March 2024

630.850.9039 Continued pg.2 What’s New The right tool really can make all the difference! No one knows this more than our craftsmen and service professionals. The right trowel; quality brick; quality scaffolding, well built; and in my world, a fast computer with a clear screen! Not only do these components make the best end result, we find ourselves more efficient, more productive, and enjoying our work! So what do you splurge on? Trucks? Quality Boots? A camera system? Great (and multiple) monitors? The latest cell phone? These are all great, but we have a question for you: How many hours a day do you spend typing on your computer and using your mouse? Or your chair? If you work on a computer, chances are you spend a lot of hours every day typing and clicking away. The keyboard and mouse become your main tools for interacting with your email, contracts, reading bids, running reports, even checking your bank, submitting your draw requests, sending proposals, and the list goes on! Although you might be ready to invest in the computer itself (which we applaud!), what about the keyboard and mouse? What about the chair you sit in all day? For me, the speaker I use for meetings, both for my comfort as well as yours when we’re on a call. How about the desk? The shape, the height, access to files, and surface area all matter. You might think that spending money on a good keyboard and mouse, a quality chair and desk, even monitor stands might not be worth it. Given the amount of time you spend with them, In this Issue Boost Productivity...……….......1 Book Review.….……….……….2 MDM: Worth Another Look.....3 Shiny New Gadget ……...….....3 Sage Default Numbering....…..4 Microsoft 365 Focus...………….5 How Did They Do It?………….6 Events Calendar ………...……..6 Syscon U How to Boost Productivity and Increase Comfort with Quality Tools March 2024 Last month we sent our survey asking about which of our services are most important to you. Thanks to all those who completed the short survey, and we hope you enjoyed your ‘treat’! We’re getting ready for our midyear State of the Company update. March is when we review how we’re doing compared to our annual goals, share the successes so far, and what’s planned for the coming months. This includes the Consulting, Networking, Programming, Finance, and Marketing teams. Several of us have some vendor events to attend, so we’ll be traveling to Texas, Las Vegas, Wisconsin, and Nashville, to name a few. - Catherine Wendt -- 1 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 comfort, efficiency, and productivity are worth the investment. The right tools for the job, including yours, can make a HUGE difference. How can we help? - CMW Did You Know? We have some new automation to deliver our invoices to you. We’ll send them from the email ‘Invoices@syscon-inc.com’ and you can reply there, as well! I started reading the book and shared the premise with Chris, he ordered it, loved it, then ordered it for several of his team members, as well. The book is written in the Patrick Lencioni -style in the form of a story. In Part I, there is a great quote: “You can’t make headway solving problems if the people causing those problems refuse to consider how they might be responsible.” Throughout the book, they talk about being in or out of the box. When we’re ‘in’ the box, it’s nearly impossible to see outside influences and we may see our options as very limited. This includes our interactions with others and whether they’re in or out of the box. A little later in Part I, there’s a story about a flight where there would be a few unused seats. How concerned are we about others while we do our best to take up extra space and avoid eye contact. A small thing, but good example. The story is a gentleman at a new company and a mentor who’s been there a long time. How we engage others, remembering that these are people who are taking a journey with us, can help us encourage them. Often those same people are the ones that help us be successful at work and at home. A great story, thoughtful observations, and recommended! -CMW (continued from page 1) we think your comfort, health, and efficiency are worth the investment. Here are a couple of things that are worth considering. We actually have a standard when it comes to the keyboard and mouse; we use (and recommend) the MX series from Logitech. We’ve been using the MX Keys keyboard and the MX Master 3S mouse for a while now. All new team members will receive one, and anyone with other equipment has already been swapped out. I even have a handy case for my mouse for when I travel. We spend the majority of our day typing on our keyboards and using the mouse. Having quiet, quality tools makes us more efficient, comfortable, less fatigued, and we don’t annoy anyone in meetings with the clicking sounds! The wireless feature means we don’t have to deal with cords or batteries. I charge my mouse every now and then with the same charger I use for my cell phone. The mouse connects to multiple devices and has keys and buttons that can be customized with shortcuts. And I have to say that the scroll is really zippy! Recently I purchased an Uplift desk. With Chris’s help, I also have some well-designed shelves, monitor arms for the various sizes and shapes of my monitors, and even a laptop monitor arm to keep the surface area of the desk completely available. What about your chair? I’ll bet you spend a lot of hours in it. Larry loves his chair; the mesh structure is comfortable, supportive and cool. Some of the techs have chairs designed for gamers who spend countless hours sitting in them; a ‘game’ changer! Quite a few headsets and speakers (I love my Jabra) have technology that blocks ambient noise, which reduces stress during meetings. For our team members that prefer headsets, a comfortable headset is definitely worth the investment. I also have a super-fast charger for my phone and ear buds. It’s wireless, so I can put the devices on the charger throughout the day and have a fully charged phone for my evening activities. So what tools do you work with the most during your day? Is it time to consider some upgrades? Your “A person who is fundamentally honest doesn’t need a code of ethics. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are all the ethical code anybody needs.” — Harry S. Truman March 2024 -- 2 of 6 - 630.850.9039 Syscon U Embark on a smarter home journey with the SwitchBot Bot Starter Combo, priced at $65.99. This combo includes the compact 43×37×24mm SwitchBot Bot and the 65×65×20mm SwitchBot Hub Mini, redefining convenience and connectivity in your living space. The SwitchBot Bot retrofits switches, turning appliances smart. Its size and adhesive back ensure easy installation. With Bluetooth connectivity, control lights, thermostat, or coffee makers from your smartphone through the SwitchBot app. The SwitchBot Hub Mini expands Bot's range via Wi-Fi, allowing remote control globally. It introduces voice control via Alexa and Google Assistant. Moreover, it bridges IR devices, like TVs, into your smart home, controlled through the SwitchBot app or voice commands. Priced at $65.99, the SwitchBot Bot Starter Combo is an accessible solution for tech enthusiasts and new users. Experience the ease of remote control and voice activation, bringing a connected home within budget. Learn more about it at https:// Shiny New Gadget Of The Month: Rethinking Your Workflow For years and years, we have turned in our VISA receipts, the paper receipts, writing on them what the purchase was for and other details. The office would then compile these, taping the smaller ones to pieces of paper, by employee, to match back to the VISA statement. Then when some receipts were electronic, we would forward them to the office so they could print them and include with the VISA statement package. Now that we have accounting staff that is out of state, this process absolutely does not work! We now turn in receipts through the FIT System, or send via email so they can be saved to SharePoint in the VISA folder for that specific month. This makes receipts accessible and searchable without tying us back to the office file cabinets. After years of printing and scanning my airfare receipts, it suddenly dawned on my that I could print them as PDF’s right away, and with SharePoint in place, save them to the correct file, taking half a dozen steps out of the mix! Recently a client shared that employees would take a picture of a document or receipt, then they send it to the receptionist, who then prints it (to paper), then gives it to someone else to scan it, then it is saved to SharePoint. How about using the OneDrive app and go straight from the camera phone to SharePoint? What about you? What work flows is it time to reconsider? How could they be streamlined? Maybe it’s video meetings over Teams; maybe documents straight to SharePoint; set up electronic collection of receipts or time; automation for data or Power BI reports for ’live’ data updates. We’d love to do some brainstorming and see how these electronic tools might help you! - CMW MDM: Worth a Look MDM stands for Mobile Device Manager. Although not new, this solution has become more mature and is worth a second look. The software allows you to remotely manage and secure mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Use MDM to control settings, policies, and applications on the devices, as well as monitoring their status and location. This is a great tool to protect sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access. Here are a couple of features: Enforce encryption and password; Restrict the use of certain apps, features, and websites; Apply compliance rules and policies including anti-virus; Wipe or Lock devices remotely in case of loss, theft, or breach; Generate reports and alerts for performance, security, and activity. MDM can also help to recover the devices and prevent data loss. You can lock devices remotely and even display a custom message on the screen; Locate the devices on a map and track their movement history; Secure devices by wiping or erasing all the data on them; alert authorities or the IT team if a device is stolen or compromised. This is an additional service and requires specific licenses, software, and an implementation. Think about your company’s use of mobile devices; would this be something to consider? We’d be happy to talk about a possible use case with you. (Sorry, no old flip phones for this one!)—CMW, Copilot Tech Talk SwitchBot Bot Starter Combo March 2024 -- 3 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 S100C More Tips December and January were a whirlwind of Sage 100 Contractor activity! Between the payroll closes, audit errors and repairs, preparing quarterly payroll reports, W-2’s and 1099’s, and gathering info to get to the CPA, several IMPORTANT themes have emerged and we wanted to get them in front of you. Job Cost Reconciliation to Direct Expenses: Most direct costs are generated from screens that require job costing when you choose a direct expense account. Some clients create additional cost records for companyowned equipment if they don’t have the Equipment module but use the T&M Billing module. These entries are outside the accounting entries. For you ‘old timers,’ you might remember that when we used to close the year, we ran the Job Cost Audit. It’s actually still a ‘thing’ but is available as a report. In the 6-3 screen, choose a printer and report 41 or 42 to compare job costs to posting period entries as part of a reconciliation. Payroll Audit: We noticed quite a few of you are not running the 5-3-7 payroll audit at the end of each payroll. That might be OK, but it turns out some of you aren’t running it before preparing the quarterly reports, either, and that’s not OK! And, a few people didn’t run it before generating W-2’s and yearend reports which is definitely a no-no. If you don’t want to run the payroll audit weekly—and some of you with a large number of payroll records, we understand—at least run it during the monthly close process, and definitely before creating any quarterly payroll reports. Even if you ran the audit to close the payroll at the end of the year, run the audit before generating W-2’s and final quarterly reports. Better to be safe than sorry, and in one case, someone made an unexpected rate change after the close, causing a new error. Audit Errors: Whether it’s the 1-6 Monthly Close Audit, or the 5-3-7 Payroll Audit, don’t ignore those Audit Errors! We’re not very happy that Sage allows you to roll the Posting Period forward each month when there are Fiscal Audit errors. We understand that the old way, you were stuck and had a mini ‘emergency’ on your hand, but the result is that many of the calls we took in early January were clients with Audit Errors from the 1-6 screen. These had not been addressed when they were originally discovered months ago, and now became an emergency because they couldn’t roll into the new year. Same thing with payroll audit errors—way easier to address them when they first come up than to try to figure them out when we’re trying to file the tax returns by the due dates! In Conclusion: If you have an audit error, from 1-6 or 5-3-7, give us a call and let’s get it handled right away when we have some flexibility to get it scheduled. —CMW Sage Default Numbering Several of us were met with the default numbers in 11-2 and other screens having been COMPLETELY messed up with the latest version of S100C. Any of the fields where the F7 key is used to set the default to NEXT were impacted. Great News—this change that Sage made can be ‘undone’ and you can get back to your regular numbering. To make the change, you’ll need access to the Sage100Con folder on the server’s logical drive. For the servers we host or support, just give us a call and we can make the change for you. The latest version has created a file called ’UseOldMethodForNEXTDefaultOFF’ and it is in the Sage100Con\Common\Customizations folder. The instructions are to replace the ’-OFF’ part with ’-ON’ to go back to the old numbering convention. Keep the dash ( - ) and don’t delete the folder; just change the few letters. This applies to all installations of 25.2 and higher. According to the Sage update on this issue, they changed the logic used to identify the last record number and default to the next, focusing on the highest value instead. This doesn’t work for most of our clients, so if you have this issue, let us know and we’ll be happy to give you a hand. - CMW “If you have an audit error… call us right away when we have some flexibility to schedule the repair.” Credit Card Feed The AmEx/Plaid import issue is fixed in the 25.3.98 version! The ability to pull the AmEx statements into the Credit Card module is resolved! March 2024 Save the Date Thursday, May 9th 1:00 Central Time Updating Paygroups (Unions) Webinar Construction Corner The TUG 2024 National Conference is in Miami, FL this year, June 3-6. -- 4 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 Teams Auto-Upgrade Coming Soon… What's new in the new Microsoft Teams app? If you are a fan of Microsoft Teams, you might have noticed a new option in the top left corner of your app: the "New Teams" toggle. This toggle lets you switch to the new Microsoft Teams app, which has been redesigned from the ground up to offer you a faster, smoother, and more intuitive experience. Let’s talk about what's new in the new Teams app, the difference from the classic Teams app, and the rollout timeline for the new app. March 2024 Don't worry, you won't lose any functionality by switching to the new Teams app. The new app has all the features of the classic app, plus some new ones that we will explain below. You can still chat, call, collaborate, and access your apps and files in the new Teams app. You can also switch back to the classic app at any time (for now!) by clicking the "New Teams" toggle again. The new Teams app has all the features of classic Teams The new Teams app has significantly better performance and reduced memory usage One of the main benefits of the new Teams app is that it runs faster and uses less memory than the classic app. This means that you can enjoy a more responsive and reliable Teams experience, especially if you have a lot of tabs, apps, or files open in Teams. The new Teams app has a better experience for multiple accounts and guest accounts, like when you're invited to a Team from another company The new Teams app also has some user interface improvements that make it easier to use and customize. For example, you can now change your microphone or camera settings during a call by clicking the dropdown icon next to the microphone or camera (the icons you use to turn your camera on/ off or mute yourself). You can also see your own video preview in a separate window, which you can move around or resize as you like. The new app also has a new dark mode option, which you can enable in the Settings menu. There are improved user experiences, like making it easier to change your microphone or camera during a call If you use multiple accounts or guest accounts in Teams, you will appreciate the new account switcher in the new Teams app. The account switcher lets you easily switch between your different accounts and organizations, without having to sign out and sign in again. You can also see your profile picture and status for each account, and manage your account settings in one place. All notification preferences are handled in the Teams Settings The new Teams app also introduces a new OneDrive app, which replaces the files app in Teams. This app lets you access and manage all your files in Teams, whether they are stored in OneDrive, SharePoint, or Teams channels. You can create, upload, share, and sync files in the OneDrive app, and access offline if you need to. It also integrates with other Microsoft 365 apps, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, so you can work on your files seamlessly in Teams. The new OneDrive app is replacing the files app. We are very excited about this! Another improvement in the new Teams app is that all your notification preferences are now handled in the Teams Settings menu, instead of the Windows Settings menu. This makes it easier to customize how and when you want to receive notifications from Teams, and to sync your notification settings across devices. You can also choose to receive notifications from specific channels, chats, or apps, and mute or snooze notifications when you need to focus. Introducing the new Meet app in Teams This is one of the my favorite features that has been added to Teams in a long time! I use it every day. The Meet app is a new app that lets you see your upcoming meetings, with the option to join those meetings, in Teams. You can also see a history of your meetings, and easily click on a recorded meeting in your meeting history to view the recording and the meeting recap (you'll need copilot for Microsoft 365 to see the AI generated meeting recap). The Meet app is a great way to stay on top of your meetings, and to review and follow up on your meetings. I recommend pinning the Meet app to your sidebar in Teams, so you can access it anytime. You can learn more about the new Meet app in this article: Stay on top of meetings with Meet in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Support What's the rollout timeline for the new Teams app? The new Teams app is currently available as an opt-in option for all Teams users. You can try it out by clicking the "New Teams" toggle in the top right corner of your app. You can also switch back to the classic app at any time by clicking the toggle again. The new app will become the default app for all Teams users by March 31, 2024. After that date, any classic Teams users that haven't updated to the new Teams app will be automatically updated to the new Teams app. We encourage you to try it today, and let us know what you think. We hope you enjoy the new Teams app as much as we do! - CLW -- 5 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 We love this stuff! We are committed to helping businesses use technology to run their organization successfully and profitably. This monthly publication provided courtesy of Catherine Wendt, President of Syscon Inc. Proud Members Proud Partners Read more at www.syscon-inc.com/how-did-they-do-it March 2024 Are you interested in having your story featured? Let’s talk! How Did They Do It? Axis Commercial Inc. In a recent chat with Al Mondoux, the CFO of Axis Commercial Inc., we got a glimpse into his rich, four-decade journey in the realm of commercial Aquatics and construction. Al's story began in public accounting, but a twist of fate led him to a startup specializing in custom swimming pools, where he played a pivotal role in their growth until 2008. After exploring different avenues, his path circled back to construction, ultimately landing him at Axis Commercial. Reflecting on the challenges faced by the company, Al shared, "Efficiently running the company has always been a challenge." This challenge prompted the adoption of Sage 100 Contractor as their ERP system, a decision supported by Syscon. He lauded the Syscon team, stating, "Larry and Cathy's insights have been invaluable; they guide us in the right direction." Discussing the role of technology, he expressed, "Syscon has been a gamechanger for us, helping us leverage technology for effective company management." As the CFO, he not only oversees financial operations but is handson in day-to-day tasks due to the current size of the company. Looking forward, he is optimistic about the company’s future, noting, "When it comes to commercial Aquatics, you can't go wrong with Axis." He extends an invitation to potential clients to consider the company for their construction needs, emphasizing the founders' wealth of experience. In this candid conversation, Al's personal journey unfolds, shedding light on the pivotal role of strategic partnerships, the transformative power of technology, and the unique touch that sets Axis Commercial apart in the commercial Aquatics and construction sector. - RB Fast Facts Location: Princeton, TX Specialty: Aquatics Construction Founded: 2022 Al Mondoux CFO Upcoming Events Featured Articles Industry Tech Outlook magazine: 10 Most Admired Leaders 2024 Event: The Power of Power BI, webinar Date: Thursday, April 11th Time: 11:00 a.m. CST Register: www.sysconinc.com/events -- 6 of 6 -