Category: Technology

States look to the cloud for more revenue in 2015

With over 12,000 jurisdictions in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands of rule changes annually, sales tax is a moving target in the best of times. Managing sales tax accurately requires a level of expertise many companies simply don’t possess. And 2015 is shaping up to be an even thornier year for sales tax compliance.

In addition to the usual suspects—constantly shifting nexus rules, product and service taxability changes, etc.—states are working even harder to capture untapped sales tax revenue in 2015. One place they’re looking is the cloud.

February 2, 2015

Improve Your Custom Software with Test Driven Development

In this blog, I would like to discuss a topic that is often overlooked and not because of lack of available literature, there is tons of materials and books available, but because it really has to do with a state of mind, an open mind and realizing the benefits in the long run. Working as a software developer for the past 14 years has given me a lot of situations and food for thought on how to improve and deliver software that is high quality and well tested.

January 26, 2015

3 quick tips to reduce audit risk

Growing your business? Congratulations! Business growth is major backbone of the US economy and you should be proud of your success. Unfortunately, business growth usually comes with some pretty complex tax obligations and audit risk. Before you take expansion too far, understand how it affects your tax obligations and what you can do to keep risk in check. Here are 3 quick ways you can limit audit exposure as you expand:

December 16, 2014

KTL becomes a Platinum Partner

Frederick, MD – KTL Solutions, a leading Microsoft Dynamics and Acumatica partner, is pleased to announce their Platinum partnership with Solver USA. Solver is a leading provider of complete BI solutions for today’s mid-market enterprise and the company is at the forefront of Business Intelligence (BI) technology for cloud and on-premise ERPs.

December 10, 2014

Making the Case for Microsoft SharePoint

So you have probably heard it all when it comes to SharePoint, huh?

Throughout my Client ventures, I still hear the questions, “Well, what can SharePoint do for me?” “Our business is too small, does it make sense for us to deploy?” “What hardware or resources will I need?” “What’s my ROI?” and finally, “Can we use that in the cloud?”

In past years, SharePoint was a larger on-Premise more complicated platform that needed Administration, Developers, Maintenance, Site managers, and sometimes full team collaboration to make a successful best practices deployment and positive user experiences. This is still needed in some environments, but clearly some things have changed.

December 1, 2014

How to Balance Your Consulting Life Without Going Crazy

A long time ago I started a family and after taking some time off work completely, I was ready to get back to into the game. However, being a mom, I did not want to have a typical 9 to 5 job because I needed to be available to take my kids to school as well as continue to be the main caregiver. I eventually took a job doing consulting work. Consulting, to me, makes me think of having some freedom within your schedule and not the typical 9 to 5 hours. (A testament to this statement is that it is currently 9pm on a Monday and I am writing this. The down side is that I left my house to go to work at 7am this morning and am still working.) But I do enjoy my job. It consists of new implementations, software upgrades, training, and support. Something new that challenges me everyday. But the question still remains (and sometimes, I still struggle with) is how does one handle the process of juggling the demand of multiple clients, multiple projects, and a family life outside of work?

November 24, 2014

3 fundamental steps to build a Top Notch Software

Creating a software is an art, and here at KTL, we take it seriously!

Building software that meets business requirements is quite a tedious process. It involves various disciplines to come together in order to gather requirements, design, code, test and deploy. The journey of a software does not end here, in fact it is just set on a long sail and is expected to do its duty and perform here on. This is when the durability of the software is tested and it is rated as mediocre or class apart. I am going to discuss a few principles that we follow to make a software that customers want to ‘Take Home’ and ‘Keep’.

November 21, 2014

Dynamics ISVs…Use Your Partner!

In previous blogs, I have touched on the sheer number of Dynamics ERP ISVs (third party products). They are great tools to add on to an accounting system, however choosing out of the thousands can be a daunting task. Implementing them can also be quite an undertaking. It involves multiple systems, and should involve several parties, not just the ISV but also your Dynamics Partner and IT personnel/company. All too often us partners get calls from clients saying they have purchased a product that was supposed to solve all their problems and now they have no clue how to use it and their ERP is crashing.

November 17, 2014

Tax rate tables + ZIP codes = disaster. Here’s why.

Here’s a not-so-fun fact: A large percentage of businesses in the United States have rate tables in their ERP system with rates based on ZIP codes. In fact, you might be one of them. Unfortunately, this method can give you inaccurate rates, landing you in trouble with customers and taxing authorities. Here’s why:

The U.S. Postal Service developed Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) codes in the 1960s, so mail could be delivered more efficiently. What many people don’t know is that these “zones” can not only overlap each other, they can be adjusted and, sometimes, they might not represent a geographic region at all. In any given year, the USPS makes numerous boundary changes to ZIP code areas, making them an unstable data source. Most importantly, tax jurisdictions do NOT correspond with ZIP code regions. That means basing sales tax rates on a ZIP code risks applying not only an incorrect sales tax rate, but remitting it to the incorrect jurisdiction.

November 12, 2014

3 Steps to See if You are Web Client Ready

If you are involved in the Microsoft Dynamics world, in any capacity, chances are you have heard the latest buzzword “web client” quite a bit as of late. However, there are three key factors everyone should know about the web client before you call your VAR and tell them you are ready.

November 5, 2014