Have you used the overlay feature of Google Maps yet?
One of the great features of the Google Maps API is that is has a great feature for creating overlays. Things like sales territories, or delivery routes can be plotted using lat/lng coordinates and displayed nicely in a web page using Google Maps.
Would you like an easy way to show zip code boundaries on your Google Maps?
Our Zip Code Boundaries file is now available for download. We are one of the only data providers that does not require you to have some special knowledge of how to read binary shape files, or have a copy of Microsoft SQL Server in order to use our data.
You can download the sample database file, along with a FREE sample PHP application that will show you how to use this database to create professional map overlays.
We recently updated and re-release the latest version of our Zip Code Boundaries database. Complete with sample data and a sample php site that you can copy directly, and use with the Google Maps Javascript API. (Make sure you register with Google Developers to get access to the API before using the test site on your own server or it will not work.)
This week my business made a great decision to outsource its IT Tech Support services to On-Site Tech Support. These guys are a local San Diego business and have built a reputation for providing quality IT tech support services to local businesses. Scott Smeltzer is the owner/operator of the company and takes a full-time role in the operations of his business. He spent time with me going over how his team manages a vast network of business workstations and servers using top-of-the-line RMM tools. The bottom line is that these guys are the professionals to turn to when you need a high-quality/high-value technical support team.
I would recommend that anyone thinking about hiring a single “Computer Guy” to help at their business stop for a second and consider the benefits of having a whole team of professionals instead. The value proposition that Scott was able to deliver to me made it clear that they were the BEST choice for my business. For me, it was far less money, far less headache, and abundantly more service to go with them. It has been a relief for me personally to be able to focus on my business, instead of worry about computer issues. All of this done while not having to hire an extra warm body. With 24/7 emergency support, I feel secure that I made the right decision to go with On-Site Tech Support.
If you’ve worked with Google Maps Overlays, you have inevitably started to delve into the relm of retrieving and storing geospatial data. We are planning in the next few weeks to be announcing a thorough overview of all current geospatial formats, that can be used with Google Maps. Our main focus is to show how our current Zip Code Boundaries database performs, and to compare and contrast the different setups that are possible with different technologies, and as always and most importantly, which one performs better, given the same hardware.
Zip Code Boundaries Database
Since we released our own zip code boundary database, speed testing has become a major concern of ours, and also one that our customers keep mentioning. When working with boundary files, we are dealing with a shit-ton of points. Let’s be honest… It’s just a lot of data points to plot on a map. Performance is important.
Speed Test Result are coming soon for our Zip Code Boundary Database – SQL Server, and MYSQL
We are working diligently to get this thing set up. We are hoping to have a zip code test page, where users can stress test one of our servers in real time! Should be fun. If you have ideas, or any ideas for how to test the Zip Code Boundaries Database, please drop us a comment below and we will see what we can do!
If you haven’t heard of Asterisk, then you are in for a treat. Asterisk is the foundation, open-source, FREE, VOIP phone system that is used all over the world to run the communications and call centers of many businesses. If you are in the least bit of a computer dork, once you start playing with Asterisk, you will be hooked like a little kid with his first toy.
Why would I use Asterisk, instead of paying a BIG BOX Voip company to set me up?
The main reason is cost. If your business is cost-conscious, then Asterisk is a great way to go. The only recommendation that I would give, as with any open-source, free, product, is to work with someone who already knows what they are doing.
One of the nice things about Asterisk is that anyone with a spare computer can be running a brand new VOIP phone system in 20 minutes. The downside of this is that they have a brand new VOIP phone system, and they do not yet fully understand how the system works. This can be dangerous down the road.
Let Us Help you Plan Your new VOIP Business Phone System Implementation
We’ve been working actively on a daily basis for the past 5 years with Asterisk systems. We have the experience required to be smart about setting up a system that is scaled for your business. We also set up disaster planning and recovery for your phone system. Give us a call today to put together a competitive quote for your business. I’ve seen some big providers come in a give quotes for phone systems that cost over 6-figures and require huge upfront costs and/or lease payments. We are often able to provide a system with the same capabilities for a fraction of the cost.
Check out how Asterisk was able to help Clarity solve an ongoing business problem and improve customer service.
Give us a call today for a VOIP Business Phone System Quote
Since the release of our Zip Code Boundaries Data Product: Available Here We’ve set out to test different combinations of platforms using our full US Zip Code Boundary database to decide which setup offers the best overall performance.
Zip Code Boundaries Database Speed Testing – MS SQL Server vs. MySQL
The first part of our test is going to entail keeping all other factors the same, and running a set of query tests on these two different platforms. These are the two platforms that I use the most, but if you have a suggestion of another you would like to see tested, please drop us a comment below.
Zip Code Boundaries Database Speed Testing – PHP vs. Asp.Net MVC 3 both on Server 2008 with IIS7
With this second set of tests, we will set up identical Google Maps Test Pages. We will then run a set of identical queries and map renderings to see which one performs with the data more quickly.
Zip Code Boundaries Database Testing – Results to Come…
We are hoping to have our test pages up and running soon. Leave a comment below if you have a question, or a suggestion.
What’s Next?
We are planning on running a similar test soon to test performance of difference Geo-Spatial storage formats, and the benefits of each. Drop us a comment and tell us which format you’ve used and your thoughts.
Google Maps Overlay Image using Zip Code Coordinates
Have you used the overlay feature of Google Maps yet?
One of the great features of the Google Maps API is that is has a great feature for creating overlays. Things like sales territories, or delivery routes can be plotted using lat/lng coordinates and displayed nicely in a web page using Google Maps.
Would you like an easy way to show zip code boundaries on your Google Maps?
Our Zip Code Boundaries file is now available for download. We are one of the only data providers that does not require you to have some special knowledge of how to read binary shape files, or have a copy of Microsoft SQL Server in order to use our data.
You can download the sample database file, along with a FREE sample PHP application that will show you how to use this database to create professional map overlays.
Small Business SEO strategies are many. Some tactics are often characterized as “white hat” and “black hat”, meaning that some are more on the ethical side, and some are considered a kind of “hack” or “cheat”.
The tactic that I’m going to describe to you here is one that I learned from a webinar somewhere selling an SEO product that automates this process. While this is a legitimate SEO strategy, paying for backlinks may be considered more of a “black hat” tactic. Just a little fyi before we dig in here.
Placing links on major sites back to your pages.
In short, that’s what we are going to do. I’m going to go over a few little tricks that I learned from a webinar by DigitalMarketer.com
Small Business SEO – You Tube is my new Girlfriend
So we are going to go through posting a video on youtube.com, and some the of specific details of how to do this in a way that optimizes the SEO results that we get for that post.
Here are the steps we are going to take.
Create a short 2-3 minute video related to our site and selected keyword phrase.
Create a transcript of the video’s contents
Pick a title that is “stacked” with our keyword phrase
Write an optimized description for the video with a link back to our home page.
Upload the video to youtube, using our selected title and description
Once uploaded, we go back into the description and add a recursive link
Pay to generate traffic to the video – black hat
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 1 – Creating a Video
This part can be a bit scary for some people. Everyone thinks they have to put themselves on camera, and that is just not true. The guys over a digital marketer have some great suggestions for creating videos. The one I really like is a screen capture video, where you do a simple text-based powerpoint presentation with a voice-over.
So pick a topic that you can heavily lace with your keyword phrase and start making your short 2-3 minute presentation. You are going to be surprised how quickly 2-3 minutes go by. And trust me, the more of these you do, easier it is going to be. These little videos are like little GOLD Small Business SEO nuggets. (ps…if you have the money, you can always just go to fiverr.com or elance.com and pay someone to make you a short video.)
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 2 – Transcript
This is important because we are going to include this transcript with our video upload and it will help to emphasize the keyword phrase for which we are trying to rank. If you are paying someone to do your video, but you want to keep control, go ahead and write the transcript first, then give it to the person making the video.
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 3 – Pick a “stacked” Title
When we upload our video to youtube we want to stack our title with our keyword phrase. So if your keyword phrase is “Vintage Clothing”, you may do a video with this title, “Vintage Clothing Care Instructions for Vintage Clothing.” Sometimes your title is going to look a little funny, but that’s ok. The point is that if we can get that key phrase in there twice, and make it look ok, then do it. This is only going to help our video to rank higher on youtube for “Vintage Clothing”, and in turn will help increase our main website’s visibility.
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 4 – Write an optimized description
When you upload your video to youtube, you are going to have to write a short description. We want to do several key things. First, make sure to start your description with your keyword phrase, and include your keywords in that description in several places without sounding completely weird. Next, make sure you have a link back to your main website in the description. This is the key thing that we are really getting out of this. Google is going to see that there is a video on youtube, that is ranking for the search term, and also pointing back to your site, which we also want to rank for that search term.
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 5 – Upload the video
At this point you should be able to upload the video, and fill out all of the information that we’ve just gone over. You also want to make sure and include that transcript.
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 6 – Add recursive link
I personally can’t vouch for if this really helps that much, but people I trust say it does, so I’m going with it. After your video is uploaded, go back and edit the description. Make sure to add a link to the url of the youtube video in the description as well.
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 7 – Get some traffic
So everthing we’ve done so far is pretty legit. What we are doing here is long-form SEO strategy. It takes some time, but each little bit helps. If you did 1 video per day for 20-30 days, all linking back to your site, you will definitely see some results. There is one strategy that we can take at this point to fast-forward our success.
There are two parts here. The first is that we can go to fiverr.com and pay for someone to create 500+ backlinks to our youtube video. IMPORTANT!!! Don’t go paying someone to create links back to your site. If google sees 500 links back to your site, they’re gong to know that there is NO WAY that you got popular that quickly. We want links back the Youtube video, which links back to your site. Google doesn’t mind if youtube gets 500 links, because youtube is the “Cheerleader!” She is already popular, and you are just riding on her coat-tails.
The second part uses a software that auto-submits your video to a BUNCH of video sites. Go to fiverr.com and search for “traffic geyser.” You can pay someone who has a TrafficGeyser.com account to submit your video for you. I would also recommend just going to trafficgeyser.com and filling out their information request. I can’t vouch personally for their system, as I do not have an account, but I’m on their email list and David Koenigs, the founder has sent me some really great free information. All very helpful stuff.
Small Business SEO – Youtube: Final Thoughts
To review, we’ve created a small video. We’ve linked it back to our main site, and we’ve paid some other people to create links to our youtube video. We’ve probably spent 2-3 hours of our own time, and paid $10 bucks on fiverr.com to get some backlinks. If we do this for 10 days, we end up spending $100 bucks, and have some really powerful backlinks to our site. Think about this…in the end you would have 5000 backlinks to 10 youtube videos, all linking back to your site. That’s one big powerful funnel.
Small Business SEO – Dating Around!
So the example we went over today only applies to youtube. If your brain is racing like crazy at this point it is because you are thinking of other sites like amazon.com (yes, you can publish ebooks VERY easily on Amazon.com), and wikipedia.com (Be careful with wikipedia, but if you have great content on a topic, it could be a linked source in an article). Another one that I’ve heard of is to create a post on an open .edu forum. Google LOVES the credibility of .edu backlinks.
That’s it for now. I hope I’ve given you some good information to get you started. I cannot take credit for coming up with any of this stuff, so below are some of the sites that I gathered this information from.
http://digitalmarketer.com/
http://www.trafficgeyser.com
http://www.horndogsearch.com
http://www.seobook.com
While all of these sites have GREAT information, I try to remind people not to get too excited when they hear about a product that will get them to #1 on Google. It IS work. There are some great tools out there that make some processes easier for you, but you MUST remember that they are only tools. You need to have fundamentals. One analogy I like is this: in your business, would you hire a head accountant because they knew how to use quickbooks, or would you rather have someone with an accounting degree, who knew the debits and credits of each transaction, and also knew quickbooks. Tools can only get you so far, but you will fall on your face without fundamentals.
Ciao! -Spencer
I can’t help it! Great 80s movie!
See also:
Search Terms:
Small Business SEO
Keyword Research
Rank #1 on Google
Alternate Titles:Small Business SEO, SEO for Small Business, Learning Small Business SEO, Small Business SEO made easy, Learning Small Business SEO, How Small Business SEO is like high school,
Small Business SEO and Keyword Research does not have to be difficult, Small Business SEO can be confusing but it does not have to be, Small Business SEO is changing the landscape for how small businesses operate online
OK, so hopefully you followed my instructions from the previous post and you’ve went out and found your self one nice little search phrase on which to focus. If not, you are wasting your time by reading anything else… just sayin, you’ve been warned.
Alright, so we know what we want to rank for. When people search for [insert your phrase here], we want to be #1 on Google, Yahoo, and Bing, in the organic results, right?
Lets go Buy a Domain name at godaddy.com
So at this point, you’ve got your phrase picked out, and now you are ready to buy a good domain name. Do you know that this is on of the places where many businesses make the BIGGEST mistake. This mistake mostly has to do with your EGO, and wanting to have something COOL on your business cards. If your search phrase is “cheap baseball card deals” then you do NOT want to buy the domain: “daveskickassbaseballcardshop.com”. Although, I will admit, that does sound cool. If you are trying to get google to notice you when someone searches for “cheap baseball card deals”, then the one of the easiest ways to get them to notice you is to have that search phrase INSIDE of your new domain name.
So what domain name do you want to buy?
That’s right: “www.cheapbaseballcarddeals.com” or some very close variation. This is one of those tricks that people have a hard time getting past. Its all about your EGO. Nobody wants the word “cheap” in their business’s domain name, right? Cheap is bad, right? Well, what do you think people search for? They search for “cheap!!!!.” It doesn’t mean that our business is of low quality. It just means that we are smarter than the rest, and we paid $8 bucks on godaddy for this domain name that was just waiting for us to snatch up!
I hate the word “Cheap”
Cheap is not bad
Just a brief aside. You are going to be publishing content on your site every day hopefully. Most of that content is going to now have the words “cheap baseball card deals” dropped in at every chance. That’s bad right? NOPE! Get creative buddy. You are going to write TONS of articles with the phrase “cheap baseball card deals” embedded everywhere. Here are just a few ideas I have for titles: “why buying cheap baseball card deals is bad”, “cheap baseball card deals lead to fraud”, “cheap baseball card deals are leading to fraud crackdowns”, “cheap baseball card deals can be a dangerous game”. Please tell me that you get the idea. You could write 5 articles on this topic and be THE expert source on “cheap baseball card deals.”
Yes! go buy your domain name. Just remember…google LOVES your domain name to have your keyword phrase in it. Also…a little techie point…you can buy 20 domain names and have them all point to the same website. So don’t worry, if we make a mistake, we can just buy a different domain name later, ok? Good..
So how is SEO like dating the Head Cheerleader?
We’ll go into more detail in the next post, but the clip below may give you some hints. Just so you know, in our case the head-cheerleaders are sites like youtube.com, amazon.com, twitter.com, myspace.com, vimeo.com, wikipedia.com, and others. In the next post we will look into how to take advantage of the huge reputations and power that these sites have to push your organic search rankings to the top.
Below is a sneak-peak video from that upcoming post. Think about our High-School analogy about SEO while you watch this.
SEO Can’t Buy Me Love
See also:
Search Terms:
Small Business SEO
Keyword Research
Rank #1 on Google
Alternate Titles:Small Business SEO, SEO for Small Business, Learning Small Business SEO, Small Business SEO made easy, Learning Small Business SEO, How Small Business SEO is like high school,
Small Business SEO and Keyword Research does not have to be difficult, Small Business SEO can be confusing but it does not have to be, Small Business SEO is changing the landscape for how small businesses operate online
Whether you’ve been in business for a while, just getting started, or just now getting online, you’ve surely heard the term SEO.
Unfortunately, SEO is one of those obscure idea-words that mean different things to different people, which seems to cause confusion. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a topic of great importance to anyone trying to get their site found online.
Just like many other techies, entrepreneurs, and marketers, I too have spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME researching SEO. I’ve personally waded through “expert” webinars, subscribed to newsletters, watched promo videos for software that is sure to get me INSTANTLY ranked #1 on google, and the like. Not to say that it was all a waste of time, but I wish there would have been a better way to learn what was really important.
Instead of adding to the “junk”, I hope I am able to describe to you what SEO really means, and some simple ways that I’ve found to implement it myself.
Small Business SEO is a Popularity Contest
The way I would explain SEO to my mom, is that “it’s a popularity contest.” If you go to the school of “my flooring business”, then your goal is to the be the most popular kid in that school.
The most popular kid is the #1 Organic Search Rank on Google. “Organic” search results are the ones on the page right below the ads. Those are the spots you want your business’s link to be. Just like being the popular kid in school, you can’t pay to be the most popular…or can you?
How does google/bing/yahoo decide who is the most popular?
Do you know how to tell who is the most popular kid in school? Just go up to any other kid and ask them. I’ll bet you money that you can do that in almost every high school in the united states today and you would get many of the same answers from the kids. Popularity is the result of other people saying you are popular. Waving your hands in the air, and jumping up and down in the quad at lunch may get you some brief attention, maybe noticed or talked about, but it won’t make you popular.
The search engines rank your site organically in part by looking at other web sites and seeing who else is linking back to content on your website.
So then Small Business SEO just means I have to get a bunch of sites to link back to mine, right?
Unfortunately, its just not that easy. You could go out there and pay for a bunch of links back to your site from thousands of other obscure sites. That may help you a little, but its not as effective as many people believe. In our analogy, this may be the equivalent of becoming facebook friends with a thousand other kids at other high schools. It may make you a little more popular at your school, but probably not. “Um yeah, I’ve got a girlfriend, but she goes to another school.” “Yeah right Steve.”
Which High School does your business go to? – KEYWORDS
OK, so this is the FIRST question you MUST ask before you start working on your SEO strategy. What keywords do I want my website to rank for? Now, keyword research is a whole topic into itself, so I’m not going to delve into a ton of detail here. The point is, you can’t just say, “I want to be #1 on Google!” I want to be #1 on Google when a person searches for [insert specific phrase(s) here].
Here’s a nice pointer for you. Find yourself ONE simple search phrase. You are going to do some keyword research related to your business using a keyword research tool, which Google and many others have available for free. If you have a landscaping business you will see that there are something like MILLIONS of searches for “landscaping” every month and your eyes will glaze over with big cartoon dollar signs with the though of all of this new business you are going to get.
Your goal should be to find just ONE search phrase that will give you some traffic, but also has low competition, if possible. We can always go back later and pick other keywords, but our point here, right now, is to simplify our strategy. We want to get a small victory. We need to first learn how to be effective, so we are just going to pick one little phrase, and stick to it. I WISH someone would have told me this when I got started…
What now?
Before we go into more detail, we are at a place now where you can take some action. Don’t go buying any domain names yet! Don’t order your business cards with your new website yet!
You’re job now is to go out there and do some keyword research. There are many keyword research tools available. Google’s is easy to use and will help you to find search phrases that you didn’t think of. Your goal is to find one search term (e.g. “Art Deco Landscaping”) that has some search volume, but doesn’t have a high competition rating.
Once your finished that, you’re ready to read the next article in this series:
Small Business SEO, SEO for Small Business, Learning Small Business SEO, Small Business SEO made easy, Learning Small Business SEO, How Small Business SEO is like high school,
Small Business SEO and Keyword Research does not have to be difficult, Small Business SEO can be confusing but it does not have to be, Small Business SEO is changing the landscape for how small businesses operate online
So I just got done setting up my new IIS7 server and I want to move some of my wordpress sites from Apache over to IIS7 with PHP. So I start testing and right away I’m getting 404 – Page not found errors on every page.
Naively, I thought that the IIS7 Url Rewrite module would work like magic! Nope. So you just have to put in some simple rules inside of a web.config file inside your wordpress site directory for the rewrite module to work. (If you haven’t installed the IIS7 Url rewrite module. You would need to do that too, of course.)
Here is some sample code to use for your web.config file. This worked for me. Let me know if it works for you. (Make sure to change mydomainname to your actual domain name)
Purchase Order from Purchasing BOSS sparks conversion
Today I had the very nice privilege of speaking on the phone with one our first customers using Purchasing BOSS Premium. Carol works in a small machine shop in Charlotte North Carolina. She called with a simple question about whether to put a “1″ at the beginning of the phone number when faxing a purchase order from purchasing boss. I explained to her that it really didn’t matter, and that was that.
What happened next was really great. I asked Carol about her experience so far with the purchase order software and if she had any suggestions so far. I explained how we are in the business of continuous improvement, and all changes and updates are completely customer driven. She said that she didn’t have anything yet, but that she would let me know if she did.
So I continue our little chat by stating that I used to live and work in Charlotte, specifically in the Ballantyne area, which is pretty close to where Carol works. I explained that I have family in that area and that my mother delivers for Fed-ex in Fort Mill and Rock Hill, SC. Guess who lives in Fort Mill? Carol does! Guess who her Fedex delivery driver is? Yup, Carol knows my mom!
Small world, as they say!
Thank You Carol for giving us a call, and for continuing to create purchase orders from Purchasing BOSS.
If anyone ever has any questions or comments on how to create a purchase order from Purchasing BOSS, please give us a call any time: 858-215-4724. This is a google-voice number, so it will ask for your name. That’s just so I know that it isn’t a solicitation.
Purchase order from Purchasing BOSS is only getting better!
Small Business Purchase Order Software is only getting better with each release.
New Features in Purchasing BOSS are drawing a crowd
A record number of signups for Purchasing BOSS standard edition were recorded this week as Purchase Order From Purchasing BOSS begin to spread throughout the purchasing world.
DataBinding: ‘System.String’ does not contain a property with the name C# MVC3 @Html.DropDownList
2 hours of pain!
This is what I go through as a programmer. 2 hours of pain with the simplest piece of code, and the viola, it figures itself out. Well, I mean, usually that means that I give up, wait an hour or so, and then go back for more torture.
OK, so I’ve got this one figured out. I hope this helps someone.
Inside the View Model:
public SelectList POActionNoteTypes { get; set; }
Inside the controller:
public ActionResult POActionNotes(int id, String ActionNoteType)
{
POActionNoteViewModel v1 = new POActionNoteViewModel(ref _db, id);
var notetypes = (from m in _db.POActionNoteTypes
select m.POActionNoteType1).ToList();
SelectList vSelectItems;
if (ActionNoteType != null)
{
vSelectItems = new SelectList(notetypes, "POActionNoteType1", "POActionNoteType1", ActionNoteType);
}
else {
vSelectItems = new SelectList(notetypes, "POActionNoteType1", "POActionNoteType1");
}
v1.POActionNoteTypes = vSelectItems;
return View(v1);
}
The main benefit for small businesses using procurement software includes nearly effortless administration and probable long-term, risk-reduced cost savings.
Here are the Top 7 Features that Small Businesses Look for when evaluating Procurement Software:
1) User-friendly Interface
This is the most basic feature for Procurement Software at its core. The program should be easy to use, clean and tidy.
2) Automated Sending via Fax or Email
Self-explanatory. This includes but is not limited to: receipts, invoices, and confirming purchase orders.
3) Budget Threshold
Establish your budget tolerance & threshold, and free up valuable time better spent on negotiations and vendor research.
4) Financial Settlement
Handling financial transactions by using tools for evaluated receipt settlement and invoice payment & management. Creation of financial and/or
Inventory related transactions as items are physically received.
5) Procurement Software should have Worldwide Support
This is a no brainer; the software should be able to support multiple currencies and languages. This also includes exchange rates.
6) Inventory Management
The feature should automatically update on-order inventory balance when a purchase order is completed, and update stock products when those items are received.
7) Requisitions
This is a must have feature. Create requisitions that help flow the approval process, with built in tax & shipping calculations.
A Purchase Order Form is not a viable long-term business solution for creating and sending purchase orders.
A Purchase Order From Purchasing BOSS may be the best alternative to Excel Purchase Order From
Companies are finding that more small business employees are taking things into their own hands when it comes to technology procurement. One indication of this change can be seen inside of many US businesses. We are finding that companies are turning to the use of fill-in forms, or purchase order forms for purchasing. Information technology administrators and managers are reporting that more frequently employees, frustrated with corporate bureaucracy are sick of waiting for quality business tools. When these employees implement there own made-from-scratch excel sheets and access databases, it eventually leads to major headaches for administrators. While these quick paper-like tools can seem familiar to their users, the scalability and traceability of those tools will ultimately lead to bottlenecks in business process, and in some cases, legal liabilities. Luckily, more and more Cloud Based software systems are growing to fill these needs, providing easy to use, and easy to implement solutions that please both administrators and end-users.
Purchase Order Forms are obsolete and outdated when compared to the many free solutions available in the cloud
Purchasing BOSS is a system that takes the simplicity of filling out a purchase order form and transfers that into an easy-to-use web based purchase order system. A purchase order form can be easy to fill out, but when it comes to the other activities surrounding a purchase order form, web based purchase order systems have many advantages.
A Purchase Order Form does not have the Advantages of Web Based Procurement System
Here is why:
A Purchase Order Form has to be manually scanned, faxed, or emailed.
Free packages, such as Purchasing BOSS automatically fax or email for you.
A Purchase Order Form has no way to keep a history.
PurchasingBOSS and other web based purchase order systems keep a history of Purchase Order activities.
A Purchase Order Form does not help with inventory or accounting.
Web Based purchase orders systems can often track inventory and match to vendor invoices.
New Features added to Purchasing BOSS – Online Purchasing System
Multi-User Support fosters the release of new Premium Version.
New Purchasing System Features:
With version 1.3 we added the ability to have multiple ship-to facilities. In Version 1.4, we have two separate options for multi-user support. In Purchasing BOSS Standard, we continue to provide unlimited faxes, but also allow you to share this feature with up to 4 additional users in your business. We’ve also added an entirely new Premium Version, which allows up to 50 total user accounts.
Other Purchasing BOSS News:
With the release of our Premium version, we’ve got a few new features in the pipeline:
Auto Confirm Links in emails and PDF Documents for easy vendor confirmation
Integrated Vendor portal to capture communication about orders
Email integration – send from our system using your company’s email address(s)
API Integration – allows for direct communication between Purchasing Boss and your internal applications
Send us your PurchasingBoss.com Purchasing System feature requests!
