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Home Tour: Cleo & McShane Murnane

Scandinavian design is a design movement characterized by simplicity, minimal and functionality that emerged in the 1950s in the five Nordic countries. The idea that beautiful and functional everyday objects should not only be affordable to the wealthy, but to all, is a core theme in the development of modernism and functionalism. This is probably most completely realized in post-WWII Scandinavian design.The ideological background was the emergence of a particular Scandinavian form of social democracy in the 1950s, as well as the increased availability of new low-cost materials and methods for mass production. Scandinavian design often makes use of form-pressed wood, plastics, anodized or enameled aluminum or pressed steel. The concept of Scandinavian design has been the subject of many scholarly debates, and marketing agendas since the 1950s. Lamont Shaun Many emphasize the democratic design ideals that were a central theme of the movement and are reflected in the rhetoric surrounding contemporary Scandinavian and international design. The ideological background was the emergence of a particular Scandinavian form of social democracy in the 1950s, as well as the increased availability of new low-cost materials and methods for mass production. Scandinavian design often makes use of form-pressed wood, plastics, anodized or enameled aluminum or pressed steel. The idea that beautiful and functional everyday objects should not only be affordable to the wealthy, but to all, is a core theme in the development of modernism and functionalism. This is probably most completely realized in post-WWII Scandinavian design.

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Shining a New Light on Marsha P. Jonson

Scandinavian design is a design movement characterized by simplicity, minimal and functionality that emerged in the 1950s in the five Nordic countries. The idea that beautiful and functional everyday objects should not only be affordable to the wealthy, but to all, is a core theme in the development of modernism and functionalism. This is probably most completely realized in post-WWII Scandinavian design.The ideological background was the emergence of a particular Scandinavian form of social democracy in the 1950s, as well as the increased availability of new low-cost materials and methods for mass production. Scandinavian design often makes use of form-pressed wood, plastics, anodized or enameled aluminum or pressed steel. The concept of Scandinavian design has been the subject of many scholarly debates, and marketing agendas since the 1950s. Lamont Shaun Many emphasize the democratic design ideals that were a central theme of the movement and are reflected in the rhetoric surrounding contemporary Scandinavian and international design. The ideological background was the emergence of a particular Scandinavian form of social democracy in the 1950s, as well as the increased availability of new low-cost materials and methods for mass production. Scandinavian design often makes use of form-pressed wood, plastics, anodized or enameled aluminum or pressed steel. The idea that beautiful and functional everyday objects should not only be affordable to the wealthy, but to all, is a core theme in the development of modernism and functionalism. This is probably most completely realized in post-WWII Scandinavian design.

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4 signs that show you need to change your accounting software

As a smartphone user, has it ever crossed your mind to change your phone? Yes! Your camera might be outdated, you want a bigger phone, or the latest Android operating system or IOS is not supported on your phone. Just as changing your phones occasionally comes to us as a priority, business owners must regularly check whether their accounting software is performing their business tasks as it ought to. You might ask, how do I know if I need to change my accounting software? We have provided four signs to help you make your decision. Level of manual operations As a business owner, it is important to always check the tasks you spend most of your time. Are you spending much time daily on your accounting tasks? For example, if as a business owner you issue your invoices manually, then you need an accounting software pronto. Reconciliations can be a big headache for small businesses. If you constantly perform manual operations, you would be spending time trying to reconcile your figures to your accounting system. For example, Cakequeen, a small baking business sells products on their website, Instagram, WhatsApp, and in-store. The business usually records their sales orders on Excel. This causes problems in reconciling their sales orders, leading to stockouts. This can occur when Cakequeen’s different sales channels are not integrated with their accounting software. Do you have to constantly reconcile your accounting figures manually? Then you might need a software upgrade. Growing size of business operations When your business operations begin to expand, your current accounting software might be unable to accommodate some of your new business processes. This makes you spend more time trying to capture these processes manually. For example, you run a biscuit manufacturing company. As a startup, you might have outsourced your production. Alternatively, you were running your production schedules using a manual stock card. This could have allowed for your business to use a small online software to capture your invoices and pay your expenses. However, as your business grows, you are unable to capture your raw materials and finished inventory on your accounting system. This makes you to start losing track of your inventory, leading to multiple theft cases from your staff. You are also unable to get accurate reports making it difficult for your business to take important decisions. Integration of external applications Business usually require multiple applications to function effectively. These can include customer relations management (CRM) software, inventory management software, payroll software, manufacturing software, expense tracker, and other industry custom software applications. However, when the applications are connected, business processes are performed faster and seamlessly. A typical example is when a customer fills a form to purchase an item on your website, the form automatically inputs the customer’s name into your CRM, while also creating an invoice on your accounting software. This eliminates the process of tracking the customer’s order manually. Your accounting software should have integrations into your other applications to enable your business process flow seamlessly. Otherwise, you might need a switch. Multiple support issues Software applications help businesses to function effectively. Sometimes, these applications can have errors or bugs while trying to access a feature. Some other applications are too complicated. It takes some time to find where a feature is located. If you have a situation where your software application has too many support issues, then you might need to reconsider the application. Your accounting software should allow for ease and not delay of transactions. In Nigeria, many small businesses opt to substandard developers to make accounting software for them. After a period of using the software, problems begin to occur in accessing the software data. Your accounting software should provide your business with easy access to constantly monitoring your financial progress. This means that the software application should be up and running and possess an easy-to-use framework and process.

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5 Tips to consider when implementing an ERP system

#Tips: 5 Tips to consider when implementing an ERP System Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) deployments can be a daunting task. How you select and implement an ERP system would determine the success and long-term prospect of how the ERP system will work with your business process. ERP projects are usually expensive in nature. Getting the process right must be a Company’s goal. ERPs can go a long way towards improving your operations and reducing your costs. Here are some tips below to help you successfully deploy your next ERP software solution: Find out about top project management and time management software tools that can help you automate your business tasks. Gather your ERP Requirements An important step to an ERP selection process is gathering your business requirements. Carefully highlight and define your project scope. This would ensure proposed requirements are specific in proposals from consultants. A good upfront requirement gathering process relieves the implementation consultants and integrators with little or no assumptions about what your organisation requires. This can help to reduce delayed timelines and extended budgets on ERP implementations. Start by focusing on your business processes and system requirements. Select an ERP system that fits into your business process. Otherwise, this would cause additional and more expensive customisations on the long term.  Appoint internal ERP champions If you want to have the best ERP onboarding process, it is important that you appoint internal ERP champions to lead the ERP implementation and onboarding process in your company. Select staff who would manage the collection of user requirement process.  Having an ERP project champion can also boost the change management process. The champion takes responsibility to coordinate users on the need and how to use the ERP software. This process helps to make ERP adoption more seamless compared to leaving the responsibility wholly to consultants.  Customise your business requirements Depending on the ERP, integrations are usually a core part of ERP implementations. Companies usually want to achieve full-scale ERP implementations. However, budget constraints can limit your ability to achieve maximal integrations. Select customisations that would focus on the “what” requirement.Panorama Consulting provides a three grouped requirement framework that can guide companies to navigate their assessment process: Mandatory– These are non-negotiable tasks or function that are required to execute a job function. They could also be subject to external influence such as regulations.Value-added– These requirements help to initiate a more streamlined process for your operations. They have good importance but are not required to perform a task.Nice to have– These are requirements that provide convenience to users. For example, a button that automatically links you to another page. Source: Panorama Consulting Create a change management process A challenging part of the implementation process is getting the management and users to buy into the ERP project. Employees are usually accustomed to their old processes, and it would take a reorientation to change their mindset. A change management strategy helps companies to manage this challenge. A communication strategy should be formed as part of the change management process. This involves setting up workshops, meetings, and group sessions to better explain the importance of the new ERP system. Q&A session can also be developed to address issues that employees raise. It is essential that employees get acquainted with the change management process, to ensure that your ERP project is successful. Improve your business process ERP systems are created to help businesses improve their business processes into a more seamless and automated manner. It is expected that when implementing an ERP system, business processes would change in your organisation. An effective way of designing your ERP implementation would be to reengineer business processes within your organisation. Every organisation wants to improve how they conduct their business. Performing this during an implementation process requires you to ask the tough questions: Are your processes redundant? What process can be introduced or eliminated? Evaluate your current process map and look at ways in which your business process can be improved upon. The redefined processes should then be captured into implementing your new ERP software.  Looking for someone to discuss about your next ERP project in Nigeria and around Africa, send us a mail info@excellium.biz or call us on +2348038023199, +2347018588691 +2348057696213. Recent Posts 19 JAN 2021 , 09:00 AM – 02:00 PM WAT 20 JAN 2021 , 09:00 AM – 02:00 PM WAT SAGE BUSINESS CLOUD MASTERCLASS TRAINING Register now

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5 Steps to consider when building a Salary Structure

#Tips: 5 Steps to consider when building a Salary Structure Setting up a pay structure can make it easier to manage your payroll expenditure. A pay structure helps you to evaluate jobs and establish compensation for different jobs and groups. It can help to make your hiring process easier to execute. Here are some steps to consider when creating a salary structure. Develop your job analysis A job profile structure is a list of all the available and future positions in your company. Outline your job duties, qualifications, and descriptions. Make a list of these roles, highlighting their primary and secondary roles. Identify the essential tasks of each job and develop descriptions that match each job role. Benchmark Benchmarking means to create a salary range based on identifiable market data. Benchmark jobs can be found by checking similar roles in competitor businesses and identifying how much those jobs are paid. For example, comparing the salary of a Manager of Bank A with Bank B. You can leverage already conducted surveys done with your desired competitors. There are also public data such as Glassdoor, Indeed, and local platforms like My Salary Scale. Budget Develop a budget for your payroll costs. Calculate what your expected profits would be and your estimated staff costs. Staff costs should be calculated based on the net cost of labour, by adding all additional benefits a staff would enjoy such as club memberships, HMOs, etc. You can then use your internal budget to check how much you can afford to pay your staff based on the benchmarked rates. Develop a Pay Grade Salary structuring becomes easier when you standardize salary scales into grades. A grade could be defined as job levels within your organisation. This can be determined by grouping people with similar years of experience, job skills, education levels, job roles and responsibilities. For example: Role Year of Experience Salary amount (₦) Finance Assistant 2 Years 2,000,000 Finance Manager 5 Years 5,000,000 On the Finance Assistant level, multiple employees who are on this grade can earn the same or similar similar salary amounts. Job Evaluation This is when you determine the relative value and relevance of each job positions within your company. This means that jobs are compared with each other based on defined criteria such as education, experience, level of responsibility and revenue impact of a respective role. Job positions can be on the same grade, but salary structures can be different depending on the role that a staff is engaged in. An example is a business development manager and a customer service manager. Depending on the business, both roles can be on the same level, but can have different salary structures depending on the level of relevance and effort each role brings to the business. Job evaluation should be carried out in an unbiased manner, by considering the role rather than a staff engaged in a role. Looking for someone to discuss with about your business, call us on +2348038023199, +2347018588691 +2348057696213, or Shoot us a mail Ads Recent Posts

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5 Bookkeeping tips for your small businesses

#Tips: 5 Bookkeeping tips for your small businesses Every business needs to record its finances. This can be done by a process called bookkeeping. For small business owners, bookkeeping can look complicated when starting. However, it would help you to check how your business is performing. Here are some tips on how to start proper bookkeeping for your small business. Have a good accounting software system If you want to maintain proper records for your business, an accounting software is necessary for your business. An accounting software would help you manage your customer records, supplier records, bank records, and other relevant records. Most accounting software applications come with financial report templates. This allows you to preview how well your business is faring at any point applicable. Review your books Accounting software and spreadsheets help to capture your business information and financial records. However, it is important that you regularly review your software records, to check for irregularities, errors, or wrong postings. Reviewing your records also help to prevent unplanned tax readjustments from the tax authorities. You can engage an external accountant to help review your records. Monitor your Expenses Track every expense you spend. As a small business owner, you must be mindful of your expenses. If you pay for expenses by cash or by bank, ensure you collect receipt or invoices for every expense incurred. To know if you are on track with your records, confirm the balance of your cash and bank accounts against your expenses regularly- weekly or monthly. Separate business from personal expenses For sole proprietors or small business enterprises, spending from your business purse can be a very tempting experience. Small business owners are usually poised to manage their business finances themselves. This allows some owners to mix their business and personal expenses together. If you are seeking to grow and manage your business properly, you must learn to separate business from personal expenses. You can do this by drawing up separate accounts for both expenses. Personal expenses can be tracked using an expense app. You can then use an accounting software to track your business expenses. Separating business and personal expenses helps you to create financial discipline for your business. Understand your monthly bookkeeping reports It is important to know how and where your business is growing or whether it is not growing. This can be done by tracking your bookkeeping reports. Bookkeeping reports show various business metrics such as how much profit you are generating, your sales value, debt value, or whether your operating expense are high, amongst other indicators. There are various bookkeeping reports that can help you to determine how your business is faring. The most important reports include your income statement and your statement of financial position (also known as Balance Sheet). You can get your accountant to explain what the reports mean so you can have a first-hand knowledge of how your business is faring. Looking for someone to discuss about your small business, shoot us a mail to info@excellium.biz or call us on +2348038023199, +2347018588691 +2348057696213. Recent Posts

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Why every business needs an accounting software

#Tips: Why every business needs an accounting software Every business owner wants to grow their operations. However, growing your business can make your operations become complex. You are puzzled with managing customer and supplier data, invoices, payments, loans, and staff salary. This can be stressful when using spreadsheets or paper accounting. An accounting software helps you to put your business data into an organized platform so that you can manage your business growth effectively. An accounting software is a software application that helps businesses to track their accounting processes in an automated manner. An accounting software enables you to manage your revenues, costs, profits, assets, and liabilities. An accounting software can be used either in the cloud (internet-based) or on-premise (office-based). Your accounting software helps your business to manage growth and track costs properly. Here are ten reasons why your business needs an accounting software. Manage your inventory Accounting software, cloud or on-premise, are better and more accurate than spreadsheets in the management of inventory database. An accounting software has the capacity to combine multiple inventory factors without any error. Information such as item name, quantity, unit of measure, colour variations, sizes, batches, and expiry dates are easily calculated and stored using an accounting software. This can lead to efficiency and productivity in operations. Depending on the accounting software, you can also manage production batches and expiry dates. Automate manual operations Tunde places an order for a pair of shoes from Molu’s shoe business. With an accounting software, Molu can easily provide pricing, calculate inventory reduction, and process delivery to Tunde. An accounting software helps to eliminate manual tasks while operating their businesses.  An accounting software can assist a business to make its process delivery easier, and thereby satisfying your stakeholders. Compute tax easily Legislative compliance is a priority for most businesses. The government can restrain your business and impose liabilities if you don’t pay your taxes. An accounting software helps businesses to manage tax liabilities. With your software, you can calculate your Value Added Tax (VAT) payments and deductions, Corporate Income Taxes (CIT), and employee Personal Income Taxes (PIT). An accounting software helps you to manage your tax payments and prevent unnecessary delays and penalties. Store Management An accounting software helps businesses to manage their warehouses or stores. When goods are brought into a warehouse, it is important to have a method of accounting for the stock. An accounting software assists businesses manage stock by classifying inventory location and using technology to monitor stock movements. A record gap can lead to pilferage by staff. Managing stock locations can be daunting when done manually. An accounting software helps businesses to properly track stock movements. Obtains Loans Faster When a financial institution wants to provide a loan to a business, they would access the business status to see if they can repay the loan. A financial statement is usually a primary source for financial institutions. An accounting software helps businesses to track and process financial information. Your accounting software can help your business to present the right information to facilitate the loan processing. Prepare financial reports As a business owner or accountant, it is important to know the health status of your company. How sustainable is your business in the next 6 months to 2 years? Will I default on my creditor and staff salary payments? These questions can be monitored with an accounting software. With your software, you can determine how much profits you are making within a period. You can check how much you need to save into the business or pay-out to investors. An accounting software helps businesses to provide financial information regarding a business’ welfare. Work faster An accounting software would help you work faster. Bookkeeping can take time when you manually track your costs and revenue using a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel, require that you enter lots of information manually, making you to lose time that can be spent in other valuable parts of the business. An accounting software helps you save valuable time, so you can invest your time to grow your business. Payroll Management Your staff is an essential part of your business. As a business owner, you must plan how much each staff would earn every month. This process can take time if done manually. An accounting software can help businesses to manage their payroll costs and process staff payments promptly. Your staff are more engaged when they know that their salaries are made promptly. An accounting software helps businesses to achieve that.   Recent Posts

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How to do Payroll on Sage

How to do Payroll on Sage If you are a Sage user, you might be wondering whether Sage accounting software can help with manage your employee payroll computation. Preparing payroll computations can be grueling especially when you make such calculations on spreadsheets. Employees are becoming more demanding and they want to know the nitty details of how their salary and taxes are accounted. Tax authorities also demand for these records. Having to search for several spreadsheet computations could affect whether an additional assessment is imposed on you. Sage Business Cloud Payroll Shop now Automating your payroll records using Sage Payroll Software If you use an accounting software or ERP software, automating your payroll can be made effective when your payroll computations are properly integrated with your Sage accounting software. There are ways in which automating your payroll software process can help improve your employee record history and operational processes: 1. Manage Calendar processes Using a Sage payroll software can help your company track staff leave applications, staff absences, and overtime. When multiple staff go on leave concurrently, the absence of your employees can affect your company’s operations and impact your ability to deliver towards customers. Calendar management can be done using a payroll software that would help aggregate staff information and enable companies carefully plan for their operations. 2. Storage of employee records Using a payroll software can help companies manage employee records digitally rather than keeping physical files of staff. It also allows you to retain records of employees that are currently in your office and those that have left. This is essential for a company’s history and for regulatory purposes. Tax authorities regularly conduct tax audits for prior financial years. A company that fails to keep its employee records can affect the level of tax exposure that the authority can impose on you, despite having an history of tax payments. 3. Issuance of employee payslips If you have multiple employees, preparing payslips on spreadsheets and printing for staff monthly can become exhaustive. A payroll software can help you to automate your payslip creation process. After finalising your payroll computations for a period, payslips are easily generated and sent to either employee emails, printed, or uploaded to an employee self-service platform at the click of a button. With an automated payslip system, employees can also preview their payslips, and make complaints or enquiries where necessary. 4. Preparing statutory reports Sage Payroll Software has been created to assist HR and Payroll professionals prepare statutory reports seamlessly. Depending on your country and state, regulatory requirements are usually different. It is important that your returns are prepared before deadlines to prevent any potential tax exposures from the tax authorities. To prevent any hassle, you can use a payroll software that is statutorily inclined to your tax jurisdiction. For example, in Nigeria, statutory reports like Form H1, Pension forms such as EPPCOS, National Social Insurance and Trust Fund (NSITF) returns, and Industrial Training Fund (ITF) returns, should be easily automated for filing purposes on your software. This can however be done from a payroll software through the data collected from the multiple employee sources. 5. Analytics Using a payroll software allows you to get real time data of staff payroll costs, employee trends such as leave breaks, absenteeism, overtime, employee and company contributions to statutory costs such as taxes and pensions. Companies can make prompt decisions from payroll data, and evaluate salary structures, tax information, and other regulatory information. A payroll software with intelligence and data analytics capabilities help companies make meaningful and informed decisions towards better employee planning and strategies. One major benefit companies enjoy while using a payroll software is the ease of managing staff seamlessly. Payroll computations can be done in an automated manner using a payroll software. Sage has a wide range of payroll software solutions depending on the size of the business. Sage Business Cloud Payroll is used by small businesses. Sage Pastel Payroll and HR and Sage 300 People are used by multiple medium and large businesses. To learn more about other Sage software, click here. Recent Posts

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Top 10 Benefits of Using a Payroll Software

Payroll Software: Top 10 Benefits A payroll software application is an indispensable tool for organisations and payroll teams. It allows employers, users, and employees to perform various functions that help to ease payroll processing. There are numerous benefits of using a payroll software in your business. Here is a list of benefits you enjoy when you use a payroll. Sage Business Cloud Payroll Shop now 1. Avoid Errors Using a payroll software can help your business to achieve better accuracy in calculating payroll figures. A payroll mistake can lead to unbudgeted liabilities and grievances from staff. With the right payroll solution, it is difficult to make mistakes. Getting a right payroll software would help to improve your credibility with your employees and prevent unwanted errors. 2. Automated Payslips A payroll software can help your team to generate simple and automated payslips with available templates for your selection. Pay slips can be provided to employees through auto-generated emails or by hand through prints. This helps your business to save much time in creating payslips. 3. Employee Calendar With a payroll software solution, you can track employee leave, staff absences, and overtime. This allows you to manage your employee calendar and reduce stoppages in operations. Your employee attendance would reflect on the level of your business operations. A payroll software helps you to prevent unnecessary downtimes by planning your employee calendar properly. 4. Security A payroll software provides your company with layered security whereby employees records are protected without the interference of a third party. User access permissions can also be created to define what a particular employee can access on the software. Payroll information should be kept in a confidential manner. A payroll software can help to allay fears of leaking employee information to a wrong party. 5. Cost effective Managing your payroll internally can be cost effective when done with a payroll software. A payroll software relieves you of outsourcing your payroll functions. With an easy to use payroll software, staff payroll can be computed easily, hence saving you costs and getting results quickly and effectively. You can also reduce the cost of printing pay slips on paper and creating hard cover files or documents. 6. Tax Updates Keeping up with tax laws can be overwhelming sometimes. Payroll software are usually updated once with new tax updates. This makes you up to date with tax legislations and helps you to prevent any potential liabilities or tax exposures. 7. Meet Submission deadlines A payroll software can help your team to manage submission deadlines and ensure that you are compliant with your tax submissions. With your payroll software, you can easily generate return submission templates and employee return information. This allows you to keep track of the deadlines and submit returns before tax submission deadlines. 8. Decision Making Payroll software is a top tool that can help any organisation make strategic decsisions about staff welfare and planning. Information and reports extracted from software can be used to make informed decisions in the organisation. 9. Real time information HR and Payroll Managers can access a real time record of employees that are available in the office through a check-in or check-out system. They also obtain other personal information from the software in a prompt manner. 10. Promotes transparency Employees constantly want to be informed about their earnings. Payroll software help employers to be transparent and provide payroll information to employees. With your payroll software, you can provide employees access to their earning information in an open manner.  One major benefit companies enjoy while using a payroll software is the ease of managing staff seamlessly. Payroll computations can be done in an automated manner using a payroll software. Sage has a wide range of payroll software solutions depending on the size of the business. Sage Business Cloud Payroll is used by small businesses. Sage Pastel Payroll and HR and Sage 300 People are used by multiple medium and large businesses. To learn more about other Sage software, click here. Recent Posts

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