Happenings August 9, 2024 – ASWi Blog

    In this issue:

• National Day Spotlight
• Acumatica User Tip
• ASWi is Top 100 VAR
• ISV Spotlight
• Managed IT Services Tip
• Sales & Marketing 101
• Events, Blogs, Movies

The purpose of a newsletter is an opportunity for the ASWi team to provide you and the rest of our clients with information on all the new ASWi an Acumatica related things (or “happenings”) that you may not otherwise be aware of.

Please feel free to share this newsletter with any/ all of your team. Pease let me know if anyone on your team who would like to be added to the mailing list for the next issue and removed.

You can always have a look at back issues of Happenings on ASWi’s web- site at: https://aswiblog.wpengine.com/category/customer-newsletters/

“Connecticut has the perfect fusion of urban and rural.” Minou Clark

Today, we celebrate the 5th state to join the Union and recognize its contributions. Woven into the fabric of this state’s historic landscape, we find revolutionaries, innovators, and philosophers.

Celebrate National Connecticut Day by saluting the team at ASWi customer Flow Tech, Inc. (headquartered in South Windsor), enjoying a hot lobster roll, or by challenging ASWi’s Senior Consultant Matt Hill (a citizen of the Constitution State) to a 100 meter dash.

Question from Alaskan prosecutor: Where were you on the night of October to April?

Question from tourist: Doesn’t it ever stop raining here?
Seattle, Washington citizen: I don’t know, I’m only 12 years old.

Q: How do you know you live in Georgia?
A: All directions start with “Go down Peachtree..” and include the phrase “When you see the Waffle House, …”.

Q: How do you know you live in Louisiana?
A: The four seasons are crawfish, shrimp, crab and King Cake.

Q: How do you know you live in North Dakota?
A: You can’t officially say your dog is lost until the 3rd day because, until then, you can still see him running way on the horizon.

Q: How do you know you live in Texas?
A: If Y’all is singular, All Y’all is plural and All Y’alls is plural possessive.
(copyright Kinky Friedman, RIP)

Q: Does Acumatica Cloud ERP handle Landed Costs?
A: Yes. Here’s how:

Create Landed Cost Codes
Landed Cost Codes (such as Customs Duty, Freight, Port Fees, etc.) can be setup in Acumatica and assigned to Vendors who provide these landed cost services. These costs can be allocated by cost, weight or quantity across the line items of the purchase receipts that are having the landed cost amount applied to them.

Apply the Landed Costs to Appropriate Purchased Line Items
In this example, I selected a Freight charge of $500 to be spread across 3 line items from 3 separate purchase receipts and to allocate the charge based on weight:

This will create an inventory adjustment for each of these line items. From a GL perspective, most people will configure their Acumatica Cloud ERP to have the adjustment hit an Inventory Asset account and a Landed Cost Accrual account.

Create & Release the AP Bill for the Landed Cost

When the AP bill is posted, it creates a GL transaction that clears the Landed Cost Accrual account, increasing the AP account accordingly.

Please let our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood know by emailing him at keithw@aswius.com or call him at (717) 581-1226 if you would like to know more about using Landed Costs within your Acumatica Cloud ERP instance.

ASWi has been recognized by industry analyst ERP Global Insights as one of the Top 100 ERP VARs in North America for 2024.

This recognition identifies the top Value Added Reseller (VAR) organizations across North America that are support any/all ERP applications.

In 2022, ERP Global Insights named ASWi to their VAR Stars list, which spotlights both industry leading VARs and “up and comers”.

Thank you for trusting ASWi to be your ERP solution provider and/ or Managed IT Services provider. We take that responsibility and privilege very seriously and we are very grateful for the opportunity to serve you.

Payroll has always been a challenge within the construction industry. This is why ADP has developed Workforce Now for Construction, the first all-in-one payroll and human resource solution designed specifically to support the unique needs of the construction industry.

Seamless Integration with Acumatica Cloud ERP
Across 5 real time data points (G/L journal transactions, time, employee data, project field values & expenses).

Payroll Processing
Ability to run payroll efficiently with wage calculations, 1099 contractor support, union obligations for contract wages and fringe benefits etc.

Time Card Management
Capture employee hours accurately for payroll with multi-job site time-tracking.

Compliance
Manage regulatory compliance effectively for prevailing wages and free certified payroll reporting.

Please let our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood know by emailing him at keithw@aswius.com or call him at (717) 581-1226 if you would like to know more about ADP Workforce Now® for Construction.

Unfortunately, ransomware attacks are everywhere: every location, every industry, every sized organization. To protect against ransomware, you need a holistic, all-hands-on-deck, defense-in-depth approach that brings together your entire organization. Below is a description of what ransomware is and some best practices to prevent ransomware attacks and limit their effects.

What is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts files on a system or a device in an attempt to coerce the victim to pay a ransom. Threat Actors (TAs) often also threaten that they will share files, erase them or make them inaccessible.

TAs will drop ransom notes claiming responsibility and encourage a response from the victim through the medium they dictate (often via encrypted chat or email). Ransomware can be particularly harmful as a successful infection could disrupt access to your team’s mission-critical systems and data.

Step 1: Create an Incident Response Plan
Create a sustainable, scalable and systemic plan that clearly articulates your staff’s responsibilities and the communication protocols to be used during and after a cyber attack.

Teams included in the plan should include your IT, Legal, Accounting and Admin teams at a minimum. The plan should also include a list of strategic partners (insurance provider, Managed IT Services provider, ERP solution provider, telecom/internet provider, etc.) that should be notified. The plan should run through a test process quarterly to gauge its effectiveness, the team’s readiness, and to identify/correct any gaps.

Step 2: Maintain Backups
Backing up important data is the single most effective way of recovering from a ransomware infection. Your backup files should be appropriately protected
and stored offline or out-of-band so they can’t be targeted by attackers. Be sure to routinely test backups for efficacy. In the case of an attack, verify that your backups aren’t infected and secure your backups immediately following the attack. It is also important to ensure that the integrity of the backups are maintained, especially before rolling back.

Step 3: “Harden” Your Network
This includes a number of factors: Review/tighten up your IT infrastrucure’s port settings. Implement an auto-update plan for your operating systems, applications, and infrastructure. Adopt a network monitoring solution. Make sure no longer needed accounts are removed from Active Directory, software applications, etc. Defend your endpoints with a security application.

Step 4: Train Your Team
Enabling all of your employees to spot and avoid malicious emails through security awareness training is the primary key to stopping ransomware. Security awareness training can teach team members what to look for in an email before they click on a link or download an attachment.

The ASWi Managed IT Services team can help you create and maintain an Incident Response Plan, implement BUDR systems and develop business practices to protect against ransomware.

Please let our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood know by emailing him at keithw@aswius.com or call him at (717) 581-1226 if you would like to learn more about implementing the steps above to protect your organization against cyber attacks by Threat Actors.

By Bri Williams

Sick of being told the status quo?

You know what I’m sick and tired of being told to do? Challenge the status quo!

It’s seen as a power move. Leaders do it. Heroes do it.Enshrined in vision statements and implored from the keynote stage, challenging the status quo is what we need to do to succeed, right?

Easy to say, hard to do.

Pointing to what needs to change or setting a vision for what a changed state looks like is the easy part – it’s hypothetical. Actually embedding change is a behavioral influence exercise, which requires significant time, money and effort.

One Empty Desk

When real estate legend Barbara Corcoran advertised for new staff in the competitive New York market, she wrote three simple words. “One empty desk”.
Not only did this differentiate hers from the pages of ads seeking “sales person”, it hit a major psychological button. Scarcity. In a world of content abundance and scant attention, how can you make what you do, who you are, scarce?

Don’t Do This

I share a lot of ideas about what you SHOULD do to influence behavior, but there are things you SHOULDN’T do, as well. Here are three things not to do, along with examples of each:

1. Make things pretty
Focus on making things effective, not pretty. Salience over esthetic.
Example: Following your company’s guidelines and making your website’s Call to Action button match the rest of the page will result in it not standing out to your prospective customers.

2. Normalize inaction
Don’t try to shame your prospective customers into taking action by normalizing inaction.
Example: “97% of Australians aren’t eating enough vegetables each day” will be received as “Great! If no one else is worried about this, I won’t both either.”

3. Don’t ask why
Instead, ask “What?”. “Why” questions result in our prospective customers to rationalize their actions/decisions. “What” questions provide you with context of their actions/decisions that you can react to.

Nearly every weekday, a motivational quote is posted on X/Twitter by @ASWiDelivered and on LinkedIn by @ASWi.
• “It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.” Lewis Carroll.
• “Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” Winnie the Pooh
• “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” Louisa May Alcott
• “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and the job’s a game.” Mary Poppins
• “I like the impossible because there’s less competition.” Walt Disney