Testing the new blog page

This is a test post since I move the log to the QSS website.

Time

Time. If you operate a service based business, Time is one of the most difficult things that you have to deal with. Time can be your friend or your enemy. There is 24 hours in a day and 168 hour in a week. From a business perspective, it is not only a matter of what we do with it, but sometimes more importantly how we account for it.

Quality Systems Solutions, Inc. is a full service IT solution provider. That means that we offer hardware, software and services to our clients. Hardware, such as Servers, Desktop PCs, Laptops, Phone Systems and Windows Mobile devices are fairly easy to keep track of. For each "unit" there is normally some fixed profit (or loss) associated with the sale of that product. Software is pretty much the same thing, although recently Microsoft Software has has a good deal of back-end money associated with it in the form of Big Easy Partner Subsidies and various VAR Rebates. Generally speaking there is still some sort of linear relationship between the units sold and the profit (or loss) realized.

Services are a whole different thing. SPOILER ALERT! If you landed on this page looking for a solution to your Time problems, I'm afraid that you will be disappointed. This posting is primarily about me sharing my pain. If I had a solution, I'd be selling a book, like so many others in the Tech Business seem to be doing these days. But I don't so, let's just compare notes...

There to two primary categories of time that I am concerned with as well as the relationship between the two. Let's call them billable time and payroll time. Billable time "represents" time for which a client is going to be charged. Payroll time is the time for which an employee's hourly pay is figured or for which some other compensation scheme is associated. Part of the frustration is that neither is absolute and seldom are the two related.

Wouldn't it be nice if technician Timmy worked 8 hours a day, five days a week and 100% of his time were billable? In such a situation, the difference between what you pay him and what you charge the customer would be your profit. Yes, I know that even that simple example has lots of hidden variables such as overhead and employee benefits, but you get the idea.

Now, one of the question is, is that really so nice? What if you are an MSP? Would that work for you? If Timmy is 100% billable to one or more clients, who is delivering your Managed Services? So perhaps that one-to-one relationship isn't so good.

I believe that before you can even begin to optimize your time you need to have a full understanding of how your company uses time and most importantly how it is accounted for. I will tell you that for years, we used nothing more complicated than Microsoft Outlook and Quick Books. I can also tell you that such a "simple" system was one of the greatest impediments to our growth and success. In my next posting, I'll discuss IT PSA systems and describe out experience with one of the leading solutions.

Quality Systems Solutions, Inc.

This initial posting will be rather brief. The Post title will take you to our company website. Go there! Take a mental snapshot. I want you to remember what it looks like. Next month, it will look different. Next quarter, it will look even more different. Next year, you won't recognize it...

That is just the beginning. Changing a web page can be done in a minute... even for someone as html challenged as me. Changing a company, that is going to be the real challenge. Those changes won't be so apparent, especially to the casual observer.

In this blog I will attempt to journal our efforts to effect meaningful change. I am sure that there will be success and failure along the way. I will try to be as transparent as possible and report the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

I am leaving in the morning for a full week of volunteer work. You may have noticed in Blog description that serving Community is one of my objectives. I "Do" that and I think my business should do that as well. More on that in the future. What I was really trying to say is that I hate to "Post and Run," but that is exactly what I am going to do.

Let's pick this up in earnest when I return. See you in just over a week.