SAP Business One and Drupal for Small and Midsize Companies

Crystal Reports 2008 is available for download as a 30-day free trial. The trial is fully functional and allows you to explore all the functionality and benefits of Crystal Reports. Orchestra utilizes Crystal Reports to build business critical reports for our clients on SAP Business One, as well as to create highly functional print layouts for their documents. Contact Orchestra today to get started with Crystal Reports, or follow the links below to download a free trial.

When I was in college I had a professor, Mauricio, ask me what I wanted to do when I graduated. I loudly and enthusiastically exclaimed that I was going to be a Project Manager for a software consulting company. I remember him saying "Why in the world would you want that job? A software PM is a person responsible for everything in a project with no control over any of the project resources! You should TEACH people how to Project Manage instead." Admittedly, now that I'm living my dream at 5 AM when a client inevitably has a question or runs into a workflow that I never thought of (i.e. I've trained my pet terrier to make blog posts - can you make it so the web pages post with everything translated into audio for small dogs?) I sometimes wish I had decided to take his path instead.

In this post, we'll see how to run a report automatically for the pevious days sales. This is a very cool report that allows small businesses to get a clear grasp on how their business is doing on a day to day basis. Often used by business owners to keep up on their company, this type of report provides on-going visibility into operations that only SAP Business One and XLR can provide the small business.  Check out this post on how to do just that with SAP Business One and XL Reporter.

In this great post and video, we'll see how a small, but fast growing, company utilizes SAP Business One. Meet Dave Hirschkop, founder and mad genius at Dave's Insanity Sauce, maker of the "hottest sauce in the universe". Dave's has grown dramatically in the past 5 years with only nine employees, using SAP Business One. Check it out.

SAP Business One and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is an important topic. Companies running SAP Business One that will go public or need to meet the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley will benefit from this post. Below you will find information about how SAP Business One can be utilized in becoming compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley. Business software cannot make a company compliant, but it can play a role in helping a company gain compliance through u se of tools and settings within the software. SAP Business One has many of these features and capabilities, which are discussed in the post.

Demo SAP Business One Today

If you are interested in taking an in-depth look at SAP Business One, give Orchestra a call.  We can setup a live demo, viewable over the internet, or if you are near one of our offices, we're happy to come out to meet you and show you the software in person.

You won't get a canned demo from Orchestra, but rather a flexible discussion and demonstration about what you want and need to see in the software to help you in your search for new business management software.

On a cold December day in Portland, Brad Windecker and I embarked on a journey into the heart of Texas to spend a few days with one of our partners, DI Central. While we were there, we had the chance to talk to their management team about their solutions, fulfill my lifelong dream of visiting NASA in Houston, attend a spectacular company party, and enjoy some southern hospitality. It's great to do business with a firm that provides a great product and knows how to throw a party.

Orchestra has been featuring free business tools this year, so we thought we'd close out 2009 with a special post about one of our favorites. Mikogo is free software that allows you to share your screen with anyone in the world for web conferences, remote support, and more. We use it on a regular basis here at Orchestra for everything from official remote support sessions to impromptu screen sharing within the team.

Mikogo is built by BeamYourScreen, a company that provides high end web sharing technology to large enterprises. A few years ago, they heard the need for a free screen sharing tool, so they started Mikogo to satisfy the demand. Now we have a great tool that allows up to 10 people to connect online for free!

Read more to download this tool and start sharing your screen for free.

Year End Closing in SAP Business One

It's that time of year again for, well, year end closings. Closing out the year in your business accounting software has traditionally been something of a pain in the butt, but with SAP Business One it is a much better experience.

Below you will will find basic instructions, a video, and some additional resources for closing out your year and completing the year end process in SAP Business One. Best of all, this process that traditionally takes weeks or even months in older systems, now takes a day or two in SAP Business One.