If You Can't Stand The Heat ...

... Stay out of Enterprise

In a more challenging economy, like the one we are currently in, the number of risks that businesses face, and their potential impact, increase.  Some of these risks are harder to identify in advance than others.  Small business with limited resources are now facing the daily challenge of meeting and overcoming risks in a difficult economy.  The smarter ones are looking for anything that can give them an edge.

One strategy for identifying and mitigating risks for a small business is to work more closely with their accountant.  With relevant, accurate and up to date information about the state of their businesses, business owners are better placed to make decisions, and if they need funding, they are better equipped to justify the proposition.

In the UK earlier this year we saw the country brought to a near standstill with snow and more recently faced heat wave warnings as temperatures rose to match those in parts of North Africa and Spain.  The key difference between the weather and our business is that we can't do anything about the weather.  We can do something about our business.  Less small businesses fail when they are supported by their accountant.

In This Issue:

Can You Be Bothered?

Traditionally the Online50 service has been aimed squarely at bringing accountants and their clients closer together.  Increasingly we are seeing requests for 'full service' hosting from smaller companies that are looking to run all of the business applications on our hosted platform.  One of the reasons they give for wanting to do this is: "I just need to use the systems.  I want them to be available when I want them.  I don't want to run them, and I don't want to employ anyone to run them.  I can't be bothered with all that - I just want them to be there and to work."

We offer a range of applications, including Sage Accounts, Sage Payroll, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange.  Where users want to use a hosted system they have a choice of approaches.  They can either ask a hosting company to provide a hosted server just for them with the software they want installed on it, or they can use a service that provides a common set of applications that they can pick and choose from.

The Online50 service provides a range of applications - users can choose to pay for the applications they want to use and are not required to take applications that they don't want.  Because we run all of the applications on a common platform, users can be confident that system will be able to keep growing alongside their requirements.

In contrast to this, having a hosted server available (which would probably be a 'virtual server' these days) places a fixed capacity limit on the customer.  The provider may well be able to increase the capacity of the server but most customers would be paying for spare capacity.  Also, because the loading of applications is normally bespoke for each customer you may have much more exposure to a systems failure.  With the Online50 service users can run on any of our application servers because of our policy of operating with a standard build.

ISO Certification

At Online50 we have been accredited to the International ISO9001 quality standard for 3 years.  We have now been successfully audited against the updated standard and so we are now accredited against ISO 9001:2008.  This has only required minor changes to our systems.  Running a quality standard is important to us as it ensures we track our operations and look for opportunities for continual improvement.

Part of the ISO standard is the tracking of complaints.  When we receive a complaint the ISO process ensures that we properly investigate the complaint and identify how we can improve.  We are fortunate that we do not receive many complaints but we do encourage any users who have had a problem with service delivery to make a complaint.  Jim Kelly, Service Delivery Manager and our ISO officer explains:

“When we ask users to make a formal complaint they usually do not want to.  We see the complaint process as a way of tracking an issue down to a formal conclusion and, of course, all complaints are subject to an external audit.  All complaints are also reviewed by our Chief Executive and serve as a driver to improve the service that we deliver.  Of course we want all of our user to be delighted with our service, and most of them are, but having the opportunity to learn from complaints is very valuable to us.”

You can find out more about our procedures for monitoring and improving quality by speaking to Jim Kelly, who can be contacted via the Service Desk on 0871 384 3511.

New Look for Newsletter

The Online50 newsletter has now been ported to the latest version of our Secure File eXchange (SFX) engine.  The SFX engine was initially based on some code that was used for the Newsletter but has been significantly enhanced.  Using the SFX engine readers of our newsletter can now comment on Newsletter articles.

We hope that this will make the Newsletter more relevant to our readership.  Your comments will help to guide us in the future editions as we consider what topics should be covered.  In the past we have covered a wide range of topic from business to IT, with legislation, vendor licensing and user news added in.  And with a strong base of accounting users we have also covered a wide range of accounting topics.

We look forward to making the Newsletter even more relevant in the future.

The Secure File Exchange

The SFX was built to allow a secure way of exchanging information (files and articles) over the web.  It has been designed to be secure from the bottom up and uses a comprehensive suite of security techniques.  Access to content is strictly controlled using Access Control Lists, just as in a conventional secure computing environment.  The SFX is accessed through a website, but uses a customised web server to provide the information.  In this way we can ensure that the information remains secure and is not available to unauthorised users.

Online50 accounting partners have access to a bureau implementation of the SFX free of charge - they only pay for storage that is used over and above their allowance.  The bureau version allows them to create multiple 'Privacy Groups' for their clients.

If you would like to discuss how the SFX can help your business share information securely please call the Online50 team on 0800 195 0835.

Connectivity Update

As part of the ongoing improvement and maintenance to our systems we are replacing the main routers that connect us to the Internet.  As a Service Provider we connect to the Internet using both 'Transit' and 'Peering' connections.  'Transit' connections represent traditional Internet connectivity from Tier 1 network providers.  The 'Peering' connections are arrangements where we agree with other provideers to directly exchange information between our networks.

The existing routers are due for replacement and the new models have 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and support the latest routing software.

Currently we have transit connections to: Level(3); Telia-Sonera; NTT; and Sprint representing solid coverage for our worldwide user base.  Because of the way our technology works we don't need large amounts of bandwidth and even with the continued growth of the Online50 service our current connections will prove adequate for the foreseeable future.