Hosted VoIP service is Voice Over Internet Service that is provided by a third party for businesses with any number of phone extensions. The provider is responsible for equipment installation, software, operations facilities and technical expertise so as to enable the client to enjoy the benefits of an IP-enabled phone system. A hosted VoIP service provides a “virtual IP PBX” for an organization eliminating the need for a physical PBX. All calls are transported over the Internet, and telephone functions such as voice mail, call routing and call forwarding are performed on the provider’s computers. Administration is usually handled via a Web interface. The provider hosts the voice server and messaging hardware off-site at his datacenter. The clients make and receive calls, check voice messages online, filter incoming calls, add new employees to the system in minutes, etc. Hosted VoIP is tailored for small and medium-size businesses with limited IT resources who want to avoid the complexity and hassles of an in-house modern telephone system by opting for a third-party service provider.

Some of the major advantages of hosted VoIP services can be enumerated as,

Lower initial capital outlay as no VoIP hardware or software purchasing cost has to be incurred.

Seamless and transparent integration with most legacy systems, resulting in an easy changeover from traditional telephone system to VoIP. Client’s ability to increase and decrease capacity in accordance with business requirements such as seasonal peaks and financial downturns.

More adaptable than an in-house solution as it allows features to be added and changes to be made to accommodate the needs of the client’s business growth.

Participation of a company’s internal staff is not required, thereby savings in terms of human resource.

All troubleshooting is conducted remotely, eliminating the need for service calls and subsequent wait time. Provider ensures that clients enjoy access to the latest technology and that equipments do not become obsolete thus providing cutting-edge solutions. 24 x 7 monitoring by experienced staff ensures constant peak performance. Services are contracted and based on monthly charges or fixed flat-rate billing. Easier budgetary accommodation is possible due to predictable operating expenses. Many hosted VoIP services include value-add capabilities.

Because hosted VoIP services feature a service-level agreement, clients are assured that a hosted VoIP system will continue to perform at peak efficiency when faced with security threats, business continuity and disaster recovery.

All the above parameters point to the fact that hosted VoIP services are cost-effective has a lower Total Cost of Ownership, scalability and reliability

Sage Line 50 is an industry-standard software solution for finance and accounting management. Sage Line 50 contain all necessary accounting modules and is designed to reduce data entry thereby reduce human errors and save time and efficient business management. Apart from being a comprehensive accounting system Sage Line 50 also takes care of many other business processes.

Sage Line 50 has 4 main modules namely, Customer Process, Supplier Process, Stock Process and Analysis Process.

The sub-modules under each of this are-

Customer Processes:-

Sales Orders: Contains records of customer orders and their status, such as, items ordered but not yet supplied items on back order. It helps to identify outstanding orders and to prepare data for generation of delivery notes and invoices.

Invoicing: The invoicing sub-module allows you to create the customer invoices and is linked to the Customer Ledger for direct updates. It is also linked with the Stock Ledger.

Customer Ledger: The customer ledger records all transaction between the company and its customers.

Credit Control: The Credit control generates Credit Control letters and Statements for timely collection. It is based on ageing analysis of outstanding dues.

Receipt of Payment and Bank Reconciliation

Supplier Process:-

Purchase Order: The purchase order processing system allows entry of purchase orders. On receipt of the invoice the purchase order is updated into the purchase ledger.

Goods Receipt: After the goods arrive, the purchase order is updated and when necessary updates the Stock ledger by making relevant entries.

Receipt of Invoice: Invoices are checked against purchase orders and delivery notes by updating the purchase order into the Supplier Ledger.

Payment: This module provides various payment options such as Bank A/c transfer, payment through Online Banking, check or demand draft.

Bank Reconciliation

Stock Process:-

Goods Receipt, Goods Dispatch, Inventory Checking and Adjustments

Analysis Process:-

Reports, statements and analysis of: Fixed Assets & Depreciation, Accruals and Prepayments, Salary and Wages, VAT Reconciliation, Stock Valuation, WIP (Work in progress), Budget analysis, audit trail, etc.

The higher version Sage 200 Financials modules contain management analysis in greater depth, transactional analysis, advanced currency handling, Microsoft Excel integration, etc.

Both Sage Line 50 and 200 are available as hosted services. As with other hosted services it is cost-effective, requires no capital outlay, highly configurable to the client’s needs and takes care of all accounting functions of an organization. Being a web-based hosted service, the client can access it from any location.

The prerequisites for any business nowadays are the IT department and the PBX. In the modern electronic age no business can operate without them. Ironically all corporate decision-making and management actions have to be conducted where these facilities are available, namely the corporate office. In other words one does not have the freedom to conduct one’s business from just any place one likes. This static business environment has changed with SaaS and VoIP based services.

Basing the IT infrastructure in software as a service (SaaS) could help businesses operate with lower costs and help them grow. The SaaS model has already becoming popular with many software companies and application providers offering human resources, accounting, procurement, billing, customer relationship management (CRM), sales and marketing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and business intelligence (BI) services. With SaaS based services, the job of installing and maintaining an application, monitoring reliability, ensuring high availability, etc., are all handled by the provider. SaaS users do not have to pay for hardware, installation and maintenance charges, software licensing charges and the cost of IT infrastructure. SaaS offers pay-as-you-use pricing that allows organizations to use cutting-edge technology. Businesses now have a choice of hosted services at their disposal, only to be accessed through a web browser and a secure internet connection. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere.

Hosted VoIP service is Voice Over Internet Service that is provided by a third party for businesses with any number of phone extensions. All calls are transported over the Internet, and telephone functions such as voice mail, call routing and call forwarding are performed on the provider’s computers. Administration is usually handled via a Web interface. The clients make and receive calls, check voice messages online, filter incoming calls, add new employees to the system in minutes, etc. Some of the major advantages of hosted VoIP services are similar to those of SaaS based services, such as, lower initial capital outlay as no VoIP hardware or software purchasing cost has to be incurred, client’s ability to increase and decrease capacity in accordance with business requirements, clients enjoy access to the latest technology and services are contracted and based on monthly charges or fixed flat-rate billing. Like Saas, the user can access the service from any location.

These services have truly changed the way businesses can be conducted as one is no more tied down to the corporate office for business information and communication.

Windows Small Business Server 2008 includes Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint and Microsoft SQL Server, bundled with anti-virus, spam protection and a comprehensive data backup service.

The main reasons because of which the hosted SBS is beneficiary to small scale business are:

• Affordable, All-in-One Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint Services, SQL Server and more.
• Now you can get a fully managed enterprise-class e-mail and messaging solution
• Small business price
• Totally customized to your business.
• Easy migration path from a premise Windows servers to a hosted SBS 2008 system.
• Your licensed software or SPLA (rented) licenses

Another advantage of SBS 2008 is that it is always up and running. All SBS servers are backed by an ironclad SLA that guarantees continuous availability. So there is minimum chance of lose of data due to any reasons.

In this age of globalization we need to travel from one place to another regularly. It is impossible to carry all the vital information with us. So anytime anywhere access of our data is the key for success. This is the main advantage of hosted SBS 2008. With SBS 2008 one can connect to critical e-mail, calendar and contact information from any Windows XP Pro or Vista PC, MAC 10.4+, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 5.0+, Blackberry 4.0+,iPhone, or any device with Microsoft Active Sync to Exchange through the Internet. The only limitation being the speed of the internet connection.

SBS 2008 also reduces the operation cost of the business. With a dedicated hosted SBS server, there’s no need to store your critical e-mail and business data on a system shared with other companies. You can configure and customize the solutions to meet your unique business requirements.

There are optional services also which the business unit can opt for. The optional services are:

• Advanced Backup Solution for Microsoft Exchange and SQL
• Server Additional Backup Storage
• Terminal Server and Office Professional 2007
• Firewall Appliance
• Remote SBS Administration
• Remote PC Management

]]> http://www.host-it.ie/blogs/?feed=rss2&p=114 0 http://www.host-it.ie/blogs/?p=111 http://www.host-it.ie/blogs/?p=111#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:45:19 +0000 amit http://www.host-it.ie/blogs/?p=111 In today’s internet-savvy business world, email is regularly being used as a means of communication. Needless to say, such emails contain vital and extremely important information, which may need to be referred to in future.

While email has become a critical component of the business environment, it brings with it a plethora of new problems, ranging from storage limits, spam and virus filtering to access to old emails for regulatory compliance or eDiscovery requests. Associated with email are other interpersonal communication applications such as calendars, contacts, and tasks. Emails should be properly managed with sophisticated messaging tools. Such tools provide almost instant and efficient access, so that these can be recalled at a moment’s notice.

Exchange Server is the world’s most popular email and messaging solution. “Exchange” is a computer server that centrally stores a business’s email, files, task lists, and calendar and contact information. People in the organization can access all these through Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web Access on any internet-enabled office PC, laptop, or mobile device. Exchange as a messaging tool increases business efficiency and productivity. In-house deployment of an Exchange Server in any company translates to high capital layout in the form of implementation and maintenance costs. Thus most organizations are unable to benefit from its use except enterprise-level businesses with mission critical data. Hosted Exchange has brought this enterprise-class application to the reach of even the smallest of businesses. Hosted Exchange is a solution in which the Exchange Server hardware and software are hosted as a service and made available to any business over the Internet. The solution is fully managed and maintained by a third-party hosted Exchange provider. Like any other hosted services, the cost-effectiveness of a hosted Exchange is due to factors such as no capital expenses of hardware and software costs, no investment in IT staff for monitoring and maintenance, guaranteed uptime for access to data 24 X 7 and redeployment of existing IT staff to more productive areas. With hosted Exchange, all the messaging functionalities are available without any of the usual in-house administrative hassles.

Major features of a hosted Exchange are centrally stored data, mobile access for handhelds and mobile devices like BlackBerry, iPhone, etc., shared Calendars, shared Task Lists, shared Contacts, Outlook Web Access for “Anywhere/Anytime” access to full Outlook mailbox from any web browser – at home or on move, security features, software upgrades and support for virtual environments.

More and more businesses are opting in a big way for hosted Exchange to take advantage of administrative simplicity and peace of mind.

Systems employing virtualization need a sophisticated level of protection. Thus virtual machine technologies require special disaster recovery and availability solutions to protect against data loss. Such solutions must employ server virtualization at their end and should be able to easily take over the job of the client’s production servers, thereby almost eliminating any appreciable downtime.

Virtualized datacenters and virtualized DR solutions have been employed by enterprise-level businesses till now and could not be afforded within the limited budget of SMEs. Cloud-based services have overcome this constraint. According to Wikipedia, “Cloud computing is Internet (”cloud”) based development and use of computer technology (”computing”)”. Cloud computing allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as it needs and the user requires no more infrastructure than a computer and an internet connection. Using cloud services clients can use applications without installation and access their personal data. This technology has made possible much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. Marked improvement in server virtualization, distributed computing and high-speed internet have contributed to the birth of cloud computing technology. Software-as-a-Service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software product and has a front-end interface to interact with the client. SaaS can range from human resource to inventory control to ERP. Benefits of using cloud services are, to name a few, no capital expenditure, pricing on pay-as-you-use basis, minimum infrastructure of client in the form of a PC or mobile and an internet connection, can be accessed from any location, reliable and secure.

Cutting-edge technologies like virtualization are now truly within the reach of SMEs thanks to the advent of the cloud.

Benefits of SAAS service model are:

Subscription based payments – SAAS is priced as a subscription model. Businesses only pay for the users who have benefited from the software during each month. This eliminates large initial payments and annual license, support and maintenance charges.

Third party hosted – Investing in expensive infrastructure is no longer required since SAAS software applications are now hosted by the provider. There are no capital costs for hardware, licenses, databases or IT support staff or software and hardware maintenance and upgrades. Software applications are accessed via a web browser or a mobile device via a wireless network connection keeping customer’s IT requirements simple and low cost.

Predefined costs – SAAS provides agreed predefined fixed charges. This helps to project and predict the annual costs while planning for the annual budget.

Multi-Tenant Efficiency – Some SAAS solutions use multi-tenant architecture. The cost of all software and infrastructure is shared by a large number of customers. This makes the solution more cost effective.

Location-independent Accessibility – Being Internet based, SAAS applications are accessible not only in the office but from any location with an internet link.

Flexibility and Scalability – SAAS provides businesses with a high level of flexibility and scalability. Since, the software solution is delivered via the Internet; SAAS requires the minimum of infrastructure at the customer’s end. Also as the business grows you can request your service provider to add more users.

Availability and Security – SAAS providers ensure uninterrupted reliable services with regular data backups, and information security. Redundant networks stand-by power, up-to-date security and intrusion detection necessary factors provided by SAAS services.

Exchange Server is the world’s most popular email and messaging solution. “Exchange” is a computer server that centrally stores a business’s email, files, task lists, and calendar and contact information. People in the organization can access all these through Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web Access on any internet-enabled office PC, laptop, or mobile device. Exchange as a messaging tool increases business efficiency and productivity. Deployment of an Exchange Server in an organization entails high implementation and maintenance costs. This constraint puts off most companies except enterprise-level businesses with mission critical data, to benefit from its use. With the advent of Hosted Exchange this scenario has changed so that even the smallest of businesses can enjoy an enterprise-class service. Hosted Exchange is a solution in which the Exchange Server hardware and software are hosted as a service and made available to any business over the Internet. The solution is fully managed and maintained by a third-party hosted Exchange provider. The cost-effectiveness of a hosted Exchange can be ascribed to factors such as elimination of capital expenses of hardware and software costs, no investment in IT staff for monitoring and maintenance, guaranteed uptime for access to data 24 X 7 and redeployment of existing IT staff to more productive issues.

Perhaps the prime advantages of hosted Exchange are administrative simplicity and peace of mind. With hosted Exchange, all the messaging functionality can be availed of with none of the administrative burden.

Major features of a hosted Exchange are centrally stored data, mobile access for handhelds like BlackBerry, iPhone, or other mobile devices., shared Calendars, shared Task Lists, shared Contacts, Outlook Web Access for “Anywhere/Anytime” access to full Outlook mailbox from any web browser – at home or on move, server, network, and infrastructure security features,

Software upgrades and security patches and support for virtual environments. It is no wonder that more and more businesses are opting for hosted Exchange.

The main reasons for small scale industries to use Small business server 2008 are:

• Newest releases of all the SBS 2008 technology components, designed together      for an optimal experience for small businesses
• Vastly improved support for line-of-business applications for your favorite CRM (customer relationship marketing), accounting, or manufacturing database      software, and designed to sit on a second server (SBS 2008 Premium)
• Updated, easier-to-use management console now organized by business tasks.
• Streamlined setup and deployment to reduce the cost of deploying and maintaining your network
• Updated anti spam protection for improved security
• New disaster recovery capabilities with PC and server backup and recovery
• Redesigned monitoring and reporting features for PC, server, and even antivirus status
• Streamlined interface for remote access capabilities to easily access e-mail,     contacts, calendar, desktop resources, and now even Microsoft SharePoint files     from one easy-to-use location
• Improved internal company Web site capabilities for better list management, plus wikis and blogs
• Integration with new Microsoft Office Live Small Business 2 for everything you     need to take, promote, and manage a business on the Internet

SBS 2008 also reduces the operation cost of the business. With a dedicated hosted SBS server, there’s no need to store your critical e-mail and business data on a system shared with other companies. You can configure and customize the solutions to meet your unique business requirements.

In this age of globalization we need to travel from one place to another regularly. It is impossible to carry all the vital information with us. So anytime anywhere access of our data is the key for success. This is the main advantage of hosted SBS 2008. With SBS 2008 one can connect to critical e-mail, calendar and contact information from any Windows XP Pro or Vista PC, MAC 10.4+, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 5.0+, Blackberry 4.0+,iPhone, or any device with Microsoft Active Sync to Exchange through the Internet.

One of the pioneers and leaders in CRM solutions is the Maximizer CRM. Opting for hosted Maximizer CRM is the best way to efficiently manage customer relation. Like other hosted services it eliminates the capital cost of hardware and software purchase, reduces IT staff requirement, can be implemented immediately without any hassle, and has simple monthly payment plan. Developed as a web-based application, hosted Maximizer CRM offers several access options including web, desk top application (terminal services), and mobile access. CRM software consolidates all customer information and processes into one, consolidated view of each customer. This enables employees in sales, marketing and customer service, to arrive at quick, effective decisions on marketing strategies and problem resolution. It seamlessly integrates with existing business tools like Microsoft Outlook and Office, and other popular accounting applications. Maximizer CRM is highly configurable and can be adapted to meet the specific needs of the client’s business and enables business managers and executives to review the business performance with the use of dashboards and reports. Some of the more critical modules of hosted Maximizer CRM are sales opportunity management, communication, scheduling, reporting, document management, marketing campaign management, customer service, etc.

Hosted Maximizer CRM enables businesses to: Create improved relationships with customers through more effective target marketing, increase customer loyalty thereby ensuring repeat business, automate business processes and repetitive tasks, helps corporate decision making by providing information and analysis of staff and business performance.

Using hosted Maximizer CRM benefits businesses in the form of: Increased revenue, higher ROI, increased productivity, improved service response time,  more number of successful deals, better internal communications, more accurate sales forecasts, improved level of customer service, ability to create comprehensive customer profiles, fast account history access, etc.

Deploying hosted Maximizer CRM in your business can be one of the wisest corporate decisions by you.