As if I needed things to get harder, not easier, Microsoft evidently decided to make checking the version of Office (including service packs) more difficult. I needed to check the version for a client, and decided to look at my system quickly. Help / About, right? Wrong!! Not so!
Now it turns out that you have to go to Control Panel (the link below tells you to run appwiz.cpl–same place, more typing, more techie looking), then to Add/Remove Programs. Finally, on XP, you check the show updates box. On Windows Vista, 7, etc., you have to mess with the views (see the link to the MS Knowledgebase if you really want to know). Then there’s something about Alt-V to view versions…as I said earlier, Arghhhh!
Oh! Oh! Oh! Method 2 is even better: Look at the version on the executable file (once you find it in the maze that is now Program Files, Program Files (x86), etc.). There is a table that gives you the version numbers for Office 2007, SP1, and SP2. Thank you for that, Microsoft!
Changes in programs like this are like the classic Lucy and Charlie Brown cartoon where she snatches the football just before he kicks it, landing Charlie squarely on his back.
Looking up from the ground, I repeat, “Microsoft is my friend. Microsoft is my friend. Microsoft is my…”
Arghhhh!
Here’s the link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928116
Monthly Archives: December 2010
How to Find Inventory Fraud During Year End with ERP
Many companies will be doing physical inventories (and adjusting their ERP systems to agree with counts) at the end of December and the first of January. Remember that just because you are a small business, you’re not exempt from fraud. In fact, the MAJORITY of frauds occur in businesses with less than 100 employees! Here are some things to look for when you are doing these adjustments (for both managers and IT departments / outsourcers):
- Many adjustments to reduce inventory without many entries to increase inventory. In most inventory systems, counts on items will be different from the inventory records. Keying errors, stocking errors, shipping errors, etc., all contribute to this. You’ll ship a black item when midnight blue was ordered, and the customer won’t complain because the colors are so similar. However, if all the entries are in a downward direction, something is causing inventory to shrink. You should dig deeper to find out what it is.
- Credits to customer accounts that don’t correspond to inventory returns. This depends on the type of business you’re in. In many businesses, customers should not receive credit until the product is returned. Seeing entries in customer accounts that aren’t justified by inventory receipts may indicate a need to dig a bit.
- Employees that stay late and arrive early to do parts of the inventory count themselves. This may indicate a need to adjust counts to the correct numbers.
- Profit margins that decrease from year to year after the adjustments are posted
- Take particular note of misplaced items.If you have a large number of items that are not located where they should be, you should look deeper. It may be carelessness, or it may be items that have been pulled from incoming or outgoing shipments without being recorded to ‘make up the difference’ for items stolen
This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it will help you get started thinking.
Here are some suggestions for taking a physical inventory to increase the chances that you’ll find fraud if it exists:
- Count in twos. One of the employees in each team should be an employee that doesn’t normally have access to inventory.
- Randomly recount items that have previously been counted. Make sure you count items from all the teams. You’ll find some errors, but if a team has a number of errors, all in the same direction, take a closer look.
- Randomly test pallets for hollow centers. Several inventory frauds have been covered up by stacking pallets around the edges and leaving the centers hollow (or filled with empty boxes). You also need to weigh and open a few boxes from the middle and bottom of pallets.
A few ideas. If you think you have a problem, consult an expert in both fraud and ERP systems. You’ll need both to get the best result.
Let’s Not Get Too Complicated with IT Strategy
I’ve been talking to several friends lately about business books. In the 80s came In Search of Excellence. The companies must not have been too excellent, because several of them landed on the dirty laundry pile in the next ten years.
In the 1990s, Reengineering the Corporation and Competitive Advantage were published. In 2000 and following we had such classics as Who Moved My Cheese?, The Cluetrain Manifesto and Purple Cow.
In the last couple of years, books with clever one word names like Drive, Linchpin and Rework have been published. I’ve read Blue Ocean Strategy along with what seems like a raging sea of other people.
If you took all of these strategies, techniques, and opinions and mixed them together, you’d have the school lunch tray in 6th. As the teachers said, “You’re going to have to eat that!” And as we said, “Ooooooh! Yuck!”
But none of these are bad. In fact, I think all of them work for someone. The key is not to make it too complicated. The answer at the end of the day is to know something, have a plan, and think. Most of the companies that blindly follow the latest guru eventually wind up in an alley or a ditch! Let’s keep it simple with IT strategy. Pick a technique and follow it until you find out that it isn’t working or find something better.