Start-ups come with their own set of excitements and vexing issues. New ventures arise from innovative or passionate ideas but need diligence and dedication to transform them into a business to reckon about. Many such innovative start-ups have already set a mark on the global market.

Do you wonder what were the parameters through which they could keep track of their own rate of growth? As objectives can differ from business to business the indicators of performance levels also differ correspondingly.

Accounting is the backbone of any business and vital for any estimation, planning, implementation, or strategizing. But, this one word is not as easy as it sounds. Accounting always involves complex financial management of all the aspects of transactions incurred in a business setup. 

But, thanks to the consultants and solution developers, accounting and reporting have become an easy experience even for startups, through cloud software like Sage X3.

A proper accounting system is required to analyze the bookkeeping records to generate the estimation reports on a monthly basis. Similarly, small businesses also rely on these estimations to review their curve of growth. 

There are some metrics that are specific to particular types of businesses to estimate their performance ratings. But, let us discuss briefly, some of the metrics or the key performance indicators (KPI) which are common in the estimation process of any business to resolve your start-up blues.

Businesses run on the quality of services provided to the demands of customers. In other words, customer satisfaction is the foundation for any business to grow. So, increasing monthly recurring revenue is an indicator of retained customers who have the potential to become loyal customers or achieve their patronage.

The common objective of every enterprise, big or small is to retain customers and prevent loss of their orders or churn. So, an increase in repetitive revenue through particular customers instead of one-time sales is one of the common metrics of good performance. 

It helps to plan on adding new employees to the team or encourage good performers with incentives. 

 KPI 1: Total Sales Revenue Generated

Monthly accounting of total revenue generated through sales of products through each customer is the critical metric to gauge the performance levels. The revenue generated has to be deducted by the number of orders returned or canceled. 

The resultant indicates –

• quality of service on orders placed, 
• performances of each employee, 
• quality of a product which could retain customer satisfaction or lost orders etc

The objective is to assess the rate of growth in sales revenue or resolve the issues for any decrease in revenue generation.

KPI 2: Investment in Customer Procurement (CAC)

Every business thrives on a steady increase in the number of potentially loyal customers. The number of new customer acquisitions can grow through strategy tips of analyzing customer interests and promoting products accordingly through social media or other consultation sessions or cold emails etc.

The objective is to keep Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC minimum as much as possible through simple yet effective intelligent strategies while maintaining a steady growth in the procured customers.

KPI 3: Profit Margin

Revenue generated each month is not the metric of your Net profit. Total monthly revenue has to be deducted by all the debits like –

• Cost of delivery, transportation, packaging, etc of sold goods
• Cost of promoting products, CAC, etc
• Expenses of insurance, repayment of dues, wages, etc

The resultant figure gives the Net Income or Bottom line. The objective is to architect your business infrastructure such as to keep a steady rise in the graph of Net Profit while the total debits have to be kept stable. 

The percentage of growth in the Net profit out of the revenue generated gives the Net Margin. It indicates the consistent stability and potential to grow or expand further. A low-Profit Margin demands change in the marketing strategy or overall assessment of quality services.

KPI 4: Gross Margin

Gross margin gives an estimate of the productivity of your business and is dependent on the gross profits. It also indicates the revenue generated through some products when compared to others which in turn indexes the quality of each.

Gross profits are the figures calculated after deducting only the cost of sold goods out of the sales revenue. The objective is to again keep the Gross margin on a steady rise.

While there are other KPIs that are specific to each type of business, the above metrics fairly measure the growth of your start-up. It helps in cost-effective strategizing and expansion or reassessment of employee performances or individual products. 

On the other hand, integrating all the bookkeeping to accounting for the KPIs is quite time-consuming and may result in missed opportunities for productive implementation of all your planning. Time is of the essence in every business growth.
Keeping pace with the fast digital world is another key to the growth of any business. So, to reduce the time consumed in financials and be at par with digitalization, optimize your accounting through automated Enterprise Resource Planning software, like Sage X3. To know more get a consultation @IWI Group.

Food and beverage business is one of a kind industry that makes more profit but with a lot of effort involved when compared to other industries. However, the most crucial part of management is all about handling wastes associated within the process. The food supply chain becomes more sustainable when the waste management is done right. It is normally considered as an overhead cost by the decision makers and seems to be low in fraction. But the truth is, waste unnoticed has a greater impact on the bottom line of the business. Once these get traction in the decision making process, it can make a heavy movement towards upward growth. 

It is always easy to advise but to say how to do it, needs a master in that industry. Because, the operational actions to reduce wastage involves right planning and orderliness. Having said this, we are here to help you to understand the ground reality with the right key to solve the issue. The first step all you need to improve efficiency is that you need to find where the lag is. We are discussing the problem areas and the management tips to solve them.

Overstocking

The Food and Beverage Industry does not see a steady supply and demand, it usually faces violent fluctuations. It’s always been a problem to ensure appropriate stock levels. Maybe we cannot increase manufacturing speed that ends up in raw material spoilage or sales might cause your finished product to remain at the warehouse. 

The ability to foresee consumer demand with high precision reduces overstocking thereby reducing waste. Therefore making use of good business intelligence software to accurately forecast the demand can actually be an immediate solution to reduce wastage. Sage X3 comes with that kind of robust technology with business intelligence to help you reduce overstocking. 

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Cross Contamination

During manufacturing or logistics, cross-contamination may happen through mishandling. There may be allergens or microscopic particle leaks out to the ingredients. This is the most important factor to consider because even a small leakage may have an adverse effect on bulk stocks. The problem is being addressed in every manufacturing unit and a solution is still under development.

It can be a warehouse or the process units, unless the protocols and SOP are set at high standards, cross-contaminations are unavoidable. The commitment to safe food handling relies on actively tracking the operations and distribution. Sage X3 has it all! The tracking functions in sage, for e.g. allergen tracking system makes it to track and warn to move out before they get spoiled.

Production Loss

These are inevitable losses which would need awareness but cannot be 100% eliminated. It may be the residues on equipment, or spill outs that are considered to be negligible. Practically, these wastes are  not negligible but tracking this right will have a considerable impact on loss reduction. 

Production losses are always unavoidable but in that case, having a clear picture of where exactly the losses are, help to innovate better or to take necessary actions. Henceforth, awareness about food waste is more important. Sage X3 tracks the entire process and enlightens about the losses occurred during the process. This insight is yet another seed to reduce wastage 

When it comes to wastage or loss, it is because of non consideration. Moreover, it is not negligible, it is because of a lack of systematic approach towards tracking. When a timely forecast is made, overstocking can be traced, the most unknown production loss identifying where the loss actually occurs is exactly traced. Even though the production losses are non-mitigatable, enlightenment about the system to the decision makers, allows them to strategically approach further losses. Sage X3 built with robust technology has traceability tools which are user friendly with high precision. 

Sage X3 is a tailored fit software offering unique advantages in the food and beverage businesses. Expiration management, bulk stock management and process information are few important features of Sage X3 that allows you to automate and process without you in place to manage everyday. The data and the insights that are available at one fingertip makes it a user friendly option to resolve waste management challenges. 

To have a practical experience, visit the https://iwigroup.ca/software/sage-x3/ and get a free demo. 

Why do Businesses Choose Sage Intacct?

One of the most important business decisions for any organization is deciding which business management solution to adopt. Sage Intacct is a leading cloud ERP solution and is particularly popular with small to medium-sized businesses.

As a solutions partner, IWI Consulting Group helps growing businesses implement ERP solutions every day. By employing an effective discovery process, IWI Consulting Group is perfectly positioned to uncover crucial insights into an organization’s unique requirements based on its growth strategies, challenges, markets, and information management. The choice of ERP solution is so important because choosing the right solution directly impacts whether the business will climb the ladder to ultimate success and mastery.

Why is Sage Intacct so popular with burgeoning small to medium-sized businesses? Here are four of the most common reasons businesses choose Sage Intacct:

Reason1: Licensing Flexibility

One of the most important features cited by businesses about Sage Intacct lies in its licensing flexibility. Not all users in an organization require the same level of access to Sage Intacct.  Sage Intacct offers licensing options that range from users requiring full access to casual uses that don’t require full access. What this means is that an organization needn’t pay the same licensing fee for a user that only requires access on an infrequent or limited basis as a user that incorporates Sage Intacct in every aspect of their workflow. Essentially, with Sage Intacct, the organization only pays for what it uses!

Reason2: Cloud-Native Implementation

A cloud-native solution has many benefits. With a cloud-native solution, there is no need to install software on servers locally and then maintain those servers and software. It is a fully-managed service and thus Sage takes care of all the underlying infrastructure, so you don’t have to. With a cloud-native solution then, hardware maintenance is a thing of the past. So there is the ease of maintenance, and your organization is assured of a highly available, reliable, and scalable solution.

Reason3: Partner Integrations

Sage Intacct’s flexibility extends to its integration capabilities. Sage Intacct Marketplace integrates with over 200 partners for a comprehensive and extensible solution that meets the various requirements of every business and helps future-proof your business as your business requirements change and grow over time. Sage Intacct integrates with partners that help with payroll, point of sale, tax management, time and expense, CRM, e-commerce, inventory management, finance and admin, and business management. Over 75% of Sage Intacct customers have seamlessly integrated multiple Marketplace solutions!

Reason4: Flexible and Powerful Chart of Accounts

Most solutions implement a hardcoded structure for an organization’s chart of accounts. Consider, to track 4 locations, 5 departments, and 5 projects, an organization would require 100 account code combinations! The result is an overly complicated and unwieldy set of codes. Furthermore, if a new location or department needs to be added, it could wind up forcing the business to add hundreds of accounts. Instead, Sage Intacct helps simplify your organization’s chart of accounts. All that is required is that your business configure a set of primary account codes. Sage Intacct supports tagging transactions and operational data using dimensions, offering a unique and flexible way to track and report data, while simultaneously simplifying the organization’s chart of account. By tagging with dimensions rather than using hardcoded accounts Sage Intacct supports adding metadata and context to your business’s data. Once created, a dimension may be used for any transaction.

Food and beverage manufacturing ERP helps drive sustained success and improve operations. Not sure where to start? Our complete F&B ERP guide has you covered.

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