Happenings May 5, 2023

    In this issue:

• Day Spotlight
• Dad Jokes of the Day
• Acumatica Feature
• Acumatica User Tip
• Sales 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.

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard was the first American to make a historic 15 minute suborbital space journey. National Astronaut Day was founded to pay honor and respect to Aland and the rest of the American astronauts.

It is also an opportunity to learn more about astronauts and to encourage and inspire young people to pursue an interest in the space sciences.

Here’s some ways to celebrate National Astronaut Day:

– Read/listen to books about astronauts, such as “Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars” by Col. Eileen M Collins, “First Man, The Life of Neil A. Armstrong” by James Hansen, “John Glenn, A Memoir” by John Glenn, “Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space” by Lynn Sherr, or “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe.

– Plan a trip to one of the 8 NASA Visitor Centers, including the Johnson Space Center outside Houston, the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral FL, the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville AL, the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hamilton VA, the NASA Goddard Visitor Center Maryland in Greenbelt MD, the INFINITY Space Center Mississippi in Pearlington MS, the NASA Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center in Wallops Island VA, or the NASA Glenn Visitor Center in Cleveland. – Watch a film about astronauts, such as “Apollo 13”, “First Man”, “The Right Stuff”, “Lucy in the Sky”.

Q: Why did the astronaut decline to eat a vegetarian burger?

A: He wanted something meteor.

Neil Armstrong: I can’t find any milk for my coffee.

John Glenn: That’s because in space no one can. Here, use cream.

Q: If athletes get “athlete’s foot”, what do astronauts get?

A: Missile toe.

Q: How to astronauts keep warm in a vacuum?

A: They use a space heater.

Acumatica Cloud ERP provides a native integration to Microsoft Teams.

This is currently listed as an “Experimental Feature”. Experimental features are included in the standard product download and can be easily enabled on the enable/disable features screen or by turning on a feature switch. Unlike core functionality, Acumatica may change the way experimental features are designed and implemented based on customer feedback.

Starting with release 2023 R1, Acumatica Cloud ERP’s integration to Microsoft Teams is available in the core product under Enable/ Disable Features > Experimental Features. This integration delivers collaboration within a single platform, eliminating the need for users to switch between multiple applications.

Within the Acumatica interface, users can have the ability to: – Start a Teams chat – Start a Teams call – Open the Teams meeting scheduler with a contact – Import files from Teams to Acumatica Cloud ERP – Share Acumatica ERP records with a contact or channel in Teams – Send automatic notifications in Teams on events occurring on a record

Accounts & Costs

Currently, there is no additional cost to using the integration, however, this may change in the future. You will need a Microsoft 365 Account with Microsoft Teams license for the organization.

Installation & Configuration

An IT administrator role/resource is required for configuration in Microsoft Azure platform, as it requires Graph API Application set up. An administrator role for Acumatica is also required for the initial configuration.

Installation Instructions Follow the Microsoft Teams Integration Guide found here to learn how to configure the integration. There is also a 2-part configuration video series that you can review using these links: – Microsoft Teams Integration Configuration Part 1: Set up in Azure – Microsoft Teams Integration Configuration Part 2: Set up in Acumatica

Of course, you can always contact our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood (keithw@aswius.com) if you would like to learn more about this experimental feature and/or if you would like our professional services team to assist you in implementing.

By Mark Binkley

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.

Below we will discuss how to design a generic query that pulls the Positive Pay records.

Instructions

Included Tables: – PX.Objects.AP.APPayment (to pull a list of payment records) – PX.Objects.AP.APContact (to pull Remit-To Name and the ATTN field because it contains the name of a factor for the original payee) – PX.Objects.AP.APAddress (to pull and address fields, in case the bank requires)

Results Grid Output: The columns of the Excel file to be uploaded as a Positive Pay file on the Bank’s portal. – Hard coded Account Number for the one checking account – Check Number – Check Amount – Vendor Name

In this example, remittance goes to a factor rather than the original payee. This bank requires that the original payee (stored in the Remittance Contact Full Name field) and factor (stored in the Remittance Attention field) are concatenated.

Because of this, we test whether the Attention field is in use. If it is NULL, then concatenation of the two fields returns a NULL even when Full Name has a value. This formula tests for that =Concat ( [APContact.FullName], (IIf((IsNull([APContact.Attention], ‘x’))=’x’,’ ‘,Concat(‘ – ‘,[APContact.Attention]))))

– Check Date

Generic Inquiry: Results show a couple examples of the results. Once the From and To payment dates are entered, results are shown. – Check 1004 shows an example of the where the Remittance Fullname and Attention where overridden on the individual payment transaction. – Check 1005 is an example of where the Remittance was not overridden on the payment, so the Fullname is coming from the Vendor Master remittance, but there was no value in the Attention field on the Vendor Master.

Export to Excel: By clicking the Export to Excel button on the toolbar, an excel file is created and ready for upload to the bank portal

Table Relations: – Because remit to information is needed in this case, we are linking to APAddress and APContact from APPayment. The Default Remittance information as stored on the Payment Settings tab of the vendor master is stored in the APAddress and APContact tables. If, on a specific payment, the remittance is overridden, then a new record gets added to APAddress and/or APContact depending on whether you overrode one or both. – From APPayment, link to APAddress where remitAddressID = addressID – From APPayment, link to APContact where remitConactID = contactID

Parameters: In this example, the customer has a single checking account and wants to upload a PostivePay file once a day. – PaymentDateBegin – PaymentDateEnd

Conditions: Definition of how the data should get filtered: – APPayment.DocDate >= PaymentDateBegin – APPayment.DocDate <= PaymentDateEnd – APPayemnt.DocType must not be a Debit Adj, Voided Refund or Voided Check

By Mike Brooks

Problem:

Salespeople talk too much when they finally get a prospect on the phone. They pitch features and benefits instead of asking questions and qualifying. They talk over their prospects and generally learn very little about what it takes to close a sale.

Result?

They may get some leads out and set up some “demos or presentations,” but because they didn’t discover whether a prospect was truly a buyer and in the market at that time, their close rate is a disappointing 2 sales out of 10 full presentations.

What Are They Not Doing And Need To Be Doing?

This may sound easy, but if you’ve listened to any of your rep’s calls (or your own), then you know how hard it is.

Here is the simplest way to do it. Adopt the word “Oh?” into your qualifying pitch and find your phone’s Mute button.

It goes like this:

Ask a qualifying question, then hit Mute and listen.

If you get an answer that doesn’t really tell you anything, or if you feel a prospect is trying to hide the real answer, simply unmute yourself and say, “Oh?” with your voice lifting up at the end of the word. Like you’re really curious.

Then hit Mute again and listen as your prospect reveals more. Much more.

Don’t be fooled by this. It may seem simple, but it’s hard to do. However, when you do it, you’ll move into the rarefied air of top closers. You’ll discover hidden buying motives—and you’ll discover real objections.

In short, you’ll begin to tell the buyers from the non-buyers, and that is the start of closing more sales and making more money.

Try it today.