Happenings May 13, 2023

    In this issue:

• Day Spotlight
• Dad Jokes of the Day
• Acumatica Feature
• ISV Addon Spotlight
• Public Speaking 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 and 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.

“A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend.” Unknown

Mother’s Day is the special time of year when we get to celebrate our first best friend and the person we always turn to when we need advice. Mother’s Day is also a great time to show our love for all the other wonderful women in our life.

Every day should be Mother’s Day so we could have 365 opportunities to acknowledge who they are and all that they do. They dry our tears. They answer our countless phone calls. They always know what to say when we need it most. And there’s no denying that they always give the warmest hugs.

Some ways to celebrate the Moms in your life include writing a heartfelt message in a Mother’s Day card, make them brunch, get together with the whole family for a fun-filled day with their loved ones.

Those of us whose mothers have passed away live differently in this world. We are no longer anchored by the comforting knowledge of that one person who has known us since before we even knew ourselves.

Whatever emotions we had towards her during her life on earth do not go away. The relationship does not end, because the love does not stop. We never stop wanting to honor our mothers, whether she is here on earth or not.

This can be done by spending the day with others who loved your mom as you did, honor the other mother figures in your life, tell her grandkid about her, and spend time with the people you love.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! xoxo

Q: Why is a computer so smart?

A: Because it always listens to its motherboard.

Q: What did the momma cow say to her calf at 9 pm?

A: It’s pasture bedtime.

Q: What did the digital clock say to is mother?

A: Look, Mom, no hands!

Child to Mom: I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m bored. Can I have… Child to Dad: Where’s Mom?

What Are Side Panels?

Acumatica Cloud ERP provides a powerful data analysis and reporting capability called a Generic Inquiry to present rows of records in a tabular format. It can have applied filters to target the information presented.

A “side panel” in Acumatica Cloud ERP provides an easy navigation to a form or dashboard containing information on a highlighted row in the generic inquiry without having to leave the generic inquiry.

You can expand a side panel to access a form or dashboard to view and/or update information specific to a customer, vendor, item, etc. and collapse the side panel to go back to viewing only the generic inquiry.

How Are Side Panels Useful?

Side panels can be useful to nearly everyone in your organization. Here are just a couple of examples:

Collections

The person focused on collections, could be working from a generic inquiry that has been filtered to show only the customers that have delinquent invoices or, conversely a list of delinquent invoices. In either case, the person on your staff doing collections could work their way down the generic inquiry list contacting the customers and using the side panel for detailed information and to update your records as they go.

Sales

Your sales team can bring up their Opportunities generic inquiry and, as they make their calls, update the specific Opportunity records with the side panel.

Keith Wood is not only a great Customer Success Manager and Acumatica Cloud ERP product demonstrator extraordinaire, he also does a lot work on the usability of ASWi’s internal Acumatica Cloud ERP instance. In the screenshot below, you can see he added a side panel to our Customers generic inquiry so that we are able to view all the opportunities we have facilitated for a customer.

For more information on adding side panes to your Acumatica instance, please let Keith know at keithw@aswius.com

You can use these steps to create a simple PostivePay record set from your Acumatica check run, where you can export the results to Excel, then upload that file to your bank.

The Heuristyc Intercompany Transactions Descriptions addon to Acumatica Cloud ERP helps clarify the intercompany transactions from different branches or companies.

The addon replaces the default Acumatica Cloud ERP transaction description (which is very basic), adding helpful information to improve traceability.

It will work with different modules (AP, AR, IN, GL, and CA), adding detailed information such as Source Branch, Original Module, Vendor/Customer ID and Name, Source Transaction Description, and Entry Type.

You can download a short video on this addon at: https://we.tl/tYMDdzdQDza

For more information on the Heuristyc Intercompany Transactions Descriptions addon, please feel free to contact our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood (keithw@aswius.com).

By John Maxwell

1. Use Movement and Facial Expressions

Let’s start with the most basic technique: movement. Chris Anderson, the head of TED Conferences, advises new speakers to be careful about too much movement, but he’s really talking about nervous movement:

“The biggest mistake we see in early rehearsals is that people move their bodies too much. They sway from side to side, or shift their weight from one leg to the other. People do this naturally when they’re nervous, but it’s distracting and makes the speaker seem weak. Simply getting a person to keep his or her lower body motionless can dramatically improve stage presence. There are some people who are able to walk around a stage during a presentation, and that’s fine if it comes naturally. But the vast majority are better off standing still and relying on hand gestures for emphasis.”

Start by using your face and hands, as long as those movements are true to who you are. If you sense that people’s attention is wandering, you might need to walk to a different spot on the platform. You can address one part of the audience and then move and address another. Or walk forward to close the distance between you and the people you’re talking to. Try different things, and pay close attention to the responses you get. As you experiment, you’ll develop a sense of what works for you and what doesn’t.

2. Understand and Practice Good Timing

It’s very easy to tell you to “understand timing.” It’s much harder to explain how. If you are naturally gifted as a communicator, then you already possess intuition related to timing. Much of it is instinctive. But timing can be learned, and the more you practice speaking, the better you can become.

Timing is the art of regulating your speech and movement in relation to your audience to produce the best results. That includes using the right words, facial expressions, movements, tone, and interaction; with the best rhythm and speed; at the best time. It may sound complicated, but here are three things I do to help me with my timing. I believe they will also help you. I focus on…

What I see. Good timing requires reading the room. You can’t do that if you’re fixated on your notes or refuse to make eye contact with the people you’re talking to. Once you’re reading people’s faces, you can change up what you’re doing because much of good timing is a response to the reaction of your audience members.

What I say. Another aspect of timing has to do with setting up your audience for something you want to say later. You can tell part of a story but withhold the ending until later. Or you can give a principle early and return to it later because it will have a greater meaning after you’ve taught it – just make sure you don’t withhold the principle so long that people stop caring.

What I show. Sometimes good timing means saying nothing at the right time.

3. Practice the Pause

That brings me to the next thing you can do to change up your communication. Practice the pause. Mark Twain said, “No word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” I couldn’t agree with him more.

I use the pause every time I speak, sometimes more than once. Some speakers are afraid of silence and fill it with nervous chatter. But not saying anything for a few seconds is one of my most effective ways to connect with an audience. It’s also one of my most enjoyable moments of communication. There’s an intimacy created by pausing, because silence gives people the time and space to respond in their minds and hearts. It’s where they fill in the blanks and meet what I’ve said with their own thoughts, experiences, and conclusions. It can become an act of unspoken partnership. In such moments, silence truly is golden..

4. Create Interaction With Your Audience

I know that the more I involve people, the more I impact them.

Back when I used to host a leadership conference for pastors, I started my first session by naming each different denomination and asking people to raise their hands when I said theirs. For each group I made a good-natured joke, teasing them about some peculiarity they had. (Don’t worry. I also had jokes about my own denomination.) As each group identified themselves, I’d make the respective remark and everyone would laugh.

Why did I do this? Because it was common for some pastors to focus too much on denominational differences. I was letting everyone know that we’re on the same team and that our small differences shouldn’t divide us. With everyone laughing, their defenses came down and they were ready to learn.

People who study communication know there is a direct correlation between unpredictability and impact. Matt Abrahams, a Stanford Graduate of Business lecturer and coach, says, “Even just a 10 percent increase in vocal variety can have a highly significant impact on your audience’s attention to and retention of your message.” If you want people to pay attention to what you say, be less predictable. Change things up!.