Blog

Introducing Method Support

Method_Ashur — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:31:00 GMT

Hi Everyone,

The Support Team - Adam, Jason, and Ashur (that’s me) - are here to help you with your questions about using Method CRM. Call us, email us, tweet us - we love to hear your feedback and find ways to help.

When customers bring up tricky topics we like to create Solutions and publish them on our Help Center (I like to refer to them as articles). That way all Method CRM users have access to these Solutions 24/7/365 in our easy-to-search Help Center. And starting now, we’ll be blogging regularly to highlight and share our latest Solutions to your questions.

The topic I would like to bring up today is:

Linking Method Users with QuickBooks (QB) Employees

You may be asking yourself "Why would I want to do that?", well let me tell you why. Linking someone’s Method User to their respective QB Employee will allow your organization to assign certain records to them, such as Leads or Customers.

For example, Bob's Auto Parts has a sales team of three (3) people, and Bob wants to divvy up his Method Leads evenly amongst his sales team. All he would need to do is edit the Lead and assign them a Sales Rep (QB Employee). Now, when Bob's sales team navigates to Leads and Contacts List, and uses the My Active Lead Contacts filter view, they'll only see the Leads which have been assigned to them. Cutting out the clutter is great, right?

Follow these simple steps to link a Method User to a QB Employee:

Navigate to the Customize tab.
Click the Users tab link.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to locate the user, then click Edit... next to his/her user name.
On Step 1 of 10, locate the Link to Employee/Vendor/OtherName (SalesRep) option and select the QB Employee from the dropdown list. *Note: If you want to link the user to a QuickBooks Sales Rep then look for names that are followed by initials in brackets, e.g. Joe Smith (JS1). Only Sales Rep records contain initials.
Click Finish, and once the screen has refreshed, advise the user to sign out of Method then back in, in order to utilize the user setting change.

Hope this has been a helpful tidbit of information - there's plenty more where that came from!

Let us know if there are any topics you need more clarification on, and we'll be happy to write up some more juicy articles for our Help Center knowledge base. This blog was brought to you by Ashur and the rest of the Support team. Signing off for now. Have an awesome day and stay tuned for lots more blog posts designed to help you do more with less

How to get in touch with Support

Phone: 1-888-925-6238, select option 2
Email: support@methodintegration.com
Forums: http://www.methodintegration.com/cs/forums/

Till next time!

Ashur

3 Things to Kick Start Your PR

Method_Martin — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:53:00 GMT

Every business needs a great story, the kind that engages customers and partners, builds long-standing relationships and generates referrals.

And if it’s really compelling, other people will tell it for you. That’s the essence of solid public relations.

So how do SMBs get started in PR?

As a former agency owner, I want to say, hire me :) However, you can do a lot to lay a strong foundation yourself, especially in the first few years. These days, I’m the resident PR/Content Strategy specialist at Method so I thought I’d let you peek under the PR hood.

Here are three things you can do to get started on PR for your business:

1. Craft your story. Some people call it a news hook or elevator pitch. It should be a short yet captivating overview of who you are, what you do and why you do it best (no more than 100 to 150 words). Drill down to the essence of your business and add in dramatic details (i.e. little guy battles big established player). Just be sure to avoid jargon. Write it down and then read it aloud to hear what it sounds like. Tell it to your trusted colleagues, friends and family. Ask them if they have any suggestions for improvement. Then listen to the feedback, revise and practice some more. You’ll know you’ve got it right when people’s eyes light up as you tell it.

2. Build relationships before the ‘ask’. As with customers, your relationships with media, bloggers and other influencers don’t happen overnight. It takes time to develop credibility and trust. So as you’re creating your story, start paying attention to who’s writing about your industry in your local paper, magazines, online publications and blogs. Introduce yourself, comment on their posts and share them with your network. After a while they’ll start noticing you and maybe even ask you to tell your story before you pitch them.

3. Understand that not all news is created equal. Don’t expect to be covered on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or even your local paper. Your new product or expansion may be the biggest thing to happen to your business but, as they say, may not amount to a hill of bean to local media if you haven’t positioned it properly. You need to know how you fit in the news cycle – most likely you’ll be a soft or feature story, which doesn’t have the same priority as breaking news.

Like comedy, the secret of PR is timing and storytelling. Make sure you’ve got both when you go out with your pitch.

Have you tried doing some PR for your business? Any other tips to add?

Please share your thoughts. And as the 3 Things series grows we’ll be adding guest bloggers and looking for your stories on what’s worked and what hasn’t, and how you adapted or improved on an idea we shared.

Email: 3things@methodintegration.com
Twitter: @methodCRM

Martin

Introducing New, Easy-to-Understand Method CRM Video Tutorials

Method_Errol — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:33:00 GMT

Allo!

A lot of customers told us they’d love it if we offered additional info on how to get the most out of Method CRM, including more Video Tutorials! So we listened and I’m here!

My name is Errol. Maybe you’ve heard my voice already if you’ve called in to Method or caught a few of our newest videos in the Help Center. If not, then welcome to my post!

I was brought on to Method to create easy-to-understand video tutorials. And I totally love my job. First, not only do I get to learn and talk all day, but I get to be 'me'! (That may be frightening for some of you and my coworkers, till you get to know me, that is.)

I'm the one in black that didn’t get his own pizza.

I hope you’ll watch the videos (or 'screencasts'). We’ll be producing them on a on a regular basis and want to hear from you and know what you think! Why? Because the videos are for you and designed to be helpful and show you how easy it is to customize our platform for your needs.

And if you haven't seen one yet, here's a short example that will be going in our documentation (Yes! We are going to have documentation too!)

Click the picture and the magic of the internet will take you to our Help Center!.

There are many more videos in the Help Center and we will keep adding new ones as they’re produced. For now, the first seven articles under "Setup" each has a video! I even added some handy-dandy links at the top of each article so you won't miss the video.

See that link? I put it in because I care.

So by all means, check them out and please send us your suggestions. And if you have any ideas for a video or questions you want answered, please let us know. You can comment on the blog! Comment on the video! Tweet us @methodcrm!

We really want to hear from you so we can create the kind of content you’re looking for. And if we don’t hear back... Well, let’s just say I’ll have to start doing videos chronicling my lunch hours. No one wants that.

Take care and have a great day!

Method: 3 Things to Surprise and Delight Your Customers

Method_Jamil — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:44:00 GMT

Last Friday we decided to try something new: a virtual pizza party with a few customers. “Virtual” because most our customers are in different cities from us. “Pizza party” because we sent pizzas to their offices at lunch time. And this little experiment lead to today’s 3 Things post:

Surprising and Delighting Your Customers

1. Random Acts of Kindness. So to finish the pizza story, once a month we do a demo day, where staff show each other what they’ve been working on. It's exciting...but it was missing something: our customers!

So on Friday at 11 am, we decided to surprise a few customers by getting pizza delivered to their offices, and then chatting with them on Twitter, while we ate pizza “together”. The feedback we got was they loved the surprise. It gave that little morale boost they needed on a Friday. (P.S. If you want an invite to our next Virtual Pizza Party tweet us @MethodCRM with #ShowMeTheDough.)

2. Ask the “Magic Wand” Question. This is a fun and whimsical way to ask your customers for feedback. Here’s how we’ve done that with Method customers: “If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about Method right now, what would it be?” The answer you get will be your customer’s #1 pain point with your product or service. Maybe offer them an hour of free consulting or a small discount on their next invoice in exchange. Either way, I bet you a nickel at least some of them will say, “I’m really impressed you’re taking the time to do this”.

3. Gift of Time. Instead of a card, bottle of wine or box of chocolates in December, give a few of your most loyal customers the Gift of Time. Start by asking them for their top 3 charities. Then follow up by offering to volunteer or attend the next fundraiser (ask for 3 charities so you get at least 1 that aligns with your values). You could just cut a check, but I bet you another nickel your customers will be more surprised and more delighted if you offer a little piece of your time.

Surprising and delighting doesn’t have to cost a lot or take more than a few hours… and it’ll be remembered for much longer than that.

So if you had a magic wand and could change one thing about this blog post, what would it be?

We’d love to hear your thoughts. And as the 3 Things series grows we’ll be adding guest bloggers and looking for your stories on what’s worked and what hasn’t, and how you adapted or improved on an idea we shared. And please let us know if you have any pain points or challenges you’d like us to cover.

Email: 3things@methodintegration.com

Twitter: @methodCRM

Till next time.

Jamil

Method: 3 Things I Learned in Radio

Method_Jamil — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:43:00 GMT

Last week Paul launched our new blog series “3 Things” by talking about his obsession with finding solutions and how this relentless focus on solving problems, for our customers and ourselves, has become part of Method’s DNA.

When I joined Team Method last month I was struck by how much Method’s value system reminded me of the first place I had the incredible fortune of working: CHUM Radio. And this led to today’s blog post:

Valuing Your Team.

Here are 3 Things I learned in radio on how to value your team:

1. The little things make a big difference.

First a quick story… when I met Mr. and Mrs. Waters for the first time (the owners) I was nervous, a little sweaty and mumbled my name. Yet even with 100+ employees, from then on both Mr. and Mrs. Waters always remembered my name. They didn’t say “Jamal” or “Jemil”. They called me “Jamil”, and that’s not an easy one to remember.

They were the owners. I was the Intern. And this simple courtesy set the tone for my entire 7 year run.

It’s easy to remember a name, set reminders for birthdays, get treats for the team on Friday afternoons (something I love about Friday’s at Method). Doing these little things builds goodwill. And most importantly, your people feel valued. Take it from the Intern -- me.

2. Organize your team in a circle; not a ladder.

Picture this: your team is standing in a circle, and your goal is in the middle. Doesn’t that sound more collaborative and focused than standing on different rungs of a ladder?

Here’s what happened at CHUM: by using the circle instead of a ladder, the whole team understood the company’s goals, and their role in achieving them. Most importantly, we understood why we were doing what we were doing – not just what someone else told us to do. That made the company efficient because all staff, from junior to senior, were empowered to work independently.

3. Our people are our most valuable asset.

The Waters family would regularly say, “our most valuable asset is not the transmitter, building, or broadcast license. It’s our people… the talented folks who create amazing radio and client partnerships every day. They went so far as to call us “CHUM People”. What effect did this have? It made us feel privileged to work there. And it made CHUM a highly coveted place to work. I still feel proud to say I was a CHUM person.

Maybe it sounds like I drank the Kool-Aid -- what I do know for certain is I felt privileged to be part of something unique. A big salary doesn’t buy that kind of loyalty.

What do you think? What can you do to make your team feel privileged to be a part of your company? Any similar experiences? Please leave a comment or question, or hit us up on Twitter @MethodCRM. Every week we’ll have a new post featuring 3 Things you can do now to elevate your business.

Till next time.

Jamil

Introducing method:3 things

Method_Paul — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:18:00 GMT

I consider Method to be a solution-obsessed company. I personally get very geeky about problem solving, and find that this characteristic has woven itself deeply into the entire company's DNA. It has defined who we are.

At Method, we're a technology company, but the beliefs and practices that have led to our growth and success are applicable to any small business, regardless of the location or industry.

We're going to share what makes us a solution-obsessed company as the first theme of a new weekly series we are launching. I know you are busy running your companies, facing tough choices, balancing priorities and doing the most you can with limited resources and time. So our series will be focused on giving you three effective ideas for your business you can put into practice right now.

So let’s get started with a topic everyone can relate to:

Customer Service

Here are 3 things we practice at Method:

Stop selling. Start helping. As a solution-obsessed company, you need to be a good listener in order to understand the problem you are trying to solve. Seek further clarification to help you understand not just what the customer needs, but why they need it. When you know why, you can make better recommendations, set better expectations, and anticipate future needs or roadblocks.
Be consistent. Avoid case-by-case promises that cause one customer service experience to differ from another. Instead, make fair and reasonable policies and empower staff to make decisions. Train your staff with online material that is always up to date, giving them access to the knowledge of their peers. At Method we use articles (“solutions”) and encourage all staff to contribute and update as needed. The result: rookies and veterans both provide solutions to customers that are accurate and relevant.
Seek feedback. Before getting off the phone with a customer, let them know the date and time you'll be calling them next to give them a status update. Never leave a customer in limbo. When we are working on an issue for a Method user, we often give them a recommended solution, ask them to try it and then let us know how it went. But silence is not success - a service ticket is not closed until the customer says it is closed, so we reach out daily for up to two weeks until we get confirmation that the issue is indeed solved.

What do you think? We’d love to hear from you and if you have any other tips to offer. As the series grows, we’ll be adding guest bloggers and looking for your stories on how you put what we suggested into practice, how you adapted or improved on it and if you have any pain points and challenges you’d like us to cover.

Email: 3things@methodintegration.com
Twitter: @methodCRM

As they say, good things come in threes.

Paul

Method lands Rodolfo Novak, one of Toronto's top UX designers

Method_GuestBlogger — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:30:00 GMT

By Mark Evans

Mark is a Toronto-based tech blogger and startup marketer. He sat down with Rodolfo Novak to learn about why he joined Method and his plans for the coming months.

Without a doubt, it has been an exciting couple of months for Method. It kicked off the year in style and generated considerable industry buzz by raising $3-million in Series A financing from Klass Capital. And now, it has snapped up Rodolfo Novak, one of Toronto’s hottest user experience and product strategy professionals.

With Method aggressively moving forward, attracting top talent such as Rodolfo is a big win. Rodolfo’s portfolio includes work with high-profile companies such as WattPad, RipeApps, BMO and AppHero (which, by the way, was recently described as the “best free app ever”).

So an obvious question to Rodolfo is “Why Method?”

“No one – not even Salesforce.com - is doing CRM for small business right,” he said. “There is a huge under-served market out there of small businesses using terrible software. The big and exciting opportunity for us is to make these businesses perform better with great software.”

With Rodolfo now on board as VP of Product (a position often occupied by marketing and project managers), it is clear that Method CEO Paul Jackson sees UX as a critical part of the strategic and tactical mix.

At the same time, Paul is assembling a top-notch team to evolve Method’s CRM platform and drive the company’s growth.

A native of Brazil, living in Toronto’s red-hot tech sector, Rodolfo said he has exposure to many opportunities, but jumped at the chance to join Method because it is tackling a challenging and complicated problem: creating a customizable CRM platform specifically for small business owners.

From the outside looking in, you might ask: “Why is creating a CRM for small business such a big deal?”

The answer is small business owners have many different needs, so they want a CRM that adapts to their unique business, with minimal investment, but at the same time be useful and friendly for their staff.

“One of the biggest hurdles in creating a next-generation CRM, is that it has to be robust and flexible,” Rodolfo said. “The mandate that Paul has given me is bold and inspiring: we’re going to take on the market with a new model. Method is going to provide an affordable way for small businesses to have the level of personalization previously available only to larger enterprises. My job is to take this powerful engine that makes Method run, and present it in a way that is intuitive and immediately useful to the small business user.”

So what are the top things on Rodolfo’s plate?

With meeting the needs of SMBs as the focus, Rodolfo said Method will launch an app store that will make it easy for developers to build new tools or modify existing ones to add new features – all without writing a single line of code. While apps are hot these days, Rodolfo said the important difference with Method’s approach is encouraging the creation of small granular apps that are fine-tuned to do specific tasks, and then allow the apps to be further customized to each business. In addition, these granular apps will play nicely with SMB's backend accounting system (QuickBooks, FreshBoooks, Wave, Xero, Intaact).

The first critical release of the next version of Method is the mobile application. One of the key considerations, Rodolfo said, will be creating a mobile experience that is not a replication of the desktop experience – yet will be just as customizable to each company.

When asked to describe what he wants to achieve at Method, Rodolfo has a big goal.

“People start small businesses because they aren’t satisfied with the status quo. They want to disrupt their markets, and quickly turn their ideas into reality. I believe CRM systems should not only keep up with these leaders, but actually help them go faster. We want to help small businesses out-innovate their competition.”

About Mark Evans:

Mark Evans works with early-stage startups and fast-growing companies looking for strategic and tactical help to jump-start their marketing activities. He writes a regular blog about startup marketing, as well as a popular newsletter about Canadian startups. Mark is also one of the organizers of mesh, Canada's leading digital conference, and meshmarketing. Learn more about Mark here: www.markevanstech.com/

New Tagging and List Builder features

Method_Paul — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:47:00 GMT

With all the madness of the last month, we nearly forgot to let you know about a couple great new features to Method: Tags and a new List Builder. These features allow you to get more done in Method in less time than ever before.

Tags help you more easily categorize the people you need to reach and keep track of. They are more powerful than a traditional category field because you can assign multiple tags to the same record. For example, you could tag a contact with "Friend", "Partner" and "Influencer" meaning they have earned all three of these qualities.

As for the List Builder, in addition to us creating a faster way to generate marketing lists, it also plays nice with tags.

I’ll give you a quick demo. Here's what Bob Crenshaw's contact screen looks like with no tags (I've highlighted the tag field in red):

When you hover your mouse over the tag icon you get a list of potential tags to assign to Bob Crenshaw (you'll need to create some tags here if your list is empty):

Here's how Bob Crenshaw's contact screen now looks like when he is tagged as a Friend, Influencer and Partner:

You can search for contacts with those tags in the Customers and Contact list (see the help center article for special tag search tips):

To use these tags to generate a marketing list, let’s go to the List Builder. Here I am getting a list of all Partners or Influencers. But I am making sure that any of those contacts who is also a friend is filtered out:

And here are the results, ready for an email blast:

Tags will start to play a bigger role as we roll out new features this year - so get used to them! What I love most about tags is that in many cases they save you from having to customize screens in order to add new custom fields.

To learn more about tags, please check out the following article:
http://www.methodintegration.com/method/kb.aspx?folder=methodcrm&id=254

Enjoy,

Paul

What Method’s $3 Million Capital Raise means

Method_Paul — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:12:00 GMT

The community is buzzing today about the announcement on TechCrunch of our $3 Million Series A capital raise, led by Klass Capital (backed by HOOPP - a $40 Billion pension fund).

This is exciting news for me, for our team, and for the amazingly innovative small businesses using Method.

We have a different story from the stereotypical tech startup. We’re a few years in now, but up until this raise, we had no outside investors. I was fortunate enough to have built and sold a previous software company, so I kicked in the cash to get us started. But from there we have relied on our ability to deliver value to our users in order to grow. We learned about you, what worked, what didn’t work and what we should focus on next.

We have grown rapidly, and built an awesome 25-person team. We serve thousands of loyal users, earned a 5 star rating on Google Apps Marketplace and have the top rated CRM on Intuit App Center.

So…..why did we raise capital? We didn’t need to do it. We could have kept doing what we were doing and growing organically, right? Yep….but that just wouldn’t have been good enough. We owe you more. Let me explain.

The more we work with small business owners, the more clearly we see why you do what you do. You want to build a business with your own hands that you can be proud of. You want to implement your own ideas, and those of your staff and customers - and you want to do this fast with nothing getting in your way.

We have learned that you use Method because we help you be agile. We are the tool that adapts to you and keeps pace with your brilliant ideas. We help you out-innovate your competition.

Just like you, we’re a small business. What we see in you, we see in ourselves. Our original ideas took Method to where it is today, and it’s your feedback that will take us where we need to be tomorrow. We have found 100 new ways to make you even more agile, and we want to move fast. To do this, we need to be more agile too.

So we raised capital to increase the size of our team faster than we could grow organically. The extra breathing room means we’re able to move at a rocket ship pace. We’re hiring some of the brightest minds in our local backyard, and also from around the world - I’ll be able to share some exciting news on this front soon – keep an eye out.

There’s lots of excitement at Method HQ and we’ve already started to ramp up with new BIG projects. Throughout the first half of this year, we’ll be beta testing a series of integrations and improvements. We hope you’ll try them and share your ideas about how we can make them work even better for you. A whole new Method is around the corner.

Thank you for your support and feedback. We couldn’t be doing this without you.

Stay tuned!

Paul

Paul Jackson
Founder & CEO
Method CRM
Twitter: @PaulAlexJackson

Method CRM sponsors SmallBizVCon - January 23-24, 2013

Method_Danny — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:12:00 GMT

At Method CRM, we’re firm believers that online is the future for small businesses. I mean, we did create an online app after all! This month the first SmallBizVCon is being hosted by Stacy Kildal and Dawn Brolin, both avid users of online solutions and named CPA Practice Advisor’s list of “2012 Most Powerful Women in Accounting”. Method CRM is a proud sponsor of this conference and what it means to the small business owner.

So what is a VCon?

VCon = Virtual Conference. Who doesn’t love a good training conference? As great as they are, sometimes they’re just not practical. The logistics and cost of arranging travel, being away from the office, the list can go on and on. It’s tough, so they’re bringing the training TO YOU! You don’t even have to shower to attend this training since you can do so from the comfort of your own home, office or wherever you are at the moment.

So what can you learn about?

In addition to learning about why CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is important for small business owners, you’ll learn about other business topics that help you run your business. Some of these topics include:

Setting up a killer website.
Managing your finances & payroll.
Making filing your taxes less of a pain.
How to track your customers and why you should care about it.

So who’s sponsoring the VCon?

Here are a list of the sponsors attending the conference.

So how much does it cost?

Only $95 per person! To register for the conference, click here. Spaces are limited.

We look forward to seeing you at the SmallBizVCon. I know this is something that Stacy and Dawn plan on conducting throughout the year so please let us know your thoughts on the event.

Have a fantastic start to 2013,

Danny

Tipping my hat to Intuit App Center - new changes reward developers and QuickBooks customers.

Method_Paul — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 19:45:00 GMT

Intuit App Center received a big update last week, something that had been anticipated from an earlier announcement in their IPP blog, where they wrote:

"We will be presenting apps based on a simple formula: number of reviews x star rating (to represent quality). "

On the surface, this may seem like trivial news. It may even beg the question "Doesn't it just make common sense that the best apps should rise to the top". To someone from the outside, I bet it almost seems like they "fixed" something with the App Center listing.

In reality, this change goes much deeper. Developers and QuickBooks end-users alike should be shouting "hooray!" at the top of their lungs.

They didn't fix the listing in Intuit App Center. They unfixed it.

You see, Intuit has put a lot behind the Intuit App Center, and is pouring more and more resources into it. The apps listed on Intuit App Center consist mostly of 3rd party apps like Method CRM, Bill.com and MavenLink, but also include Intuit’s own applications. So...if you are Intuit, and your apps are listed together with 3rd party applications, you have 2 choices.

The choice:

#1: Give Intuit owned applications preferential treatment and the most prevalent listings in order to get maximum exposure.

-or-

#2: Make a commitment to developers - "Let the best app win, regardless of who wrote it".

From a developer's standpoint, do you want to write applications for a partner platform knowing that no matter how great you make your app, you'll always get second class treatment? Hell no! You want choice #2, a strong commitment from the platform that if you try really, really, hard to make a killer app that creates supreme customer happiness, you'll rise to the top.

From the end user standpoint, you want developers fighting for you. You don't want app developers relaxing because they were already promoted to the top for political reasons. You also don't want 3rd party developers de-motivated because no matter how hard they try, they'll never get full recognition. So Intuit’s choice to make a commitment to developers is a huge win for end users too.

So I tip my hat to Intuit for making the right choice. Their commitment will attract more developers, creating a community of better applications, happier end users, and ultimately a stronger Intuit.

Paul

Paul Jackson
Founder & CEO
Method CRM

Seasons Greeting - Holiday Hours

Method_Danny — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 20:34:00 GMT

Seasons Greetings, Joyeux Noël!, Boas Festas!, Buone Feste, Ii holide ezimnandi, Sarbatori Fericite!, Frohe Weinachten!, Feliz Navidad, Mele Kalikimaka, Wesołych Świąt, Boldog Ünnepeket

On behalf of the Method Team, I’d like to wish everyone a happy holiday season! May your holidays be filled with love, joy and laughter as you celebrate the season with your loved ones.

If you plan on reaching The Method Team during the holidays, please take note of our holiday hours:

Friday, December 21st: Office will be closed after 3:30pm EST

Monday, December 24th (Christmas Eve): Office will be closed after 4:00pm EST

Tuesday, December 25th (Christmas Day): Office Closed

Wednesday, December 26th (Boxing Day in Canada): Office Closed

Monday, December 31st (New Year’s Eve): Office will be closed after 4:00pm EST

Tuesday, January 1st (New Year’s Day): Office Closed

Have a safe and joyous holiday season, and we'll be in touch in the New Year!

Danny Do Couto
Method Integration

What's a QuickBooks for Macs user to do with no SDK that allows for integration

Method_GuestBlogger — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Why doesn’t Method CRM (Customer Relationship Management) support QuickBooks for Mac?

Not because the Method team doesn’t want to, it’s quite the contrary. In fact, they love Macs and most of them use them exclusively. The answer lies in how QuickBooks for Mac is different from the Windows version and the development path Intuit has taken with the two platforms. It’s not only Method CRM that won’t work with QuickBooks for Mac, no CRM product on the market today will.

First, A History Lesson

In 2006, Intuit switched the backend structure of QuickBooks for Windows to a SQL (Structured Query Language) type database. At the same time, they released a SDK (Software Development Kit) for QuickBooks for Windows that allowed third party developers to write programs that could access QuickBooks data, and both read and write to it. Previously the only way to import/export data to QuickBooks was via IIF (Intuit Interchange Format), which can be problematic. With the release of the SDK, the marketplace for third party apps exploded as companies now had an error free way to share information with QuickBooks. While this was happening on the Windows side, Intuit was slowing down development on the Mac version and didn’t make an SDK available for it. The Mac version was switched to SQL too, but another kind of SQL so the databases aren’t completely compatible. There were even rumors that QuickBooks for Mac was going to be discontinued completely. In the last few years though, as Mac sales increased, Intuit has renewed its efforts to develop the Mac version of QuickBooks, and it has now almost completely caught up to the QuickBooks Pro for Windows version. But there is still no SDK for QuickBooks for Mac, which means that it is effectively closed to any developer, including Method, who wants to communicate with it. You can import data to QuickBooks for Mac via IIF, but it’s a one way manual process, and not a viable way of linking data between programs.

How does Method CRM communicate with QuickBooks?

Method CRM works with QuickBooks for Windows desktop versions using their sync engine which was written using the SDK. They also work with the Online versions of QuickBooks by using the IPP (Intuit Partner Platform, which is where the SDK is headed) Method CRM works so well because their sync engine is the best I’ve ever seen in 14 years of QuickBooks consulting. You can read more about the Method Sync engine here: QuickBooks SyncIts awesome, but it can’t talk to QuickBooks for Mac.

What’s a Mac Lover to Do?

If you’ve decided you need a CRM in your business, (and if you are here, you already have!), then you’ll unfortunately need to abandon QuickBooks for Mac. You do have options though, without having to get a Windows based PC.

Run Parallels or VMware on your Mac with a virtual Windows machine, and install QuickBooks for Windows. Your Mac files will convert over. This is how I run QuickBooks with the Method CRM sync engine installed on my virtual Windows 7 machine. This also gives you the option of additional third party programs that work with the Windows version. For a detailed explanation of how to use QuickBooks on a virtual machine check out my blog post here: Parallels and QuickBooks
Use a hosted QuickBooks provider. There are several Intuit authorized hosting companies that will put QuickBooks and Method CRM on a computer “in the cloud” for you. You simply log onto the computer using Remote Desktop Connection (software that’s free from Apple if it isn’t already loaded on your machine). You work on a Windows desktop and QuickBooks just as if you were on a local machine. With the speed of most Internet connections today, there is no lag time. The best part of this scenario is that all the IT worries and Windows updates are taken care of by the hosting provider. No mysterious Windows error messages or Blue Screen of Death.
Switch to QuickBooks Online. Method CRM works with QuickBooks Online. If you are using the native Mac version, you won’t experience a loss of any features and you’ll love the new Online-banking feature in QuickBooks Online! You will have to convert your Mac file to a Windows version first before uploading it the cloud, but Intuit support or a ProAdvisor should be able to help you do that without loss of data.

If Intuit ever releases an SDK for QuickBooks for Mac (and don’t hold your breath), I’ll be the first one in line to ask the Method CRM team to sync to it. In the meantime, Method CRM is one of the main reasons I continue to run my own company on the Windows version. I’ve gone from thinking I didn’t need a CRM to not being able to work without it.

About Victoria:

Victoria Cameron is an advanced certified Method CRM Solution Provider and a QuickBooks Advanced Certified ProAdvisor, and is also certified in Enterprise Solutions, POS and QuickBooks Online. As the principal of Victoria Rehrig Cameron Consulting, LLC, she works with clients in a variety of industries from construction to retail, and particularly enjoys helping her Mac clients. A Mac user for almost 30 years, she is certified by Apple in Mac systems integrations, and has helped many firms to convert to Macs using Windows on virtual machines. She loves using Method CRM to solve business process issues for her clients that QuickBooks alone can’t do. Victoria was Method CRM Solution Provider Rookie of the Year in 2012. More about Victoria and her firm’s services is available here: http://www.vrcqbpro.com

Google Apps: Enterprise-Class Email, Calendar, Docs, and More

Method_GuestBlogger — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 10:00:00 GMT

In the past, the vast majority of small and large companies have looked to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to provide email and calendaring for the organization, but more recently, Google has attempted to revolutionize this space with Google Apps. The product has evolved very quickly and has an enormous amount of users already. In fact, Google reports that over 5 million businesses, and around 50 million people use the product. As a certified and authorized reseller of Google Apps, we've set several companies up on the product, and use it in our consulting company, Wyn Solutions too.

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps is a robust suite of collaboration applications for small or large businesses, that can be centrally managed, and that seamlessly works through your Internet browser, smartphone, tablet, or other mobile devices. The applications accessible through Google Apps include:

Email - Use the familiar, and powerful Gmail interface on your computer to manage your company email, or access your email on your mobile device, or sync with Outlook. Delegate access to others, manage multiple email addresses or organizations, and retain more with 25GB of storage space standard.
Contacts - Manage contacts with Google contacts within the Gmail interface, on your mobile device, or sync with Outlook.
Shared and Online Calendars - Sharable calendars let you collaborate freely. Create multiple company calendars in addition to your personal calendar for different purposes, then post them online and set access rights, easily. Access from the familiar Google interface on the web, from your mobile device, or sync with Outlook.
Shared and Online Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings, and Forms - Access all your documents online from anywhere. Create new documents, edit existing documents, and share them with others easily without installing, updating, or maintaining any software. Access online or on your mobile device, or sync with your computer.
Marketplace Apps - Many non-Google applications such as Method CRM, MailChimp, and many others integrate with Google Apps to share contact information, send marketing campaigns, and much more, so you're able to customize your Google Apps experience with additional applications that suite your individual company's needs.
Much more - Google+, Sites, Voice, Analytics, and much, much more from Google are available as part of a Google Apps subscription.

How does Google Apps Differ from Microsoft Exchange and Other Solutions?

Google Apps is housed on enterprise-class, Google servers with robust backup and security measures in place. Because it is housed on these servers, you never have to worry about updating server hardware or software and the associated IT costs. The applications are available online from any computer with Internet access, from mobile devices, or can be synced with Microsoft Outlook. The service also comes with access to many more applications to produce a full-fledged office suite, rather than just providing basic email and calendaring functions.

Can you give me an Example of How Google Apps has Helped?

We have helped several companies transition to Google Apps... For example, one of our clients is a realtor firm with more than 150 realtors in the group. Since they are realtors, they travel frequently, and work remotely most of the time. Their previous setup was a Microsoft Exchange server that provided access to email and calendars, and some also used the same server as a file server to access Microsoft Word, Excel and other files while in the office. While outside the office, they would generally save documents to their local computers, and would email documents back and forth. They are highly dependant on email, but even so, the Exchange server would need to be restarted for server maintenance, and a couple of days they had problems with the server and all 150 realtors were without access to email, calendars, files, etc. for many hours.

We set the company up on Google Apps for Business and have transitioned their local files, email, calendars, and more to the Google servers, they now have access to their email, calendars, documents from anywhere at any time, and haven’t reported any down time on any of the Google services. Instead of emailing documents back and forth, they work on the documents online and share them with co-workers or clients. They have a variety of devices, including Apple and Windows computers, phones and tablets, Blackberry phones, and many different types of Android devices and are now able to access their information from any of these devices and collaborate seamlessly.

How can my Company make the Transition to Google Apps?

The transition to Google Apps will involve setting up, or adjusting some website and mail server settings, and may involve moving existing email, calendar, documents and more to the Google servers, so its best to check with a certified Google Apps reseller like us before moving forward with the transition. There are a number of editions of the product, including business, education, and government editions, and Google even offers a free edition with more limited capabilities. Standard editions are priced at $50 per user per YEAR, so the cost of these advanced tools is very reasonable given the features. With all of these great features it is not surprising that millions of companies have already made the transition to Google Apps. Contact us to explore whether Google Apps may be the right solution for you.

About Selwyn:

Selwyn van Rooyen is an advanced certified Method CRM consultant and provides extensive support and customization services for many clients using Method CRM. He is also an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor and has been supporting clients on QuickBooks since the 1999 version. He is the owner of Wyn Solutions, an enterprise systems consulting firm specializing in the Intuit based products that is also an authorized Google Apps Reseller and a Premier member of the Intuit Reseller Program. Selwyn is a leading expert on accounting software products such as QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, QuickBooks Point of Sale, Method CRM, and other QuickBooks integrated products. Find out more about Selwyn and Wyn Solutions at http://wynsolutions.com.

Method CRM uses Twitter Bootstrap to launch new website

Method_Paul — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:07:00 GMT

Co-founders of Twitter made big news this week launching branch.com and medium.com. Branch.com is a new way of sharing content you find on the web, and sparking a conversation. Medium.com sets out to rethink the publishing industry. My one sentence descriptions don't do them justice, so I suggest you check them out yourself if you want to be on the leading edge.

There is a reason I am bringing up branch.com and medium.com (other than just trying to associate Method with up and coming big names). Last week we launched a complete rework of the methodintegration.com website and we used a technique called Responsive Design. It's the same technique that branch.com and medium.com are using, and I imagine it will be a technique used by more and more websites and web apps. The idea behind responsive design is that a website is designed so that it automatically responds to the width of the device that is viewing it. In other words, design a single website so that each page looks great, regardless of whether it is viewed on a mobile phone, a tablet, a regular desktop monitor or a widescreen monitor.

Try it out yourself and you'll see what I mean. Go to methodintegration.com, and gradually make your browser thinner and thinner. Images will drop off or change size, the blue navigation bar at the top will change into a mobile version, and content will change from columns into rows so that it is optimized for viewing on a tablet or a mobile phone.

For our responsive design implementation we used the Twitter Bootstrap framework. It's a revolutionary way of building a website - but it wasn't easy. It's not for the hobbyist. You need a web developer who has a strong understanding of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and you need a lot of patience. For us, we originally started the project by trying to add Twitter Bootstrap and making necessary adjustments to our existing website. That was a bad idea that only lasted a couple hours. Responsive design is such a different approach to building websites from what we had done in the past. So we made the decision to start completely from scratch. Without getting into too many details, Bootstrap requires you to think of your site as shared chunks of 12 columns, and these chunks can slide into their own rows when the device width is too thin - this makes you totally rethink how your content can be displayed in various situations, so much so that your old site can hardly be reused.

It was a part time project that spanned 4 months. Now that it's done, I'm excited that Method's home page is nicely accessible from all devices - and that we don't have to maintain a separate site for mobile, tablets and desktops. Whew! But there are a number of other changes we made to the site that are noteworthy:

New Live Chat - We swaped out Zopim chat for SnapEngage. We found it cleaner, and it worked better on mobile devices. We're still missing a few Zopim features, but SnapEngage is a better product.
Quotes from real live people using Method - Our old site was missing something.....YOU. On the new site, we wanted to have pictures and quotes from users that had posted their thoughts on social networks or submitted app reviews to Google and Intuit.
Pics and profiles of real staff that work here - Our old site was missing something else....US. On the new site, we wanted pictures and profiles of real people that work here at Method HQ. We wanted to share what they do here, and also what they do when they are not here. Check out the About Us page, and then click on Meet the Team.
New movie - We worked with explainthatapp.com to create a new movie that explains the basics of what CRM does. We really enjoyed the experience, and recommend them should you be in the market for your own movie. It's the first of 4 movies we're doing. Next one will highlight the Gmail Gadget.

I hope you enjoy the new site, and maybe that I've inspired you to put responsive design into your website's future!

Paul