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Attention users: inputting data into SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS follows a certain unavoidable logic
Some basic inputting guidelines for beginning users

New users of our SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS  enterprise solution sometimes experience initially worrisome  moments of being unable to input or post certain transactions.  At first, you may be tempted to think there is a bug in the software. But it’s not a bug; it’s the software protecting you from making a common mistake. It's called error-trapping, and it's your friend. 

Step back a minute and reflect on the fundamental business process. You’ll realize that, logically, certain transactions should not be inputted or posted until a prerequisite transaction is first inputted and posted in the database, or until a prerequisite condition is first met. (It’s like, you shouldn’t tie your shoelaces until after you’ve put on the shoes.) By disallowing you to input certain transactions prematurely, SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS preserves the integrity of your database – and your audit trail.  You’ll be thankful for it. This is a crucial part of the operational discipline that computerization enables, and precisely what makes (competently implemented) computerization so beneficial.

The box at right will help the beginning SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS user to understand this logic. Users who either input data into or harvest reports from SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS should make themselves familiar with this table. This population includes inputting clerks, MIS analysts, and operating managers who supervise users of SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS.

BE CAREFUL HOW YOU DEFINE “EFFICIENCY.” All workers in your company, regardless of rank, must recognize one possibly shocking truth: personal efficiency does not necessarily translate to total company efficiency. The table at right shows the close coordination that all users of SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS must practice. Because one team member’s inputs are usually a prerequisite before two or three others downstream can make their own inputs, teamwork is essential. It is no longer possible to do one’s job in glorious isolation. 

What we mean is this: it may appear more efficient from the narrow personal perspective of Ms. XXX to save all her inputting for Friday afternoon or Tuesday morning. But a little reflection shows that company interests are not served if everybody became unilaterally "efficient" this way: huge amounts of data inputting  downstream of the "efficient" inputter would be forcibly held up at various bottlenecks knowingly or unknowingly created by individuals who have made their own optimizing decisions. The net effect is obvious: frustrating delays in reporting, and staleness of reports when they do finally come.
 
SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS’s demand for data (and operating management's constant demand for specific bits of information) forces us to recognize how interdependent everyone in any company really is. If the data is inputted promptly into DMS, management and all team members can enjoy a near-real-time MIS resource. But if individual users insist on scheduling their data-encoding exclusively at their convenience, your company can never attain the real-time MIS capability that you need to streamline your decision-making and therefore competitiveness.

Therefore, it is necessary for any user of SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS to accept that all data encoders in the network should input transactions as soon as possible after they occur, instead of individual encoders insisting on being personally "efficient" by putting off their data inputting for a personally more convenient time of their choosing. To put it another way, counter-intuitive as it may seem, it may be necessary for individuals to be inefficient in order to attain total-company efficiency.

YOU ARE AN ORCHESTRA AND YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED A CONDUCTOR. Deploying SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS in your company means that you finally accept that all functions in your organization are interdependent. The interdependence has always been there; only the acceptance is new. Accounting, Sales, Purchasing, Warehousing, and Credit & Collections - practically every transaction each one undertakes affects the others.

Because of the interdependent nature of the transactions you input into SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS (see sidebar again), it now becomes necessary to have a coordinator, or “conductor”, whose job is to ensure that bottlenecks are not introduced by individual data-encoders in your firm’s community of SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS users.  This “conductor” would be responsible for (a) preventing logjams and (b) untangling them when they do occur. The conductor must therefore be a person of sufficient authority (the COO or CFO) to impose discipline across different functional areas in your company, because, when the logjams do occur, it will be (for example) the Collections people complaining about the input (or lack thereof) of the Sales guys, or the Disbursements clerk complaining about lapses by the Purchasing department. Someone sufficiently senior should be able to crack the whip across several departments. Your internal audit team can help the “conductor” enforce consistent adherence by all team members to disciplined, timely data encoding.  RSR

 Questions? Reactions? Write to balmori@balmorisoftware.com.  

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