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Innovation is the outcome of a habit, not a random act.

Posted on by Priyadharshan S

I had just been to Madurai for a client meeting which did go well and post that, I decided to visit the World Famous Historic Meenakshi Amman temple which is located in the heart of the city of “Madurai”.

I’ve been a frequent visitor to this temple since my childhood and trust me when I say this, “I was truly amazed at how even the historic temple has adapted to the technology advancements”

Hindu temples usually do not allow us to enter with any electronic items. So the key observation of my trip was the fastness in the queue to enter the temple. Earlier, we used to stand for hours in a long queue so that the staff can manually make a note of our names and the electronic gadgets we have left with them on a book to get past the gate. This was time consuming and exhaustive process.

Today, I am happy that they have embraced technology, and the process is much faster. They request us to place the gadgets in a shelf, then capture a photo of us with our mobile number & the count of gadgets as seen in this picture. Thus, helping save time so we can enter the temple with absolutely no waiting period or any hassles of the no-gadget rule.

 

Token

Technology plays a vital role in various industries and temple is no exception 🙂
Innovation is the outcome of a habit, not a random act.

Why do we love small businesses?

Posted on by Keerthana

I go to both types of shops, one is corner anna tea shop and the other is multichain branded coffee/tea shop.

First Type

Once I reach the Anna Shop, I am welcomed by a pleasant smile as he knows all his regular customers and even before he takes orders, they know each regular customer preferences by heart 🙂

You feel special when he prepares the tea just the way you like – strong, super hot, low on sugar and with lof of foam 🙂
Our Anna can take complex menu preferences for over 10 people at the same time, which makes me adore the smartness.

And when we leave we pay through Gpay and exit with whatever candies we like of our choice at the billing, reminding me of how our childhood habits don’t change much.

We leave with a smile and a refreshing chai taste to keep the long day going. Myself and the anna both know we will meet again tomorrow and eventually we create a bond. He becomes our go-to phone book for all types of contacts required around the area and he is smart enough to go the extra mile to helps his customers.

Experience – I feel “special & delighted” by both their product and services. In small business, the owners and emploeyers are the brand as they are known as Tea-Kada Anna and not by their actual shop name.

Second Type

We walk-in and find ourselves number 7 or 8 on a queue to get the lattes. I wait and observe everything including the rich environment which markets their brand at every glance. My turn comes and I place my order to a new half smile face with a branded logo t-shirt, with the same preferences as that of Tea-Kada anna only difference being they do not know my preferences even if I am a regular 😛

Once its done, we wait for them to call my name to get the orders. The product is just the same taste everytime I order and once in a while there are chances of not getting my order right but that’s okay 🙂
We leave the store feeling privileged and loved by the brand by the look of their brand colors everywhere.

Experience – Product never fails to impress with the same taste we love which makes us go there in the first place but I don’t feel like going there everyday, it can be once in a while thing but definitely does not bring a smile to my face when leaving the store.

The resson for the long post is that, once companies lose the sight of classifying themselves as product oriented brands whilst being in service industry, the customer feels he is not special anymore as the stores feel more special. How nice it would be if the experiences are same at both these shops?

Handdown, I would prefer a small business anyday to make myself feel pampered 🙂
This applies for any business, evaluate based on your needs and choose where you are understood and felt special.

How SMBs Can Become Intelligent Enterprises?

Posted on by Keerthana

The intelligent enterprise is becoming more than a buzzword in the small and midsize business (SMB) industry.

A Forbes report reveals that 48.3% of executives believe that adopting the intelligent enterprise framework can result in trailblazing business models and drive higher efficiency levels. By embracing technology and innovative service paradigms, organizations can generate data-driven insights to harness intellectual capital and gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Unfortunately, transforming a business into an intelligent enterprise can be challenging with evolving workforce needs, changing customer needs, and volatile supply chain costs. Therefore, organizational leaders must have a solid strategy to address these issues and become a business that can compete with industry titans. This article will look at several ways for SMBs to create sustainable systems and become intelligent enterprises.

1.  Define Future Frameworks

The initial and most crucial step towards becoming an intelligent enterprise is accepting challenges or opportunities resulting from upcoming changes. As a business leader, you have to understand why you want to change and create support.

Consider your organization’s future, employees, suppliers, customers, and services, and determine how you can improve your processes.

Outline a framework in which you define future transformation goals and determine how your employees and technology can help you achieve them.

This allows you to map out small yet innovative initiatives that can contribute to working smarter. By creating initiatives, you can develop a broader framework that will deliver higher chances of success in both the short and long term.

2.  Get Everyone on the Same Page

SMBs differ in several ways, but a successful, intelligent enterprise all share the same three pillars:

  1. improving customer interactions,
  2. employee experiences, and
  3. business processes.

Thus, business leaders should get everyone on the same page to initiate changes proactively and remain future-proof. One way of doing that is to center future frameworks and processes on customers and employees.

As the pandemic transforms employees’ and customers’ lives, organizations need to put customers and employees at the center of their business processes to stay ahead of the competition and reduce turnover rates.

It would help if you also understood what are the core principles that make integration a key cornerstone for an intelligent enterprise to merge seamlessly and meet high customer expectations immediately.

Chain integration is a vital component of your future frameworks as it can connect employees, digital processes, and data to multiple departments to work together and deliver better experiences.

3.  Establish Digital Platform

Establishing a functional digital platform is the foundation of an intelligent enterprise. As more organizations deal with a truckload of complicated data by unique storage systems, leaping towards becoming an intelligent enterprise can be tricky. After all, it can be challenging to take the next step when you are struggling to organize through sprawling information stored in different systems.

A strategic approach to combat this data challenge is establishing a robust digital platform that centralizes your data processing and evaluates data instantly to unlock previously hidden insights.

This SAP strategy delivers the intelligent enterprise with the ability to solve even the most complex business issues while simultaneously enabling them to perform advanced analytics efficiently.

It can also supply intelligent organizations with all the tools they need to handle and unify processes and data systems, allowing them to adapt to evolving technology and business conditions continuously.

4.  Take Advantage of Artificial Intelligence

Using emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) is a crucial aspect of becoming an intelligent enterprise. AI for small businesses empowers your workforce to use data to achieve goals quicker and with less risk through integration, automation, and better cognition.

The advantage of AI is that it can automate vast volumes of structured and unstructured data and provide you with immediate insights that can shape business outcomes.

AI can also solve a need that previous analytics could not, thanks to its ability to generate new opportunities to extract information. The transformation to an intelligent enterprise often involves shifting from data gathering and simple evaluation to using increased insights throughout the supply chain and advanced automation to improve business capabilities.

With AI’s help, you can create a data-driven and agile organization where processes and procedures are modernized at a reduced cost to provide better customer experiences.

5.  Use ERP Software Solutions

Taking advantage of an intelligent suite of apps like enterprise resource planning (ERP) is vital in helping SMBs handle all business areas, including travel and expense, finances, supply chain, staff, and customer experience. A dynamic ERP system empowers businesses to convert real-time organization-wide data into actionable insights that can result in more informed and quicker decision-making.

As seismic business changes increase, organizations have to be agile to meet these industry demands to deliver superior customer and workforce experiences consistently.

With an ERP, you can enable automation of business processes and use intelligence-embedded applications to better interact with employees, customers, and stakeholders while promoting efficient and collaborative working. It is, however, important that you pick that right solution since going for alternate and low-priced platforms is often among the reasons ERP implementations fail.

You can check FinancesOnline examples of ERP software solutions to find a platform that can fit your operations and deliver the most bang for your buck.

Becoming an Intelligent Enterprise

Transforming SMBs into intelligent enterprises involves several processes, and it’s easy to get lost in the details. Therefore, business leaders need to use software solutions like ERP platforms to ease the process and provide an intuitive and consistent experience. One of the organizations that can help you with that is Avaniko.

Avaniko is a leading global SAP Business One partner that empowers businesses to implement the most suitable ERP solutions that fit their unique needs. It offers several offerings and services designed for numerous verticals, including distribution, retail, manufacturing, automotive, food production, professional services, and restaurants. Contact the vendor to find out more about these offerings and their prices.

DinoFit

Posted on by admin@avaniko.kurious.in

With the impact of Covid-19, our worries along with our tummies have started growing big!

Governments across the globe have issued lock-down and kept us safe at the comfort of homes. Eating healthy and Fitness have become the new buzz words during the Covid crisis.

To our bit of adding fitness routine to our employees and also extending the same as a mobile application to our customers’ business – We have launched an innovative application #DINOFIT.

What does this app do?
Based on the in-built Google Chrome T-Rex (Dinosaur) Game, this game will be connected to your laptop camera. Using Machine Learning, each jump of an individual will be synced to the T-Rex for accumulation of points in the game.

Pre-requisite:
Avaniko’s Web or Mobile Application
Laptop with a functioning camera

Logic: The logical reasoning of the points accumulation in the game can be of nature suitable to the business requirement. It can be either used for internal employee motivation or external business or customer retention through loyalty points.

Add some fun & fitness to the lock-down routine!

DinoFit – Powered by Avaniko

GST E-Invoice Management using SAP Business One

Posted on by Anand Krishnamoorthy

Electronic Invoicing is a new Jargon in India. Indian Government has made it mandatory for companies with more than 100 Crores to do electronic invoicing from April 1st, 2020.

Business are supposed to generate E- invoices before shipment of the products. The Invoices will be electronically authenticated by the government.  This method of invoicing is already in practice in Latam countries like Chile, Brazil, Argentina etc.

E-way bill might become redundant as both the Electronic Invoicing and the E-way bill will serve the same purpose. Electronic invoicing will be much effective than E-way bill as the GSTR 2A reconciliation process will be easier. The Vendors needs not wait for the buyers to upload their returns and based on the E-invoicing Process the reconciliation can take place.

Eventually, Electronic Invoicing will be become mandatory for all the companies over a period of time. One of the advantages with the Electronic invoicing is that the same document can also be electronically used by the buyer to do the accounting in their books by making few tweaks.

So, it’s time for all the companies to prepare for the Electronic Invoicing to avoid the last-minute preparations like we did for GST.

Please also find the link to the India government documentation on the Electronic Invoicing.

https://tutorial.gst.gov.in/downloads/finalpublishingeinvoicewithfaqsforportal.pdfhttps://tutorial.gst.gov.in/downloads/eInvoicetemplateforpublication.xlsx

SAP Business One 9.3 Feature Spotlight Return Materials Authorization (RMA)

Posted on by Sudhir

Return Request (For Sales) and Goods Return request (For Purchase) document was introduced by SAP in the version 9.3.

Return request document called as RMA in business terms is a request document from the sales team to receive the inventory in the warehouse. It acts as a formalised request for the inventory team to know, what’s expected to receive in the warehouse.

Below is a screenshot of RMA Document in SAP Business One.

Based on the request, the inventory team can create the Return and the accounting team can create the credit note for the customer.

SAP maintains the relationship of documents created from the return request. The Return request can also be created based on the sales Invoice.

Similarly, Goods return request in SAP Business One 9.3 Version will work for the Purchase related transactions.

Tax Collected at Source ( TCS )

Posted on by Anand Krishnamoorthy

TCS which refers to the Tax collection at source. The seller must collect the tax from the buyer to remit to the government. Indian Government has introduced TCS on sale of the products with effect from 1st October 2020.

Applicability: 

  • for the sellers, whose turnover exceeds 10 crores. 
  • applicable on all goods sold. Its not applicable on services which attract TDS.
  • On Sales to the buyers who have bought more than 50 Lakhs in the financial year.

Amount of Tax 

  • .075 % of the sales value more than 50 Lakhs. 1% if the PAN is not submitted by the buyer.

Time of Payment 

The Tax is payable only when the seller receives the Money. Unlike GST, its not due at the time of raising the invoice.

Challenges in SAP Business one. 

The taxes are levied on the invoice which is accounted as liability at the time of invoicing. However, the actual liability arises only when we receive the payment. We need to build a report on the incoming payment to calculate the actual liability and manually post the journal entries.

SAP India is working on the solution, which will be released in the next patch level which is expected in November 2020.

Mexico Electronics Invoice Integration

Posted on by Balaji

Mexico  government has made Mandatory  the use of e-invoices for large taxpayers. Earlier invoice was issued in paper but now the process has been  designed around Digital Tax Receipt on the Internet (CFDI) electronic invoice which is made up of an XML file and a PDF File.

This is digitally certified by the Mexican Tax Administration Service (SAT). Before We go deeper first we need to know what is E-Invocie , PAC & Peidmento

Electronic Invoice is a generic name provided to all Digital Invoice Documents (CFD or CFDI). Some examples of CFDs and CFDIs are bills, invoices for professional services, lease receipts, bills of lading, credit notes and debit notes.

An Authorized E-invoicing Certification Provider (PAC) is a certification provider that has been authorized by Mexican Tax Administration Service SAT to stamp the Invoice Digitally. PACs provide mandatory validation and Stamped services through a web service. It is mandatory in Mexico to use a PAC for performing the stamping operations for CFDIs only.

Mexico government’s rule is that, when a company in Mexico imports goods from outside Mexico, the company needs to keep track of the Import Invoice Number (Pedimento) , date, and place of importation and linking to the inventory while doing goods receipt. Having the Pedimento details make that the goods has been legally Imported in Mexico.

On our Mexico implementation we Integrated SAP Business one with one of the authorized e-invoicing services provider and we seamlessly generate the E-Invoice from SAP Business one and transmit it to e-invoicing services provider to get digitally certified & generate UUID.

In this process we capture the Pedimento information in SAP Business one during inbound process. And the same information is shared to e-invoicing services provider for the corresponding items when we  issue the A/R Invoice to the customers. We generate electronic invoice, made up of an XML file once the A/R Invoice is posted in SAP Business one and transmit it to e-invoicing services provider to get digitally certified through web service.

An e-invoicing services provider approved by the Mexican Government verifies that the electronic file complies with all established regulations and Standard and adds its  UUID (universally unique identifier) number to the invoice.

The e-invoicing service provider send back the UUID (universally unique identifier) to SAP Business one through web service. And we capture all the information in SAP Business One and generate a PDF version of the stamped A/R Invoice and shared it to the customer.

The e-invoicing services provider reports the invoice to the Mexican Government within 72 hours of its creation.

Digital Signature with SAP Business one

Posted on by Keerthana

Hello Viewers,
In today’s podcast, we are going to cover the benefits of digital signature. Like in every podcast we do, lets address the W’s of the same:

What is a Digital Signature? If you want the textbook/google definition – then it is a mathematical technique used to validate the authenticity and integrity of a message, software or digital document.

In simple words, Nowadays its equal to the handwritten signature with a stamp across the documents.

Is it safe to use digital signatures?

To answer this question, it comes with an inbuilt security to solve the problems of tampering and impersonation in digital communications. In addition, it can give assurances of evidence of origin, identity and status of an electronic document.

Which countries practice Digital Signature?

In many countries, they have declared digital signature are legally acceptable including United States, Brazil, Japan, South Africa etc. & now in India as well it is has been made completely acceptable & legal.

Types of Digital Signature?

There are three types – Class 1,2 & 3.
Class 1 – Cannot be used legally as it is validated based on email id & username. It can be used for low risk areas.
Class 2 – Used for E-filing of taxes, including income tax returns & GST returns. Class 2 digital signatures authenticate a signee’s identity against a pre-verified database.
Class 3 – The highest level of digital signatures. Class 3 signatures require a person or organization to present in front of a certifying authority to prove their identity before signing. Class 3 digital signatures are used for e-auctions, e-tendering, e-ticketing, court filings and in other environments where threats to data or the consequences of a security failure are high.

What are the other benefits?

It saves costs & is also environment friendly
It helps manage time better (instead of taking print outs, signing, then stamping, couriering etc.) – saves environment & time
Globally accepted & legally complaint
It can be retained for long time and accessible wherein papers tend to be lost or damaged
Independent verification regardless of the dependency of other requisites like stamp & seals. Makes life easier & faster.
It also can be accessed from anywhere and at any time

We are going to show you how it is done now in SAP Business One? Like i said in my previous Google Voice Integration Podcast, this is the fun part 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_d_uy46f6Y&t=544s


Now that we know, government has legalized the digitally signed documents.
For all the documents that needs a digital signature from the system or if you want to send digitally signed signatures after approval (automatic) – we can do the same in SAP Business One.

To show you here, am approving the same & the document is signed digitally as set in SAP Business One – the document looks like this one here! (Watch the video link)


Now, make use of this digital enhancements provided by our government to your company’s advantage and go paper-less 🙂

Watch out for more innovative podcasts from Avaniko. If you are interested in the pricing of this integration – please do not hesitate to contact us.



How technology helps companies during COVID-19

Posted on by Keerthana

Do you want to know how technology helps companies during a global crisis like COVID-19?

Smart companies adapt to technology quicker, so their disruption is minimal. We will guide you through the benefits of automating your business on the digital front.

Impact of operational struggle is less

If you believe on one person or a group of people to run your business at all times, there is going to be a bump where you would have to manage operational mismanagements more on daily basis or depend on a few people for efficiently running your business. The companies who go on ERP platforms like SAP Business One will have minimum impact on operational front as an entrepreneur will have better idea of his business standings & actually find who is the best performer out of the lot easily.

Real time status gives a better insight

SAP Business One provides real time status update of your business at your finger tip smartphone devices. There is no lag or inefficiency encountered at the lack of information to the senior management at the right time. Getting the right information at right time is a key to avoid major hustles or miscommunication.

Remote working is possible with technology

If there is a slight chance to operating your business virtually, ERP solution like SAP Business One will work wonders at these times. It helps you run your business and have an overview of the challenges to be encountered & give more time to prepare for the future. Even if you can’t run your business, it will help keep your employees engaged & connected at all times of crisis.

Productivity & performance is never an issue with a solid system in place

You do not have to worry about the productiveness of your employees and know who is the outperformer without constant monitoring. The system in itself helps drive the business & makes the team more productive & efficient to work.

Enhances business intelligence!

Technology takes you a step higher and improves the growth of your business. If you become an intelligent enterprise today, you do not have to worry about the fall back of economy or any global crisis as you will be ready to jump when the opportunities knock your door!

It takes a lot of courage to handle the change management & get your team to operate digitally but it will be worth your time in the long-run for SMBs. Take baby steps but do crawl/run as per your wish to the next normal overtaking businesses across the globe!

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