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The file plan is the primary records management planning document. Although file plans can differ across organizations, they typically:

– Describe the kinds of items the organization acknowledges to be records.
– Describe what broader category of records the items belong to.
– Indicate where records are stored.
– Describe retention periods for records.
– Delineate who is responsible for managing the various kinds of records.

Identify kinds of records

Determining which active documents in your organization might be declarable as records requires the collaboration of records managers, lawyers, compliance officers, and content managers. Note that, even if your enterprise is not in a highly regulated industry, there are general laws that might obligate your enterprise to retain records. Along with general business laws, you must evaluate legal requirements that are specific to your enterprise.

It is beyond the scope of this article to provide more than general information about how to determine what is a record in your organization. Most likely, your enterprise is already doing some form of records management and has filled most of the records management roles that you need, and you might already have a taxonomy of records.

Generally, to determine what are records in your organization:

1. Understand your enterprise’s legal obligations and business needs.

2. In a collaborative effort across the divisions of your organization, analyze how active documents are used.

3. Develop a list of the kinds of documents that should become records. For example, you might determine that the following should be retained as records:

– Contracts to rent corporate space.
– Documents related to employees’ benefits.
– Documents related to product research and development.

4. Categorize the records. Records in the same category often have the same retention periods and might require similar treatment in other ways.

Complete the file plan

After you determine which documents should be retained as records and after you create a set of record categories, complete your file plan by providing additional information about each kind of record. Indicate the following:

1. How long each kind of record should be retained.

2. How records should be disposed of when the retention period expires.

3. Who is the primary records manager for records of this kind.

4. What kind of media are records of this kind stored in.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Sharepoint Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

– FREE domain for Life -ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
– 99,9% Uptime Guarantee – ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
– 24/7-based Support – We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
– Customer Tailored Support – if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
– Money Back Guarantee – ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple – if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
– Experts in Sharepoint Hosting – Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
– Daily Backup Service – We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
– Easy Site Administration – With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

Source by dotnetgeek

Progressively, more organizations are deciding to host their monetary financial accounting software, for example, QuickBooks on the cloud. The centre advantages are the capacity to remotely get to QuickBooks and your related documents from anyplace and on any gadget. Additionally, there is likewise the included favourable position that your group can work collectively and simultaneously on QuickBooks and your related data files.

Pick between Self Hosted or Fully Hosted alternatives

In the event that you are examining cloud hosting solutions for QuickBooks, then different providers gives two powerful choices. Both are completely secure and permit you to appreciate the advantages of cloud computing. Investigate both arrangements and pick which bundle is best for you:

QuickBooks on Self Hosted Cloud – (Standard, Pro and Enterprise versions)

With different providers, you can rapidly, effectively and basically make your own company cloud. Centre applications, for example, QuickBooks can then be distributed into this cloud, permitting them to be remotely gotten to by every one of your clients (customers, bookkeepers and so on). Instead of utilizing a costly data centre, the cloud is housed provincially – save office PCs can get to be productive cloud servers.

QuickBooks self-hosting is a decent alternative if:

• You are expense cognizant and might want to minimize the setup expenses normally acquired moving to the cloud.

• Remote access and application sharing are your key drivers for moving to the cloud

• You as of now have a data backup setup in place

• You need a cloud solution however but with no disturbance

• You plan to publish different applications, for example, Excel or a CRM package to your cloud

QuickBooks Full Cloud Hosting – (Enterprise with Hosted QuickBooks Option)

The different providers expert team can help you set up QuickBooks as a completely cloud hosted application. Here they will help update your company cloud and transfer your full desktop QuickBooks release to it. Team would then if essential introduce outsider merchants, connectors and programming that incorporate with your QuickBooks framework.

With the Enterprise package, you can move remotely the applications, for example, QuickBooks that you would prefer not to hold mainly. You will likewise get top level of technical support.

QuickBooks full cloud facilitating, is a decent alternative on the off chance that you need:

• Your cloud to be interested in remotely hosted applications

• Extra data backup of your hosted applications

• One protected area for all your financial data

• Premier support –you can get to bolster by means of telephone, email and live talk

QuickBooks is the perfect business accounting software for small to large sized entrepreneurs. It’s adaptable, quick and effectively caught on. When you utilize Cloud Accounting application, QuickBooks is in that spot, prepared for you. You’ll spare cash and can sign on to the site and utilization it from anyplace at whatever time.

What’s more, now, it’s just a tick far from anyplace you are…

• In a meeting

• On a shoreline

• At home with the children

• Meeting with your bookkeeper, financier, whoever…

When you go along with us on the Cloud, you can change your life and free yourself from the work area!

Flexibility! Access with any cell phone from anyplace you are. Everything is readily available at whatever point you require the data. Anyplace, whenever.

Never pay for QuickBooks software or upgrades again! When you select in Cloud service, different providers deal with the QuickBooks expenses.

No more “Files Transfers” or “Accountants Copies”. Not any more sitting tight for the files to load or running to drop off the zip drive…or sending it through a remote service. That alone is justified, despite all the trouble!!

Providers can concentrate on the regions you don’t comprehend and demonstrate to you orderly proper methodologies to get to and utilize the project.

No more “backups”. Spare time and cash with secure online backups that happen consequently consistently.

It’s Secure. You realize that if bookkeepers like us are utilizing it, various providers have researched the security and classified ness issues completely! All data is backed up every day; the office and frameworks utilize the most abnormal amount of security accessible; proficient innovation specialists deal with the procedures.

Source by robert

With so many threats coming from around the world targeting a company’s data, which includes their customer’s data, the business industry created PCI compliance standards to protect sensitive information. PCI Compliance is a global mandated set of standards that businesses must implement and follow in order to protect their information, customer information, and transaction information. The purpose is to ensure appropriate security to customers by assuring that businesses meet their security standards.

Once the business implements the PCI standards, and prove they have implemented these standards, they become PCI compliant. There are a number of areas that are common to PCI violation. One such area that needs protection is making sure the business has all of the appropriate applications and hardware devices to prevent hackers. This includes making sure vulnerabilities such as preventing remote hackers from access to file-system read and write capabilities, sealing back door entry, and preventing hackers from leaving Trojans and viruses on the host’s server. Compliance involves such remedies as the appropriate firewalls and host monitoring and tracking.

Another area of compliance violation is businesses not implementing all of the security policies such as not sharing passwords, not writing credit card numbers down on paper, and not properly destroying hard copies of transaction information such as shredding everything before sending it out to be disposed.

Other areas of common PCI violations is hackers penetrating server systems because a business has not acquired assistance from a PCI compliant service provider that constantly monitor, test, and track systems. There are PCI compliant service providers that specialize in monitoring a business’ system remotely to ensure PCI compliance. These companies monitor traffic coming in and out of the businesses host system and will detect any breaches and stop it, and then alert the business right way. As well, these companies reduce the risks of data loss which includes stopping Phishing, spam, Trojan, and virus threats.

Other common areas of PCI violation include hackers gaining access to certain files on the host, directory browsing, security mechanisms, as well as unauthorized use of services such as mail relaying, and hackers gaining access to information that allows them to launch attacks against the host, and gaining access to open ports.

When enlisting the services of a PCI compliant service provider, a business will benefit because their business will have reduced or eliminated vulnerabilities, earn customer trust, protect customer personal data, protect your business from financial penalties and lawsuits, and maintain the host systems infrastructure. The savings one will achieve by using a PCI Compliant Service Provider can be hundreds of thousands of dollars as well as save their business because they stopped an event such as a breach that could have affected millions of customers.

PCI Compliance is not only essential to business security, it is also mandatory. A customer’s information must be protected to prevent credit card fraud and identity theft. Every business should take the appropriate measures such as hiring a PCI Compliance Service Provider. If a business does not remain PCI compliant, the consequences can be devastating such as a company losing millions of dollars, losing customers, and even losing the business.

Source by Adrianna Noton

The visual studio report tool collects the graphical query and design tools that are hosted within the environment. As long as the report designer provides the report data pane, then the visual studio report designer will easily organize the data in the reports of people. As long as the visual studio report tool provides the query designers to help them specify the data that they need in order to retrieve from the data sources. As long as the expression dialogue can specify the report in order to use the layout.

It is very important to provide the query designers in order to help the specify data in order to retrieve from the data sources. As long as the visual studio c# will go for the expression dialog in order to specify the report data in order to use the report layout. You can also go for the query design tools that require for the reporting services in order to connect to report the data. When you work with the report expressions then you can always design the report layout. If you have the visual studio c#, we suggest that you connect the reported data with the report expressions. You may also go for your ideal layout in order for you to actually host the visual studio c# option.

If you also have the option to go for the Report Designer that can start the menu, then you can point to the programs in order to go for the SQL server 2008 that will comply with your system. After you open the business intelligence development studio, then you can always create and open the new project template. Once you’ve selected the report server project, then it will be easy to just go for the report designer that you opt for. The visual studio report tool will then provide with you the project that you need as long as the data that you already have with you.

It is very easy to learn how to create the reports that you need with the visual studio report tool. You can always opt for the report design basics in order for you to understand the tutorial with the creation of the basic table report. If you have the tabular, chart, matrix and freeform reports and gauges, then you can always opt for the visual studio report tool needed for you to actually make things work.

The visual studio report tool may also come with the report definition that is listed in the reported description of the changes and the saved .rdl files that are connected to the reported changes. When you are designing the report with the software, you can always go for the reports that are processed and rendered whenever you go for the report server uses. When you ensure these then you can always decide on which report to go for. You can also publish the report of the company in the visual studio report designer. Once you have decided to publish this to the server, you will see that the hard drive is copied to the report server database.

Whenever you go for the deployment and building up of the commands available in order to go through the visual studios for more information that will go for the publishing data sources and reports that provide the multiple way in order to export the report and the different file format like the Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. If you can also get the information that you need to view and save the reports, then you can check whether these are outstanding and beneficial to your company. Once you’ve decided on this matter, then this is the one that you can go for the visual studio report tool.

View on-line demo:

http://www.perpetuumsoft.com/Demo/Rss/RssWebDemo.aspx?lang=en&pid=21

Source by Perpetuum Software Team

Funeral directors often create memorial folders in memory of the deceased for client families.  They are an excellent idea because they are suitable for anyone who wants to create a memorial small enough to be carried with them every day. 

Memorial folders are easy to create using funeral software that contains pre-formatted templates and hundreds of themes.  Each keepsake can contain a photo, specific, personal details, and enough space for a memorial verse or brief obituary.

Funeral memorial templates help funeral professionals create a keepsake that give mourners and friends a true sense of their loved ones personal style.  This type of keepsake will be always treasured. 

Providing families the opportunity to find just the right theme from the comfort and convenience of their own home is now possible too.  The funeral home can simply add a link to the funeral software companies online theme viewer. Not only will it be more convenient for the funeral professional in the selection process, but it will show new families how important personalization is to your funeral home.

Once the template has been chosen, using the funeral software, funeral directors can easily create these memorial folders in-house using ready-made pre-scored blank card stock and a color printer.  The blank stock is 8-1/2 x 14 and can be used to create two cards per piece.  The blank stock for memorial folders is sold in quantities of a thousand pieces per order.  As an added benefit, this type of stock can also be used to print acknowledgement cards.

Because the funeral software is so versatile, pretty much anything the family wishes, can be used in the memorial folder. Normally a photo will be on the front alone, or with the name and dates.  A verse, prayer, obituary, or poem usually will be on the inside left page. The service information will be on the inside right page, and any additional text can be included on the back.  Creating a unique memorial keepsake is easy because it allows the funeral professional to even change the fonts, graphics and colors with a few clicks of the mouse. 

Including more than one photo, personal family poems, sayings or goodbyes can be also included to make the memorial folder truly unique. Keep in mind, the better the photo quality, the better the printed version will be. Professionally done photos are usually the best, but most snapshots are also acceptable.

With the proper funeral software, memorial  folders are easier than ever to create and are as beautiful and unique as the loved one who has passed away.

Source by Matt Frazer

Strongly influenced by customer feedback and the growing popularity of social networking, SharePoint brings in some powerful enhancements this time around. There are oodles of reasons why you should upgrade to SharePoint 2013 from SharePoint 2010.

Some of the core features of the latest version include:

• Enhanced User Interface
• Customizable Fields
• Much improved Functionality
• Appointment Management
• Customizable Reporting
• Human Resource Integration
• Cache Service
• Policy Management
• Request Management
• Claims Management
• Expense Tracking
• Revenue Tracking
• Home Health Management
• Patient Check-in
• Multiple Fee Schedules
• Auto-Schedule Follow-Up
• Data Import/Export
• HIPAA Compliance
• Tracking the provider’s productivity

As you see here, most of the features are beneficial for users in the healthcare industry. From Auto-scheduling and patient check-ins to Home health management, SharePoint 2013 allows you to streamline your core operations and maintain it more efficiently. Not to mention, there are many other features that are suitable for people in the other industries as well. Simply put, SharePoint 2013 is one application that offers comprehensive data management solution to every end user regardless of the industry or the size of the company.

You would be interested to learn something about SharePoint workflow. Basically, it is a Cloud-based framework that helps simplify your document management processes. The workflow, with its automated and comprehensive management features, can help simplify the complexity involved in your system. In other words, it can help identify the gaps in your functionalities, so you can fix it with an appropriate workflow product or by using a third party workflow component.

Are you in the healthcare industry? Are you looking for an interactive platform that can help you organize the various topics in your field? If so, Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise is the answer for you. An advanced version of SharePoint Standard, this application can be accessed by providing an additional license key.

The enhanced features in SharePoint Enterprise include:

• MS Office Access, InfoPath forms, Excel, and Vision
• Extensive search options and quicker web indexing
• User-friendly Dashboards and BI Integration
• Performance Point
• Enhanced previews and Thumbnails

That means you can now listen to the extraordinary sessions conducted by Microsoft, Colygon and other leading providers. Get inspired, share your knowledge, ask questions, talk about the latest trends, and learn from the top experts in the industry. There are much more benefits of using Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise, and it is something you just can’t afford to miss out!

1. Reduces process complexity and operational costs: SharePoint 2013 helps organize your data management processes and saves a lot of time, which you can use to improve the quality of your healthcare services. Moreover, this data management solution makes it possible to access multiple information systems in a single user-friendly platform. The automated functions are there help overcome the human errors in your system.
2. Stay connected to the virtual healthcare world: The Exchange Online feature allows you to manage multiple work schedules, calendars, contacts, messages, and emails on all mobile devices. Sensitive data can be exchanged through your company’s purpose-built communication tool. This means, you can stay connected to the healthcare ecosystem 24*7 and keep track of what’s new, what’s best and future trend in your industry.

Source by Zeba Rohila

Nowadays, you will easily get in touch with numerous organizations with an expert knowledge on how a marketing dashboard will work towards the growth of your business. However, as a business owner, you must remain aware of all the intricacies and problems of your organization just like the palm of your very own hand. Remember, your complete awareness will go a long way towards building trust and faith with your hired dashboard experts.

Now, the need for a marketing dashboard has become quite mandatory irrespective of the products or services you want to promote in the near future, or are promoting at the moment. The best part is that online transactions will get easier to manage or handle in the long run. Moreover, all your important marketing records can be easily viewed in no time with the help of well-crafted dashboards. Good dashboards will also highlight things that need your immediate attention. As a result, you will be able to rectify the errors as soon as possible. And from the long term point of view, it will go on to increase your organization’s productivity levels by leaps and bounds.

The above mentioned benefits become even more effective when the dashboards are prepared with the help of Microsoft Excel. There’s absolutely no reason for underestimating the creative power that Microsoft Excel brings to the table. Amongst many other benefits, flexibility is perhaps the most important reason for considering Excel at the time of preparing marketing dashboards. It accommodates instant changes like a change in the timing and additional items with absolute ease whatsoever. This type of flexibility goes on to replace old graphs and add the latest and more detailed charts. Moreover, a change in color and size of the fonts adds to the beauty of the dashboard at the same time.

A strong analytical capability also makes Excel the preferred option. It has the power to manage complex calculations and statistical data with utmost ease. The fact that Excel is also extremely user-friendly, automatically gives it an edge over other software and applications. For this reason, many organizations take the help of Excel for their employee training programs.

Besides being user-friendly, Excel is quite well-known and accepted amongst its users. And this naturally puts the application in a position of advantage. For this reason, in spite of the presence of other tailor-made software, Excel still dominates a major share of the software market pretty comfortably. Therefore, when a marketing professional uses a dashboard made out of Excel, things begin to take a positive turn right from the very first step or first piece of sales strategy. And when you combine it with something like Share Point, then you obviously get blessed with a very strong publishing platform.

Finally, a marketing dashboard done with the help of Excel portrays professionalism and quality. Add to that, Excel presentations with its charting designs, various fonts, and color schemes also help to catch the attention of the clients and your target audience. So, if you utilize it in the right manner, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. All the best!

Content Source : https://puzzlepanel.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/the-benefits-of-using-excel-marketing-dashboards/

Source by Mitchell Gibson

If you are implementing GP for large organization, FA module often requires such features as initial data conversion.  We figured out that sometimes it is easier to record macro, transfer it into Excel, split the Macro on several columns and then use Series to update the fields that have macro parameters.  Another method is Fixed Assets integration Tool.  Also, customers often require re-depreciate since the items original place in service dates and compare old FA reports with newly produced from Great Plains.  In other words, you should expect the project to take some time and budget.  Let’s take a look at the features and possible questions:

1. Unlimited number of Books, where only one is posting to General Ledger.  For various reasons you may have a book, that is for internal managerial reporting (as company performance for the managers is often not related to FA taxes, which are typically posted to GL for federal reporting).  Also, your state might have additional requirements, plus municipalities might have pretty strict local legislation, especially when you item is real estate object, such as office building, farm land or manufacturing facility

2. Book/Item Class or directly Book/Item master records.  Book Class is where you define the rules – Depreciation Method (Straight Line, Declining Balance), Averaging Convention, TEFRA options, Additional Allowances and Salvation percentages.  Each item requires the class to be specified, and when you open Asset Book form, the info is copied there from Book Class record, and you have the option to override parameters

3. Interface to General Ledger.  For some of the customers it might be something they do not require, for the rest of us only the Book, linked to GL is the book, specified as Corporate Book in FA Company Setup window.  Plus of course when you create or import assets from AP or POP Purchase Receipt, retire (or undo retire), transfer, reset the depreciation to date field, change book-asset depreciation rules – these are also subjects to be posted to GL.  Sometimes we hear questions on how to post FA batches: Tools -> Routines -> Fixed Assets -> GL Posting

4. Fixed Assets creation through AP Invoice.  You have to specify FA Trigger Account in the Purchasing Posting Account Setup form.  Then, if you post AP Invoice, please be sure that you have changed the account with PURCH posting type.  If you followed the procedure, you should be able to import Item with AP invoice description

5. POP FA Import.  It could be done either by triggering PURCH account, or even directly by marking POP Purchase Receipt line as Capital Item.  In both PM and POP modules there is the way to receive one Invoice as several Assets

6. ID and Suffix.  Here the natural advise to have them as Asset Label, which could be printed in Barcoding style for the following annual items count.  ID and suffix could initially be used to form the asset, which is in fact the assembly of several components, each with its own amortization or depreciation rules.  In the future, if you are reassembling such a kit, you cannot change ID and Suffix anymore, but use instead Master Asset ID – this field could be changed at will and it should allow you to combine newly formed set in reporting

7. Location.  This is designed to help you with Asset tax reporting, as here you are specifying the State and municipality

8. Physical Location might sound similar to the paragraph above, but this is used rather for your internal reporting about what you have on the balance in the specific office.  Another option available in the reporting is Structure (maybe specific manufacturing plant, or warehouse building)

9. Insurance, Lease Company.  These master records are for information only and could be used in reports

10. Custodian.  If you mark Validate Custodian in Company Setup, you may assign Custodian, who is set up as Employee in US Payroll master table

11. Serial and Manufacturing numbers.  In case when your Asset is under warranty contract, or your industry regulation require Serial Number tracking, you can enter required info in the Expand Manufacturing Name form

12. User Data.  You can enable up to fifteen user defined fields for each asset.  Each of these fields could be assigned the name, data entry format (text, date, number, telephone, etc.).  If needed, you can add valued values, to have them available via DDL for convenience

13. Asset Book ITC.  There is also some flexibility to support additional deductions from the depreciation base: Section 197, ITC Cost Reduction Amount

14. Some customization considerations.  We’ve implemented numerous and helped customers to recover failed implementations.  For large company it might be the requirement to look up from your GL transaction to your Asset ID.  This task and similar should be created as SQL Update statement based SQL Server Agent job to run every night

15. Reporting options.  There are reasonable set of predefined reports in ReportWriter  (you can always modify them if required).  We found also, that for large organization more user defined and even data drive reports are needed.  Here we recommend you to consider direct SQL Select statement, joining FA tables, Crystal Report, MS SQL Server Reporting Services.  Of course, you can use another ODBC compliant reporting tool, such as MS Access, Excel.  User friendly reporting could be produced in SmartList with export to Excel

16. Modification tools.  Here, as Fixed Assets in separate dictionary, not Dynamics.DIC, we recommend you to think first about Modifier with VBA, versus Dexterity.  You can also reach the majority of the objects in eConnect, but we think this would be too exotic for FA

17. Version consideration.  In our opinion the development for this module has reasonably small magnitude, and you are still on Great Plains 6.0, upgrading to the current version 2010/11.0 or 10.0 – you should still be able to recognize your daily routines in the new interface

18. Table Structure.  You can always analyze this information Tools -> Resource Description -> Tables, switch Product to Fixed Assets, and series to Financials.  For example, FA00100 is your Asset master file, if you found this one, the rest should not be a problem

Source by Andrew Karasev

Recent reports published by the Business Software Alliance, an organization that works to advance the goals of the software industry across the globe, indicate that despite stricter penalties for illegal content downloads in many countries, illegal software downloads are still on the rise. Not only does the BSA publish the numbers of illegal software downloads by country, but they also generate a number that indicates the probable financial loss suffered by the industry due to those illegal downloads. Most opponents of stricter piracy laws insist that those numbers are severely inflated and insist that the number of illegal downloads are not necessarily indicative of the number of consumers lost for the software companies.

Regardless of how inflated the numbers may be, software companies and the authorities alike have taken an interest in the matter and are beginning to crackdown on illegal downloads and software pirates. South Africa in particular was shown to have lost large amounts of profits due to software piracy and as such, the local police force has begun to crackdown on those accused or suspected of pirating software.

In a recent incident, the South African Police Services executed a raid on a computer business in Johannesburg that resulted in the arrest of two individuals who were suspected of distributing software illegally. Though the suspects in this particular instance admitted guilt in stealing and installing software on thousands of computers, not all of those accused of software piracy are quite as guilty as these individuals.

The BSA maintains that software piracy has serious consequences, not only for software companies and businesses but also for whole economies in various countries. Due to lost taxes, duties, and overall sales, both companies and governments are said to lose every time a piece of software is downloaded illegally. However, many argue that it is not as simple as a one-to-one loss – meaning that not every illegal download means a lost sale for the company. In extreme cases such as the one in South Africa the stealing is blatant and the company was very aware of their wrongdoing, but this case should be treated as the exception rather than the rule when it comes to software piracy.

Adobe is one of the major software manufacturers to get involved in the latest crackdown on software piracy. From the raid mentioned above, Adobe has confiscated extensive customer lists that have names of people who purchased illegal software and other business in South Africa that buy and redistributed stolen or pirated software.

Adobe is planning to uses these lists in order to bring the worst offenders to justice in hopes of regaining some of their lost profits. This type of intelligence can be dangerous for individuals and people should ensure that they are aware of where their software is coming from and if they download it to make sure it’s from a legitimate source. Until laws are put into place to protect individuals a bit more from digital piracy accusations, it’s important for customers to exercise due diligence and protect themselves from possible claims.

Source by Tim Roberts

If you are an employer, running a 10-15 employees company, you must have come across the problem of controlling labor costs. From production sector to service sector, even in semi-GOVT companies, managing employee attendance efficiently has always been an issue for the busy employers.

Controlling labor costs is no longer solely the domain of large corporations as the recent economic downturn has forced small businesses to reevaluate as aspects of their organizational infrastructure.

Long available for larger organizations and at high costs, employee attendance and time tracking software has not, until recently, successfully migrated to the small business marketplace.

A few years back, when lower cost RFID proximity card and biometric time clocks entered the marketplace, small companies found something affordable at a basic level of time tracking. This soon proved to be a half-solution.  These solutions were designed to force business owners to tether the time clocks to client based software installed on local computers. These solutions, which offer a fairly low cost of entry, soon end up costing the businesses much more with IT costs, support contracts, and extended warranties.

Small businesses today demand that their vendors offer technology that is affordable and that utilizes the best available technologies. With web-based cloud computing or software as a service (SaaS) offerings the norm for many services commonly used by small businesses (accounting, banking, hosting, etc), business owners are looking to companies that create technology based on how businesses operate as opposed to companies that modify enterprise class technology and try and make it work for small business.

Time and attendance applications for small business have in the past taken for granted the fact those most small businesses had diverse labor pools. The most common time and attendance solutions for small business are timeclock offerings. Timeclocks are great for workforces that do not have access to a computer or the Internet, yet not ideal for clerical workers. Companies with warehouse workers, clerical workers, and remote workers have been forced to buy timeclocks and client based PC software and attempt to (not inexpensively) aggregate the data on their servers.

An ideal solution for small business time and attendance would pair inexpensive and easy to use hardware with a web-hosted software application that allows business owners to access time and attendance data any time and anywhere.

Such a system would harness the power of cloud computing coupled with the convenience of plug and play time and attendance terminals, allowing employees to clock in or clock out from a device, a website, or a phone.

Software solutions provider companies have started building programs which comes equipped with the scalability and integration capabilities to use RFID, biometric devices and of course integration of any third party payroll system. If you are looking for a good time clock/attendance management system, you must see all such compatibilities. You may need to use these features in due course, as your company grows in time. Most of these software companies offer free demo, in CD or in the shape of online interactive demo. Better to use a 15-30 day trial version so you can get familiar and match with your own company needs. Remember that it does not cost much to use RFID, biometric devices or barcode scanners. In return, the benefit you get in terms of time and cost saving is huge.

Source by Tony Chopp