sort of unfolds before me.  And what it allows me to do is to concentrate on the metrics rather than the process.  Because if I’m having to do this stuff with spreadsheets, that’s an awful lot of process involved before I can ever get to the metrics. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm. 

And in your opinion, what feature has become the most indispensible or critical for your business?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Well, I like that peace of mind cash flow model that’s built into it an awful lot. 

What I also like is the Comparanator, which, again, very, very easily allows you just to pick this or that and just start, you know, trending things and comparing things.  That’s something else that would be much more difficult to do in Excel, for instance. 

But, those two things really stand out for me as being extremely important, being able to quickly compare things and being able to very quickly see what my cash flow is doing.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay. 

And how has SurvivalWare enhanced your focus on analysis and projections?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  It has certainly helped.  You know, there again, is it something I could have done in Excel?  You know, do cash flow projections using Excel?  Sure, that’s pretty standard MBA stuff.  But, SurvivalWare, again, just makes the process so much easier because it already had some models built into it that you can pick and choose from. 

Again, why in the world would I go invest that amount of time in a spreadsheet when, you know, here it is just kind of laid out in front of me?  And if I want to choose this model, I can and see what it does.  And if–you know, if I want to choose another model, I can choose it and see what it projects and then go from there.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what are some of the differences that you notice between models that are in there?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Well, you know, you can get different results depending upon whether you’re doing–whether you’re trending things, say, seasonally or whether you’re trending things based upon an assumption of a 5 percent growth. 

Or, you know, the neat thing is is that you can apply all of these different models to see which one you think kind of best fits reality.  It doesn’t force you down one road of projecting cash flow.

And again, that’s–that process is far easier in SurvivalWare than it would be in using Excel, for instance. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  So, it allows you more flexibility.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Um-hmm, yeah.  Flexibility and speed, yes. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay. 

And what types of businesses do you think would benefit from SurvivalWare? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, gosh.  Be pretty tough to imagine one that would not benefit from it, really.  You know, any kind of business is going to have cash flow to deal with.  And so, any–you know, any business that’s in business is going to benefit from this.  If they’re not doing cash flow analysis, they’re probably not going to be around. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And then, also just one, do you have perhaps a real life example of where SurvivalWare kind of helped your business in a way, or avoided disaster, maybe? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  I think probably not in the avoiding disaster area, because we’re pretty conservative in how we do things. 

What it did help me to do was just kind of see what cash flow had looked like over the past several years, and so I can see bumps in the road.  For instance, if there’s a month or two or a particular season of the year that’s been kind of slow for us, then it helps me to prepare for that, to see it coming, as it were, and, you know, maybe try to put a little bit more cash away during the immediate few months prior to that so that we can weather the little storm that comes up over the slow period.  We can see those coming. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Um-hmm.  Okay.

And would you recommend SurvivalWare to a friend or a colleague? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, sure, without reservation.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Well, great. 

Do you have any questions or last minute comments?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  No, not really, it’s–well, other than that it’s a great software package.  Rusty’s done a fantastic job with it. 

And I’ll tell you, for a small business to be able to have this kind of a capability at its fingertips, there’s just no reason not to do it. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay, Gregg.  Well, thank you so much for your time today, this afternoon.  Well, afternoon, nighttime.

And also, I just wanted to make sure that we have your permission to use any of your comments or any of the content of this interview for commercial purposes. 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Yeah.  Go right ahead.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay, great.

Well, thank you so much, and you have a great day.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  All right.  Pleasure talking with you, Kelly. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Thank you.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Bye-bye. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Bye-bye. 

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Outtakes

For those of you interest in Paris or Europe, here’s Kelly talking about the weather while warming up for the interview.

Interview with Mr. Gregg Moore

May 7, 2010; 4:00 p.m.

 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Hi there.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Hello.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, you’re in Greensboro, North Carolina? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Yes, I am, and it’s a beautiful day.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  It’s actually been quite chilly up here in Paris. 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Uh-huh.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  But, it’s a little bit warmer today.  We’ve got some sunshine. 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, very nice.  Very nice.

So, you are in Paris, huh?

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Yeah.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, very nice.  Are you selling SurvivalWare over there?    

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  No, actually we’re kind of investigating the market.  And I had previously moved here in September of 2007 working as a nanny.  So–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –Well, it’s a beautiful place.  I haven’t been to Paris in quite a long time, but–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Oh, okay–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –It’s just a gorgeous city. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, when was the last time you were there?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Oh, gosh.  Twenty years ago, easily. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Oh, wow.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Long, long time.  Long time. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Cool.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  And growing up, my dad was in the Army.  So, we actually lived in Germany when I was young and got to travel a good bit throughout Europe.  And I don’t–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Cool–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –Remember Paris at that time.  But, I do remember going into the northern part of France and, of course, all over Germany and the Swiss Alps and such.  So–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Oh, nice.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Yeah.  I have some good memories of Europe. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  I haven’t quite made it over to Germany, but I’ve been to Madrid and to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Amsterdam’s great.  Get up to Copenhagen, too–. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Yeah–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –If you can do it.  I lived in Saudi Arabia for a while and spent a Christmas in Copenhagen. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Oh, okay.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  There’s not a whole lot of daylight hours up there that time of the year.  It’s a little bit on the gray side.  But–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Uh-huh–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –It is an absolutely beautiful place to be around the Christmas season.  So–.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  –Oh, wow–.

Mr. Gregg Moore:  –I would highly recommend Copenhagen.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Cool. 

Well, why don’t we go ahead and get started? 

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Certainly.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  So, why don’t you tell us about your company and your specific role in the company?

Mr. Gregg Moore:  Sure.  Well, I’m the President of a company called Workplace Integra, and we deal with occupational safety and health.  We provide onsite consulting, mostly in the area of occupational hearing conservation, but some other areas as well.

Work on SurvivalWare 3.1 is well underway

Sometimes the development cycle moves faster than others.   SurvivalWare Pro 3.0 was driven by our desire to put customization tools in the hands of power users in preparation for a ramping up of demand.  Version 3.1 is customer driven.  A customer (AlphaGraphics, Inc.)  is paying us to make the Budgeting module simpler to use, while at the same time extending the budget to the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow statements from just the Income Statement.  It’s a big deal, but it sure is going to be nice.  I’m doing the work for the AlphaGraphics model, and at the same time making the changes to our generic Fort Knox model so that the new feature is available to the rest of the customer base.

By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at this brand new video of Kevin Cushing, CEO of AlphaGraphics, explaining why SurvivalWare has become a system standard for AlphaGraphics.   He also lays down a challenge to improve SurvivalWare to make it more integrated with their business planning process.

Kevin Cushing on SurvivalWare as System Standard for AlphaGraphics

One of the nice things about the new budgeting module  will be that you can work on the current year budget or next year budget at any time.  Previously it was tough to make changes to the current year budget.

The user interface has been improved, with numbers and checkmarks to help you keep track of your progress.  Here is a sample screen:

It should be ready for beta testing in a week to 10 days.  We’re hoping to get it released in time for the annual AlphaGraphics conference in early July. 

In addition to the new Budgeting Module, there will be other enhancements, such as the ability to enter notes in a company file that can be displayed to help the user remember how to load data or do something else.

Don’t worry – anyone who purchased version 3.0 will be upgraded to 3.1 automatically.  We plan on an upgrade to the technical documentation with version 3.1 as well.

Most AlphaGraphics users are waiting for 3.1 before upgrading from 2.0 so they have to do it just once.

Please leave comments if you have suggestions for improvements to SurvivalWare.  And don’t worry Kirk, we’ll get better looking icons for Balance Sheet and Cash Flow reports before final release.

Customer Interview: Hank Luhring, Founder and CEO of INC 500 company, IssueTrak

Sure we share the same last name, but Hank is uniquely positioned to understand the intrinsic value of SurvivalWare, and is darned good at communicating it.  Hank has been a software entrepreneur most of his adult life, and we have intimate knowledge of each other’s product offerings and businesses.  I serve on his board of directors, and have been using SurvivalWare on his behalf for years to keep an eye on his finances.  (Of course lately it means I’ve just been drooling over his cash position and lack of indebtedness!)

Hank has been an informal advisor of mine since I was 2.  I’ve always enjoyed having an older brother who was close in age (he’s 19 months older).   We still manage to have great fun together exploring the latest technology, or comiserating about our oldest kids (just wanted to see if they read my blog..)

I really appreciate all the help Hank and his wonderful people at IssueTrak have provided to me – financially, technologically, and otherwise.  I use his product, and expect it to have the same positive impact on my company as SurvivalWare has had on his.  If you need a way to track issues – such as  support calls in a help desk environmet, or customer complaints - why not go with the best.  Check out their website at www.issuetrak.com

Some excerpts:

“You know, there’s the product and then there’s the company behind the product and the product is great.  But, the reason why the product is great is because Rusty has had an unbelievable amount of experience in analyzing financial data for all kinds of companies.”

 

Interview with Mr. Hank Luhring

February 8, 2010 – 3:30 pm ET

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Why don’t we start talking about your company and your specific role in the company?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  The company is IssueTrak and that’s I-S-S-U-E-T-R-A-K and the “T” is capital and there’s no “C” and we are a software company.  We’re about $5 million in sales and we sell a software package used by organizations of all sizes – big companies and small companies – to do tracking of various issues. Oftentimes they’re IT issues and it’s often used in a help desk environment.

My role in the company is I’m the founder and the CEO of the company.  We have 40 people here working here.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.  What other industries do you have experience in?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Well, it depends on what you mean by experience.  Early on, I did a lot of IT and data processing work for school districts and a lot with their finances.  And I did work for Ferox (Ed. Note: Rusty’s first startup) in 1989 and ’90, where I helped support a product similar to SurvivalWare used by corporations to do financial modeling and financial reporting. That was interesting because the customers were in a variety of industries.  Also, I did custom programming when I started my own business in ’92.  I worked with a variety of clients and that, too, was good because I wasn’t focused on one industry. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And do you find with your product that it’s geared towards the same type of audience?  That there are numerous different kinds of companies that use it?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Yes, there are.  Microsoft is a customer.  Cisco, Verizon, UPS — we’ve got big companies, we’ve got medium sized companies and we’ve got small companies, so it’s just a big variety of customers.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And how did you find out about SurvivalWare and what made you decide to use it?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Rusty Luhring is my brother and I’ve kept up with him throughout his career and I’m always familiar with what he is working on. Early on, I asked if we could use it for financial reporting. Since I had worked with a predecessor to SurvivalWare, a product called Encore, I knew the concepts and knew that it would really help out. And it has.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.

And what type of accounting software have you used in the past or are still using? 

Mr. Hank Luhring:  We’ve been using QuickBooks for many years.  We’re about to switch to Great Plains.  We’re in the process of running dual systems right now.  I have used others in the past, but for the last 10 years or so we’ve been using QuickBooks.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And do you find that it’s easy to load data from QuickBooks into SurvivalWare?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Yes, it works out pretty well.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what is your user experience with Excel and what are some of its limitations and how does it maybe compare to SurvivalWare, for example?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Well, I’ve used spreadsheets like Excel for years.  Before Excel there was Lotus 1, 2, 3 and so on.  I have done financial analysis in Excel.  I’ve even written VBA code to automate Excel to do things, such as grab data out of databases to pull into Excel automatically. Excel is okay for some things, but the approach SurvivalWare takes has a lot of advantages over Excel.  One problem with Excel is it’s almost too easy to set things up.  You can quickly put some numbers in a spreadsheet, put some formulas in, and you’ve got something and that’s very quick and easy to do for simple tasks.  But, if it gets very complicated (and it often does), it gets very hard to maintain an Excel spreadsheet and it’s very hard to be sure that everything’s correct.  Especially if you make changes.  You can have some pretty complicated spreadsheets that are linked to different sheets or tabs and can be linked to external files and everything’s so hidden, you don’t just get a simple listing of the formulas, then it’s really hard to verify that everything’s doing what it’s supposed to do. 

The SurvivalWare approach is quite different and it’s much better just from an information architecture point of view.  What’s very exciting to me about the SurvivalWare approach is that the formulas are not stored in the spreadsheet with the data.  With SurvivalWare, there’s what’s called a matrix file that has just the numbers.  The formulas that operate on those numbers are in a completely separate place.  They’re written in plain English so you can see things like “net income equals revenue minus expenses”.  Those will be spelled out just like I said it and you can have all kinds of complicated calculations, but it’s all very verifiable.  That’s not the case with the spreadsheet. 

Also, it makes for better reporting because your numbers are all in one place.  Oftentimes with rows and columns, the columns will be time periods.  There might be columns that represent months of a year and you might have three years worth, so you might have 36 columns of months.  You might have 12 columns of quarters and then 3 columns of years and then you might have some columns for projections and so on.  And then, the rows often represent accounts from your P&L or your balance sheet.  And then, with all the data set up like that, the reporting is great because you can just write a report to extract the data you want.  Tou might have a very summarized version of the P&L say for the last month.  You might have that same summarization, only instead of last month, maybe the last 12 months or this quarter or the last three quarters or whatever.  And you’re not really changing the underlying structure of the spreadsheet to do that, where you would have to make substantial changes in a typical spreadsheet like Excel.  To do reporting in Excel, with the reporting functions mixed in with the data, it’s harder to do and you can’t get the variety of reports like you can with the SurvivalWare approach.  When you do do the reporting, you’re often making copies of the data or making copies of the spreadsheet and then changing it.  Again, it gets hard to be sure all the calculations are accurate and that you haven’t accidentally broken a link or done something to mess things up.  Fundamentally, the SurvivalWare approach is much, much better than the spreadsheet approach at doing very sophisticated financial analysis. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And how often do you use SurvivalWare?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Roughly monthly.  At the end of the month, we close out our books and then we export the information to SurvivalWare and then look at reports. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And how long have you been using it?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Three or four years, maybe five years – something like that. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And did you need any help learning how to use it or was it pretty self-explanatory?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Well, I think my case was not typical since Rusty’s my brother and Rusty’s also on our Board of Directors. I’ve gotten more help than probably the typical customer.  It’s easy to use and the documentation is really good. But, I’ve been very fortunate.  My guess is, from talking with Rusty, he’s responsive to everybody, not just his brother.  The support is excellent.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  What did you like best about SurvivalWare?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  I think what I like best is the fact that you can quickly look at things by month and then if you want to take a slightly longer view, you can look at them by quarters and then if you want to look at an even longer view, you can quickly switch to years.  You can look at a very summarized version of your P&L and then, if you see something that looks like you want to find out more about it, you can drill down and keep getting deeper and deeper.  It’s lots of different ways to look at your financial data is what I like best.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  What feature has become indispensible and really critical for your business?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Again, I think it’s the way you can look at your financial data in lots of different ways.  It’s not like with an accounting package—you have your choices of some reports, but you have to look at one, and then the other and it’s the ease with which you can look at your data with SurvivalWare.  You can just follow your instincts.  If you’re looking at your financial information and you think, net income isn’t as good as I’d like. I’m wondering why and you can just drill down and see the expenses or see the revenue and determine, is this a trend that’s been going on for months?  And quickly switch to months or switch to quarters.  The flexibility of how you can analyze your data I think is what’s best. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Have you, for example, had to show any reports to your outside companies or banks?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  No, we’re a privately held company.  We’re self-funded.  We don’t have any debt, so we really don’t have to show anything to outsiders.  Althoug, I do have a Board of Directors and I use SurvivalWare to display information to them.  Actually, during the Board Meeting we’re going to have SurvivalWare projected up on a screen and do a financial review that way.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Can you think of a specific scenario in which case SurvivalWare was able to maybe put your company in a better state than it would have been without it?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Well, there was a time period where I had a partner in the business who is no longer with me and he sometimes liked to exaggerate or emphasize certain things regarding the finances and I used SurvivalWare to do a reality check.  I felt like I was helped greatly by having an independent view of things. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And then, also, recently I believe, Rusty had told me about how he had noticed that commission expenses were out of whack?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Yeah.  You know, there’s the product and then there’s the company behind the product and the product is great.  But, the reason why the product is great is because Rusty has had an unbelievable amount of experience in analyzing financial data for all kinds of companies.  He’s focusing on smaller companies now, but he has had a lot of experience with larger companies, you know, multi-billion dollar companies and they use his software to do the top level reporting.  I remember one particular customer was a conglomerate up in Canada and it had billions of dollars in revenue.   The holding company had companies and those companies owned companies and so on.  It was quite a complicated consolidation operation and it all was done with Rusty’s software.  And the insights Rusty has gained over decades of experience doing financial reporting and modeling helps SurvivalWare customers.  The software is designed by this expert who has had all this experience. 

And then, if you have questions, you’re not just talking to some low level person or hot shot programmer.  You’re talking with someone whose had decades of really high level financial analysis experience. That commission issue was a good example. I asked Rusty to take a look at my finances for December. He called me back and said it looks like my sales commissions are  high for December.  I looked into it and talked to my accounting people and it turned out we accidentally booked January’s commissions into December.  Rusty’s the one that caught it. That’s an example of it’s not just the product, it’s the company behind the product that is so valuable.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, another thing in talking to other customers, they’ve said the ease of use and then also it’s a time saver in terms of doing the projections very quickly.  Do you find that as well?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Yes.  It’s designed to make it easy for you to do things like projections.  It has a lot of nice short cuts.  And again, it’s Rusty’s expertise of doing decades of projections for huge corporations that helps.  I remember when I worked for him back in ’89 and ’90, one of the customers was Federal Express and I remember I was doing technical support.  I remember helping them do their projections with Rusty’s productWith all that experience he’s had helping all kinds of companies, big and small, do projections, it’s all been in the software, so that it’s much easier to do it.  So, yeah, it is easy. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, what other types of businesses do you think could benefit from SurvivalWare?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Well, I think any kind of business because with any business it gets down to the dollars and cents and profit and cash flow.  All businesses look at those things.  SurvivalWare is general enough that it can help.  It’s especially useful for businesses of any size that have cash flow problems.  You think oftentimes that it is small businesses that have cash flow problems.  General Motors had a cash flow problem, as well.  It’s useful for any size business.

And you know what’s interesting?  You get these big corporations like General Motors and some of the concepts are the same, whether it’s for a small business or big business.  In other words, one of the metrics SurvivalWare tracks is days of cash.  In other words, based on your daily rate of spending money and how much cash you have, SurvivalWare figures out how many days of cash you have.  That number is a helpful measure whether you’re General Motors or a one person company. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Anyway-—you do feel like there’s adequate customer support?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Yes.  I know I can get a hold of him, but in chatting with him, I hear him talk about his other customers. It sounds like people get excellent support and that’s probably worth every bit as much as the cost of the software.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, would you recommend it to a friend or colleague?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  Yep, I definitely would.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Okay.

Do you have any last minute comments or questions?

Mr. Hank Luhring:  No, it’s just, you know, a fabulous piece of software and a fabulous company behind it, so I think it’s a real bargain.

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Customer Interview: Terry Armstrong

I worked closely with Terry Armstrong during the Spring of last year to help her use SurvivalWare in her financial analysis engagements, often under considerable time pressure.  She was most appreciative of the help, and graciously agreed to spend time with Kelly relating her experience with the software.  I am happy to announce that several enhancements found in SurvivalWare version 3.0 are a direct result of Terry’s insights and “dumb questions.”

Some excerpts:

“due diligence .. financial analysis .. projection analysis”

 

What I was doing was working with a company that linked up businesses who were interested in going public with hedge funds for finances.  And what we did was we did due diligence work to assess companies’ operations and we did some past financial analysis and some projection analysis for the hedge funds to look at and determine whether this company was a viable operation for them to invest in. 

“Spreadsheet .. was just full of errors”

 

I was engaging with a company that had 250 general ledger accounts that needed to be boiled down into 24 categories of income expense categories and consistently reporting how they did versus how they said they were going to do.  So, I would be trying to take all of these account balances and push them into this 24 account format every time I was going to be reporting.  And it was crazy to do that with a spreadsheet.  It was just full of errors and I started searching on the internet for a tool that would allow me to do that and I knew it was going to be working with projections.

“signed up for it because it had a free trial..”

 

So, I found SurvivalWare on the internet and signed up for it because it had a free trial.  It had high recommendations.  Seemed to be a tool that would work for what I wanted it to do and I—so I signed up for the free trial and began to use it.

By the time my 30 days were up, I realized that it was something that was absolutely imperative for me to have to do this work and it worked really well. 

“And If I had had to do that with the spreadsheet, I would have been crazy.  It would have been absolutely insane.”

 

To take it from the raw data, from the company and put it into their spreadsheet would have been massive collating and sorting process because it had to be done 60 times.  And while we were analyzing and trying to figure out how to put their projections into a future basis, there would be lots of changes that were happening during this analysis process.  And If I had had to do that with the spreadsheet, I would have been crazy.  It would have been absolutely insane. 

The complete edited Transcript:

Interview with Terry Armstrong

January 12, 2010 – 9:30 pm ET

 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Tell us about your company and your specific role in the company.

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  I have to tell you a story of a company that I no longer am working with to connect it to SurvivalWare because about six or eight months ago, I stopped doing that work and I may go back to it, but right now the financial world has flipped a few things around, as you know, and what I was doing at that time is no longer available to me.  So, I’ll tell you about that story because what I’m doing now doesn’t relate to SurvivalWare.

What I was doing was working with a company that linked up businesses who were interested in going public with hedge funds for finances.  Okay?  And what we did was we did due diligence work to assess companies’ operations and we did some past financial analysis and some projection analysis for the hedge funds to look at and determine whether this company was a viable operation for them to invest in. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, how did you find out about SurvivalWare then?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, when I was doing this work, I was having to take companies’ financial data and distill it into a specific format that the hedge funds wanted to see it in and it was a grueling process – changing significantly every time I had a new engagement.  Also if the hedge fund decided to engage the company and move forward, there would be future analysis of, “this is how you said you were going to do and this is how you did.”  I was engaging with a company that had 250 general ledger accounts that needed to be boiled down into 24 categories of income expense categories and consistently reporting how they did versus how they said they were going to do.  So, I would be trying to take all of these account balances and push them into this 24 account format every time I was going to be reporting.  And it was crazy to do that with a spreadsheet.  It was just full of errors and I started searching on the internet for a tool that would allow me to do that and I knew it was going to be working with projections.

So, I found SurvivalWare on the internet and signed up for it because it had a free trial.  It had high recommendations.  Seemed to be a tool that would work for what I wanted it to do and I—so I signed up for the free trial and began to use it.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Oh, great.

And after you began using it, then you decided to go from there and actually buy a package?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Oh, definitely.  By the time my 30 days were up, I realized that it was something that was absolutely imperative for me to have to do this work and it worked really well.  I worked with Rusty who was giving me instruction and help all along the way because I was using it for a purpose that the software was probably not intended for.  A major sorting tool is what I was using it for and to keep my sorting consistent throughout the periods.  So, I might end up with five years worth of financial information from a company in each of the five years would need to be put in and report out in these specific 24 categories and present income statements and balance sheets in these specific categories each time.  And that is what SurvivalWare did for me. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Did these companies use a specific type of accounting software. 

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, it varied. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, how easy was it to learn how to use SurvivalWare?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  It was pretty easy.  I did use Rusty a lot.  He gave me a lot of pointers as to how to do it, but it functioned very well once I got the hang of it. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, was it easy to load data from different accounting software and do projections?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, the ease of loading from the accounting software depended on whether the client was able to get the accounting data into a spreadsheet format because I would either download a couple of times.  It works pretty well with QuickBooks, but even QuickBooks downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet and then into SurvivalWare.  So, that’s the way I always used it.  I created a spreadsheet from the accounting system and then fed the spreadsheet into SurvivalWare.  And I got to build my row maps and went from there.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And before were you just relying on kind of Excel?  What was your user experience with Excel and what are some of its limitations?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, I’ve been using Excel since it was Lotus and there was some product even before that, so I have been using a spreadsheet a long time – 30 years, I guess.  Mostly I’ve used Excel and I’m a pretty high level user of Excel.  For the purpose that I was using it, it would have been a nightmare to try to do this with Excel.  I could not have done it with Excel without a lot of errors, and inconsistencies. You know, to take 100 general ledger accounts and pull them into a 24 account level of structure consistently over years, past data and future data would have been an Excel nightmare.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so–?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  –And trying to figure out how to do it.  I never did it with Excel.  As soon as I saw the tasks and realized what was going to be necessary, I started looking for another tool because I wasn’t going to have that kind of patience.  I knew it wasn’t an application for Excel, you know?

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And how was SurvivalWare able to do what Excel – what would have been a nightmare in Excel?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, once you have the account number or account name and you link it in the row map to the final account name, all you have to do is just import it and it does all that sorting for you. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, how often were you using SurvivalWare and how long did you use it for?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  I used it about a year.  My work had distinct phases to it.  I would spend time at the client’s site gathering a lot of information and preparing a narrative report and then I would move into the financial analysis phase.  And when I moved into the financial analysis phase, I worked with SurvivalWare constantly for two or three weeks for that client.  Once I got the financials in the format that I needed them in, then I would move into the next phase of the project which was to do some projections with regard to stock sales and purchases and then my intent was to use SurvivalWare again once the client company and the hedge fund linked up to assess their performance against their projected performance.  But, I never got to that phase of it. 

So, what I was doing during the year that I was working with SurvivalWare was intense working with SurvivalWare in that middle phase of the reporting work that I did for each client.  So, I probably had about 15 clients that I went through that process for in a year.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what is it that you liked best about SurvivalWare? 

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, I like its functionality.  I liked the way it took data from many different types of sources and allowed me to pull it into one piece of software.  I think it would have been outstanding and really valuable to compare your actual performance with the projected performance. 

The part that I liked the best that I used was just being able to take a massive amount of data and consistently and predictably distill it into a comprehendible format of income statement and balance sheet to analyze that data.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what did you—you were pretty content in terms of the financial projections being on point and not full of errors?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Yeah, I found it pretty easy to use and pretty flexible so that it could accommodate a lot of different scenarios.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what did you think about the graphics as well?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  I didn’t get into the graphics very much.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  So, was the data showing—just showing all of the past and then there’s perhaps financial information as well as the financial projections and they were satisfied with that format?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Yes, they didn’t want to see anything graphical.  They wanted to see the numbers in a specific format and that’s all we showed them in addition to narrative work that we did.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And were they satisfied with the SurvivalWare projections?

Ms. Terry Armstrong: Actually, I would take the SurvivalWare data and put it back into a spreadsheet format because that is what they required.  It would be month-by-month for five years.  So, we’re talking about 60 columns of data had to be pushed through this sieve to get it from two or 300 general ledger accounts pulled down to 24 general ledger accounts that were reported in a financial statement format – sixty times for one client.  So, I put it back into a spreadsheet format for them to look at because that’s what they wanted.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Oh, okay.

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  To take it from the raw data, from the company and put it into their spreadsheet would have been massive collating and sorting process because it had to be done 60 times.  And while we were analyzing and trying to figure out how to put their projections into a future basis, there would be lots of changes that were happening during this analysis process.  And If I had had to do that with the spreadsheet, I would have been crazy.  It would have been absolutely insane. 

And what SurvivalWare allowed me to do was to have a holding place where the links between the huge number of general ledger accounts that the company was using to collect their information.  And the few number of general ledger accounts such as hedge fund wanted to see all this data and allowed me to keep those links straight month-by-month through a five month historical process—I mean a five year historical process and a five year projection period.  So, it was a massive amount of data that was constantly being manipulated and reworked until it finally settled into the product that would be presented to the hedge fund in the form of a spreadsheet.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, in your opinion, how much time do you think you saved using it?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Oh, an immense amount of time.  Hundreds of hours per client.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And then, what types of businesses do you think would benefit from SurvivalWare?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, I think the projection capability which I never really got into for myself, but I looked into because I had expected it to go in that direction.  Any kind of business would benefit from that, particularly smaller businesses that don’t have any mechanism for doing that already.  Ones who aren’t projecting their cash flow, who don’t know what’s going to happen to them with regard to cash flow over the next “x” months or years. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And did you feel like, Terry, it was adequate customer support?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Oh, outstanding.  Outstanding customer support. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And would you recommend it to a friend or a colleague?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  I definitely would.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Well, do you have any maybe last minute questions or comments?  Something that possibly you would have liked SurvivalWare to have done that it wasn’t able to?

Ms. Terry Armstrong:  Well, the only other thing I would add is that I was able to get help any time, day or night, and it was invaluable.  I got into this work not knowing how it was going to function and if I hadn’t had SurvivalWare, I would not have continued with it.  I would have had to get out of it because I’m not interested in pushing numbers through spreadsheets like that.  That would have been grunt work that would have been just driving me insane.

I really appreciated it and I thought Rusty was outstanding and he was always willing to help me figure out how to do things with the software that maybe somebody else hadn’t asked to do before and I really appreciated it.  I thought it was an outstanding piece of software and the price was unbelievable.  Definitely a very good value.

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Goldman Sachs: Give me my money back!

I’ve been clipping articles the last couple of months from  the Wall Street journal, the Washington Post, and other sources ever since I first heard about the “10,000 Small Businesses” initiative from Goldman Sachs last November. 

At first I thought, “what a nice gesture!”  God knows we can use the money.

$500 million (2) to help small business. 

According to the Washington Post, it first involves funneling $300 million (2) to so-called community development financial institutions.  Let me do the math – $300 million divided by 10,000 – that’s $30,000 on average to each of the 10,000 businesses to be helped.  

Excuse me if I don’t do backflips of joy.  

Then I discover that Goldman Sachs made $3.44 billion (1) in profits the 3rd quarter of 2009.  That’s about $35 million a day for a 91 day quarter.  Hmm.  So they are offering less than 10 days of profits.  Over 5 years. 

Excuse me while I stifle a yawn. 

Then  I read in the Wall Street Journal that the average compensation in 2009 will be over $700,000 (3) per person, including temps and sub-contractors.  The AVERAGE.  That’s up from $364,000 (3) the year before. 

OK, now you’ve got my attention. 

A few days later, that estimate is upped to $800,000 (4).  That is an increase of $436,000, or let’s say $440,000  rounded to the nearest 10 thousand.  $440,000.  

Remember that number. 

I start to put bits and pieces together.  The WSJ reports that “Goldman received $14 billion (5) for its trades that were torn up, including $8.4 billion (5) in collateral from AIG.”  Near as I can tell, Goldman claims 31,700 (8) employees.  That $14 billion (5) in corporate welfare equates to $441,640 per employee – or $440,000 to the nearest 10 thousand.  

I am not making this stuff up. 

My blood is starting to boil.  What about that $3,155 (9) per employee per year set aside for the “10,000 Small Businesses” initiative? (that’s right – zero when rounded to the nearest 10 thousand). 

$200 million (2) is for education.  And mentoring.  With some Goldman employees doing the mentoring. 

Say what?  

You’re going to tell us how to run our businesses?  

Mr. know-it-all investment bankers? 

The same ones who bought and sold highly complex derivatives based on valuations and projections from highly complex financial models developed by highly compensated quants who were probably high at the time. 

Look, I know a thing or two about financial models, and how fragile they can be, and sensitive to assumptions which often go un-disclosed to the users of the model output.  

And you guys bet real money on this shit?  

And wonder why we almost had a financial meltdown?!  And expect us, the taxpayers to cover your losses?! 

And now you want to educate us about how to run our businesses?  Well, Goldman Sachs, here’s a message from this small businessman: you can kiss my big, fat, ugly small business ass!!!! 

You know, what really pisses me off is that the big companies mess up royally and get bailed out, while we small guys don’t even have a voice.  We don’t get a place at the table when stimulus plans are crafted, or programs created that are supposed to help us.  We need some recognition that as the financial performance of small business goes, so goes the health of the economy.  So goddamn it, no more excuses.  This is not just about us. For the sake of the country, YOU cannot afford to muck this up! 

Goddamnit, it’s time to listen to me and the millions of entrepreneurs like me who toil in the trenches, account for all the job growth (6) in this country, yet still struggle to survive.  A second year in a row at $364,000 (3) in average compensation is not what I call a struggle to survive. 

Let’s get back to Goldman.  It is time to trash the wimpy Obama bank liability tax, which was long on rhetoric, short on pain to the banks – hence the stock market non-reaction.  According to USA Today, Goldman would have to pay $1.2 billion (7) a year in additional taxes. Or only $37,855 per employee. 

I say we claw back the full $14 billion (5) right here, right now.  It’s one thing to save the financial system from meltdown, but I’ll be god-damned if I’m going to allow my hard earned tax dollars be used to fund an increase in compensation of $440,000 per person. 

I’m  a businessman.  When I don’t make profits, I don’t pay bonuses.  Someone needs to explain that concept to Goldman Sachs.  

I’ve decided to start a petition drive to pressure Congress to act, and Goldman Sachs to do the right thing. 

Here is the text:

 Goldman Sachs Corporate Welfare Disgorgement Drive

“We, the undersigned, feel that it is grossly unfair for Goldman Sachs to benefit from the AIG bailout, and demand that this undeserved corporate welfare in the amount of $14 billion be returned to the Treasury immediately.” 

Here is the link if you’d like to show your support:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/gs-disgorge/

Citations

 

1. Goldman Sachs profits crush estimates

CNN.Com/World Business,  Ocotber 16, 2009 

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/10/15/goldman.sachs.profits.ft/index.html 

2. Goldman Sachs, Buffett team to empower small businesses 

Washington Post,  November 18, 2009 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/17/AR2009111703983.html 

3. Goldman Seizes the Offensive on Pay

Shareholder Input Sought to Head Off Backlash Over Average Compensation of $700,000; Proxy Push

 Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2009 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703735004574572363440861826.html 

4. Goldman Blinks on Bonuses

Top Executives to Forgo Their Cash Awards in Bid to Stamp Out Furor Over Pay 

Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2009 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703514404574587983288950014.html 

5. Goldman Fueled AIG Gambles

Wall Street Titan’s Role Shown in Journal Study; Firm Says Problems Hidden 

Wall Street Journal, December 12-13, 2009 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704201404574590453176996032.html

6. Robert Samuelson: ‘Can-do’ vs. ‘stand-pat’

Entrepreneurs could be the key to recovery 

Washington Post, January 4, 2010

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR2010010301810.html 

7. Bank tax proposal doesn’t hurt stocks

Administration wants $90B to help buttress overall system 

USA Today, January 15, 2010 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2010-01-14-bank-bailout-tax-stocks_N.htm  

8. Goldman Sachs 

Wikipedia,  January 21, 2010 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs 

 9. $500 million over 5 years is $100 million per year.  Divided by 31,700 gives the $3,155 per employee per year,

 

 

Customer Interview: Deb Drexel, Accounting and Business Manager

Deb Drexel is the accounting and business manager at CivalArts,  a civil engineering and land surverying company in Longmont,  Colorado.   She spent time with Kelly recently discussing how she uses SurvivalWare and what it does for her company.

Some excerpts: 

Ease of Use

“I tried another program,  a cash flow kind of a program, and I gave it up just because it was so difficult to use.”

“I have been using SurvivalWare probably for about six or seven months.  And yes, it was very easy to learn.  I honestly don’t know what I’d do without it now. ”

Pre-built model results in huge time savings

“Survivalware is already done.  For Excel, you have to still go in and put in formulas and manipulate whereas with the Survivalware it’s just already done.  Huge time savings.”

Good value

“It’s a very good value for the money.”

Who should use SurvivalWare?

“Any business where there is cash flow needs, any other kind of construction businesses, any seasonal businesses, landscaping perhaps, perhaps even accountants where they have huge amounts of cash flow at one time of the year and the rest of the year their cash is scarce.  But, particularly businesses that are seasonal or very dependent on what the economy is doing. ”

visit their website at: www.civilarts.us

Here is the complete interview:

Interview with Ms. Deb Drexel

January 5, 2010; 4:00 p.m.

 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Tell us about your company and your specific role in the company. 

Ms. Deb Drexel:  We are a civil engineering and land surveying company.  And my role in the company is business manager in charge of accounting, HR, all the day-to-day business functions.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And how long have you been with this company?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  About 15 years. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what other sector domains do you have experience in?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Well, we’re primarily, like, construction, but I also have a strong banking background and IT as well. I worked for IBM for a number of years.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, how did you find out about Survivalware, and what made you decide to buy it? 

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Well, I saw an ad in some magazine.  I don’t even remember what it was anymore, like a Verizon magazine or something, advertising it.  And I checked out your website and thought it looked very simple to use. 

I use QuickBooks for our day-to-day accounting activities and financial reporting, and it seemed like it was very similar to QuickBooks in just the ease of use.  I have tried another program, and it–I won’t mention what it is.  But, it’s a cash flow kind of a program and it’s–I gave it up just because it was so difficult to use.  And there wasn’t any mechanism to be able to tie the QuickBooks accounts into it like there is with Survivalware. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, you’re pretty familiar with QuickBooks.  How about Excel as well? 

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Yes, very familiar with both.  I’ve been using QuickBooks for, oh, my goodness, 13 to 14 years, and Excel for about the same or longer. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what, in your experience, are some of the limitations that you find in Excel and how does it compare to Survivalware?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Survivalware is already done.  For Excel, you have to still go in and put in formulas and manipulate whereas with the Survivalware it’s just already done. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, in that respect, it cuts down on a lot of time?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Yes, that would be a correct statement.  Huge time savings.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And that is important to you, and that’s something that you think is important for your job?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Yes, I would say that’s probably one of the most single biggest factors when I decided to make the purchase for Survivalware, that was probably one of the biggest selling features. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Was it easy to learn how to use Survivalware?  How often do you use it and for how long have you been using it?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  I have been using it probably for about six or seven months.  And yes, it was very easy to learn.  I honestly don’t know what I’d do without it now. 

What I kind of needed, what my main focus was — was trying to get a handle on cash flow, number one, but also to try to create a dashboard of key performance indicators that are important to me and to our industry to follow and track.  So, that’s the biggest thing that–the biggest help with. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, about how often do you use it?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  I would say several times a week. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And did you learn it on your own or with help from LSI? 

Ms. Deb Drexel:  There was a tutorial or something in there, and I kind of learned it on my own with the tutorial.  And I think there was a free web class or something I attended and got a little help from that, something on your website.  I don’t remember at this point. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, in your opinion, is it easy to load data and do projection?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Yes, it is. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what do you like best about Survivalware?   

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Probably just the ease of use and that it seems fairly stable and that I can get what I need pretty quickly. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And how has it helped you–you said earlier, you know, you don’t know what you would do without it now.  How has it helped you in terms of, you know, transforming or maybe evolving in your current business?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  The biggest thing that it’s done for us is just to help keep track of the cash and to be able to project out, let’s say, three to six months where you think the cash is going to be based on some assumptions that are happening with the economy and what’s going on in your industry and that sort of thing. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And so, can you think of maybe any specific examples where it’s really come in useful in terms of, if you hadn’t had an accurate projection, maybe something could have gone wrong? 

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Well, let’s just say given the current economy and the fact that we’re in the construction industry, we went from having a very profitable year in 2008 to being not so profitable in 2009. 

When I took a look at it back in April, it gave me the ability to be able to project out where I thought our cash was going to be–well, about six months.  And that really helped so that we could do what we needed to do as far as making staff cuts and expenses and all that sort of thing so we weren’t in as much of a bad spot as we could have been.    

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And do you feel like there is adequate customer support?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  You know, I’ve never really had to use the customer support.  Based on my experience, I really haven’t had a need for it too much yet. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And do you think that other people who might not have the same experience as you do in terms of IT would be able to become as familiar with the program and be more–be as comfortable with it?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Well, I think it would take a little bit more work if you didn’t have an IT background.  But, I think if you have worked with Excel and if you know–are at least an intermediate QuickBooks user, I think you could probably figure it out. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And would you recommend it to a friend or a colleague?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Yes, I would.

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  And what types of businesses do you think would benefit from Survivalware?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  Any business where there is cash flow needs, any other kind of construction businesses, any seasonal businesses, landscaping perhaps, perhaps even accountants where they have huge amounts of cash flow at one time of the year and the rest of the year their cash is scarce.  But, particularly businesses that are seasonal or very dependent on what the economy is doing. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  Can you think of any other last minute comments or questions? 

Ms. Deb Drexel:  I think it’s a very good value for the money, and that was a big factor in my deciding to purchase it.  It’s a very good value for the money. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:  In terms of being, you know, pertinent in terms of being in construction and engineering, can you think of maybe anything that you would need to make it more personalized towards your company?

Ms. Deb Drexel:  No.  I’ve kind of been waiting.  I don’t know if your new version has come out yet that will allow me to plug in more key performance indicators that I’m looking for that might be applicable to my industry that nobody else really cares about. 

Ms. Kelly Luhring:   For example? 

Ms. Deb Drexel:  we have to keep a real strong eye on equity per employee, because if the equity goes too low it limits our ability to be able to obtain loans, lines of credit, that kind of thing from banks, and our ability to grow when the economy does improve.  So, we have to track some other kind of funky things like that that are more specific to our industry. 

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