In my last LinkedIn Post (Cash Position Report), I talked about the strategic importance of Cash on hand for a Professional Services Organization. In this post, I want to talk about the importance of the Overdue Accounts Receivable (AR) Report. As a Professional Services firm, most of our revenue comes from Project based delivery of Services. We have some top-line revenue from the subscription services we sell like Dynamics 365, but it’s not significant. So, our primary source of revenue is Services. We needed to ensure we bill on time, get paid on time. So we developed our Power BI AR Report as shown below – So let’s dive in! A few things to note in the above Report – It is a PowerBI Report embedded in our Leadership Team in our Microsoft Teams platform. We call it the PSA AR Report, as the reporting comes from our invoicing in Dynamics 365 PSA. Dynamics 365 PSA is our ‘single source of truth‘ for all our Project based billing. The bottom of the Report has two tabs – Services and Licensing/Commission Invoices. More on that shortly. Dynamics 365 PSA is our the single source of truth for all Customer Invoicing. We run all our Project based Services Invoicing from the Invoicing and Contract Milestone Schedule in Dynamics 365 PSA. This means our Allocations, Contract Milestones and our Time entries are always up-to-date, otherwise our invoicing schedule would be incorrect. This ensures good Project Management practices. Now PSA does not handle taxation, so you have to either setup your taxation customization or use an off the shelf tax add on that is available on the Microsoft AppSource. If none of these options are possible, then you can decide to create your invoices in your Accounting system and integrate those into Dynamics 365 PSA. We do that for our Licensing invoices to our Customers and integrate those from our QuickBooks Online Accounting system into Dynamics 365 PSA. We also ensure that invoices are only emailed to customers from Dynamics 365 so we can track these emails. Further, we update Invoice Statuses from Draft to Sent to Paid. Now let’s get into the Report. Basically, we have color coded our Report based on the following simple rules – Red for anything that is overdue by 30 days or more, yellow for anything that is between 1-30 days overdue and no color coding for current invoices. The visual impact of color coding can’t be emphasized enough. On the top left corner of the Report, we have an option to search by Customer, so we can quickly get all invoices for a specific customer in the AR Report. This becomes very useful when you want to just share a snapshot with your customer for overdue invoices.  Handling Multiple Legal Entities: We have three legal entities – India, USA and Singapore. We have three separate QuickBooks Online Accounts for each legal entity, but we use a single Dynamics 365 CRM platform. We have made customizations on our Invoice entity to ensure we capture the correct legal entity. In the example below, you can see we classify our Invoices by legal entity in our Report – You can see there is column called ‘link’ in the above reports. Clicking on any invoice in this link directly takes us to the Invoice record in Dynamics 365.  Overdue Reminders Alerts- We automated the Overdue Reminders so that our system automatically sends out a reminder for all overdue invoices every Monday.  After all this effort, you still need to ensure regular and rigorous review of this report to ensure you can take action on overdue invoices. This is done through our scheduled Monday morning Management Status Meetings. The agenda for this meeting is recurring and hence set in advance, but this Management meeting always starts with AR Report Review. Our Accounts Manager is invited for the first 15 minutes and we go through all Overdue Invoices (especially the Red color coded ones!) and decide if we need to take further steps like setting up a meeting with the customer.  If you are a small or mid sized Services organization, it is of utmost importance to get paid on time. By ensuring you have such a report and reviewing and planning action items for overdue invoices, you will run an efficient Services organization. In addition, there is another strategic benefit here – this report is like a Quality Check on your services. If your customer is paying on time and suddenly does not, your proactive action to talk with the customer can help you understand if there are any issues in your Services and you can take corrective action. Our PSA AR Report is available to our Management team (this includes our Delivery Heads and Practice Leads as well) through Microsoft Teams and they can view it any time they want, planning action items as needed. If it is hidden away only with the Accounts Team and available through some weekly PDF report, it is not efficient for your organization. This Report will help your organization achieve it’s Objective – ‘bill on time, get paid on time.’ If you are keen on understanding more about our Internal Systems that keep us running and growing, our Internal Systems page is a wonderful resource – https://www.cloudfronts.com/our-internal-systems/ or reach out to me at ashah@cloudfronts.com.

In this post, I will talk about the importance of the Cash Position Report for any Professional Services Organization.  The Cash Position is your current and forecasted ‘Cash in Hand’. The importance of having Cash in your bank account cannot be emphasized enough. It is important to understand the difference between Cash Flow and Cash in Hand as they are not the same. An organization can have a solid cash flow (which is revenue tied up in Receivables), but without money in the bank, it cannot operate. Let me go into this further as it’s the foundation of our conversation here.  For any Professional Services organization, anywhere from 60 to 80% of the Monthly expenses are tied to Employee salaries. Paying salaries on time, every month is key to the organization’s credibility. Salaries need to happen on time, month after month, irrespective of your cash flow. They require cash on hand. In addition, any business planning, from HR Activities (a team lunch, an offsite meet) to Investing in the organization’s growth (new areas of business, developing expertise) also requires cash on hand.  One more topic that I need to mention is the current pandemic. Many Projects are delayed, cancelled or on hold. From a business standpoint, this kind of unforeseen event can put a tremendous strain on its ability to continue operations. But while the current pandemic is an extreme scenario, businesses constantly face challenges as we operate on a global level (2004 Tsunami, 2008 Financial Meltdown are some recently examples). Cash on Hand can mean the difference between survival and going out of business.  So we see that Cash on Hand is a Key Metric and hence should be reviewed regularly, ideally during a scheduled Management meeting on a recurring basis. At CloudFronts, we do this review every Monday morning. Our two and a half hour Monday morning Management meetings are literally run by numbers. Some of the Key Reports we review are Project Overview Report, Team Billable & Non-Billable Allocation Report, Support Metrics, Sales Pipeline, Outstanding Accounts Receivable Report, Forecasted AR Report, Cash Position Report. Each one of these is a PowerBI Report embedded into our Microsoft Teams Leadership Team Group.  So what is the Cash Position Report? I will start with a simple equation and then delve into the details –   Cash Position = Cash + AR – AP + Projected AR Now let’s walk through each of the Items in there and how we get that data – Cash on Hand – This is what is in your Bank Account when you run this Report (our report is updated every Monday morning before our weekly Management Meeting). We manually enter this data into the Report.  AR – AR is your Accounts Receivable which includes all Customer Invoices that are due this month and have not yet been paid. This includes overdue invoices carried forward from the previous month as well. If an Invoice is Paid, then it goes into Cash on Hand. Our AR data comes from Dynamics 365 PSA Contract Invoicing Schedule for both Fixed Bid and Time & Materials Projects. Our Contract Invoicing Schedule is the Single source of truth for all our Project Services Invoicing.  AP – AP is all Payables this month, including Salaries. It comes from our Accounting System which is currently QuickBooks Online.  Projected AR – Projected Accounts Receivable are any Invoices that we will generate this month and that will be due this month. This data also becomes from our Contract Invoicing Schedule. For Fixed Bid, this is based on the Contract Billing Milestones and for Time & Materials, this data comes from the Team Member Allocations.  At the top of the Report, you will see that the report is month wise. Hence as you move into the future months, you have less visibility into AR data, but rely on your Projected AR data. As you move into a month, the Projected AR starts becoming AR, which then becomes cash on hand and typically by the end of the month, Projected AR should be zero.  This Report gives the Management Team a clear visibility of the company’s Cash Position over a period of time. For us, we are looking at six months into the future, but organizations can easily set this up for longer periods. By reviewing it regularly, in a scheduled meeting, you ensure there are no surprises and you have time to react well in advance.  The benefits of such a report are further amplified when you consider its impact on our behaviour. During the pandemic, our No.1 priority has been to ensure we are a stable organization with the ability to operate through this pandemic. This report can give you that stability and allow you to stay productive and impact your team with a positive state of mind.  If you are keen on understanding more about our Internal Systems that keep us running and growing, our Internal Systems page is a wonderful resource – https://www.cloudfronts.com/our-internal-systems/ CloudFronts is one of the leading Microsoft Partners globally on implementing Professional Services Automation on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Platform. You can reach me on LinkedIn for any questions/queries or email me at ashah@cloudfronts.com

For every sales person, getting a signed contract from the client is a euphoric moment. You finally closed the deal, and everything seems right. But the process after winning the deal is cumbersome for many of us. This article documents how we made this process a lot less painful through MS Flow and the D365 App for Outlook. Hopefully you find it very useful as well. I will first walk you through my old process – Once I got the signed contract as a Word or PDF attachment in my email, I would download it and save it to my OneDrive under the respective client folder. I would then open D365, go to the opportunity, then browse to the Documents folder and create a new SharePoint document folder. Then I would click the upload button and browse to the document location the OneDrive folder on my computer and attach the proposal. I would then finally mark the opportunity as Won, which would send out internal emails to our Delivery Team (for Project creation), Accounts Team (for billing details) and our HR team (so they can keep an eye on recruitment needs). Here is what we achieved through the implementation of the new process using MS Flow and D365 App for Outlook – Once I got the signed contract in my email, I would track this email using the D365 App in Outlook. I would also set the regarding field as the Opportunity that this proposal is for. The above action would trigger an MS Flow that would do the following in near real time – It would check if the Opportunity already had a folder created and if not, it would first create the SharePoint document folder on the Opportunity. It would then upload the proposal to the above folder. It would remove the attachment from the tracked email (saving valuable space!) I would then open the Opportunity right from my D365 App for Outlook and mark it as Won. The step by step directions for setting up the MS Flow are documented in this blog article from Krishna Bhanushali from our D365 team – https://www.cloudfronts.com/move-attachments-from-tracked-email-to-sharepoint-using-microsoft-flow/. In conclusion, the above implementation has benefited us through – Significantly reduced number of steps post winning a deal. Time saved by not having to leave Outlook which is where most of us are spending our time. A better process that makes pipeline management easier for sales people, thus driving adoption. If you want to discuss your sales processes further or provide any feedback for improvement, I can be reached at ashah@cloudfronts.com.

In this article, we highlight the key cloud-based IT and business systems that a Small and Medium Enterprise in India could use to improve efficiency while keeping costs low. These are also systems that we use to run our day to day operations. 1. Office 365 Business Premium – Email, Microsoft Office, Document Management, Security and Microsoft Teams. 2. QuickBooks Online Accounting Platform 3. PayBooks – India Payroll with integration to QuickBooks Online and optional biometric attendance integration. 4. Zoho Recruit – Recruitment Platform 5. Zoho People – HR Management Platform 6. Exotel – Cloud EPBAX business phone system 7. QuickHeal firewall for our network. Additional systems (once you grow to a certain size and need more processes and reporting. We use all of the below systems)– 1. Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Dynamics 365 Sales with lead integration with your website (typically WordPress). Dynamics 365 for Customer Support. Dynamics 365 Customer Support Portal for customer self service. Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation for Project Management. MailChimp for Marketing Automation or ClickDimensions. 2. PowerBI Analytics Platform. 3. GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar for Meetings and Webinars. Connect with us!

Introduction: The purpose of this article is to help fellow entrepreneurs and sales managers leverage the power of Office 365 and Dynamics 365 to manage and build their sales pipeline with a few easy steps. In this article, we focus on utilizing Business Process Flows on Opportunities in Dynamics 365 and Triggering Email Notifications to team members. Step 1 – Enable the Out of the box Opportunity Sales Process In case you are not using Business Process Flows, please start using it. For a growing Sales team, using Business Process Flows on Opportunities enables a methodical approach to your pipeline management. When you enable the out of the box Opportunity Sales Process, you will see the following Process Flow appear on your Opportunities – The above Business Process Flow has 4 stages – Qualify, Develop, Propose and Close. You can move your Opportunity through each of the stages as you make progress. When the Opportunity reaches the proposal stage, we mark the Present Proposal check box as ‘complete’ as per below – We also ensure that we save the proposal on the Opportunity at that point – Step 2 – Send Email Notification to Project Delivery Manager on Proposal Complete When a proposal is sent to the Customer, we trigger a workflow notification to our HR and Delivery Managers. The Workflow email looks something like this – The above email serves as a reminder to our Delivery Manager that a new Project might be coming their way soon. It also informs our HR Manager, so they can look at our PowerBI Resource Allocation Dashboards to understand staffing and hiring needs. In addition, we also include the URL to the Opportunity, so our Delivery Manager can look at the Opportunity and even the proposal that we attached to the Opportunity. Finally, when an Opportunity is Won, we send a similar workflow email. Hence the ‘Propose’ stage email provides our Delivery Manager with some preparation time to ensure we are ready for Kick off when we Win the Opportunity.  Step 3 – Just do it. Yes, this step is same as in my previous article. Get in the habit of doing this and it will help close the communication loop from Sales to Delivery to HR, thus helping your organization meet its commitments. Remember… ‘Sales cures all.’ Let’s take care of that sales pipeline.’ You can always email me at AShah@CloudFronts.com to discuss your sales processes and technology adoption. In the coming articles, I will continue to focus on efficient ways to build and manage your sales pipeline and how this ties into one of the most important KPIs for running your professional services business.

The purpose of this article is to help fellow entrepreneurs and sales managers leverage the power of Office 365 and Dynamics 365 to manage and build their sales pipeline with a few easy steps. I use the Outlook Web Application (OWA) for my O365 email access. I also have CRM open in another tab and usually toggle between CRM and email. There are several email conversations that happen with existing customers or partners that I would like to quickly track as a Lead in CRM. I might not know the timeline or even the budget, but I know since it is an existing customer/partner, this would be a good lead. The disadvantage of not tracking these potential opportunities is that after a while you tend to forget to follow up! In this article, we focus on leveraging the D365 App for Outlook to convert emails into Leads which then feeds into our Sales Pipeline. Step 1 – Hit that “D” hard D365 now has a cool new logo (not a logo, may be an icon?). Anyways, once you install D365 App for Outlook, you will see this logo next to any email you have received. Below is an email I received this morning from our partner, on a potential opportunity – Step 2 – Track the Email and Create a Lead! Once you ‘hit the D’. you get to this window, where you would ‘Track’ that email. I already have Andy Neal as a contact in my system, so the app gets me all that info right in my email window! Once you track the email, you will get an option to set the regarding option. On this screen, select New and select Lead – Finally, enter the details for your Lead and close the window or open that Lead right from your email! Step 3 – Just do it. Yes, this step is same as in my previous article. Get in the habit of doing this and you will see a good lead pipeline that you can work through daily and increase your conversion rates. Remember – ‘Sales cures all.’ Let’s take care of that sales pipeline! You can always email me at AShah@CloudFronts.com to discuss your sales processes and technology adoption. In the coming articles, I will continue to focus on efficient ways to build and manage your sales pipeline and how this ties into one of the most important KPIs for running your professional services business.

Overview: The purpose of this article is to help fellow entrepreneurs and sales managers leverage technology for effectively managing their sales pipeline with a few easy steps. As an entrepreneur, one of the most difficult aspects of my work is generating sales and building a healthy sales pipeline. On June 1st 2017, CloudFronts will complete 5 years and looking at all the systems we have in place, I feel we have adequate sophistication in our Operations and Administration processes. On the other hand, I feel our Sales processes are still not mature and need to evolve. This and future articles will focus on how we can leverage Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales for managing sales. This is something we use today and so I feel it should help others. “I know I need to keep track of my sales pipeline, but I am just so busy.” Step 1 – Data Entry We are always so busy and entering data into CRM can be such a pain! Just quickly sending out that email makes sense when you have just a few opportunities to manage. Eventually this method fails as our memory can only hold so much information. So, you will need to enter data in your CRM! While the term, ‘garbage in, garbage out’ applies to data, this is apt for a sales person – “No data entry = lost opportunities”. So, take a few seconds (now is the best time) and enter that Customer, Contact and Opportunity data into CRM! You already paid for the licenses, might as well use it! Step 2 – Managing your pipeline by keeping your ‘Est. Close Date’ up-to-date. Once I enter my Opportunity for the first time, I just really want to update the Est. Close Date and sometimes the Est. Revenue. I really do not want to open the Opportunity every time. I could have used Editable Grids for this but I also wanted to add some ‘intelligence’ here which I could use later for analysis. I wanted to capture some notes on why I changed the Est. Close Date and put these notes in the Notes section with a predefined title (like – ‘Est. Close Date Change Reason’). I worked with our CRM team to setup a simple workflow dialog. This is how I manage my Opportunities now – 1. My Open Opportunities View> Select my Opportunity and then run my Dialog. The dialog is simple and really has only 2 input options, Est. Close Date and Reason – The reason becomes a note record on my opportunity. The above process works well for me for my Pipeline Management. My opportunity view is sorted by Est. Close Date, so this further ensures I do not have any past due opportunities. Step 3 – Just do it. No, we don’t need to really buy a pair of running shoes, but we need to do the above 2 steps diligently and every day. The benefits of this exercise will become obvious very soon and you will be running faster than before towards better close rates as things stop falling through the cracks (of our brain). Remember – ‘Sales cures all.’ Let’s take care of that sales pipeline! You can always email me at AShah@CloudFronts.com to discuss your sales processes and technology adoption. In the coming articles, I will talk about how Sales Pipeline Management ties into business decision making – from Resource Allocation to Recruitment.