Happenings July 4, 2024

    In this issue:

• National Day Spotlight
• Acumatica User Tip
• ISV Addon Spotlight
• IT Services User Tip
• Leadership 101
• Events, Blogs, Movies
• Webinars, Community

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/

“Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” Ben Franklin

Independence Day commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Spend the day celebrating independence. Attend local parades, see friends and relatives, have a cookout, view of fireworks display (for those putting on your own personal fireworks displays please do so responsibly).

Fly your American flag proudly today!

About the picture: Amateur pyrotechnicians Tessa and me starting off our family’s fireworks show on a 4th of July more than a couple of years ago.

Note the “safety gear”: glasses, punks ,and a “staging platform.

Q: Why did the bottle rock go to a therapist?
A: It had an explosive personality.

Q: What do you get when you cross a dinosaur with fireworks?
A: Dino-mite.

Q: What kind of tunes do fireworks love to listen to?
A: Pop music.

Q: What do you call a duck that says “bang”?
A: A real fire quacker.

Q: What beverage should you enjoy today?
A: Liber-Tea.

Q: Why don’t I have a ‘knock knock’ joke about today?
A: Because freedom rings.

Q: What should you give your father on a hot 4th of July?
A: A pop-sicle.

Some say the US flag is the most popular because it has 50 stars.

By GreyTrix
Acumatica makes it easy for businesses to manage their orders with drop shipping products directly from suppliers to customers. Here is how :

1. Create a Sales Order.

• Create a Sales Order, checking the ‘Mark for PO’ checkbox on the appropriate transaction line(s).
• Select ‘Drop-Ship’ for the line(s) and click the Save icon.

2. Create a Purchase Order.

• Click the ‘…’, then click on ‘Create New Purchase Order’.

• Select the checkbox and click on the ‘Process’ button to create the PO

3. Enter PO Receipt.

• Click on the ‘Remove Hold’ button.
• Select ‘Drop-Ship’ as the Type
• Clicking ‘Enter PO Receipt’ button creates the purchase receipt.

BigCommerce recently announced over 100 significant platform enhancements, new features and integrations as part of its inaugural Next Big Thing product launch – all designed to help you grow your business, reach new customers, and stay competitive.

With these new capabilities, you’ll be able to:

• Reach customers in any part of the world with new global selling features.
• Create stunningly beautiful shopping experiences with BigCommerce’s new composable storefront framework, Catalyst, and their powerful visual page editor, Makeswift.
• Convert even more shoppers with the latest checkout and payment options.
• Harness the power of AI to increase cart value and optimize the efficiency of your store’s backend operations.
• Maximize B2B sales with new options for customizing the buyer experience.
• Unlock new revenue streams with powerful capabilities from Feedonomics.

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 BigCommerce.

According to CRN, there have been 10 major cyberattacks and data
breaches in 2024 (so far), including:

• A large UnitedHealth-owned prescription processor that caused massive disruption in the U.S. healthcare system for weeks. UnitedHealth ended
up paying a $22m ransom to a Russian cybercrime group.

• The Ascension health system was struck by a ransomware attack that forced it to divert emergency care from some of its hospitals.

• CDK Global has been battling a ransomware attack that has disrupted thousands of car dealerships for over 2 weeks.

Here are 8 Ways to Help Prevent Cyber Attacks on Your Organization:
1. Backup Your Data
In the event of a cyber attack, ensure your data has been systemically backed up to avoid serious downtime, loss of data and serious financial loss.

2. Firewalls
Putting your network behind a firewall is one of the most effective ways to defend yourself from any cyber attack. It will block any brute force attacks made on your network and/or systems before it can do any damage.

3. Endpoint Protection
Protect your network from security threats presented by your team’s mobile devices, tablets and laptops that are connected to your corporate network.

4. Keep Your Software/Systems Updated
Cyber attacks can happen because systems or software aren’t fully updated, leaving weaknesses that cybercriminals can exploit to access your network.

5. Control Access
It’s essential to control who has physical access to your computers and devices so that they cannot plug in a USB key that introduces infected files to
gain access to your entire network and/or to infect it.

6. Wifi Security
Securing your wifi networks and hiding them is one of the safest things you can do for you systems.

7. Employee Personal Accounts
Having separate logins for each staff member for every application and program, instead of Several users connecting under the same credentials,
will help you reduce the number of attack fronts.

8. Access Management
Managed admin rights and blocking your staff from installing or even accessing certain data on your network will protect against system attacks.

Conclusion
These are essential and basic ways to prevent cyber attacks..

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 ASWi’s Security as a Service offerings.

By Bri Williams

Drawing attention to the wrong thing.

A painting has been in the news recently. Gina Reinhart, one of Australia’s wealthiest people, has petitioned the National Gallery of Australia to have the work removed.

Perversely, her request has generated so much media attention that many more people have seen the Vincent Namatjira painting than
would have otherwise. Barbra Streisand knows this all too well. In 2003 she took legal action to remove an aerial image of her property from the twelve thousand other properties on Pictopia’s website.

Within a month of her lawsuit 500,000 people had viewed the picture. Known as the “Streisand Effect”, people become curious about what is being concealed or suppressed.

That’s why trying to silence employees or quash negative reviews can backfire. People are attracted to the stoush, particularly when it pits an individual against an institution. Before attempting to shut something down, consider whether the prosaic route of transparency is more sensible. If you’re willing to do that, you’ll instantly elevate yourself into the top closer status at your company.

5 Realities of Work

As author Liz Wiseman writes, there are five realities of working in
an organization:
1. Messy problems
2. Unclear objectives
3. Unforeseen obstacles
4. Moving targets
5. Unrelenting demands

A small percentage of the burden you carry is actual workload – it’s the muck that comes along with it.
And in my experience, most of the muck involves people. Imagine how amazing work could be if you were freed of muck?

100 Days

A contestant on this year’s series of Alone Australia, a show where the person who survives the longest alone in the wilderness wins,
made a significant psychological error.

He said he was aiming for 100 days. He should have aimed for 101 because the psychological threshold of each will radically impact his
behavior.

Here’s a great 4 1/2 minute YouTube video that explains this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ1PNNpBNm8

By Mike Brooks

If you have followed me for a while, you may know that my opinion on whether to ask a prospect, “How are you,” has changed over the years.

What I’ve discovered, is that asking this simple and socially accepted icebreaker is more important than you might think.

Here’s why:
Selling over the phone is challenging because you don’t have all the visual cues an outside sales rep has and uses. You can’t tell if your prospect is annoyed, resistant, bothered, or if they are willing to have a conversation with you. You just can’t read their expressions and so react to those physical cues.

That’s where asking the simple: “How are you doing today?” comes in. The seasoned inside sales rep knows that the answer to that question, and more importantly how a prospect answers it, makes up for all the cues missing from a face-to- face interaction.

Think about it:
You can immediately tell if a prospect is in a hurry when they answer the phone. You can tell by their tone of voice if they are open to communicating with you or if they are annoyed.

That’s why asking this simple (and accepted) question is the way to go.

What you need to do next is respond accordingly to what (and how) they respond.

For example, if they tell you they’re doing well and ask how you’re doing, you must respond with, “Thanks for asking! I’m well also . . .” before going on with your opening.

If they say, “Fine, how can I help you?” then you’d better react to that as well. Something along the lines of, “I’m sure you’re busy, so I’ll be brief. The reason for the call is . . .”

I’m sure you see now how asking this simple question at the beginning of your call gives you more leverage than not asking it. Hope this helps take the “cold” out of “cold-calling”!

Nearly every weekday, a motivational quote is posted on X/Twitter by @ASWiDelivered and on LinkedIn by @ASWi.
• “Brevity is the soul of wit.” William Shakespeare
• “Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.” Niccolo Machiavelli
• “It’s what you do right now that makes a difference.” Black Hawk Down
• “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear” Sun Tzu